Chapter 14
Fourteen
Bonus Track: Gossip, casseroles, and almost-kisses
Dixie
We run the choir through its paces on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We’re on our third rehearsal and I’m still not convinced that we’ve made progress. At least we’re not worse.
My countrified “How Great Thou Art” is getting better—if you can call adding banjo fingerpicking to a sacred hymn “better.” The sopranos survive when we hit the twangy parts, and Slate is actually keeping a steady beat.
But I still feel like I’m putting rhinestones on someone else’s wedding dress.
This isn’t my song, isn’t my style, and definitely isn’t going to win us anything.
I’m just adding glitter to a safe, boring choice.
We need something with actual teeth to beat the competition.
Although what if I sent a clip of this to my agent?
She’s been working her contacts since my preacher song went viral, setting up meetings with A&R reps who want to hear “what’s next.
” Maybe they’d eat up this whole small-town-girl-does-gospel thing.
There’s something sneaky and hopeful threading through my chest—what if this is it?
What if opportunity knocked and I actually answered?
What if I’m headed back to Nashville and stardom sooner than I thought?
But no. One look at the ragtag choir and I know better. This isn’t gonna be my ticket out of here.
Tonight, I lead them through warm-up exercises and pass out sheet music.
Jack hangs back—way back, like in the pew nearest the door.
He’s ready to escape if the locals turn on me.
Hopefully he’s got an escape route mapped out in case they show up with pitchforks and torches like some religious zombie apocalypse, and maybe he’ll grab me on the way out.
He greets everyone as they walk past. He knows their names, how their days went.
He’s calm and interested even when an old guy with the bushiest beard to ever beard overshares about his IBS.
I doubt Jack’s interested, but boy can he fake it.
He also keeps trying to put the brakes on the conversation by interjecting “Walter” every three seconds, but Walter is unstoppable.
“You feel better now, Walter.” Jack finally gets a word in halfway through our warm-up. His best wishes sound sincere. He’s way too nice. I’d have walked away from that monologue two bowel movements ago. Lucky me, I don’t have a problem being rude. Maybe I’ll rub off on Jack.
Walter, being Walter, just moves on to another (and equally annoying) line of conversation.
Which contractor won the roof bid? How much lower than the other bids was the winning bid?
What did the inspector say and has Jack checked references yet?
He rocks back on his heels, tucking his thumbs into his belt, and opines about the roof.
He runs a hand down his beard, nodding at the sage words coming out of his mouth.
He’s the world’s leading expert on all things roofing because he’s done stuff to not one but three barns out on his dairy farm.
He needs to get up there and straighten things out because back in his day he could fix a leak and poop rainbows. Simultaneously.
He asks whether Jack (just Jack!) plans to pay for the roof in cash or if the church will be financing. He then worries that Jack will take out a loan and that would lead to interest payments. My eyebrows fly up.
While I walk the sopranos through a verse, I overhear Jack reassuring Walter that he has the roof repairs under control, punctuating his explanations with funny stories about the contractor (“Family business, they attend church two towns over”), the roof’s current state (“Need to get a new tarp up there before next week’s antediluvian flood, which gives me a much greater appreciation for Noah’s challenges”), and the unexpected aerodynamic qualities of roofing materials (“I’ve been picking shingles out of the hydrangeas for weeks”).
But, despite the sure rumble of his voice and the calm competence with which he tackles the questions, you can’t color Walter convinced. He’s always got one more question.
Yeah. I should put that motor mouth to good use.
“Walter!” I bellow across the sanctuary. “Get your backside over here. Since you like to talk so much, I’ve got a solo with your name on it.”
Walter’s bushy eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “A solo? Me?”
“You heard me. Come on over, and we’ll see if you can do something other than ask questions.”
Walter huffs audibly. I make big, WTF eyes at Jack, but he just gives me back his small smile. He’s trying to telegraph All’s good, but he’d do the same if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse parked themselves in front of his church.
He drops onto a pew and makes a carry-on gesture with his hand.
I stick my tongue out at him, tell my ladies and gentlemen to take five, and park my ass next to him.
He looks like he’s been through the wringer—hair all messed up, shirt coming untucked, that slightly glazed expression of someone who’s been patiently answering stupid questions for way too long.
“Are you okay? Need me to run Walter over with my van?”
A smirk. “Your van still doesn’t run.”
I shrug. “I bet Slate will give me a push and I aim real well.”
“You don’t need to commit a felony on my behalf.” He stretches his legs out, somehow fitting them under the pew in front of us. It looks uncomfortable but he settles in like all that polished wood is the world’s best mattress and he’s about to take a nap.
“The offer’s good indefinitely.” I don’t recognize that weird note in my voice. It’s almost protective.
At Jack’s feet, Huck woofs his support.
When the ladies regroup and stare our way, I get up and go back to my impossible task.
Fifteen minutes in, someone’s giving me stink eye because I told her to “try singing like you’re not trying to scare baby Jesus.
” Our sole tenor is flat, Slate hasn’t shown up, the altos are whispering like this is middle-school homeroom, and Jack keeps making encouraging noises that I’ll smother him for if he doesn’t stop.
But also—he lets me run it. No back-seat directing. No correcting me. He’s slouched in the pew with Huck at his feet and that steady look on his face, like he believes in me more than I believe in myself. It’s super annoying.
“Okay, okay.” I clap my hands to get their attention. “Let’s try that again, but this time, pretend you like the song. Maybe even like each other. Radical idea, I know.”
Someone mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “heathen,” and I flash her a grin. “That’s Music Angel Heathen to you, ma’am.”
Jack coughs, definitely covering a laugh.
We start the song again, and this time it’s better. Not good, exactly. But less like a group of cats being exorcised and more like a choir. I tweak the harmony, bump up the tempo, and suddenly it clicks.
They sound…okay.
Jack’s watching me like I’m the miracle.
I shrug, trying to play it cool. “Not bad for a bunch of tone-deaf Methodists.”
“We’re Episcopalians,” he murmurs, stepping up beside me as the ladies start gathering up their stuff and saying goodbye to each other.
“Tomato, tomatoh.”
We’re standing close now. His arm brushes mine. I should step back. I should make a joke. Or, in case Jack is right and God is both real and omnipotent, drop to my knees in his church and pray for the miraculous resuscitation of my van and my career.
Instead, I blurt out, “Thanks for asking me to do this.”
His smile fades. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to this choir in years.”
“Desperate times, eh?”
“The best thing,” he repeats.
The last of the choir trickles out with a chorus of good-nights and “See y’all Sunday,” leaving behind the lingering scent of drugstore perfume, Dove soap, and a half-empty thermos of chamomile tea in the third pew.
I wind mic cords and stack music stands while Jack moves chairs back into formation, like he’s restoring order to the universe one metal folding chair at a time. The sanctuary is quiet now, but I hum with leftover energy.
I hit the floor to coil the last cable that somehow ended up under a pew. My joints pop audibly and Jack glances over.
“You okay?”
“Just a little snap, crackle, and pop. Nothing a hot bath and a shot of whiskey won’t fix. There’s rain rolling in—I’m better than a weather app.”
He chuckles and puts his hand down to help me up from the floor. Really?
“I know you don’t want to lose that.” I get up all on my own, thank you very much.
“Sorry, Dixie.”
He doesn’t look sorry, though, and promptly sets off for the door at a sprint, where he ostentatiously holds it open for me even when I make a dramatic such a gentleman face at him.
We spar briefly over who carries my guitar case—I win and sling it over my back—and then we race each other across the parking lot toward the rectory.
His legs are longer than mine—so unfair—and he easily stays ahead.
Being Jack, however, he repeatedly catches himself and slows down so I can keep up and feel like I have an actual shot at winning.
He tries to be sneaky, slipping sideways peeks at me from the corner of his eyes, but he sucks at subterfuge.
Plus, he’s constitutionally incapable of not helping others.
He smiles about it when they turn him down, but inside he worries.
I’m still not signing up to be one of his projects, but I get it.
On the other hand, as I’m totally not averse to cheating—only one of us is morally upright—I grab his hand. Human anchor! And then after I’ve slowed him down, I swing our hands dramatically and belt out the opening lines of “Amazing Grace.”
He shakes his head but lets me. Hopefully, the church’s spy ninjas are safely tucked up in bed.