Sweet Carolina Morning (19 page)

Linny gazed at her mother. Dottie's freshly set hair was a becoming ashy blond color instead of her usual pinkish shade. She wore a flattering, deep coral-colored sweater over her slacks. Her eyes were bright and her face was open. She looked about ten years younger than she used to. Was this all due to Mack? Linny wondered uneasily. “You look pretty, Mama,” she said quietly.

Dottie colored. “I do?” she said in a disbelieving voice.

“You do!” Kate said firmly.

Always uncomfortable with a compliment, Dottie made a shooing motion with her hands. “You two girls go in there and chitchat with Mack. I'll be in in just a minute.”

Linny widened her eyes at Kate, and the two trudged into the other room.

They'd only seen Mack on blurry Skype calls, and during one of those calls he'd been dressed as a TV millionaire for the costume party. Today Mack wore a plaid button-down flannel shirt and khaki slacks, and if he hadn't had 170 pounds of dog curled up cozily on the tips of his loafers, he'd have looked like a normal older gentleman. He sat on the couch with a small end table lying on his lap. Between his knees was a bottle of Gorilla Glue and in his hands he held a tabletop joined together with a C-shaped clamp. He beamed at them. “So nice to see you girls. I've heard such fine things about you. I'd get up and shake your hands, but I've got to wait a few more minutes for the glue to dry . . .” He glanced at Curtis and shook his head helplessly.

Coolly, Linny and Kate said their hellos and sat down on two wing chairs that flanked the couch. Linny eyed him, wanting to dislike the man on sight. She looked for a weak chin, eyes that wouldn't meet hers, a fake smile, but came up with nothing. There was time, though.

Cutrtis twitched in his sleep and gave a snuffling sigh. Mack explained, “Your mama watches that show with Cesar Millan, the dog-whispering fellow. She says Curtis needs a male as a confident father figure and wants him and me to bond. We're bonding.” He gave a bemused smile and nodded his head at the drying tabletop.

But Linny wasn't going to be charmed. “Mack, tell us about yourself,” she said, sounding more like a bring-the-perp-to-his-knees CSI investigator than she'd intended. She glanced at Kate for help. Her sister's leg was jiggling, one of her nervous tells.

Kate jumped in, smoothing things over. “We hear you're a dance instructor, Mack. That is so interesting.”

“I am,” Mack said, slickly sliding the broken table from his lap to the floor without disturbing Curtis. “I get to travel, and I work with a great group of folks. It's given me something to do since I retired. ”

“Mama said you worked in a gas station,” Linny said.

He cocked his head and smiled. “Well, in a way that's right. I owned a propane business serving folks in Worth and Grayson counties. Our customers heated with gas, or used it for their grills or fireplaces.”

“Ah,” Linny said, nodding. He wasn't a penniless guy on the mooch, but still, she wasn't ready to let go of her suspicions.

Her mother walked in and clapped her hands together. “I've got an announcement. I've talked this over with Mack to make sure it's a prudent idea, but we've decided it is.”

Linny stopped breathing and felt her sister do the same. “What, Mama?”

“I'm taking some of that money I won and doing something
fun
with it.” She beamed and tossed her hands in the air as though she was throwing confetti. “We're taking a bus—”

“A motor home,” Mack interjected, his voice mild.

“—a motor home on a grand adventure road trip. It'll just be us, the open road, and the US of A.” Dottie nodded so happily that the curls on either side of her face bounced.

Linny's thoughts careened around wildly. Her mother, the church lady who'd only been out of North Carolina once, was going on a road trip with a man she hardly knew? Her mouth gaped open, then she shut it.

A long moment spun out.

Kate pasted a smile on her face and croaked, “You and Mack are going on a grand adventure road trip in an RV?”

Dottie's eyebrows rose almost to her bangs and she put a hand on her heart. “Goodness, Kate. How do you ever come up with these ideas?” Dottie sent Mack an apologetic look and explained, “Ruby, Dessie, and I are going. Oh, Mack and Dessie's scrap-metal man might catch a flight and visit with us at one or two of the places we stop along the way, but we'll be mostly on our own. We each came up with a list of things we wanted to do while we were still young, and that's what we're going to do on this trip.” She intercepted the quick look Linny telegraphed to Kate and said evenly, “This may be news to you girls, but being in your fifties and sixties isn't old. We aren't going to sit in a senior citizens' place and crochet and knit.”

But Dottie loved to crochet and knit, Linny wanted to remind her, though she kept her mouth shut.

“Of course you're not old, Mama,” Kate said staunchly. “We just . . . we didn't know about you wanting to . . . see the US of A,” she finished lamely.

“I always wanted to travel, but your daddy never wanted to. He was a homebody. Just stayed at the farm or went down to the river.” Mama's face darkened, probably picturing the Ava Gardner–looking woman Daddy took up with at the river. But she glanced at Mack and brightened. “Anyhow, Ruby wants to see Dollywood and Branson, Dessie wants to see Mount Rushmore, and I want to ride on the train that goes across Canada.” She looked at Mack for a prompt.

“The Trans Canadian Railroad,” he said, crossing his legs and looking relaxed.

“I didn't know you wanted to see Canada,” Kate said, her eyes wide.

“I loved
Anne of Green Gables
,” Dottie explained.

“She thinks a lot of those Canadian Mounties, too,” Mack added drily.

“They always get their man,” her mother said chirpily.

Mack just shook his head and chuckled.

“Who's going to drive?” Linny asked pointedly. Her mother's Buick was pockmarked with dents that Dottie swore were from people backing into it while she was innocently shopping at the Winn-Dixie. Linny winced inwardly, picturing her mother laughing gaily while at the wheel of a humungous juggernaut of a motor home barreling down the road, bouncing from one guardrail to another.

“Ruby used to drive a bus all through high school, and Dessie and Del had a big old camper, so those girls are going to do the driving.” She shrugged and gave them a mischievous smile. “If it turns out to be too much for them, we'll just hire us a driver. That's what money is for, girls.”

Linny stared wonderingly at her mother. This from a woman who never went to the Winn-Dixie without a fat envelope of coupons and considered buying a new eyebrow pencil a splurge.

But Kate broke into a delighted grin. “I'm proud of you, Mama. Taking this trip is the best idea! You've worked hard your whole life, and it's time you did exactly what you want to do.” She gave Mack a level gaze. “If you had anything to do with Mama giving herself the OK to do this, I want to thank you.”

Mack gave a modest shrug. “I didn't do much. Your mama came to this herself.”

Linny chimed in, a little late. “Good for you, Mama.” And it was good—a fabulous idea really. But why wasn't she more thrilled for her mother? Linny wondered as she listened to Kate pepper Mama with questions and Mama burble answers back. Mack smiled benignly as he listened to them chatter. Besides the mental pictures of the motor home plunging over a cliff, and her worries about three sheltered women from Willow Hill, population 787, out and about in the US of A, Linny flushed guiltily, realizing that she was more than a tad envious. Her mother had the guts to go for what she wanted and Linny couldn't even decide on a ring or a wedding date.

* * *

After supper Linny and Kate said their good-byes and walked out into the cool evening. “I'll give you a lift home,” Kate offered.

Linny climbed in the Honda and Kate drove the quarter mile down the road to Linny's trailer. When they pulled in the driveway, the two sat in silence for a moment, both lost in thought.

“Big changes for Mama,” Linny said.

“I know. It's mind-boggling,” Kate said softly and turned to Linny. “Mack is so good to her. I like him.”

“Me too. I didn't find a darned thing wrong with him, even though I was trying,” Linny said wryly. “I can't get over how Mama's changing. I never wanted her to spend the rest of her life reading Christian romance novels and yard saling and going to church all the time. But now she's just going for it. Mama's just full speed ahead.” Linny turned to her sister. “She's got a passport, a beau or a friend or whatever he is, great girlfriends, the trip of a lifetime. . . .” She shook her head admiringly. “Mama's living so fearlessly.”

“It's hard to get used to her being happy. When we were growing up there was an air about her . . .” Kate drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she thought about it. “She seemed defeated.”

Linny felt a fresh flare of anger at her father, whom she'd learned the truth about just last year. “That came from living with a man who only fed her scraps of love and kept her way down on his priorities list.” She shot a worried look at Kate, realizing how close she'd come to describing her sister's concern about Jerry. But Kate looked calm in the dashboard's glow.

“I'm not going to be one of those defeated women,” Kate said, lifting her jaw. “As soon as Jerry gets home, we're going to get straight on this issue, once and for all.”

* * *

Just before three o'clock the next day, Linny hurried down the school corridor and slipped into Ms. Courtland's room.

“Hi, Lin,” Jack called, flashing her a relieved smile and patting the empty chair beside him.

Linny gave him a smile that was a few degrees chillier than she usually did.

“Hey,” Vera murmured. Jack's ex was in her vixen mommy mode today, in a body-hugging, V-necked purple sweater dress and matching suede high-heeled boots.

Chaz gave Linny a brief nod.

Looking girlish in a pale blue Peter Pan–collared blouse, Ms. Courtland gave Linny a professional smile and said, “Welcome. Let's go ahead and get started.” She tapped a finger on a file on her desk. “Ms. Marbury, our school guidance counselor, has had three sessions with Neal to talk about the changes in his academic performance. Their sessions were productive. Ms. Marbury is out on maternity leave now, but she wrote up her findings and I have her and Neal's permission to share them with you.” Ms. Courtland opened the folder and leafed through the report, her eyes scanning the pages. “Let me find the summary.”

Linny folded her hands together tightly and sat up rigidly straight in her chair. What if the school problems were all because of her? Jack seemed to share her tension and, looking grim-faced, was tapping his fingers on his knees.

The teacher found what she was looking for and summarized the guidance counselor's notes. “Neal does seem to be having some trouble adjusting to the idea of his father remarrying. He has a very close relationship with his dad and doesn't want that to change.”

Vera's lips turned up, and she glanced at Linny with a barely suppressed I-told-you-so look.

Linny tried to look relaxed but was barely breathing, and Jack's finger tapping grew more frenetic. She reached over and put her hand on top of his.

“Some of the missed assignments and forgotten homework may be bids for Dad's attention.” Ms. Courtland gazed at Jack and went on. “A simple strategy here may be for you to spend more time one-on-one with Neal. Maybe a weekend camping trip, hiking, an outing connected with science; that kind of thing.”

Linny's heart sank as she thought about how much undivided attention Jack already gave the boy. Maybe Linny needed to act out to get more one-on-one time with Jack.

Ms. Courtland clarified, “The three of you need to continue to spend time on family activities together, just maybe bump up the amount of father-son time now, Mr. Avery, so Neal knows he's not going to lose you when you remarry.”

Jack nodded.

Turning her eyes to Linny, the teacher glanced down at the notes. “Ms. Taylor, Neal cares for you very much. He says you're a nice lady. He says he knows you're trying to have a good relationship with him, and he's glad his dad is happy with you.”

Linny breathed out, both warmed and relieved by Neal's take on her. Jack looked at her, his eyes shining with gratitude.

Vera's smile faded and she gave her flaxen hair a toss. With a note of smugness in her voice, she said, “So the big problem really was them getting married.”

Ms. Courtland shook her head. “No, that was one of the two major issues Neal has been struggling with. The other has to do with the marital conflict in the household.”

Vera knit her pretty brows and gave Jack and Linny a look of concern. “Oh, dear,” she murmured.

The blood drained from Linny's face. How humiliating.

Jack protested, “We don't argue often and when we do, we don't do it in front of Neal. . . .”

Ms. Courtland held up a finger, stopping him. “I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough.” She looked directly at Vera and Chaz. “The conflict that's disturbing Neal is between the two of you.”

Linny tried to keep a neutral expression on her face and didn't dare glance at Jack.

Chaz rubbed a spot between his black eyebrows and Vera's face flamed. She rushed in, her little girl voice bordering on the shrill. “That can't be accurate. We have our little tiffs, as most couples do, but we always try to make our discussions productive and demonstrate for Neal how married couples can air their differences respectfully.”