by Lori Wilde
She took another swallow of wine and almost choked on it when Roy Firestone’s guest sauntered on stage. Lance Dugan, former Dallas Cowboys running back, was still drop-dead handsome at sixty-something with his salt and pepper hair and lean, muscular body. Once upon a time, he’d stolen her breath. Now, looking at her ex-husband stole her mellow mood.
Because Raylene had a secret so big that in thirty-six years she’d never told another living soul. It ate at her sometimes, in spite of the carefree attitude she projected. The things she’d done. The lies she’d told to the dear, sweet man sleeping on the sofa. The man she’d loved since she was six years old.
Feeling suddenly blue to the bone, she poured herself another half glass of Merlot and walked to the sliding glass door that led out onto the back patio. She plucked her cell phone off the kitchen table where she’d dropped it when she came in and took it outside with her, along with the glass of wine.
The night air had a slight nip to it, but it wasn’t bad since she was wearing a thick Aran sweater she’d knitted for herself when she was pregnant with Earl Junior. She plunked down in the chaise longue and dialed the number of the only friend she was certain would be up at this hour. Patsy had insomnia as bad as Raylene. Damn menopause. They were both fifty-nine. You’d think that crap would be over with by now.
She hit the fifth number on her speed dial, took a swallow of wine along with a big sigh, and looked up at stars sprinkled across the night sky. “Hello, Patsy.”
“Um … is that you, Raylene?”
“Don’t pretend that I woke you. I saw your lights on when we drove past your house.”
“No, I wasn’t asleep,” Patsy said, but she sounded weird.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. Why?”
“I was just wondering how you were holding up since Jimmy died,” she said, referring to Patsy’s husband who had recently passed away after a long bout with Alzheimer’s.
“It’s been almost a year. Why did you really call?”
Why indeed? Mainly because she just wanted to talk but she wasn’t about to admit her loneliness to Patsy. “What do you think about Mia’s granddaughter?”
“Sarah turned out very pretty.”
“I’m not talking about her looks.”
“She was always a serious girl.”
“Pretty standoffish if you ask me.”
“We can’t all be as gregarious as you, Ray.”
“Is that a jab?”
“Only if you take it as one.”
“Why don’t you like me?”
“I like you fine.”
“No you don’t.”
Patsy paused.
“You still there?” Raylene took another slug of the wine.
“I’m here. I might not always like you, Raylene, but I always love you. You know more about me than anyone walking the face of the earth today.”
“Except for Hondo.”
Patsy said nothing.
“Do you think we made a mistake bringing her back to Twilight?”
“You’re talking about Sarah?”
“Who else?”
“No, I don’t think we made a mistake. Did you see how happy Jazzy was at the parade last night? “
“I saw how Travis kissed her at the party. He’s moving way too fast. I never expected him to move this fast.”
“Raylene?”
“Yes?”
“Finish your wine and go to bed.”
“How did you know—” In the background, Raylene heard a masculine voice murmur something low. “Omigod, you’ve got a man over.”
“I don’t,” Patsy denied.
“You’re lying through your teeth.” Raylene sat straight up in the chaise.
“It’s the television.”
“Oh, don’t even try pulling that bullshit on me. Is it Hondo Crouch? Patsy Calloway Cross, do you have the sheriff in your bedroom?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Yes, you hang up and go make love to Hondo. This reunion has been forty years in the making.”
“It’s not a reunion it’s just—“
“So it is Hondo,” Raylene crowed. “I knew it. Oh Patsy, I’m so happy for you.”
“Put the wine down, Ray, and go to bed.”
“Patsy’s got a boyfriend.”
“This is it, I really am hanging up now. Good night.”
Raylene sat there, shivering in the darkness anddrinking her wine. A part of her wanted to go inside, shake her husband’s shoulder, wake him up, and tell him what she should have told him thirty-six years ago. But when you’d hidden a secret this long from the one person you loved most in the world, how did you go about revealing it? And if you brought it out into the light, that meant you had to do something about it. She wasn’t prepared for that step. Not by a long shot.
Still, she couldn’t shake the guilt. Talking with Patsy—who served as Raylene’s conscience— hadn’t helped. In fact, she felt worse. Her heart ached for the mistake she’d made, for her wrong choices.
She picked up her phone again and punched into the keypad a number she hadn’t called in a very long time. A sleepy male voice answered on the fifth ring.
“Hello,” she said, “it’s me. I hate to call so late, but I’ve been thinking about the past. It was thirty-six years ago today.”
“I know,” the man said.
“So tell me, Lance, how is she?”
Sarah’s mind churned with a story idea about a little girl with a terminal illness who was given a magical toy soldier just before Christmas by a mystery stranger—an angel actually—who told her that if she just believed strongly enough, then the toy would grant her most heartfelt wish on Christmas Eve.
After Dotty Mae and Raylene dropped her off at the Merry Cherub, she hurried up to her room with a bag of assorted cookies tucked under herarm and went straight to her laptop. The need to write was an urgent, driving force as primal and basic to her as the need for food or sex. She felt that if she didn’t write soon, there was a very real possibility she might die. Desperately, hungrily, she kicked off her shoes, curled up in the middle of the bed, and began to work.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard. She could barely keep up with the thoughts, phrases, and images pouring from her head. Jazzy and Travis and the women from the cookie club and the town of Twilight had kicked her muse into high gear.
On and on she wrote, working far into the night, eating cookies and getting swept up into the story playing out like a movie in her mind. Inside her head, Sarah became the little girl she’d named Lillian and called Lily for short. All Lily’s emotions welled up in her own heart. Seized by the power of the narrative surging through her like blood through her veins, Sarah tasted heaven far beyond the goodness of the cookies. When she wrote like this she felt completely free. No restraints, no restrictions, just a wild happiness like catching lightning in a jar and illuminating the whole world for one vivid flash of inspiration.
Dawn was peeping through her window when she finished two-thirds of the first draft. She needed more noodling time before she could write the ending. Her process had been like this with The Magic Christmas Cookie as well. She hit a wall just before the ending and that’s when uncertainty set in.
Time to put it aside and get some rest.
When she woke up, she’d call Benny and tell himto relax, that this time she would be making her deadline.
Smiling, Sarah turned off her laptop, slipped underneath the covers, and then realized she hadn’t checked her itinerary for tomorrow. She got out of bed and crossed the room to retrieve the schedule from her purse. Reading it, she groaned. In three short hours, she was expected to be master of ceremonies for the children’s activities including pony rides, jugglers, magic acts, mural painting, and a Scrooge scavenger hunt.
Clearly, the citizens of Twilight expected her to earn that four-figure honorarium.
At five minutes to nine on Saturday morning, Travis waited in line with the rest of the parents at
the Piccadilly Circus façade set up in Sweetheart Park. Jazzy was holding on to his hand, wriggling with excitement.
“Settle down, jumping bean,” he said tenderly. “You don’t want to get the asthma acting up.”
“But Daddy,” she protested. “I feel grrreat.”
“So now you’re Tony the Tiger?”
“Yep.” She bobbed her head. “I can’t wait for the scavenger hunt.”
“Maybe you should try something a little less strenuous than running around hunting for treasure. How about mural painting?”
“Treasure hunt, please Daddy. I promise I’ll stop if I start getting wheezy.”
“But by the time you start getting wheezy it’ll be too late.”
“I’ve got my inhaler.” She held it up for him to see. Although she hadn’t needed it since she’d started on the new drug.
He wanted to tell her no, but how could he refuse a face like that?
Especially when she’d been missing out on the fun for so many years. Who knew how long their luck would hold? He might as well let her have a good time while she could.
“Okay,” he conceded, “but the second you feel winded you come and tell me.”
“Deal,” she said in that jaunty Jazzy way of hers, and held out her hand to shake on it.
Ahead of them in line waited a family of four including a teenage girl who giggled for no discernable reason, while behind them, two college-age guys reeking of beer roughhoused. They were punching each other repeatedly on the upper arms. Once upon a time, he’d been that stupid, but Travis had to wonder why the young men—who were clearly still drunk from a wild Friday night— were hanging out in Sweetheart Park where all the children’s activities were being held. Then he saw one of them wink at the teenage girl, who giggled anew, and it all started to make sense.
“Hey,” he said sharply to them. “This activity is for kids, beat it.”
“Oh yeah?” slurred one of the young Turks. “Says who?”
Travis opened up his jacket and quickly flashed his badge. They didn’t have to know it was a game warden badge. “Says me. You’re prime for a public intox charge.”
The young man held up his palms. “Dude, no offense, we were just hanging out.”
“Well, hang out somewhere away from the children. Don’t spoil their fun.”
The guy shot a lingering look at the teenage girl. The age difference between them and the girl was about equal to the age difference between Travis and Sarah. What was a huge gap between fifteen and twenty shrank from twenty-four to twenty-nine. What a difference a decade made.
“You’re too old for that,” Travis chided.
Just then a woman came hurrying up to the makeshift gate set up to cordon off the park for the events. Immediately he recognized that long blond braid and those black stiletto boots.
Sarah.
“Dude.” One of the teens nudged his buddy in the ribs with his elbow and eyed Sarah with interest. “Check out the hottie. I call dibs.”
“Now you boys are too young for a woman like that,” Travis drawled. “I think it’s time you went on down the street.”
The taller one looked like he was going to challenge Travis, but something in his eyes must have warned the kid off, because he shrugged and said, “Who cares. This is lame anyway.”
“Hi Sadie!” Jazzy waved at Sarah.
Sarah, who looked rushed, stopped to smile at his daughter. “Hi, Jazzy, are you here for the Scrooge scavenger hunt?”
“Uh-huh.” His daughter bobbed her head. “I wanna win the grand prize.”
“What’s the grand prize?”
“Four tickets to Six Flags Holiday in the Park.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you,” Sarah said, and crossed all her fingers.
“Morning,” Travis greeted her.
“I’ve got to go.” She gestured toward the platform in the center of Piccadilly Circus. “I’m the master of ceremonies.”
He raised a hand, but she’d already turned to trot off. Hmm, had she just given him the bum’s rush? She could have at least said hello.
Sarah took her place at the microphone. It was clear she wasn’t a natural at public speaking. She read from a script welcoming visitors to the Dickens event and explaining the rules for the scavenger hunt. The participants had their choice of three lists to complete. They could do a nature hunt in the park, a store hunt at the shops on the square, or a photo hunt where they were to have their pictures taken with various people and landmarks around town. They had until three P.M. to return with the items on their lists.
“Which one do you want to do?” he asked Jazzy, hoping she’d go for the nature hunt.
But his daughter knew how to really make memories. “Photo hunt, Daddy, so I can get my picture taken with people.”
“Okay,” he said. “Go grab us a purple list.”
Jazzy went up to the attendant passing out the different colored lists that corresponded with the various hunts and she came back with the items for the photo hunt. The first item on the list read: Have your photo taken with a local Twilight celebrity. The participants could choose from Emma Parks, the actress who’d recently married local veterinarian Sam Cheek; Mayor Moe Schebly; Sheriff Hondo Crouch, Vietnam War hero; or author Sadie Cool.
“Sadie’s the one we want. C’mon, Daddy.” She took his hand and started dragging him toward the stage.
“We have to wait until the hunt officially starts,” he said.
Patsy Cross, one of the event organizers, took the microphone from Sarah. “We don’t want to make things too easy for you,” she said, “so since Miss Cool is one of the items on the photo hunt list, we’re going to give her a head start to hide or disguise herself. Don’t worry, she can’t get too far away. She’s restricted to the park and town square area, as are all the people on the photo list. But they can put on costumes, so take a second look at everyone you pass on the streets.”
Sarah slipped down off the stage and Travis watched her cross the street and go in through the back door of the Buffalo Nickel, a quaint little curio shop filled with antiques and Texas-themed souvenirs.
“Okay, participants, are you ready?” Patsy asked the crowd.
“Yea!” Jazzy hollered.
“On your mark, get set. … go!”
Everyone moved at once, racing off in different directions. Travis grabbed hold of Jazzy’s hand so she wouldn’t get lost in the stampede.
“Where’d she go, Daddy?”
“She went into the back door of the Buffalo Nickel, but I think I know where we can find her.”
“How do you know?”
“Sadie … Sarah … and I used to be friends when she was just about your age.”
Jazzy’s eyes widened. “Really? How come you’re not friends now?”
“Well …” He stalled, trying to think of a way to explain the complicated situation between him and Sarah. He put his hand to his daughter’s shoulder, guiding her down the sidewalk. “It’s not that we’renot friends, it’s just, well … I’m a bit older than she is, and when you’re young it’s hard to be friends with someone who’s not the same age as you.”
“Like me and Mitchell Addison.”
Travis peered down at his daughter. “What about you and Mitchell Addison?”
“Well …,” she said, mimicking his stalling tactic. “Mitchell has a crush on me, but he’s only six and I mean I know I look six, but I’m not and I read on an eighth-grade level and he likes comic books and …”
“You like Mitchell too.”
“Yeah, but he’s just a kid.”
Travis smiled.
“He bought me a ring,” Jazzy said.
“What?” He was surprised at the protective alarm that went off inside him. She was only eight. No reason to get worried about a kid with a crush on his daughter, but he had a sudden flash forward to the future. Jazzy was blond-haired and blue-eyed and cute as a bug, and friendly, friendly, friendly. Honestly, he’d never thought about
what it would be like once she hit puberty. He’d been so focused on just getting through each day. One downside to living in the moment, the future was just around the corner waiting to blindside you.
“Okay, I don’t think he really bought it. I think he got it out of one of those claw machines. He loves to play the claw machines at the bowling alley but he tried to give it to me in front of my friends so I had to tell him I didn’t like him and didn’t want his ring.”
“Jasmine Dawn Walker, were you mean to that little boy?”
Jazzy hung her head, toed the dirt. “I tried to tell him gently.”
“You hurt his feelings.”
“Daddy,” Jazzy said miserably, “his bottom lip started trembling. I was scared he was gonna start crying. I didn’t know how to handle it.”
Travis felt sorry for both his daughter and poor little Mitchell Addison.
“It hurt me too,” Jazzy whispered. “ ‘Cause I really do like him, but I can’t be friends with him. Is that how you feel about Sarah?”
“Sort of.”
Jazzy cocked her head and looked up at him. “Do you like her?”
“I do.”
“But you didn’t like her when you were a kid?”
“I did, but it was like you and Mitchell. She was too young for me.”
“But she’s all grown up now.”
Travis nodded. “That she is.”
“Well,” Jazzy proclaimed, “I like her and I like her book. Now let’s go find her and get my picture taken so we can win this scavenger hunt. I’ve always wanted to go to Holiday in the Park.”
Something told Travis that Sarah had slipped from the Buffalo Nickel into Ye Olde Book Nook. His strongest childhood memory of Sarah was that she always had her nose stuck in a book, just like Jazzy. Although he had a feeling that if Jazzy hadn’t been sickly, she would have been a lot less bookish. His daughter was a natural extrovert, whereas Sarah was introverted.
“Let’s go in here,” he said, pushing open the door to the bookstore.
Sarah’s book was on display in the center of the store, surrounded by the best-loved books by Charles Dickens set out to take advantage of the festival crowd—A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, The Adventures of Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities. He’d read them all to Jazzy. A Tale of Two Cities was his favorite. He loved the opening line. That pretty well summed up the paradox of his life with a sick daughter. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
