by Rachel Hauck
“Parker. Blech. Lyric likes him.”
“But does he like her?” Joy stretched her legs under the sheet, tucking her notebook under her pillow.
“Not if he’s smart.”
Joy laughed. “So, tell me, what was this dream of yours? Maybe it’s not so scary.”
“I can’t remember.” Annie-Rae yawned. “Dark stuff.”
“Now that is a scary dream.” Asleep or awake. “Want to sing a song?”
“Like what?” Annie-Rae snuggled her backside into Joy’s hip. “I like ‘Jesus Loves Me.’”
“Always a crowd-pleaser. You start.”
Annie’s sweet, high voice invoked instant peace.
Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.
Joy drank in the words, sipped on the melody. Why did she keep forgetting this? Jesus loved her. At the end of it all, wasn’t His love enough?
Saturday afternoon, as Luke seared a couple of steaks on the grill, Andy dropped a tub of fish on the prep counter and took up his filet knife.
“How’s the show treating you? Customers are always asking after you round here.”
“The show’s good, I think. Still learning, feeling dull and stupid.”
“Next to Joy, anyone would feel dull and stupid. The girl sure does shine, don’t she?” Wrapped in a back brace, Andy tossed a cleaned catfish into a second tub. Luke had learned to fish along the shores of Brock and Lightning Creek with some of the best fishermen in central Oklahoma. But he’d never seen anyone clean and prep a fish as fast as Andy.
“Like the north star. Coming in here Saturday is my therapy. Reminds me I’m competing at something.”
“The kitchen gets under your skin, don’t it? Something always going on. Knowing we feed folks and make them smile with the dishes we cook up.” Andy’s baritone chuckle rumbled through his gallon-drum chest. “Well, Luke, ain’t seen you in church since you started the show.”
“I’ve been spending the last few Sundays preparing for Monday. Takes me awhile to get the script down. I work on my recipe, prep it in Miss Jeanne’s kitchen. But I’ll be back this week.” Luke checked the order ticket for the temperature of the steak. Medium rare. “When I came down here, hired on with you, I promised myself I’d keep God first in my life. Why are good intentions so hard to keep?”
“Our spirits are willing but our flesh is weak, according to Jesus. We need to fight the good fight. Be vigilant. Become warriors. Listen to what the Spirit is saying.” Andy tossed aside the tub, empty, a dozen filets cleaned and ready for his marinade.
“I’ll be there Sunday, Andy.” Luke pulled the steaks to let them rest. “I hear what you’re telling me.” For his first seven years in the city, Luke rode the long black train of ambition, living for himself, working to get ahead. But now that he had a chance to start over, he wanted to live differently. Change his priorities. “Tell you what, Andy.” Luke grinned over his shoulder at his boss. “I’ll be at church on Sunday, but when are you going to give me the secret to your marinade?”
Andy tossed another fish into the tub. “You’re going to have to be in church a lot of Sundays before I give you my marinade secrets.”
He soaked the filets in a dark, oily, aromatic sauce. Luke guessed he used teriyaki and Worcestershire, ginger, and garlic, but there was a scent he didn’t recognize. Yet.
“Well, now that you’ve been on the show a few weeks, Luke, have you figured her out yet?”
“Joy? Some.” Beautiful and sexy, with a subtle vulnerability that made a man want to wrap her in his arms. But she was also selfassured, like she could knock that same man down a few pegs if need be. Luke stirred a handful of shiitake mushrooms in a skillet of melted butter and sizzling garlic.
“Mercy Bea said you fell for her in about sixty seconds.”
“Mercy Bea likes to tell stories.” Two more tickets came to the window. Luke turned to Russell, working prep. “Russ, two pot roast casseroles.”
“But you don’t know?” Andy rinsed his knife, then picked up another catfish. “About Joy?”
“Know what?” Luke pulled the steaks from the grill.
“Russell, he don’t know.” Andy sliced with the knife and added the fish to the tub.
“Know what?” Luke repeated siding the meat with fried green beans, mashed potatoes, and mushrooms.
“You must be in love,” Andy said as he worked on another filet.
“Love? Come on, there’s no love in this equation. My eyes are wide-open.”
“Brother, look here at me.” Andy motioned to his big brown eyes. “How long you been on the show? Three, four weeks?”
“Four.”
“This show where you cook food?”
“Yeah, we cook food.” What was his point?
“You’re in love.” Andy’s declaration drifted through the kitchen.
“No other reason. Looks like Mercy Bea’s not the only storyteller round here. Russell, can you believe he don’t know?”
“Serious?” Russell turned from the convection oven. “Luke, you really don’t know?”
“Know what? And can I ask how you two know this secret?”
“Joy did a stint right here in this kitchen.”
“She worked at the Frogmore? As a cook?” Luke set the steak plates under the heat lamps. “Table nine up.”
“She worked here, yes.” Andy tossed two more catfish in with the others. “But not as a cook.” He glared over his shoulder at Luke.
“Okay, then what do I need to know?” Luke tossed the sauté pan into the sink. “She was married? She is married? She used to be a man?”
Andy’s gorilla-size laugh consumed him. Russell burst through the screen door, snorting, gasping.
“Is that it? She used to be a man?” How did he get in on this joke? He’d kissed her . . . him. Her. Yes, definitely a her.
Mercy Bea appeared at the window. “Luke, sugar, someone’s here to see you.”
“Mercy, is there something about Joy I need to know?” He motioned toward the snickering Andy and Russell.
Mercy’s expression soured. “Knock if off, you two boll weevils. Joy’s our friend. Let Luke find out what he needs to on his own.”
“Why do I feel like I have a big Kick Me sign stuck to my back?” Luke paused at the swinging doors.
“Because you’re paranoid. Hush up, Andy and Russell.” Mercy Bea escorted Luke through the doors. “Go on, you got company.”
The café was quiet except for the hushed conversation of a few tanned tourists. Luke scanned the tables for his visitor, holding up when he spotted the visitor in the back booth. Red.
“What brings you here?” Luke slid into the booth across from his lean and wiry father, leathered from decades in the Oklahoma wind and sun.
“Don’t you serve a man a cup of coffee in this place?”
“We do.” Luke got Mercy’s attention. “Coffee, please. Black and hot.”
“Seems like a nice place.”
“It is. Red, did you drive all the way here?” Red rarely traveled. Never been on a plane. Never driven west of Colorado, south of Texas, east of Arkansas.
“Well, I didn’t walk.” Red nodded at Mercy Bea when she set down his coffee with a bowl of creamers and a basket of Bubba’s buttery biscuits.
“Who’s tending the ranch?”
“Sam and Nick.” Red scooted his coffee forward after one sip. He had something on his mind.
“I guess it’s been awhile since we’ve seen each other?”
“Two years and three months.” Red unsnapped his shirt pocket and pulled a paper across the table with his sun-dried hand. “Got this in the mail though. A few days ago.”
“Red, I—” The check. For a thousand dollars. “I want to pay you back.”
“So you send me a thousand dollars? How about a phone call?
An e-mail. I got online because you told me it was the best way to keep in touch.”
“Yeah, when I ran Ami’s.”
“So now wh
at’s your excuse?”
Luke eased against the leatherette booth, regarding his dad.
“You drove all the way from Oklahoma to bust my chops about not e-mailing? To challenge a measly check?” He flicked the paper across the table. “Take this. I’ll pay more as I can.”
“So suddenly you’ve come into riches?” Red fiddled with the check like he might tear it in two.
“I’m cohosting a cooking show on TV. Dining with Joy. Just got my first paycheck. I’ll add to it each time, but I’m saving up to pay off my friend Linus too.”
“You’re on television now? Well, which network? I’d like to watch. CBS, ABC, NBC?”
“None of the above.” Luke smiled. He missed Red’s simplicity. His own simplicity. “The show’s on a cable network called TruReality.”
“So it’s not going to be on CBS, ABC, or NBC?” In the café’s soft gold light, Red looked old and tired, as if he’d wrangled down every one of his seventy-five years. Born twenty years into his parents’ marriage, Luke had always considered Red an old man.
“No, we’re not going to be on the old favorite networks. Take that thousand I sent you, go into town with Sam, and tell him to help you pick out a high-definition television, then call the cable company. They’ll set you up. With the payback money, you’ll afford it just fine. Dining with Joy will be on Thursday nights this fall. Eight o’clock. Seven central.”
Red tucked the check back into his pocket. “A thousand dollars on entertainment. I got hands to pay and livestock to feed.” He snapped his pocket closed. “The money I lent you was from your mother’s egg money. Did right nice just letting it sit in the account.
She’d have wanted me to help you, so I did.”
“I gave Ami’s my best shot, Red. The restaurant business is—”
“Like ranching. Good years chasing bad, barely hanging on from day to day.”
“I’m not savvy with the business end.” Luke pressed his thumb over a recent burn spot and took a clean, deep breath. “Things got behind . . . I was overwhelmed.”
“You’re a good chef, Son. I bet a good businessman can’t make a fancy French dish like you.”
“Can I freshen up your coffee?” Mercy Bea started to pour in Red’s cup, but he’d only taken a sip. “How about a nice ham plate with a side of scalloped potatoes?”
“Guess I could sit for a bite.” Red slid his John Deere cap from the tabletop to the seat. He lifted his cup to his lips. “Got any pie?”
Mercy Bea smiled with a long, thick-lashed wink. “Now you’re talking.”
“My place is about two blocks from here, Red. I’ll take you over after supper.”
“Naw, naw, Luke, can’t impose.” Red held his coffee cup steady at chin level. “I just came to see how you fared.” He patted the table with scarred, worked fingers. “I knew I didn’t raise a quitter.”
“You drove halfway across the country to see how I fared?” Luke hated the crater opening in his heart, the ambiguous hole that was his relationship with Red. “You could’ve called.”
“Calling ain’t seeing you.”
“Then you’ll stay.”
“If you got room.” Red nodded. Once. “Guess I should see the sights while I’m here. Never seen the ocean.”
“You can see it out my window every night.” Luke leaned across the table. “Red, is everything else okay?”
“Sure.” Red stuck out his chin, peering out the window. “Just tired from the drive.”
“All right.” Luke regarded him a moment before sliding out of the booth, the soft edge of Red’s emotions deflecting his bravado answer. “Have Mercy Bea bring you to the kitchen when you’ve finished supper. I’ll take you on home.”
Thirteen
Sunday morning worship had just started when Joy slipped inside the sanctuary door, leading Lyric and Annie-Rae to seats in the back. The full room contained more than flesh and blood, more than beating human hearts.
Getting here with the girls about killed her last ounce of holiness. But the John verse she’d discovered the other night, the one that had been tacked up in her truck for months, maybe years, wedged its way into her soul.
What was the Father’s will?
Glancing toward the front, Joy spotted Mama and her two best friends with their hands in the air, swaying in time with the music.
In Your presence, God, there is fullness of joy I’ve got the joy, I’ve got the joy
Mama and her friends arrived early to teach Sunday school to the widows, divorcées, and never-marrieds. She’d given up urging Lyric and Annie-Rae out of bed in time to drive in with her. As long as Joy set the example of sleeping in, the battle was futile.
“Can we go?” Lyric crumpled forward in her chair.
“We just got here. Stand up. Sing.” Joy hooked her hand under Lyric’s elbow and pulled her to her feet.
“I don’t know the song.”
“Funny, you never say that when you’re trying to follow along with Taylor Swift.” Joy turned Lyric’s face toward the screen behind the worship leader. “The words are up on the screen. This isn’t about you, Lyric, it’s about Jesus and what He deserves.”
“And what do you know about Jesus?”
“Not as much as I should.” Joy clapped to the rhythm, working on a resolve that didn’t feel like she was negotiating with God. If I pray three mornings a week, can You help me . . .
Something, someone stood behind her. She peered around to see Luke, his gaze steady on her. She whipped back forward, closed her eyes, and tried to sing.
But she peeked around the thin veil of her hair to see if he was still there. He was, but he wasn’t paying attention to her. His head was tipped back with his eyes closed, his hands raised in surrender. Tears swelled in her eyes. Luke seemed . . . captivated. Not just going through the motions like she did so often. And she envied him.
On her left, Annie-Rae’s voice pierced the air with her clear song. Joy cupped her hand on the girl’s shoulder and tried to find the river.
I’ve got the joy, I’ve got the joy She reached down, fumbling for Lyric’s hand, and intertwined their fingers. By the second verse, Lyric curved in close and surrendered her cheek to Joy’s shoulder.
In Your presence, God, there is fullness of joy
“My family is here.” Mama hurried across Beaufort Community’s green lawn as Joy exited the sanctuary with the girls. “What’s wrong? Everything okay?” Mama clutched her old, peeling handbag to her chest. “It’s Sawyer and Mindy, isn’t it? Something happened to them.”
Joy squeezed Annie-Rae’s shoulders. “No, Mama, we came to worship.”
“Well, good, good.” Mama lowered her bag and shoved the wind from her curls.
Annie squirmed free to meet one of her friends. Lyric chatted with Siri and her brother, Parker, under the shade of a deep-rooted live oak.
“Beautiful day.” Luke strolled toward Mama and Joy with an older, sun-kissed man. “This is my dad, Red Redmond. Red, this is Joy Ballard, my cohost. Boss, really. And her mother, Rosie.”
“Nice to meet you.” Red gripped his cowboy hat in his hand, thin wisps of his hair lifting in the breeze, revealing the same piercing blue eyes as his son.
“Same to you, Mr. Redmond.” Joy took his rough and hardened palm in hers.
“Red, folks call me Red. Mr. Redmond was my father and, well, even at seventy-five, I ain’t ready to tug on his boots.” He settled his hat on his head. His plaid shirt and stiff blue jeans looked new.
“No sir, you’re your own man, I can see that.” Mama slipped her arm through Red’s. She had a way of just knowing folks. “Come to the house for lunch. I won’t take no for an answer. Since our kids are hosting a show together, we’re practically family.”
“Mama,” Joy called after her. “Don’t force your will on Red and Luke. They might have other plans.”
“No, no, we got no plans.” Red lifted his hat as he glanced back at Luke. “Do we, Son? I’d love some home cooking.”
“Sure, why not?” So what if none of the Ballard women cooked?
Joy called to Lyric and Annie-Rae, slowly following Mama and Red’s trail.
“Think Annie-Rae could heat up some Chef Boyardee for us?”
Luke laughed at his own suggestion.
Joy whirled around and stepped toward him. “What are you implying, Luke? Do you have something to say? Then say it.”
“Whoa—” He backed up, hands surrendered. “I’m kidding, Joy.
I figured after a hard week of work, you and Rosie wouldn’t want to cook. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Joy tucked her Bible under her arm, the noon sun hot on her skin. No, how could he? He didn’t live inside her head, hear her thoughts, see her posing as someone she wasn’t. She only imagined Luke saw right through her.
“Of course, I’m sorry, Luke.” As she backed away, the air shifted the light behind Luke and the sights of the churchyard faded. The parade of summer dresses and shirts without ties blurred into the background, and the sea blue of Luke’s eyes soaked her senses.
“Joy, did you hear me?” Luke snapped his fingers beside her ear.
“W–what?” She angled away and squinted down at her sandals. “Yeah, yeah, Chef Boyardee.”
“No, I asked if you had a grill. I could run by Publix and—”
“A grill? Yes, charcoal, in the shed.” Perfect. “Mama and I can haul out the picnic table, set it under the trees. It’s nice with the breeze off the creek. When I was little, we were always picnicking. Weekend in and weekend out.”
“Are you okay?” Luke brushed her hair away from her face. “You look pretty today.”
“So do you.”
His laugh was becoming one of her favorite sounds. “Steak or burgers?”
“Burgers. Hot dogs. Nothing fancy, Luke.”
“Side dishes? Any preference?”
Red returned from escorting Mama to her truck and stood alongside Luke.
“Coleslaw, potato salad.” Joy shrugged as she listed her favorites. “Cheetos.”
