How much was she willing to risk to dig into the truth?
Chapter 5
KAREN
She couldn’t walk two feet from her car, which was parked behind the city hall to make room for the festivities in the main parking lot. Well, she couldn’t walk without one of her two children baawing about something or other.
“Can I have a few dollars?” Christina cried from the passenger seat. “Also, can I borrow the car to go see…”
Karen slammed a ten dollar bill into her daughter’s hand. “The car stays here, okay? I need to know where it is at all times. Besides, there’s nowhere in this town you can’t walk, especially on a nice day like today!”
“You sure you don’t want me down at the American Legion Hall?” Xander tightened the cords of his hoodie. Good Lord, he looks like he’s about to rob the Pump-and-Go. Did he really have to come into town unshaven today? With a black hoodie and old, worn jeans? Was this his protest against being the mayor’s son? “’Cause I have some time before they’re expecting me at the library.”
“I appreciate you wanting to help, Xan.” Karen patted her son’s shoulder before turning around. The commotion of the people in the parking lot summoned her like a moth to a flame. “But I think they’ve got cleanup from the pancake breakfast taken care of. Keep your cell phone on and check for a text from me sometime, huh?”
She kissed both her children on the cheek. Xander was at an age of finally accepting his mother’s goodbye kisses – after a teenagedom of “Ew, gross, Mom!” of course. Christina barely grinned and bore it like a seasoned champ, used to her mother laying smackers on her cheek outside of softball practice and junior prom. Did she think she’d get to dress up like a Gen Z princess and not get a kiss out of her mother? Christina cleaned up like the best of the Disney royalty. Her strawberry blond hair had come from her grandmother – Karen’s mother, of course – and those dimples screamed her father when he was a young boy. With those genetic powers combined, she was destined to be the next Cinderella or Aurora.
Not that one would ever guess that looking at her now. Youth was the only thing on Christina’s side as she strutted about in denim shorts, Converse shoes, and a baggy sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and with those sunglasses on, she looked like her Aunt Giselle – father’s side, of course.
“Don’t you wander off too far!” Karen called after her daughter. “Stay in the city limits, and let me know when you’re going home!”
Xander patted his mother’s shoulder. “You can’t control the young cub, Mom. She must go off and get into teenaged trouble. Why I bet she ends up preg…”
“I don’t have time for your sass today.” An exasperated Karen was one who got things done, though. She was desperately needed at the parade starting point, too. “Nobody is allowed to get into trouble today. Especially you. You’re old enough to know better.”
Karen abandoned her oldest at the car. By the time she reached the parade, she heard him calling, “Guess I’ll watch the parade from here!”
Fine! Stay out of trouble! Karen was forced to think that while smiling at that year’s grand marshal. Mr. Albert Dundee, retired fireman and former councilman, rolled up to her in his souped-up electric wheelchair. American flags waved from the handlebars, and red, blue, and white Christmas lights twinkled. His Parkinson’s hadn’t quite reached the point where he couldn’t shake the mayor’s hand, but he did ask for help with getting his bald eagle trucker hat back on his head.
After Karen ensured everything was going to plan, her role was simple. Hop in the classic Corvette convertible and wave to the people. Or throw candy at them. She liked doing both.
“I want extra candy,” her son texted her the moment she settled onto the back of the car. Tom gave her a thumbs up before lowering his shades and grinning like the luckiest bastard in town. No wonder he thought that way. Nobody else got to drive a classic Corvette that day! “Especially if you’re using that bag of Dum Dums I saw in the kitchen cupboard. You know they’re best when half-shattered from Paradise Valley pavement!”
What had she done to raise a boy like him? Ugh.
“You’ll get what you get. Better not see you elbowing the kids to get suckers.” She pocketed her phone after that, exchanging it with her compact that ensured her makeup was perfect and her hair in place.
“Good morning, Mayor!”
She had to double-take at that. Either the person greeting her was one of the town’s loveliest citizens…
Or it was Dahlia Granger, camera crew in tow.
One of them tried to blend into the Fourth of July festivities. If one could call a bald eagle wearing a leather vest and patriotic bandana as blending in. Yet the man with a camera nonchalantly mounted on his shoulder didn’t seem to think everyone was looking at him weird. Not even his own crew, who were in their usual jeans, capris, and T-shirts.
Dahlia had picked one that fit her exceptionally well that day. Not that Karen was looking.
“Good morning.” Karen didn’t get up from her perch. “Be sure to get my good side when I drive by.” She tapped her left cheek. “This one.”
“For once I’d like to see someone whose good side was their right side.” Dahlia chuckled. “Don’t worry, Mayor. We’re basically filming the parade for stock footage. Get some audience reactions. When we do our close-up on you, it will be from the left side.”
“You do that! I shall meet up with you after the festivities to take you on a small tour to some of our most trusted townspeople.” She slowly waved her hand as if she were approaching a crowd of adoring fans. “How’s my queenly wave, hm? Been practicing all week.”
“We’re about to head out!” Tom called from the front seat. That only meant Dahlia didn’t have to respond with anything but an amused shake of her head.
The Corvette lurched forward. Karen corrected her position and secured her homemade banner that said MAYOR across her chest. This is part of my reelection campaign right here. Looking the regal mayor in her periwinkle dress suit always brought in the campaign donations. She wasn’t running for reelection for another two years!
She knew she wasn’t a highlight of the parade, though. That always went to the 4H kids, the square dancers on their flatbed trailer, the vintage John Deeres from nearby farms, and the contingent of Shriners who came down from Portland to raise money in their costumes and funny little pedal cars. For every child crying at their presence, there was another trying to rip a fez off their heads.
The firefighters either blasted the sirens on their trucks or made the rounds for donations. It was probably the only time Karen came up close and personal to the men and women in their full firefighting regalia – and there wasn’t something on fire.
“Spare some change, Mayor?” Krys Madison came awfully close to the Corvette crawling at five miles per hour. “You know how strapped for cash we are half the time. Looking over our budget every year, and all.”
Karen maintained her politically plastic smile as she pulled out her wallet and dropped a five dollar bill into the hat. It would look good in front of so many people. This was a woman who already wrote a nice check to the fire hall every year, and often went to bat for them come budget minding time. It’s easy getting people to donate to the firehouse, though. Ask me what it’s like having them donate to the rolling library or the humane society. Only one of those things she dealt with on a professional level. For some reason, people were more likely to donate to animals than getting kids to read.
“Thanks.” Krys tipped her firefighter’s hat and ran back to the audience she had missed.
Karen couldn’t see everyone in the audience. Not with the sun blaring overhead and everyone in nigh unrecognizable gear for Fourth of July. Halfway through the route, however, she saw Dahlia and her team filming the goings-on around them. When the Corvette passed the camera lens, Karen made sure to give it a big grin and a hearty wave. Only then did she see Xander standing behind the camera crew, finger up his nos
e and exaggerated expression on the verge of making Karen lose her cool.
You’d never guess he’s twenty-freakin’-years-old. Karen had to look away before she glared at her son – and right into the camera. The last thing Karen saw from that side of the street was Dahlia’s cool expression.
Don’t think about them right now. Concentrate on your adoring audience. When she saw a group of little kids standing outside of the hardware store, she tossed them two handfuls of candy. Kids in star-spangled dresses and character costumes ran out into the street carrying plastic bags already full of candy. Fourth of July was only third to Halloween and Easter when it came to kids raking in sweets.
Since Main Street wasn’t exactly the longest in town, the parade only lasted about forty-five minutes, even at five miles per hour. They backtracked down Washington Street to complete the loop to city hall, where Karen hopped out of the car and was greeted by Dahlia.
And only Dahlia.
“What a quaint little event.” She offered the mayor a bottle of water, which was graciously accepted. I mean, the seal isn’t broken… not that I expect her to poison me, I suppose… “Exactly what I expected from a quaint little town.”
Karen had no idea how to take that. “Give me a few minutes to readjust, and I should be ready for the tour.”
“Take your time. I need to wait for Wayne and the camera, anyway. He’s catching the tail-end of the parade for me.”
As soon as Karen was finished shaking hands thanking everyone in the parade for their hard work, she approached the Hibiscus Films crew and asked them to follow her around that part of town. She also left on her mayoral sash, since she figured it was a good day to go out and connect with tourists and townspeople alike.
Naturally, Dahlia had questions about it.
“Is that normal?” Her chuckles set Karen on edge. “I like it. Makes you look like Ms. Paradise Valley.”
“Don’t bill me that way on camera,” Karen warned her. “We actually have a Miss Paradise Valley contest every year. She should be around here somewhere…”
Their first stop was the library, where the quilt show was in full swing. Right away the mayor recognized Cindy Smith, a devout volunteer at one of the local churches and the kind of nosy busy-body who wanted nothing more than to regale the camera crew with how she stitched for Jesus. (Mostly for the young minister. She really, really stitched for him. By the way, had the mayor heard anything about how he felt about the “anonymous” cookies he received for his birthday?)
The camera crew politely interviewed her for a few minutes before realizing she was not the demographic they searched. That’s why Karen was keen to reintroduce them to Joan Sheffield, who sat on a stool by the start of the display. She nursed a large canteen of water and wore a baggy blouse that looked much too hot for that warm summer day. I’m cranky because I’m wearing a light jacket and doing all of this running around. Yet the way Joan refused to get off the stool, and the glow to her skin made Karen stop and take another look long before Dahlia shook the crafter’s hand and asked about the display.
Has her hair always been that silky? And fluffy? It was rather mousey a few months ago. Like most of Paradise Valley, Karen knew about the unfortunate story of Joan and her partner Lorri attempting to start a family. She hadn’t heard about any recent tries, however. Were they keeping it mum until it was safe to announce how pregnant Joan was again? Karen hated her compulsion to stare at another woman’s stomach, but damnit, Joan was wearing such a baggy blouse! Karen couldn’t see anything!
“…My contribution to the community quilt this year was about family in Paradise Valley.” Joan may not look as mousey as she was a few months ago, but her voice was much the same. The guy operating the boom mic had to ask her to repeat that after he made a few adjustments. Joan stared into the camera as if she were the proverbial deer hitting the headlights of a moving vehicle. “I decided to write… I mean quilt about… um…”
“Try to forget the camera is even there, dear,” Dahlia softly said. “We can edit out any of your mess-ups later. Anyone who sees you on film will only see an articulate young lady of this lovely town.”
Karen wanted to roll her eyes, but apparently Dahlia’s words gave Joan a little pick-me-up of courage. She squared her shoulders and continued, “When I first visited this town several years ago, I was heartened to see the families making their lives here. Back where I’m from, I never saw something like two women raising their kids out in the open. I always wanted something like that for myself, but didn’t think it was possible, you know?” Joan sheepishly looked away, the baggy sleeve of her blouse touching her lips. “I, uh… really wanted to find a woman to settle down with and have a family.”
That was a lovely ending to a brief interview. Honestly, Karen thought Dahlia would cut it there. What better way to frame this community project than by including the struggle so many lesbian families had outside of Paradise Valley? No, it wasn’t perfect here, either, but Karen was proud to say that families could move here without fear of reprisal. They could find the small town life they craved without so many of the closed-minded insistences they faced in other communities. Even neighboring Roundabout had become a sort of bedroom community with slightly less expensive housing. The old guard who didn’t like “all the funny types” moving into their neck of the county either moved away or died off wallowing in their bigotry. Save from one incidence in the seventies, there had never been a sizable threat to the women and men living in this part of Oregon.
Wasn’t that something to take pride in, let alone advertise in a documentary?
Apparently not.
“Tell me more about having a family in this town,” Dahlia said. “How many kids do families tend to have around here, do you know? What about the backgrounds of the women? How many used to be married to men, let alone have kids from prior marriages?”
“Uh…” Joan looked to Karen, who was as agog as the craftswoman that such a question was asked. “I… I really don’t know. You have to understand, how many kids women have is totally up to them and… science, I guess. A lot of the couples here either adopt or use IVF.”
“So you don’t know of any who have kids from previous marriages?”
The cameraman briefly pointed his device toward the director. “Uh…” he muttered.
Karen stepped in. “I’d be happy to go over our census and demographics with you later, Dahlia,” she said in her politician’s voice. “Let’s leave poor Joan alone for a while now, hm? Look at the poor dear. She’s such an introvert. This is already a big deal for her.”
Dahlia furrowed her brows. “All right,” she finally said. “Sorry about that, Ms. Joan. Now, if you could please sign this model release for us…”
Joan shakily took a pen, read over the terms with glossy eyes, and left her signature on a certain line. By the time she returned her pen, the glint in her eyes implied she’d be happy if Karen took her new friends far away from here for a little while.
Absolutely. There were plenty of other townsfolk to bother with invasive questions they had no way to know how to answer. Not even Karen could answer some of those questions! How many women here have kids from previous relationships? To men? She qualified for that…
As she was reminded when her daughter texted her, asking if she could go hang out with a friend in Roundabout. “What did I say about staying in the city limits?” “You didn’t say which city limits.”
Dahlia wanted to talk about kids from previous relationships? Well! She’d have a field day talking to grown kids like Christina and Xander, two people who knew a thing or two about being dragged to Paradise Valley to start a new life.
On second thought, Dahlia better not ask the Rath kids. They were in the wrong stage of life to answer such questions without a heap of sarcasm!
Chapter 6
DAHLIA
Wayne kept looking at her as if she had lost half her face. Dahlia, meanwhile, continued to ignore him as they sat at the big farm table in
Waterlily House and went over their footage from the weekend.
She had a bright yellow legal pad beneath her elbow. There was supposed to be loopy cursive writing outlining her narrative for the documentary. Usually, by the end of their first week in a town, she knew exactly what direction to head and how to take advantage of what they had in terms of people and locations. Paradise Valley’s stock footage potential was great, of course, but the townsfolk had thus far proven incapable of talking about anything but how much they loved the place. The few qualms they had were about how far it was to certain specialists, a decent airport, and the rising costs of food and gas… but those were complaints in most small towns around America.
“Isn’t that the angle we should go for?” Wayne asked, dubious. “Showing that this town is like any other? People complaining about gas prices and the quality of the school?”
Dahlia scoffed. “Nobody is this happy where they live. Not this many people, anyway.” Every time she tried to dig a little deeper, everyone looked at her as if she had dripped some brains out of her ear. Even the straightest of the heterosexuals they interviewed only had nice things to say about the town. If Dahlia thought she was unearthing a treasure trove of bigots and their ensuring culture war with the local lesbians, she was sorely mistaken. Sorely!
If people had issues with their lesbian neighbors, it had nothing to do with their sexuality and everything to do with loud hangouts, unruly children, and cars parked a little too close to each other. There was one older woman who thought the churches pandered to “the gays around here,” but when Dahlia pressed further, the woman cocked an eyebrow and said, “I mean, it’s simply disingenuous. The only reason they do it is because they wouldn’t have congregations, otherwise. We all know what the churches are doing. It’s about butts in pews, not saving souls.”
July Skies Page 4
