Home at Last Chance

by Hope Ramsay

  “Uh, thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” Sarah said.

  “You do that, because pink—especially in a deep rose color—would be good for you.”

  “Thanks. Now, if you’d like to step over—”

  “Oh no, you can go back to work or whatever you were doing. I’ll just wait right over yonder for Tulane.” She pointed to the tent where the autograph seekers were lined up.

  “Ma’am, your son asked me to—”

  She gave Sarah the Look. Ruby Rhodes had definitely mastered it, because it froze Sarah in midsentence.

  “He sent you here to take care of me, didn’t he?”

  “Well, yes, ma’am,” Sarah said cautiously. “He wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”

  “No, sugar, he wanted to make sure I didn’t go over there and embarrass him. And really, I ought to do that, because he deserves it, but I have more manners than that.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sarah felt light-headed. She needed to get the woman out of the sun and into the store where they could both cool off. She longed to take Ruby by the arm and drag her toward the beckoning doors of the big-box retailer.

  But it was against corporate rules for her to touch or manhandle anyone. Management had insisted that every employee attend a sensitivity training session on how to avoid lawsuits. So she stood there, envying Ruby’s sun visor, cotton shirt, and sandals.

  “He deserves a lecture,” Ruby continued. “Do you know he didn’t call last week on my birthday? And then,” the woman said, putting her hands on her hips, “I read in the Orangeburg Times and Democrat just this morning that he’s going to be up here signing autographs, and he didn’t even bother to tell me. Now, I ask you, if you were his mother, wouldn’t you want to give him a piece of your mind? The boy lives over in Florence and never comes home to visit, even though it’s not a very long drive.”

  “Ma’am, I promise you can give him a piece of your mind. In fact, he probably deserves a piece of your mind. Just wait until he finishes signing autographs. Now, if you would just come with me—”

  Sarah took a step toward the store doors, and the world tipped sideways.

  Ruby reached out a steadying hand, and Sarah latched on to it like it might be a lifeline. “I don’t feel well,” she murmured, right before her brain shut off and she pitched forward, into the arms of the small but capable Ruby Rhodes of Last Chance, South Carolina.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Sarah hardly weighed much, for all her curvy shape. Tulane carried Sarah in his arms. She wasn’t unconscious anymore. She cracked one hazel eye.

  “I fainted, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but don’t worry, as usual Momma’s got everything under control.” Tulane wondered if Sarah heard the sarcasm in his voice.

  He carried Sarah toward Momma’s Ford Econovan, where Ruby stood, shaking her head in disgust. Tulane wasn’t sure whether Momma was annoyed because of Sarah’s stupidity in wearing black on a steamy day, or whether she was on the warpath because he had forgotten all about her birthday. Momma slid the door open on the van. Ruby had already turned on the motor, and the AC was roaring.

  He laid Sarah out on the back bench seat and turned toward his mother. “I’ll drive. You get some Gatorade in her,” he said.

  Ruby stepped up into the back of the van and bent over Sarah. Tulane closed the sliding door and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “Bless your heart,” Ruby said from the back seat in her best motherly voice, “here’s some Gatorade. It’ll fix you up good as new.” Tulane watched in the rearview mirror as Ruby lifted up Sarah’s head and tipped the bottle of sport drink. Sarah drank. Her color began to improve.

  Thank God. Maybe she wouldn’t die of sunstroke. Maybe he wouldn’t have that on his head.

  “Think we need to take her to the emergency room?” he asked.

  “We can take her over to see Doc Cooper if she isn’t feeling better by the time we get to Last Chance,” Momma said.

  He should have known that was coming. But he couldn’t let his National Brands nursemaid ever see Last Chance, South Carolina. He had to extract himself from this situation.

  “Momma, I—”

  “We’re going home, Tulane, where I can keep an eye on her to make sure she’s okay.” Momma said this in her no-nonsense voice. Tulane knew he was done for.

  He had two choices. He could argue with Momma and let Sarah see his temper fully unleashed, or he could shut up and drive. All in all, given that he was in the doghouse with his sponsor and car owner because of his temper, he decided discretion was the better part of valor. But keeping his cool was hard.

  And, boy howdy, once Sarah figured out his secrets, he was going to have to keep her from spilling them to the world. How was he going to do that without also pissing off his sponsor and potentially losing his ride with Ferguson Racing?

  He was caught in a vise manned by two little bitty women and the vastness of corporate America.

  “Momma, I really think—”

  “Son, you are coming home and that’s the end of it. And while you’re there, you can visit your uncle Pete. He’s not doing so well, and you’ve hurt him by staying away.”

  Guilt and sadness constricted his chest. He hadn’t been visiting the folks precisely because he didn’t want to see Pete. It was selfish, but seeing Pete bald and feeble did something unpleasant to Tulane’s insides.

  “Momma, we have luggage in the rental, and—”

  “That’s no problem,” Ruby rejoined. “We’ll just go get it and then head home. I’m thinking Miriam has extra rooms in that house of hers. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind putting Sarah up for the night. I’ll just give her a buzz on the cell phone, and we’ll have it all arranged. Don’t you worry. Sarah’s going to be fine, and no one will blame you for anything.”

  “Blame me? But—”

  “Hush up.” Momma pulled out her phone and started dialing. The arrangements were made inside of three minutes.

  By the time they had picked up the luggage from the rental car and were headed south on Route 321, Sarah had recovered and was sitting up.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Rhodes,” Sarah said. “I’m so sorry that I—”

  “Now, that’s all right. It happens. And you being from up north and wearing black didn’t help. I’m going to take you home and feed you supper. We can get to know each other, and then Tulane’s daddy will drive you back up here tomorrow morning, early enough for you to get the rental car and make your appointments in Florence and Palmetto.”

  Momma turned and glared at Tulane’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “Because we all know how important it is to meet one’s obligations. Don’t we?”

  “Yes, Momma.” It was over. Tulane had lost. He always lost when he went toe to toe with Momma.

  “Really, Mrs. Rhodes, I’m feeling much—” Sarah started to say before Momma cut her off.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing. You know, I would be so happy to give you some advice on color choices. You are definitely an autumn. Now drink your Gatorade.”

  Sarah drank.

  “So you’re from Boston?” Momma asked Sarah a moment later. Tulane stifled a groan.

  “Yes.”

  “With that hair and your name, you must be a nice Irish Catholic girl?”

  “Momma! Stop! You can’t go around—”

  “Hush, Tulane. Just drive. We’re getting to know each other.”

  “No, ma’am, I’m a Presbyterian,” Sarah said.

  “Oh, well, isn’t that nice? A Protestant girl. We’re Episcopalians. I’m afraid we don’t have a Presbyterian church in Last Chance. But we do have a Baptist and a Methodist and an AME, of course. That would be the largest congregation, the AME.”

  “I guess it would,” Sarah replied, as if this conversation weren’t utterly bizarre. No doubt there were people in Boston who had similar conversations with strangers, and Sarah came from those people. That or she was just stringing Momma along so she could get the
full picture on just how strange his kin were.

  Tulane glanced at her in the rearview mirror. The garish red color was fading from her face, and her freckles were popping out. Boy, she was cute.

  “So, did your family come over on the Mayflower?” Momma asked.

  Tulane gripped the wheel and gritted his teeth.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sarah said, and Momma straightened right up in her seat like she’d been hit with a cattle prod.

  Oh brother! It was a lead-pipe cinch that the Last Chance church ladies would all know about Sarah’s background before suppertime. Every single one of those old biddies would want to meet the little Presbyterian from Boston whose forebears came over on the Mayflower. And then, after that, they would start introducing her to the eligible men in Allenberg County, which, unfortunately, included himself.

  “Her daddy’s a bull rider from Wyoming,” Tulane said out loud. That ought to cool Momma’s ardor. A bull rider wasn’t nearly as high-toned as forebears who came over on the Mayflower.

  “A bull rider, really?” Momma said, turning in her seat to give Sarah another measuring glance.

  “Dad was born in Wyoming and grew up on a horse farm,” Sarah said. “It was natural that he would ride rodeo.”

  “Well, I’ll be. We have a nice young man named Dash who grew up on a horse farm in Texas before he came to live in Last Chance. We’ll have to introduce you.”

  Tulane glanced in the rearview again. “Honey,” he said to Sarah, “don’t you let the Christ Church Ladies Auxiliary try to match you up with Dash Randall. That boy is the baddest boy in Allenberg County.”

  “Really? And what does that make you?” Sarah shot back with a little gleam in her eye.

  “The second baddest,” he said, forcing a grin to his face.

  Their eyes met in the mirror, and his heart rate spiked.

  Uncle Pete looked feeble. He’d always been bald on top, but now his head was a big pink dome covered by skin so pale and translucent that Tulane could see the veins.

  Tulane hated seeing Pete like this, reclining in his living room when he ought to be down at the hardware store. Tulane hated the lineup of medicine in white bottles that stood on the buffet in the dining room. He hated sitting here in the matching recliner, trying to find some positive sign in his uncle’s pale and sunken face.

  He needed something to hold on to. Pete had always been his anchor. Back when he’d been thirteen and in deep, deep trouble, Pete had pulled him from the brink.

  “So,” Pete said in a whispery voice. “Your momma dragged you home, huh?”

  Tulane squirmed in his chair. How was he supposed to answer that question? It felt like someone was pulling a string attached to his belly button. He was scared that if he said anything his voice might waver.

  “Well, I’m glad you came, anyway. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  Tulane turned and really inspected Pete for the first time since entering the room. He had to grit his teeth. His uncle was at death’s door. “If you’re going to start talking about the pink car, Pete, I’d just as soon not.”

  “Son, I don’t know why you’re letting the color of your car get to you. Last weekend, you didn’t drive smart. I could see that on the TV.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not as easy as it was when it was just you and me and Bubba working on a car. I’ve got a team manager, a crew chief, and an engineer who looks down his narrow little nose at me on account of I only have a high school education and he’s a college boy.”

  “And you’re letting that get to you?”

  Tulane shrugged.

  “Son, you are the driver of a Cup car. You have reached the highest place you can in your profession. You need to grow up.”

  Tulane closed his eyes. This was not a new refrain. Everyone said he needed to grow up. He wasn’t entirely sure what folks meant by that.

  “If you mean I have to sit back and let my jerk of an engineer do stupid things and hold my tongue about it, well then, I’ve learned how to be really mature.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Then what?”

  “You man up, and you tell your engineer that you have a different opinion.”

  “Ha! They don’t listen to me, Pete. They are like bullies on a playground—my engineer, my sponsor, all of them. I’m just the driver, and a rookie at that. I’m supposed to do what they say and keep my mouth shut. That’s what they think being grown-up means. I hate to complain, but you know that old story about being careful what you wish for?”

  “Jeez, Tulane. What? Are you afraid to succeed?”

  Tulane stared at his uncle. “What the hell does that mean, anyway? People throw that around like it means something. I’m afraid to fail. Okay, I said it. Happy?”

  “No, I’m not happy. And I do believe that a man can be afraid to succeed. You have a chance of a lifetime; don’t screw it up.”

  “Look,” Tulane said. “I can’t stay too long. Momma’s entertaining my advance person, so—”

  “Advance person?”

  “Yeah, well, she’s more like a nursemaid. Although quite frankly, she’s not terribly competent.”

  Pete cracked an eye. “Nursemaid?”

  “Yeah, a cute one, too, with freckles and a Boston accent. Her family came over on the Mayflower.”

  Pete snorted. “Boy, you are in some serious trouble.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Well, it serves you right.” Pete sat up in his chair, and the recliner moved with him. “You listen to me, Tulane. You have talent. And you will be a huge success if you would just get out of your own way. Pride is one of those things that can ruin a man. You just remember that, you hear?”

  “You’re not the one who has to wear pink.”

  “You win races, and nobody’s going to think twice what you’re wearing. You quit messing around and show those people what you know and what you can do on the track. I’m getting tired of watching you lose. And even more tired of watching you behave like a jerk. I taught you better.”

  Pete’s body might be wasting away, but the spark was still in his eyes. Pete loved to win. To Pete, winning was everything.

  Pete continued in his hoarse voice, “You want to stop folks from laughing at you? Then you buckle down and behave like a serious driver.”

  Tulane nodded. Pete was right, of course.

  “Okay.” Pete leaned back in his chair. “Now you go on home, and you treat your sponsor’s people with respect, you hear me? And you work on winning races.” Pete turned and stared hard at him. “You do that for me.” He nodded once and then brought his head back to rest on the chair’s high back.

  Pete closed his eyes. His lecture had clearly taken every ounce of strength he possessed. Tulane sat there for several minutes, feeling emotions he didn’t want to explore or even name, until his uncle fell asleep.

  Ruby and Elbert Rhodes lived in a single-story white clapboard house with a wraparound porch. A flower border of early-blooming lilies ringed the foundation, while an old wisteria twisted up the porch trellis and gave the house the air of a Tuscan retreat. A row of rocking chairs with chintz cushions made Ruby’s house the model for a sappy Hallmark greeting card.

  Sarah took off her suit jacket and rocked in one of those rockers, while an old-fashioned porch fan whispered from above. Ruby headed for her kitchen to work on supper, and Tulane took off in his brother’s pickup to run errands, which included visiting his sick uncle and hauling her luggage over to the neighbor’s house.

  Being left alone allowed Sarah to think about the mess she’d made of her career. She might have gotten Tulane to his personal appearance on time, but fainting had to be pretty high up on the unprofessional scale.

  No doubt Steve Phelps would hear about it, and it would make his day. It wasn’t a crime to faint, but Steve would find a way to make it seem like a crime, because Steve wanted her gone.

  He had good reason to want her gone, too. The downward spiral in Sarah’
s brief career had started when she had foolishly believed that Steve would give her credit for writing the Cuppa Java marketing plan. But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d pretended that his meteoric rise within the marketing department had been earned on his own merits.

  That had hacked Sarah off. Her brilliant plan for getting even was to write a supremely stupid marketing memo about a pink car and baby-changing races and put Steve’s name on it. Deidre was supposed to take one look at that memo and realize what a poseur Steve really was.

  But instead, Deidre had taken the memo seriously.

  Now Steve was in charge of the pink car program and Sarah had been sent here to do an impossible job, and to come face-to-face with the implications of the memo she had written.

  This proved one thing for certain: Sarah sucked at revenge, just like she sucked at everything else a modern businesswoman needed to excel at.

  Steve was going to find a way to get her fired. It was only a matter of time.

  Her dark thoughts were interrupted some time later by a little voice that asked, “Are you really a Pilgrim?”

  Sarah opened her eyes and found herself staring at a little girl in a pink sundress with something that might be ketchup smeared on its yoke. She wore a pair of Little Mermaid sandals that exposed grubby toes. Most of her honey-colored hair had escaped her pink ponytail elastic so that it framed her face in a slightly sweaty tangle. She gave Sarah a sly smile. Her top front teeth were missing and the new ones—too big for her face—were just making their first appearance.

  “Hello,” Sarah said.

  “Are you? ’Cause Granny says you came on the Mayflower. Didn’t the Pilgrims come on the Mayflower?”

  Sarah blinked a few times. She must have dozed off. She felt groggy. “Uh, yes, the Pilgrims came on the Mayflower. But that was a long, long time ago. I didn’t personally come to America that way. I was born here.”

  The little girl cocked her head, studying Sarah closely. “My name’s Haley, what’s yours?”

  “Sarah.”

  The girl swayed there for a moment, screwing the toe of her sandal into the floorboards, as if weighing whether to continue. “Are you Uncle Tulane’s girlfriend?”