Dining with Joy

by Rachel Hauck

  “You can’t boss me, Joy.” Luke reversed his steps and walked back to Joy in long strides, swept her into his arms, and kissed her, loving the taste of his risotto on her lips.

  When he lifted his head, he held her face in his hands. “My offer still stands.”

  “So does my answer.”

  Twenty-eight

  The next morning Joy barreled into Miss Jeanne’s driveway, braking, cutting the ignition, and hopping out of the driver’s side door before the engine finished its sigh.

  Up the veranda steps in a single bound, Joy mashed the doorbell over and over. “Be here, Luke.” She’d passed the Frogmore Café on her way to see if his car sat in the shade of the century-old live oaks, but the ragtop was absent from the lot.

  After he left last night, she’d cried herself to sleep. How could he do that to her? A spontaneous proposal on the heels of national humiliation. But when she woke up with the morning sun breaking through her window, her soul refreshed, she ached to see him.

  “Miss Jeanne, hey, are you home?” Joy eased open the screen door and cupped her hands around her eyes to peer inside the front door. “Miss Jeanne? Luke?”

  Miss Jeanne waved, inching down the hall, her hand pressed against the skirt of her housedress.

  “How do, Joy.” The foyer smelled of vanilla and lemon with a hint of Pine-Sol. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “It’s good to see you, Miss Jeanne.” Joy cupped the woman’s cheeks and kissed her forehead. “But I’m a woman on a mission.” Bounding up the stairs two at time, Joy could barely breathe. At the end of this journey, she’d see Luke. There would be time for air later.

  She knocked on his door, her adrenaline rising, her legs trembling. When he opened the door, she planned to fall into him and express her heart, lip to lip. “I love you, Luke Redmond.”

  “Luke, hey”—she rattled his door—“don’t tell me you’re still in bed, lazybones. It’s noon o’clock. Fall is in the air.”

  Silence. In the warm hall, perspiration dotted Joy’s brow and the back of her neck. The midday sun baked the attic eaves and scented the air with warm wood.

  “Luke?” Joy knocked and rattled, then peered out the nautical window at the end of the hall. Miss Jeanne’s 1950s Plymouth was parked under a tree outside the open garage door, Mama’s orange-and-red-flame design streaking along the blue side panels.

  Where Luke’s car had been parked, tire tracks matted the grass. “Luke?” Joy tapped on his door again, then turned the knob.

  On the bed, the thick mattress was naked and exposed. Without linens. The closet door stood ajar, and the only item on the nightstand was an old Tiffany lamp.

  Hello, my way out, where did you go?

  “He left last night.” Joy spun around to see Miss Jeanne in the doorway, her arms folded, a look of mercy on her heart-shaped face. “I tried to get him to wait a day, but he seemed upset, all fired up and in a hurry. Mumbled a few things about you, but in the end he had to go.”

  “Miss Jeanne, what did he say?”

  “Something about falling in love and being stupid to trust a woman who lied her way through a cooking show, but oh, she just got under his skin until he couldn’t figure out his own thoughts. He was slapping his clothes into the suitcase.” Miss Jeanne demonstrated, tossing imaginary clothes into an imaginary suitcase with imaginary force.

  “He’s right. I’m a liar. And a coward.” Joy eased down into the rocker by the window and folded her torso over her legs, cradling her face in her hands. “Everything I touch falls apart.”

  “Come on.” Miss Jeanne disappeared through the door. “What you need is some lemonade.”

  “Miss Jeanne, really, if this is about life handing you lemons so you can make lemonade, I’m up to my eyeballs with that kind of fluffy advice.” Joy lifted herself from the chair and followed Miss Jeanne downstairs. Best not let her heart sink any further and get lost in a wallow of emotions and failures.

  Expecting to find herself in Miss Jeanne’s Westinghouse kitchen, Joy was surprised when the older woman slipped her pocketbook over her arm and whistled to the dog. “Come on, Ebony, we’re going for a ride.”

  “Miss Jeanne.” Weariness mantled Joy’s shoulders. It was okay not to wallow for the moment, but the prospect of rattling around town made her feel exhausted. “I think I’ll just go on home. Crawl into bed, wait for the New Year, new decade, new millennium.”

  “Pish-posh nonsense. You’re going with me.”

  “Are you kidnapping me?” Ebony, a black-and-white Border collie with wisdom in his brown eyes, watched Joy from the top porch step.

  “I’m rescuing you. Hurry up, now.”

  Joy fumbled down the steps, Ebony herding at her heels, escorting her to the big, boxy car. “Where is this lemonade of which you speak?” She buckled the lap belt around her waist and gripped the door handle.

  “Hang on.” Miss Jeanne cranked the engine, powered down the windows, and fired backward out the driveway. The car swayed from side to side, the suspension squeaking. Ebony settled against Joy, his pink tongue dripping drool, and panted with the heat.

  Joy buried one hand in his onyx fur and surfed her other out the window.

  Heavy on the gas, light on the brake, Miss Jeanne rumbled down Port Royal like a tanker on a mission, riding up on folks’ bumpers, honking her horn, motioning for drivers to “get out of the way.”

  By the second red light, Joy’s toes cramped against the floorboard. But really, all things considered, perishing at this stage of the game wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

  “So you’re in love with Luke?” Miss Jeanne mashed the gas, pushing Joy against the seat. The wind rushing through the windows teased her hair.

  “I don’t know, maybe. I’d like to see.” Car, Miss Jeanne, car. Joy tensed for impact.

  “I saw the YouTube clip of The Bette Hudson Show.” Miss Jeanne wrangled the beastmobile to a roaring stop, just shy of the lead car’s bumper.

  Joy pressed her hand to her chest, holding her raging heart inside. “You watch YouTube, Miss Jeanne?” Now she knew the whole world had seen her monumental failure.

  Ebony nudged Joy’s hand, and when she gazed down at him, he was watching her. As if he knew, as if he could see through her. Peace. It’ll be all right. Then he sighed, rested his chin on her knee, and closed his eyes with a contented exhale. Trust.

  “Life is a series of choices, Joy,” Miss Jeanne said. “When I came of age I went to law school. The only woman in my class.”

  “Got any courage to spare, Miss Jeanne?” Joy held on to Ebony as Miss Jeanne mashed the brake and jerked the boxy Plymouth across two lanes of oncoming traffic for a wide, wild left turn. A billow of dust and gravel spewed from under the skidding tires as Miss Jeanne parked at a petite hotdog stand, Silly Dog.

  “I come here every day for lunch.” She looped her arm through her pocketbook and stepped out of the car. “My treat today.”

  Two tall lemonades and foot-long hotdogs later, Joy sat across the picnic table from Miss Jeanne.

  “So, Silly Dog is a favorite. Have any others?” Joy bit into the soft bun and warm meat, the tingle of mustard and onion on her tongue.

  “Well, I take my dinner at the Frogmore Café every day.” Miss Jeanne slurped her lemonade.

  “I take it you never learned to cook either?”

  “All girls in my day learned to cook. Even the ones who wanted to be lawyers. But I never did enjoy it much. When my father passed, I put away my pots and pans. I’ll fix toast or a sandwich, but that’s about all.”

  “How come you never married, Miss Jeanne?”

  “I had a beau in law school. Franklin Wolfe, a very lovely, traditional man. He was to join his father’s law firm, and had I agreed to marry him, I would’ve been relegated to the wives’ club. I didn’t go to law school to watch the men work while I served tea and crumpets.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “Most certainly. I’d never waste my time on a man I d
idn’t love.” Miss Jeanne’s bold tone contrasted with her dainty, almost fragile appearance.

  “But not enough to marry him.”

  “Not enough to give up my dream, my education. If he didn’t want me to practice law, why’d he ask me on a date? There were plenty of girls hanging around who didn’t care a whit about the law.”

  “See, Miss Jeanne, that’s what I love about you. Courage. You stuck to your principles instead of letting Franklin Wolfe force you into a mold.”

  “I didn’t see it as courage, Joy. It was a sad day when I walked away from Franklin, but I couldn’t see myself being the woman he needed.” Her voice faded. “He’s gone now. Seems so strange to think the young, handsome man with the stiff white collar and perfectly tied tie no longer walks on God’s green earth.” Miss Jeanne broke off the end of her hotdog and handed it to Ebony.

  “I still can’t believe Daddy is gone some days.” Joy took another hearty bite of her hotdog. Nothing had tasted so good to her in months. She would have to add this place to her personal favorites list.

  “Joy, your problem isn’t lack of courage. Your problem is that you don’t recognize the courage you do possess. A coward wouldn’t take over Dining with Joy like you did. A coward wouldn’t take in her young nieces and raise them as her own.” Miss Jeanne thumped the table. “Courage is running up to Luke’s room to tell him you love him. Just what is it you think you need, missy? You have everything you need right inside.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Jesus. My darling girl, Jesus. He is good, and He is love.”

  “Miss Jeanne, God can have whatever He wants from me, of me, about me. I have nothing. Nada. Zip. I’m almost thirty, with no career, no husband, no children, no passion. If God has need of someone like that to stand with her finger in the hole in the dike, there’s no one more available than me.”

  My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me.

  “Complete surrender is the sweetest place to be. I know you have a few obstacles to face. The fallout from the show must be pertnear overwhelming, but you’ll face it and overcome. The Lord will move you on, dear. Listen to ol’ Miss Jeanne.” Ebony raised his nose and offered a textured bark. “Even Ebony agrees with me.”

  “Really? Ebony understands complex English sentences?”

  “He understands a lot of things.” Miss Jeanne wiggled her eyebrows and began to gather her trash. “And it wouldn’t be the first time he understood the heart of God. Now let’s go. I need an ice-cream cone. Then we can run to Walmart.”

  “Ice cream? Where?” Joy shoved the last of the hotdog into her mouth. Protesting the ice cream and Walmart seemed futile. “A chocolate dip cone would be good.”

  “There’s a place just down the road. Joy, what about law school?”

  “For me? Nooo, three more years of school? My heart can’t take it.”

  “Coaching?” Miss Jeanne slipped in behind the wheel. “Give back to young athletes.”

  “I’d like to write again, but I’m so far removed from written words and stories.” Joy climbed into the passenger seat with a sigh and snapped on her seat belt. “I am a blank slate. Whatever God wants.”

  “Remember the gifts I gave you in the summer?” Miss Jeanne gunned the Plymouth’s gas then turned to Joy, cupping her hands to her chest. “Two gold coins. God is love. God is good.”

  Joy studied her open palms. “I remember.”

  “So what are you going to do with that purchase power?” The tires scored the dirt as Miss Jeanne fired the old girl out of the parking lot into the lane.

  “Believe.” Joy stretched her hand out the window as Miss Jeanne cruised down the highway, cutting through the thick air, collecting the sunbeams. She was rich. Rich.

  God is good. God is love.

  Twenty-nine

  The last place Allison Wild thought she’d be a week after Joy Ballard blew up her career on The Bette Hudson Show was Dan Greene’s office. But he’d called. And here she stood, about to rap on his walnut-stained office door.

  “Allison, good to see you.” Dan stepped back, allowing her to enter. She’d gone shopping for today’s meeting. The new slacks and jacket bolstered her with faux power in place of her frail confidence.

  “Dan, thank you for calling. I’ve been thinking a lot.”

  “Allison, please have a seat.”

  When she turned toward the board table, she stopped short. Wenda Divine. “What’s going on?” Allison took a single step forward, her guard rising. The last person she ever wanted to see again was Joy Ballard. The second to last? Wenda Devine.

  “Now that we’ve all had a few days to calm down and gain some perspective . . . Allison, please have a seat. I assure you, this is going to go well.” Dan patted the suede chair next to his.

  “Wenda? Go well? She ruined my career.”

  “I told you Joy couldn’t cook.”

  “So you outed her, and me, and TruReality on The Bette Hudson Show?” Allison tossed her attaché to the table. “Dan, I can’t believe you’re entertaining any idea with this she-devil.”

  “Dan Greene is a businessman.” Wenda took her seat. “And a brilliant program director.”

  “Listen to her.” Allison snapped her fingers at Dan. “Wake up.

  She’s charming you into her she-devil den.”

  “Sit down, Allison. Listen. You’re going to love this idea.”

  “And if I don’t?” Allison pulled out her chair and sat with her eyes on Wenda.

  Dan smiled. “Trust me. You will.”

  A frosty, blue-gray dawn broke over Portland as Luke unlocked the kitchen door of Roth House. Flipping on the lights, he paused for a moment, still in awe of the kitchen Linus built.

  If he intended to impress Luke with state-of-the-art equipment, mission accomplished. Every appliance and device was pristine, out-of-the-box, right down to the fixtures and floor mats. Linus also hired two excellent sous and line chefs from Manhattan. Longtime friends of Luke’s.

  In his office, Luke tugged the chain dangling from the desk lamp and powered up the computer. He planned to work on the house menu before meeting with Linus to talk about his choice for vendors and accounts.

  Since Portland sat by the sea, Luke’s palate tasted seafood, hearty soups, and thick, warm breads. He had an Irish stew recipe he loved. And an Amsterdam potato soup with bacon and chives recipe.

  Luke launched his document, but then opened up the web and surfed over to Dining with Joy’s website, glad to find it was still up. Her face made him smile, and twitterpation swirled in his belly.

  He missed her.

  But TruReality had moved on. Joy’s brilliant smile no longer splashed on his screen when he navigated to their site. But they had yet to find a face to replace Joy for their Thursday night lineup. Good luck, Dan Greene.

  Luke clicked off the page and went back to his menu. But writing about food, planning menus, his passion, pained him. He felt like he’d left his right arm in Miss Jeanne’s third-floor apartment when he drove away. He missed Joy.

  He missed the creaking eaves of the Ballard home. The crinkle of Rosie’s Cheetos bag and the rhythm of her crunching. The curl of Annie-Rae in the Alabama beanbag chair reading a book and listening to music.

  He missed Joy.

  He missed his warm loft apartment in historic downtown Beaufort. Miss Jeanne’s morning soprano song, “My Redeemer Lives.” His skin tingled for the balmy breeze off the river, his ears strained for the swish of Spanish moss dangling from the trees. He missed the Frogmore Café, big Andy, and crusty Mercy Bea. He missed Heath and Elle.

  He missed Joy. So bad he ached.

  Rocking back, Luke rubbed his fingers over his closed eyes and doubted his decision. He’d popped the question in the shadow of Joy’s tragedy, then hardened over her refusal. Did he give her a moment, a chance? No. He took her at face value, packed up, and drove north. Eighteen mind-numbing hours.

  By the time he’d arrived in Portland, the chill of his
heart matched the temperature. He was tired, grumpy, and once again starting over. Alone. And he hated it.

  God, all I need is You. And Joy. Right? Joy? And, okay, Red. I need Red too.

  For the past three nights Luke had slept about eight hours total. Maybe ten. The oceanfront Braxton Road apartment Linus rented for him would be a waste. Luke’s waking hours would be at the restaurant. The apartment would be for sleeping and showers and storing leftovers from the restaurant to reheat for breakfast.

  “Seafood vendor meeting in an hour.” Linus popped his head into the office. “How’s the menu?”

  Luke glanced toward the door. So far, he’d only managed to type one word: Menu. “A work in progress.” But in the clarity of the moment, Linus’s presence was a hand up out of the swirl. Luke remembered a dessert item. He typed “Charles Ballard’s Banana Bread” on the page.

  Linus angled to see the screen. “Banana bread? That’s dessert?”

  “For starters, yes. We’re going to need a good produce vendor. I’m also going to add sweet tea, with and without flavors, to the drink list.”

  “I like it, Luke. You know you can do what you want with the menu.” Linus fell against the desk, arms folded. “You look like your horse and your dog died. How long are you going to pine for her, Luke? Or is this the final stage?”

  “Pining? I’m exhausted, Linus. Drove eighteen hours from Beaufort, showered, napped, then for the past two days I’ve been in this kitchen.” Who Luke pined for was not Linus’s business.

  “Call her. Tell her to come on up.” Linus had all the answers, didn’t he?

  “I tried.” Luke shoved back from the desk. “She said no.”

  “Did you try hard enough?”

  “I proposed marriage. I’d say that was my best shot.”

  Linus whistled and patted Luke’s shoulder. “Sorry, man.” The slip of his Italian loafers echoed off the kitchen tile.

  Maybe Luke should call it a day at a quarter to six in the morning and go home, crawl in bed, sleep until his head cleared. Kneel and pray. Get his heart in line with God’s, with his new life.