by Lisa Wingate
Amber’s giggle jingled through the studio. “Three boys can get in a lot of mischief if they’re bored. Our house doesn’t have ninetyseven TV channels to watch. Just four—five if the wind’s from the east and you hold your tongue just right.” She giggled again, and the camera operator glanced sideways covertly, as in, Is this girl for real? Amber didn’t seem to notice. Most of the time, Amber didn’t get the drift of what was going on around her. She didn’t see the hidden eye rolls of the other contestants when she said hi to the folks back home in Daily every week or blew kisses to her younger brothers. She remained blissfully unaware, as far as I could tell, of the ongoing Amber pool, predicting her downfall.
The camera operator to whom she was pouring out her heart in The Box had the official Amber pool spreadsheet on his BlackBerry. He looked as if he felt mildly guilty about it as Amber waxed nostalgic about life back home.
“I miss home sometimes at night—I don’t want to go off the show or anything, because I want to go all the way—but it’s really bright here at night. Back home, sometimes we’d sit out in the yard and it’d be so dark you could see a million and one stars. On Wednesdays and Sundays we could hear the singin’ from the little country church just down from my house—we weren’t members there or anything, because it’s a black church and all—but sometimes I’d sit in when they had choir practice. Goodness, their choir can sing. They got a gospel band and everything. Sometimes during Sunday night service, I’d lay on the grass at home and look up at that big old blanket of stars and listen to the music, and it was like my heavenly Father was rockin’ me off to sleep.”
At that point, one of the grips handling a boom buried his face in his shoulder to stifle a guffaw. He turned away, his eyes bulging and his cheeks growing red. Amber was completely oblivious. She took a deep breath, smiling as if she were listening to the music and drinking in the scent of honeysuckle.
When Ursula saw the tape, she growled under her breath, then slammed a freshly manicured hand against her desktop, crimson fingernails extended, slowly scratching backward across the wood in a way that made my spine crawl. “We must eliminate this hayseedt. She izz makingk a mockery of my show. This izz American Megastar, not the Hee-Haw Hillbilly Hour. She izz gone this week, either way….” The frustration-induced accent was so thick, I missed a few closing words, but the gist was unmistakable.
At the time, I’d sat there with my clipboard, vaguely wondering what gone this week, either way meant. I knew better than to ask. Much of my job performance depended on my ability to quietly wait for Ursula’s moods to pass. The elimination of contestants from the show was determined by an equal combination of the judge’s scores and votes from the viewing public, which meant there was no way Ursula could ensure that Amber would be leaving next week, or any particular week, for that matter.
Fortunately for Amber, her viewer votes soared the week after her interview stint in The Box. Even the judges couldn’t deny the quality of her rendition of “A Letter From Heaven,” a song she dedicated to her parents, who’d died in a car accident when Amber was just eleven. Numbers for the show that week were up a whopping thirty percent, and two focus groups logged Amber’s performance as a significant reason for continuing viewership of American Megastar.
Ursula was suddenly in love. If Hee-Haw Hillbilly worked for the viewers, it worked for her. “At least this izz good for now,” she said. The last part, for now, stuck in my head.
It came back to me again as I looked at Amber’s house. The place smelled like anything but honeysuckle, and there was no way Amber or anyone else could have lain in the grass and looked at the stars. There wasn’t any grass. With so many animals running loose, anyone lying in the yard would have been reclining in a variety of poop.
Ursula would not like this. Assuming I was in the right place, this didn’t fit cleanly into the Amber story we’d sold to the public. The sparkling creek she’d talked about was little more than a muddy ditch. No chance of filming there. Ursula wouldn’t like the rotting trailer home, either. Amber had described her home as tiny, but kept up real nice, and it was anything but. When Ursula had said she wanted to show Amber’s humble beginnings, I doubt a junkyard filled with old boxes, farm animals, used tires, and a decaying pink porcelain toilet on the porch were what she had in mind. The place belonged in some third-world country. Ursula would never want to air this in conjunction with an American Megastar Final Five show. We’d be laughed out of LA.
We’d have to make the most of filming Amber in town and at the fairgrounds … and maybe at the little church across the creek. From my vantage point, I could barely see it through a border of overgrown cedars I assumed marked the Andersons’ property line, but the church looked picturesque enough—a sturdy antique white wooden building with a simple four-sided steeple rising upward into the overhanging branches of enormous trees. A lovely place, actually. As I let the car roll forward to get a better view of the church, it occurred to me that the church would make a nice postcard, with its expansive lawn and heavy, ancient pecans and live oaks. A foundation for some new construction had been plowed out back, but we could film at an angle so as to avoid that. In the front flower beds, a bright array of spring irises flew multicolored flags, and tulips were blooming around a wooden sign by the road. HARVES CHAPEL, the crudely cut metal letters read. Sort of an unglamorous name for a church, but other than that, the place was perfect for a location piece.
A young man in orange sweat pants was mowing the grass out front, the mocha-brown skin of his arms glistening with a sheen of perspiration as he pivoted the mower. He was wearing an orange tank top, which made me think of Carter in his SPCA shirt last night. I wondered where he was today. He’d been gone by the time I’d awakened this morning. I was amazed that I’d slept so late, with the room lights blazing. It was wimpy of me to leave them on, but even after two episodes of Bonanza, I still had the creeps, and I’d hollered through the door when Carter flipped the light switch.
He’d laughed and turned it back on. “You’ll be tired in the morning, Hollywood.” Sometime during our conversation about my mother’s career as a movie extra and my short stint as a child actor, he’d taken to calling me Hollywood. It occurred to me after the fact that I probably shouldn’t have divulged so much information about where I was from, especially since Carter wasn’t as equally forthcoming.
I pictured myself in the exercise area with him last night, chattering on and on about Bonanza, and my childhood crush on Little Joe, and my latent desire to take a dude ranch vacation one of these days when my schedule wasn’t so packed. I hadn’t thought about it at the time, but reviewing the evening in my mind, I could see that it had been a one-sided yack fest—Carter making what seemed like harmless inquiries and me babbling on and on because I didn’t want to go upstairs to Graceland. All I’d learned about Carter was that he’d recently moved back to Austin after living out of state for fifteen years, and he had some kind of a business appointment in Daily.
What kind of business could someone like Carter possibly have here?
Pulling up near the church sign, I stopped and rolled down my window. The man mowing released the lawnmower handle and let the engine die, then headed my way. I recognized him as he came closer—Otis Charles, the feed store customer who’d told the story about battling for Amber’s calf at the Reunion Days calf scramble. His shirt said UT Athletics on the front.
He smiled as I leaned out the window. “Can I help you?”
I tried to look casual, pleasant. Just a run-of-the-mill tourist, out in the middle of nowhere, stopping to ask for directions. “I think I’m a little lost. I was wondering if you could tell me, is this the Caney Creek Church?” I pretended not to see the rather large sign beside us that said HARVES CHAPEL.
O.C. glanced at the wood and stone billboard. “Yes, ma’am, it is. Don’t mind the sign. Last year, the church council voted to give the place an official name, Harvest Chapel, but the T fell off. Since my Grandpa Harve’s the pastor, we
left it for a joke. Most folks still call it Caney Creek Church, anyhow.” Bracing his hands on his hips, he gave me a bemused look. “You’re the third person who’s asked me that today.”
“I am? Is that normal?”
O.C. rolled his eyes then blinked at me as if I were daft. “Not hardly. Nobody ever comes down this road. Did you need to talk to Grandpa Harve? He’s inside.” He glanced toward the building, seeming ready to turn me over to someone else and finish the mowing.
“Oh, no thanks.” At least for now, the less attention I called to myself, the better. “I was just trying to figure out where I was. Could you tell me how to get to the fairgrounds from here? I wanted to see the sheep … contest. My friend has sheep. In the contest.” That was lame.
O.C. blinked, his lips parting into a wide, white grin that said, Okay, lady, whatever you say. “You’re a little ways off from the fairgrounds.” Scratching his forehead, he paused to think. “Let’s see … to get there from here, you’d go down this road till you get to the T. Take a left on 2102, then right by the big old white barn and you’re almost there. Can’t remember the number of that road, but you’ll see the barn. There’s an old Mobil Oil sign painted on the side of it.”
“I’m sure I can find it. Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. Sounds like you’ve had a lot of interruptions around here today.” I left the statement open-ended, waiting to see if he would volunteer more information about recent visitors.
“A bit—you, and some people in a slick-lookin’ motor bus, and the dude who’s in the church talking to Grandpa Harve.” He motioned over his shoulder and I glanced toward the church. Two men were coming out the front door, engrossed in conversation. The older man, I guessed by his imposing stature, was O.C.’s grandfather—Harve of Harve’s Chapel. The younger man, I recognized instantly. Carter Woods. In the flesh. Looking chipper today in jeans, cowboy boots, and a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt. He’d slicked back his hair in waves that curled over his ears and caught the sunlight on the back of his neck. At the moment, he was focused on a notebook the old man was holding. The pastor turned the page and pointed at something, and both of them laughed.
“What’s he doing here …” I muttered.
Otis Charles assumed the question was for him. “Came by to talk to Grandpa Harve. Didn’t say what about.”
“Huh …” I mused, watching Carter in the side mirror, my suspicions blooming like flowers in time-lapse photography. If I’d wanted to believe last night that Carter was just a nice guy, traveling through Daily on some unnamed business errand, the notion seemed utterly ludicrous now. What were the odds that the stranger who’d happened to show up in town when I did would also happen to turn up at some middle-of-nowhere church a few hundred yards from Amber Anderson’s childhood home? A supposition of coincidence can only go so far before venturing into the realm of blind stupidity. Carter Woods was not my friend, or my protector, or my happenstance hotel mate—he was up to something.
“You can go ask him if you want,” O.C. offered. “Looks like they’re about done.”
“Oh … ummm … no thanks. I’d better take off. Thanks for the directions, though.” Best to move on while Carter was still occupied. No sense letting him know I’d seen him hanging out in Amber’s neighborhood.
“You’re welcome, ma’am.” Backing politely away from the window, Otis Charles shielded his eyes and peered down the road toward the Anderson place. “I’ll be dogged. There’s that motor bus again. What’n the heck …”
I didn’t turn around to look at the RV, just waved a thank-you to O.C., circled the sign, and pulled out, watching Carter and Pastor Harve in the mirror until a hedge blocked my view. Neither Carter nor Pastor Harve ever looked up. Whatever was in that book was not only amusing but very interesting. They kept turning the pages, pointing, nodding, and occasionally laughing.
Curiosity needled me like one of the fluffy angora sweaters my mother used to make me wear to church. LA was usually too hot for angora, but my mother thought I looked cute in fluffy pastel things. By the time I came along, she was forty-three and realizing that her days of Mary Janes and lacy skirts with petticoats were numbered. At the age of twelve, I revolted. I vowed that I’d never wear tights or angora again, and I never had, but I still remembered the feeling—hot, itchy, vaguely crawly and prickly, a sensation that stuck with you even after the garment was safely back in the closet.
Pulling over, I sat on the side of the road, watched the glistening blue motor home stop in front of the Anderson place. A woman in a brown suit got out, walked to the fence and checked out the house, then opened the gate. An assortment of dogs and farm animals bounded toward her, and she jumped back through the opening, slamming the gate shut just in time to prevent the pet calf from escaping. Checking over her shoulder, she hurried to the motor home in a high-heeled trot, then stood for a moment stroking her short, spiked blond hair, watching the trailer home as if hoping someone would come out. Finally, she disappeared into the RV.
She had reporter written all over her. Great. I waited for the RV to come closer so I could see if there was a logo, but there was nothing. The RV was probably a loaner from some local dealer, given in exchange for promotional consideration. Glare on the window blocked my view of the driver, but the woman in the brown suit was sitting in the passenger seat, alternately checking her mirror and trying to unfold a map. Spotting Otis Charles in front of the church, she pointed, and the motor home made a wide-swinging turn into the church parking lot, swaying back and forth as it bumped over the culvert.
I sat on the side of the road a moment longer observing, then finally let off the brake and drove on through the patchy sunlight, trying do some creative problem solving. There had to be a way of keeping everything under control until after we’d brought Amber home and completed her location shoot.
Unfortunately, nothing was occurring to me. I felt like a ninetypound weakling confronted with a brawny beach bully. Any way I played this, I was going to end up smashed to a pulp with sand in my face. I wanted to go home. I wanted to plop down on my parents’ couch and have my mother offer me hot chocolate and prescription medications.
It occurred to me, as I headed toward the fairgrounds, that in my moment of desperation, I should have been yearning for David. His voice should have seemed like a comfort, his arms a refuge. Instead, the thought of him brought more stress. Where was David, anyway? I’d tried calling him six times—four yesterday and two this morning after the production meeting. All I’d gotten was David’s voice mail. No answer, no call back. He had to be out on the boat. He’d probably gone on a pre-honeymoon shakedown just to make sure everything was in shape for our trip.
Even so, knowing I was traveling, couldn’t he have called?
Sometimes, even though I was now one half of a couple, I felt more alone than ever. There were good things about operating with a fair amount of independence—David liked that about me, especially considering that his ex-wife had been clingy and controlling. Having spent the last twelve years of my life making my own decisions, I appreciated the fact that David saw me as an equal, capable of taking care of myself. I didn’t want someone checking up on me all the time, asking where I was, demanding reports on what I was doing, delving into my checkbook and my dinner dates with Paula.
Paula predicted that when David and I actually did move into the apartment together we would have some space issues. That was perfectly natural, she said, considering my past history of trying to wrestle my independence from a pair of overprotective parents and David’s past history of a nasty divorce. It would take some time to work out the details of which level of relationship was enough and which level was too much.
It bothered me a little when she said that. Could you be too married? Wasn’t marriage supposed to be all the way?
Right now, alone in Daily, Texas, with David out of touch on the high seas, our present situation felt like too little commitment. It would probably be different when I got back home.
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Sighing, I turned on the radio. Music always helped when I was descending into the blues.
“And that’s your ‘Mandy in the Middle,’” the DJ said. “Hey, all you listeners out there. Hope your Friday’s rolling along just as fine as frog hair. The big news around Central Texas and the Hill Country today—still no official confirmation, but word is that local favorite Amber Anderson is a shoo-in for the Final Five on American Megastar… .”
Chapter 10
Imagene Doll
The lunch rush was already underway and looking busier than usual when I got back to Daily. Quite a number of cars were parked out front, and through the window I could see that the booths were already full. Some of the countertoppers had come in for lunch, which was surprising, considering that it was the opening of Reunion Days. Granted, it wasn’t the big event it once was, when former Dailyians used to return from all over the country, but the fair and rattlesnake weigh-in were still pretty popular. I’d have thought Doyle, Harlan, Ervin, and the rest of them would be at the fairgrounds, buying sausage on a stick and wandering through the cow barns, trying to pick this year’s sure-fire grand champion steer, or at least sizing up the yearly catch of rattlesnakes.
With the rush on in the café, I knew I shouldn’t stop by the beauty shop, but I had to tell Donetta what I’d learned at the checkout stand in Wal-Mart. Before I could get a word in edgewise, she started rattling on about her plans to get the rooms painted. She’d talked to her nephew, Coach Rollins, over at the school, and she had the entire baseball team and a half-dozen cheerleaders coming to help with cleaning and painting the rooms as soon as school was out. In the meantime, she’d happened across Amber Anderson’s grandpa when she was down at the hardware store, and she’d hired him to start filling the cracks in the walls, then give directions to the high school kids when they showed up.
