The Happy Hour Choir
Page 30
Ginger had met her God, and the two of them were already conspiring against me.
“Fine, I give up!” I yelled into the rain.
“Beulah?” Luke’s voice came down from the open window above. I squinted into the rain to see wide eyes, suggesting he thought I might be having that nervous breakdown we had all feared.
“Luke Daniels, I don’t know why you love me, but I’m glad you do because I can’t seem to stop loving you no matter how hard I try.”
He smiled down at me. “Stop trying.”
I licked my lips. “I will.”
“And get out of the rain.”
I didn’t have to be told twice. I jumped on the porch and ran through the door and up the stairs. I paused for a minute at the door to the nursery, but Luke stood in the middle of the room, tense but not moving toward me. He knew, maybe Ginger had even told him, that I needed to be able to walk into the nursery before he and I could have a chance.
I took a deep breath and ran into his arms. He kissed me hard, a longing kiss, a kiss that said he was afraid I would change my mind and run back out the door. Finally, I pulled away. “It’s okay, Luke. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t like it, hardly any of it, but I think maybe I can live with it.”
“I don’t have all the answers,” he said, his eyes earnest. “I’m just a man.”
Cupping his face with my hands, I said, “No, you’re the best man I know. I don’t need you to tell me the answers. I only need the space and time to find them for myself.”
I pulled his face toward mine, but he drew away again. “I won’t quit my job.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
We leaned until our foreheads touched and our lips grazed. “I can’t promise I’m going back to playing piano at the church,” I murmured.
“I won’t make you.” He drew me closer until our bodies touched. His ragged sigh told me everything I needed to know about his feelings for me. “This won’t be easy.”
“Nothing worth having ever is,” I said as I nuzzled into his chest. “As long as I’m with you, it doesn’t have to be.”
“No more running off?”
“No more running off as long as you promise not to pontificate.”
He chuckled, his chin resting on my head. “But I like to pontificate, and I’m very good at it.”
I took a step back. “I’m serious. I’ve got to find my own way.”
“No more pontificating.” He smiled as his hands found my shoulders.
“Good. Glad that’s settled. Now, kiss me, Preacher Man. A lady I once knew told me to make a sinner out of a saint, and I’m pretty sure she was talking about you.”
A READING GROUP GUIDE
THE
HAPPY HOUR
CHOIR
Sally Kilpatrick
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The following discussion questions are
included to enhance your group’s reading of
The Happy Hour Choir.
Discussion Questions
1. How would The Happy Hour Choir change if it were written from Luke’s point of view? Ginger’s? Or if it included multiple points of view?
2. One of the themes of The Happy Hour Choir is family. At one point Beulah says, “Sometimes organizations underestimated the family we had created, somehow thinking it inferior to those defined by shared blood. In my experience, many of the strongest bonds came from those who chose to be together.” Do you think Beulah, Tiffany, and Ginger make a “real” family? Why or why not?
3. Discuss the relationship between Ginger and Beulah. How does Beulah’s relationship with Tiffany differ, and what are the parallels?
4. Is there a scene that made you laugh? Cry? Shake your fist?
5. Do you think Tiffany did the right thing by having the baby? Would you feel the same if Carl had been her actual father instead of her stepfather?
6. Why do you think Luke is attracted to Beulah and vice versa? Do you think their differing beliefs on faith will be a problem for them?
7. In The Happy Hour Choir we learn about abuse against female characters. Carl abuses both Tiffany and Beulah. Beulah was raped by Mr. Vandiver. How does that abuse color the story? How did it affect their characters?
8. An actual vow of ordained Methodist ministers is that they are to be faithful in marriage and celibate while single. Do you believe this should be a vow? Why or why not? Do you think Luke will abide by it?
9. What kind of parents do you think the Lands were? Do you think Beulah would’ve made the same choices if they had been different? Do you feel like Beulah should forgive her mother or try to mend their relationship?
10. Another theme of The Happy Hour Choir is to explore why bad things happen to good people. At the end, Beulah sees a series of connections between the good and the bad events in her life. Do you think that God had a hand in all of those events? Did free will play a part? Is life simply a series of events, some good and some bad?
11. Do you think The Happy Hour Choir will continue to sing together and finally go on to record their own music with the help of John the Baptist? Would you buy a CD of their work if they did?
12. What parts of The Happy Hour Choir are distinctly Southern? Do you think that some of the events could take place in any small town? In a city?
Dressing
(as dictated to my mother by her mother, Lucille Patterson)
Cornbread
Light bread or biscuits
Chicken and broth
Onion
Sage
Eggs
Salt
Celery
Make dressing thin.
Now, let me interpret that for you:
Cornbread (see page 310 for that recipe)
Light bread (about two slices of sandwich bread) and/or biscuits (about four from your own recipe made the night before or from the freezer where you’ve been collecting extras over the past few months. Thaw those first.)
Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix (about a third of a bag)
Chicken (traditionally a whole one, but we’ve used anything from chicken picked from the breast to boneless, skinless chicken. It depends on your preference. Mom prefers her dressing sans chicken. Oh, and cook the chicken first.)
Broth (At least two cans, plus a nice cream of chicken OR you can warm the broth with a stick of butter because . . . yes—but not too hot or else it scrambles the eggs.)
Onion (I skip this.)
Sage (I skip this, too, because there’s more than enough sage in the Pepperidge Farm Mix.)
Eggs (anywhere from two to four)
Salt (and black pepper)
Celery (No. Just say no. Not in my dressing.)
Mix everything together in a bowl. Make dressing thin; the extra liquid will be absorbed. (Depends on how fast you want it to cook. The more liquid you add, the longer it’s going to take. I prefer mine fluffier and thus don’t make it as thin. Mom prefers hers sloppy and adds onions. These are the little things we squabble about on Thanksgiving Day.)
Other things you need to know that my Granny Patterson left out:
1. Crumble all the bread and stir in the stuffing mix before you start adding liquids. Apparently this was common sense to Granny.
2. Cook at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, covered. Or longer. Often longer if it’s especially sloppy.
3. Dressing cooks best in a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet of the Dutch oven variety. One of those disposable pans from the grocery store will do in a pinch.
4. This recipe is all about adding a little bit of each ingredient at a time and stirring until it “looks” or “feels” right so, um, good luck!
Cornbread, Rowlett Style
(aka the first recipe I learned)
Vegetable oil (a TBSPish)
½ cup corn meal
¼ cup self-rising flour
½ cup buttermilk
1 egg
Put oil in a small cast-iron skillet and put the skillet in the oven while it preheats to 450
degrees. Mix all of the remaining ingredients and then pour into skillet once oil is hot. If the batter starts cooking as you pour it in, then you know you did it right. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until brown—it will get brown on the bottom before it gets brown on the top. Dump bread on plate and serve. Smack the hands of those who pinch off the delectably crunchy crust around the circumference—unless, of course, it’s your Daddy.
(When making cornbread for dressing, make it the night before.)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by Sally Kilpatrick
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
eISBN-13: 978-1-61773-569-1
eISBN-10: 1-61773-569-8
First Kensington Electronic Edition: May 2015
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3568-4
ISBN-10: 1-61773-568-X