Mary Dell groaned. “Oh, Pearl. I’m so sorry. How did she even get to town? We sold her car after she ran it into the gate last year.”
“She got hold of the keys to Moises’s pickup. I found it parked on the square with the front wheels up on the curb. My Billy drove it back to the ranch. Taffy was very grateful,” Pearl said wryly. “She kissed him on the lips and said they should go out and watch the sun set over Puny Pond sometime; then she sat down in your dad’s old recliner and fell asleep. Guess all the excitement wore her out, thank heaven. I told the hands to keep an eye on her until Cady got home but not to say anything about Taffy’s field trip. That poor girl has enough to worry about.”
“What do you mean?” Mary Dell’s brow pleated into lines of concern and she pressed the phone closer to her ear, as if increasing the volume of Pearl’s words might help her make sense of them. “I talked to Cady the day before yesterday. She said everything was fine.”
“Well, it’s not,” Pearl countered. “While you’re up there in Dallas, being famous full-time, your niece is all alone in Too Much trying to hold everything together with baling wire and spit. She has a daughter to raise, a quilt shop to run, a ranch to oversee, and a loopy grandmother to ride herd on!”
“Momma isn’t loopy,” Mary Dell insisted. “She’s just confused. And Moises runs the ranch, not Cady. Well, he did. We’ll find somebody to fill in for him until he’s better. I’ll try to get down there for a few days next week and—”
“Next week? Mary Dell Templeton, wake up and smell the coffee! Your momma is overdrawn at the memory bank and your niece is sick with grief. I know it’s been three years, but the pain is still fresh. I can see it in her eyes.”
Mary Dell was silent for a moment. She knew exactly what Pearl was talking about. She had seen that same look in her niece’s eyes.
Cady’s husband, Nick, had been a Marine stationed in Afghanistan, serving in the same unit as Rob Lee. In fact, it was Rob Lee who had introduced Cady and Nick. While on patrol with Rob Lee and two other Marines, Nick was killed in a roadside explosion. Rob Lee was the only one of the four who survived.
They say time heals all wounds, but in Mary Dell’s opinion, whoever said that must not have been hurt that bad. Some things you never get over, not really, as Mary Dell knew from experience. Absent husbands were one of them.
It wasn’t like Cady was just lying around in a dark room. She took care of her daughter, six-year-old Linne, managed the shop, and tended to all the family business that Mary Dell, in her absence, could not. She kept busy. Maybe too busy? Busy enough so she wouldn’t have to feel?
Mary Dell knew what that was like too.
“Mary Dell Templeton, do you hear what I’m saying to you? Your family needs you. And not just for a few days. You’ve got to come home. For good.”
“You don’t think I want to?” Mary Dell barked in response, offended and angry that Pearl so misunderstood her motives. “I only moved up here because of the family. Don’t you get it? My show shoots in Dallas. And the show is the only reason that the quilt shop has survived all these years—”
“That may be, but I’m telling you—”
“No,” Mary Dell said firmly, interrupting Pearl’s interruption. “That isn’t what may be. That’s what is.”
The call didn’t end well. Pearl was long on “should” but short on “how.” And Mary Dell was tired.
It was easy for Pearl. She had a husband to lean on, whereas Mary Dell had to go it alone. She’d done so for a long, long time.
When Donny left, weeks after Howard was born, she’d had to figure out how to transform quilting from a hobby to a business, opening the Patchwork Palace with her sister, getting her patterns published in magazines, sometimes teaching at guilds, anything she could think of to keep the wolf from the door. And it had worked.
Later, during the worst bad year, when her dear grandma Silky and aunt Velvet had died within weeks of each other, followed three months later by the car accident that had instantly taken the lives of her father, Dutch, and her brother-in-law, Graydon, and then her beloved twin sister, Lydia Dale, three days later, Mary Dell had to reinvent herself yet again.
Economic downturns have no respect for private grief. With the quilt shop struggling and the responsibility of keeping the entire family together resting on her shoulders, Mary Dell moved to Dallas, where she could get more and bigger teaching jobs. She thought her banishment would last a year, two at most, until things turned around. Except they didn’t. The quilt shop continued to struggle and so did the ranch.
Hoping it might bring in a little money and bring a little notoriety to the Patchwork Palace, Mary Dell brushed the dust off a book she’d written years before, based on her experiences teaching Howard to quilt and, later, using him as her “chief fabric consultant” and submitted it to a small publishing house. Family Ties didn’t sell many copies, but it brought her to the attention of Gary Beatty, who offered her and Howard their own television show. The rest was history.
These days, Mary Dell spoke at a lot of trade shows and quilt conferences. During the Q&A someone would invariably ask her what the secret was to running a successful quilt shop. Mary Dell’s answer never varied.
“Get yourself a show on a national cable network,” she’d say.
After the laughter died down, she would go on to give a more serious answer, but, in a sense, she wasn’t joking. It was the show that saved them, the shop, the ranch, and, in some ways, even Mary Dell herself. And all because of something nobody could have predicted, a lucky break.
Someone once said, “You can’t get hit by lightning if you ain’t standing in the rain.”
Nobody could stand in the rain longer than Mary Dell Templeton.
By the time Howard came into the kitchen to inform her it was nearly time to announce the pageant winners, Mary Dell had a plan.
“I’ll be right there, baby. I just need to make one more call. Howard, you’re sure Mrs. Morris is fine with you sleeping over on Monday? Because if she is, I think I’m going to take a friend down to see the ranch. I’ll only be gone one night.”
CHAPTER 3
Holly’s name wasn’t on the list, but Bob had been working at the auditorium stage door since 2005, the same year Rachel McEnroe had started co-hosting the pageant, so he knew her daughter by sight and waved her in.
Holly stood in the stage-right wing of the auditorium, careful to stay out of the way, and listened to her mother sing.
The dusty smell that came from the red velvet curtains and the heat of the stage lights reminded her of the first time she’d been allowed to come and watch her mother work.
Rachel was booked for a four-month gig at the Desert Rose Hotel and Casino, but that was just the beginning, she had assured her little girl. Las Vegas was their new home and Mikey Grainger, who owned the casino, was Rachel’s new husband.
Five-year-old Holly had been the flower girl at the wedding. The pink rose petals in the white basket were so pretty that she refused to scatter them on the ground. Rachel was annoyed, but Mikey just laughed. He held Holly’s little hand through the whole ceremony, letting go only to put the ring on Rachel’s finger.
After the wedding, they moved into the Desert Rose. Holly loved living in the hotel, riding the elevators, having the run of the house, ordering as many Shirley Temples and ice-cream sundaes as she wanted in the restaurants, and never having to pay a bill. Her mom said that was when Holly’s weight problem started, but Holly didn’t think so. Until high school, when she dropped all that weight, she almost couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t, if not fat, at least chubby.
She did have one childhood picture that made her look skinny, a framed five-by-seven of her and her dad, taken just a few months before he died. It was a candid shot, taken from a slight distance. In it, Cristian sat astride a beautiful black thoroughbred, holding Holly in front of him on the saddle with one arm around her waist, his handsome head slightly bent, about to kiss the top of he
r head. Holly, at two years old, had her hair tied into two ponytails that stuck out almost straight from her head, her brown eyes were dancing, and her mouth was open, frozen in a squeal of delight. Her cheeks were chubby and dimpled, but her bare arms, stretched out wide as if she was trying to fly, were thin and delicate. Though Rachel said she was too young to remember that day, Holly knew she did.
They had gone to Argentina, visiting the ranch where Cristian’s family bred fast, compact horses, a thoroughbred and criollo mix, prized by polo players. She didn’t remember a lot about that trip, only the adults jabbering in Spanish and how they laughed when she took a bite of chorizo, a kind of spicy pork sausage, and pronounced it “muy bueno!” And she remembered riding across that field with her father’s arm wrapped around her, feeling so light and happy and safe, feeling the wind rush past her open fingers, and shouting, “Faster! Faster!”
It was one of the few clear and happy memories she had of Cristian, and the photograph that captured it was one of two treasured mementos she took with her everywhere she went. The other was a present from Mikey, a souvenir of their “honeymoon” at the Desert Rose.
Those two weeks were among the happiest in her memory. Mikey treated her like his own daughter, called her “kiddo,” gave her piggyback rides, and took her to play mini-golf. He made sure the hotel florist kept a vase in her bedroom filled with pink roses and even gave her a “wedding present,” a small crystal figurine of a galloping horse that she still kept on her nightstand. Rachel said he was spoiling her and it was true, but Holly didn’t mind.
Two weeks after the wedding, Mikey brought Holly with him to watch Rachel sing, and they stood in the wings, hidden behind the red velvet curtain, with Mikey’s big hands resting on her shoulders. Holly thought her mother sounded like an angel and that the pink spotlight made her look like one too.
But the second Rachel bowed and exited the stage, her halo slipped. The brilliant smile disappeared, replaced by a scowl, and her eyes flashed with anger. Ignoring Holly, she stormed up to Mikey and poked a finger into his chest.
“A bar! You booked me into a bar to sing for a bunch of drunks? You promised me the big room! You said I’d be a headliner!”
“And you will be! Rachel, baby, don’t be like that. It’s a lounge, not a bar. The best in the hotel. You’ve never played Vegas. I’m trying to help you build a following. Next year you’ll be a headliner, I swear.”
Rachel wasn’t appeased. She slapped him, hard, across the face. Mikey drew back, stared at her for a long moment, then turned and walked away.
When the run ended, the marriage did too.
Mikey drove them to the airport for the flight to LA. Standing at the curb, he ruffled Holly’s hair with his big hand. “Listen, kiddo, you be happy. And take care of your mom.”
Holly nodded. Mikey kissed Rachel on the cheek.
“Good luck with the movie audition. Not that you’ll need it. You still got it, babe. You know that?”
Twenty years later, her mom still had it—the body, the pipes, the face the cameras loved. Though she couldn’t hit the high notes quite the way she once had, Rachel still knew how to wring every drop of emotion from a song, handing the music and lyrics to the audience gently and sensuously, like she was delivering a love letter. Holly never ceased to be amazed by her mother’s talent and determination. Hardly anyone but Holly knew how hard Rachel worked and that she continued to take weekly voice, dance, and acting lessons.
Still, at the core of all that effort was talent, a gift that you’re either born with or not. Rachel had it; Holly didn’t. She wished she did. But that didn’t prevent Holly from being proud of her mom or from seeking her advice, at least on professional matters. Rachel’s personal life was a train wreck, but when it came to the business of show, she had good instincts.
As the glow of the spotlights changed from pink to white and the camera moved in for a close-up, Rachel’s left arm floated slowly, almost languorously, from her side, lifting over her head as the notes of the song rose and fell in volume and emotion until the end, as a single, softly sung note hovered in the air, then faded slowly, like the toll of a distant bell.
The applause was thunderous. If the stage managers hadn’t started barking orders at the pageant contestants, telling them to get onstage now, Rachel might easily have taken a second or even third bow. Instead, as the beauty queens poured out of the wings, Rachel gave a wave and walked into the wings.
“Mom! That was great! You were amazing!”
“Thank you, punkin,” she said as she unclipped the microphone from the neck of her dress. “But the tempo was too fast. We’re running long.”
“You got a standing ovation; did you see?”
Rachel handed the microphone to a waiting stagehand. “I saw. Twenty people in the first two rows. Not quite an ovation; more like the potential for one. But”—she smiled—“it was good. My last number. I wanted to go out with a bang.”
“Mission accomplished,” Holly said.
Rachel pressed a tissue against her brow to dab away the sheen of perspiration. “Hey, I’ve got to run back to the dressing room to touch up my makeup and change before it’s time to announce the top ten. Come on. You can unzip me and help shoehorn me into some Spanx.”
The dressing room was a mess. Gowns and stockings and scarves were thrown carelessly over the backs of chairs; high heels were abandoned in the middle of the floor. After unzipping her mother’s dress, Holly started tidying up.
“Don’t do that,” Rachel said, looking up from the makeup mirror. “You make me feel like a slob.”
“You are a slob,” Holly said, shaking her head as she picked up a pair of red satin pumps and put them on a shelf. “Where are the wardrobe people anyway?”
“Attending to the needs of the beauty queens, I should think,” Rachel said, peeling off a false eyelash. “Though why twenty-year-olds with flawless skin and figures that can stop traffic need help being gorgeous is beyond me.” She frowned at her reflection. “Me, on the other hand . . .”
“Oh, stop it,” Holly said as she hung a discarded gown on the rack and pulled up a chair near the makeup table. “You’re gorgeous.”
“I’m glad you think so.” Rachel pressed the new lash onto her eyelid. “So, what’s up? I bet you didn’t drive through LA traffic just to help me change.”
“My agent called. I’ve got an interview for a job co-hosting a cable show.”
Rachel’s face lit up. “Honey! That’s great! Congratulations!”
“I’m not sure if I want to do it.”
“Why not? Co-hosting your own show sounds a lot better than escorting contestants onstage or pointing at cars on that stupid game show.”
“It’s for the House and Home Network. I don’t know the first thing about do-it-yourselfing.” Holly started chewing on the nail of her pinkie finger.
“Not true,” Rachel said, then reached up to bat Holly’s finger away from her mouth. “Look how cute you fixed your place up. That coffee table you made? With the wooden crates and that old picture frame? It’s darling. And what about those drapes you made out of the shower curtain? I’d never have thought of that.”
“Those were ideas I got from a blog. It’s not like I invented it on my own.”
“So?” Rachel shrugged. “Look, if they needed somebody who can hammer nails, they’d be interviewing carpenters. Instead, they’re interviewing you. Which means you’re what they’re looking for.”
“But,” Holly protested, “if you’re going to host a show about a particular subject, I think you should know at least a little something about it.”
Rachel put on some lipstick, frowned at her reflection, and wiped it off again. “You’ll be fine. I played an astronaut once. And not only have I never traveled in space, I barely passed science. That’s what acting is all about.”
“But . . . I’m not an actress!”
Rachel sighed heavily and started talking to the ceiling. “Such a worrywart. I swear, som
etimes I feel like I gave birth to my own mother.” She picked up the powder puff again. “Holly, for once in your life, can’t you just enjoy the moment? This is good news!”
She patted the powder across her décolletage. Holly started to put her hand to her mouth but pulled it back when Rachel shot her a look.
“I just don’t want to end up looking stupid. I don’t want to come off like somebody they put in the chair just because she’s pretty and her mother is famous.”
“You don’t even have the job yet. So quit worrying. Maybe they’ll hate you.”
Holly stuck out her tongue at her mother’s reflection, then narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious.
“This isn’t your doing, is it? You didn’t call up one of your friends to get me this job, did you?”
“Punkin, is this the face of a woman who has friends at the House and Home Network?”
Holly saw her point. There was probably no one on the planet with fewer practical skills than Rachel. She couldn’t so much as screw in a light bulb. Claudia, her housekeeper, handled all that, along with cleaning, laundry, and cooking—what there was of it. These days, Rachel subsisted mostly on salads and protein shakes.
Holly worried that Rachel wasn’t eating enough. She worried about a lot of things where her mother was concerned. The antidepressants didn’t seem to be working, but Holly wasn’t surprised. The medicine Rachel really needed was work, the sound of applause. Lately, there hadn’t been much of it.
Rachel swiveled in her chair, facing her daughter. “Listen to me. When you meet the programming people, your answer to every question is ‘yes.’ If they ask you if you know about carpentry, or gardening, or even small-engine repair, the answer is, ‘Yes. Absolutely.’”
From Here to Home Page 3
