A half moon lit the gravel driveway. She flipped on the bright overhead lights and sat down in Daddy’s chair with its woven seat and heavy, metal swivel base. Where should she tape the last verse? It should be somewhere Daddy could read it when he was on the phone or writing up an invoice. She taped it to the side of the upright file folder, and she read through the verse one more time.
Why would God, the Creator, have to send his only Son to die for his own creation? It was a mystery. She recalled Robert’s word, Faith—and that it meant believing in the unseen. Feeling strangely close to tears, Missy turned off the overhead lights and felt her way back behind the desk. She hunkered down low in Daddy’s chair in the dark and swiveled back and forth.
“I barely remember my own mother’s love; how can I possibly believe in yours?” she whispered into the dark. She buried her face in her arms on top of her father’s desk and wept.
CHAPTER 38
Sunday morning, Missy tried on her other dress choice—a floral print cotton with puffy sleeves. It was tight under the armpits. Ninth grade was the last time she’d worn it. She folded it and set it in a box for the Salvation Army. After sliding last Sunday’s floral Gunny Sax over her head, she wondered how it would look if she tied it in front instead of the back. It looked funny. Maybe with her new hairstyle no one would notice that she was wearing the same dress for the third Sunday in a row.
“You need to go into town this week and buy yourself a couple new dresses,” Daddy said over a bowl of cold cereal.
“New shoes, too.” She grimaced. “My feet are squished.”
“Otherwise, you look even prettier than last Sunday.”
During their drive to church, Missy remembered that Daddy was going to meet Rosie today. He looked sharp in his black suit. Dominating, but sharp. She searched the church’s gravel drive for Gary’s El Camino. He wasn’t here. Thank heaven. Instead, Robert stood leaning against the church’s white siding, waiting for them.
He’d met and talked with his old girlfriend last night. And now he was going to see Missy again in this awful dress. Her stomach knotted at the thought.
“I’ll sit in the back with you today, Daddy.”
“No, you’ll sit in the middle with Robert.”
“I’d like to sit with you.”
“I’ll be meeting Rosie today, and I don’t want distractions.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
Just like the two prior Sundays, Missy felt like a walking piece of pasture as they strolled toward the church. Robert glanced from her to the church and back to her. He tapped one foot in the gravel. He crossed his arms. He tipped his head back and inhaled, maybe prayed. Maybe he was back together with his old girlfriend.
He offered her his arm, but he didn’t look at her when she took it, and he didn’t pat her hand like last Sunday. They strolled into church. The pew they’d sat in last Sunday was full, so they sat in the back row beside Daddy, who’d managed to nab a seat right next to Widow Anderson.
The same song leader as last week stood up front holding a hymnal. He motioned for them all to stand. Robert held the hymnal in one hand and leaned only slightly toward her while the congregation sang How Great Thou Art. It was more out of Christian duty this time that he held the hymnal between them. His shoulder wasn’t even warm.
“Your daughter here?” Daddy whispered to Mrs. Anderson.
“Yes.” The elderly woman smiled and pointed several rows ahead. “She’s the one with the big hair.”
Without lifting his chin, Daddy focused on a woman with nice, fat, auburn curls. “Red dress?”
“Yes, that’s Rosie.”
“Pretty hair.”
“Yes, Rosie’s always had pretty hair.”
Daddy tried to focus on the preacher’s preaching, but Missy could tell that he was often distracted by Rosie’s hair. He probably felt anxious for the long sermon to end so he could see Rosie’s face before he fantasized further about their future.
Across the aisle, Bertha leaned forward and smiled at Missy and Robert like they were a couple. They’d sat together three times now. Maybe that was enough to make it official in the church’s eyes. Missy smiled back at the elderly angel. She wouldn’t tell Bertha, but she would have paid three dollars for the Salmon Cake recipe alone.
During the sermon, the church felt stuffy warm again. Missy rolled a kink out of her neck and yawned. She glanced down and saw Robert’s hand placed palm down upon his nearest thigh. Tiny chips of orange sherbet-colored paint marred his nails.
Was he back together with his old girlfriend?
Pastor Norris seemed to think nothing about his long-winded monologues. Missy leaned back in the wood pew. The darn knot in the back of her dress, burrowed into her spine. She bit her lower lip and looked around. She hadn’t said darn out loud, she’d only thought it. Right? She wondered if God heard everything thought in church. Should she apologize? She glanced at Robert and wondered if he’d heard her think it?
His eyes narrowed.
He probably had.
At the end of the sermon, big-haired Rosie bowed her head in prayer, which reminded Daddy and then Missy to do so also. Then everyone stood up. People looked around and then greeted one another. Some were yawning and stretching. Big-haired Rosie finally stood up. She was a nice height for a woman; Missy guesstimated she was five-nine, five-ten. Daddy stood stock-still, waiting to see Rosie’s face.
She finally turned around. Lean featured with a nicely shaped nose, something about Rosie was all too familiar.
Daddy’s jaw dropped.
Way too familiar. Missy’s jaw dropped, too. Big-haired Rosie was big-mouthed, Pink Rollerhead.
“Hell’s bells!” Daddy exclaimed.
“Daddy.” Missy nudged him. “We’re in church.”
“It’s him.” Rosie elbowed both the woman and man beside her. With their eyes the size of cannonballs, they stared at Daddy. “And he’s sitting with Mama!”
Daddy took Missy’s arm and led her toward the door. This Sunday he apparently had no interest in mingling or telling anyone how fine he thought they were. She escaped for a moment to grab the bag of corn Bertha had left for her on the entry table; and then Daddy grabbed her arm again and led her outside through the double doors.
“Can you believe people like that go to church?” Daddy said, as they lumbered to his truck.
“They’re probably thinking the same thing about you, Daddy.” Missy glanced behind them. She hadn’t even got to say good-bye to Robert, not that it mattered.
“Her mama’s such a sweet, little old lady.” Daddy drove out of the church parking lot. For several miles, he shook his head in shock.
“Rosie did have pretty hair, I’ll say that for her,” Missy said and wondered if they’d ever again attend Felida Community Church.
In the middle of lunch—leftover Preacher Casserole—the phone rang. It was Pastor Norris from church. Missy motioned for Daddy to take it. He stood up and wedged the receiver between his shoulder and ear.
“Yes, Preacher Norris. Yes, there was a misunderstanding on the river yesterday. They anchored right where we were casting, and when I politely mentioned it, the woman, well, Rosie said, ‘Plenty of river.’ My only choices were to either boat downriver or get my fishing hole back. And, well . . . we were there first. Yes, I did. I actually cast three times at Jim Zweifel’s boat before he proceeded downstream. Yes, my daughter held up the fish to let them know that the hole was hot and now available.” Daddy glanced at Missy and smiled.
“I understand, Preacher, that you don’t want internal feuding. I promise you if I see that particular group of people anchor in one of my fishing holes again, I’ll politely head downstream. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. They didn’t catch any?” Daddy grinned.
Five minutes later, he hung up the phone and sighed. “Big Hair lives near the church, and her boatload is waiting for us to come apologize and seek forgiveness.”
He sighed and leaned back against the counter.
; “I like this preacher. When I told him my side of the story, he almost chuckled. This here is a man of God, and I’m going to do what he thinks is best. I’ll get Big Hair out of the way and we’ll come home.”
“We? I don’t need to go. Do I, Daddy?”
“I need you there for moral support. I may lose my sense of reason if Big Hair starts yapping. Change back into your dress, and we’ll try and look like church people.”
Ten minutes later, Daddy slid behind the wheel.
“Preacher Norris said they didn’t catch any.” He grinned.
“He was probably hinting for you to give them one of our steelhead as a peace offering,” Missy said.
Without putting the keys in the ignition, Daddy sat back and looked thoughtful. “He said when we have enemies we’re to heap burning coals on their heads. Which he said means to kill them with kindness. I was thinking that I was going to kill Big Hair with kindness by getting her some of those fancy flowers south of here.”
Daddy slid the key in the ignition and started the engine.
He was referring to the U-Cut dahlia place.
“Daddy, they were skunked and we got four. What would you rather have—a nice steelhead or a bunch of dahlias?”
“I freezer wrapped three steelhead and the fourth one’s in the fridge for tonight’s dinner. I was thinking we’d barbeque.”
“We can have barbequed steelhead for dinner tomorrow night instead. Throw one in the fridge and start thawing it now.”
“Boy, wouldn’t that be killing her with kindness after the way she behaved.” Daddy left the engine running, and pushed open his door.
“Daddy, you forget how you behaved,” Missy said after him.
When he returned to the truck, he set the paper bag holding the foil-wrapped steelhead on the bench seat between them. “Think it would be overkill if I still get her flowers?”
“No.” Missy thought about it for a while. “I don’t think it could ever be overkill to get a woman flowers.”
Rosie Zinger’s home, a lime green bungalow with bright white trim, sat two blocks behind the church. Daddy held a fistful of yellow dahlias in one hand and the wrapped steelhead in the other. Missy rang the doorbell.
Still wearing her red church dress, Rosie answered the door. “Timely.” She cleared her throat. “Big John, I’m Rosie. I’d shake your hand, but they’re both full. The flowers can’t possibly be for me?”
“Dahlias.” Daddy extended them to her. “I’ve come to apologize for my very unChristian-like behavior.”
Missy followed Daddy inside. Rosie’s home was tidy and clean, and there was a common decorating theme: ruffles. The pillows were ruffled, the yellow polka-dotted curtains were ruffled, the chair covers were ruffled, and the bottom of Rosie’s red dress was ruffled, too.
“I’ll set them in a vase. My sister Viola and her husband, Jim, are visiting from Tacoma. They’re in the backyard right through that slider.” Rosie motioned toward the glass slider.
“Um, Preacher Norris said your boat didn’t land any.” Daddy set the foil-wrapped steelhead on the kitchen counter. “And, well, we brought you one as a peace offering.”
“Oh, that was kind of you.” Rosie smiled. “My husband, Ronald, used to catch steelhead on the Lewis in the same spot we anchored yesterday. We tried till dark. I was hoping to grill some fish up like Ronnie used to do.”
“You were one, intent little lady,” Daddy said. “Now I understand why.”
Rosie’s cheeks matched her dress. “Forgive me, too, Big John, for the mean and awful things I’ve said and thought about you. I do believe I was wrong.” She ran water in a tall crystal vase.
“What happened to Ronald?” Daddy got straight to the point.
“He passed away three years ago of heart problems.” One by one, Rosie arranged the dahlias in the vase. “We didn’t know he had a heart problem until it was too late. I wouldn’t have been making him biscuits and gravy all those years if I’d known. My cooking would have been so much different.” She sighed, and carried the vase to the table. “It’s all my fault.”
“If you ask me, he sounds like a lucky man,” Daddy said.
“Big John, would you care for some lemonade?”
Daddy hummed a Felida church tune all the way home. He’d tried to kill Rosie with kindness, but Pastor Norris must have had the same talk with her. Fresh baked peanut butter cookies accompanied the tall glasses of lemonade. Daddy declared Rosie’s cookies were the best he’d ever had.
When Missy asked if the cookie recipe was in the Felida Community Church Cookbook, Rosie shook her head and said that she’d contributed her Country Fried Steak recipe instead. Daddy had a hungry look in his eyes. It was then that Missy knew that she’d better start cooking if she wanted to keep Rosie out of her kitchen.
“Big Hair ain’t so bad,” she said.
Daddy appeared dazed, like a stun gun had zapped him one too many times; and then he shook it off.
“Rosie and her sister and brother-in-law, well, they’re all fine folk. She was only trying to catch her brother-in-law, Jim, a steelhead in her departed husband’s favorite fishing hole, and I assumed they were complete and utter dimwits. I was more in the wrong.” Daddy shook his head.
“Good thing we brought the steelhead,” Missy said.
“She almost killed me with kindness on account of that steelhead.” He chuckled.
Daddy was a little too chipper if you asked her. Had he already forgotten that Pink Rollerhead and Rosie were one and the same?
CHAPTER 39
Tuesday evening while Missy started the chicken gravy, Robert’s station wagon pulled into their gravel driveway. He parked past the shop in the shade of the filbert tree. She watched the window as he headed toward the house instead of bee-lining for the office as she expected him to do. He looked pure business in his nice work clothes, except for a bouquet of dahlias he carried in one hand.
Dahlias. It was only too coincidental that Daddy had bought dahlias for Rosie Zinger on Sunday and now Jerry Boy had a handful.
Daddy!
Hurrying, Missy stuffed the outer cabbage leaves and the core in the compost bucket under the sink. She didn’t want Robert to know she’d made coleslaw until dinner was on the table. She quickly yanked off her faded, calico apron that she’d worn over her coveralls, wadded it up, and stuffed it in the closest drawer.
“Missy?” Robert knocked once on the screen door and then once on the open front door before stepping inside. “Here, I didn’t want to be empty-handed when I apologized.”
Apologized? What was he apologizing for? Was he back together with his old girlfriend?
He handed her a dollar’s worth of long-stemmed, red and yellow dahlias.
“Did Daddy tell you he gave Rosie Zinger dahlias on Sunday?”
Probably on account of her near tongue twister, he smiled.
“No, but he said you talked him into giving her a whole steelhead.”
She still thought the flowers were mighty coincidental.
Up close, the dahlias were intricately layered vibrant ruffles. Daddy had unknowingly bought the perfect flowers for Rosie. Missy put the bouquet in a glass milk bottle, filled it with water, and set it on the kitchen windowsill.
“What are you sorry for?” she asked.
“I’d like to put last Thursday night behind us.” He leaned back against the counter.
“Hmmm . . .” The night of Elderly Angels and the infamous pink paper. “Are you staying for supper?” She turned from admiring the bouquet.
“I’d love to, but I have some product to drop off in Woodland first. Would you mind holding a plate for me?”
“No.” Though she didn’t want to miss his response to the slaw.
“I’m sorry about Martha.” He looked over to the corner of the kitchen where her cage used to be. “It feels quiet in here without her.”
His mention of Martha’s name reminded her that the ache inside her heart was still there. “Daddy keeps look
ing over there, too. I think he’s almost as heartbroken as me.”
“She fit in nice here. I’m also sorry, Missy, about Thursday. I thought you needed someone to talk some sense into you.” He inhaled. “I thought you were so head over heels in love with Gary that you’d do the unthinkable.”
Should she tell him they were over? Or did he already know? Did Gary know for that matter?
“I should head out. I stopped by to drop off some hoses for your Dad.” He pushed himself away from the counter.
Wondering how it went with his old girlfriend, she followed him to the door. In the past, she would have just asked. But today she felt like she’d had too much sugar, like she’d bumble and embarrass herself. It was strange because she’d only had a glass of iced water. No soda pop. Just water.
Robert set the hoses in the office and strode into the first bay to tell Big John hello before he headed out. John leaned under the hood of a Volkswagen van while Douglas played hard rock as he worked in the pit on the underside of a Ford Bronco.
“Different oils have different colors, Bobby Boy,” John said. Hung above the engine, a Trouble light illuminated his sweat-beaded face. “They do that on purpose. Brake fluid’s clear. Transmission fluid is red. Engine oil is greenish-yellow, and gear oil is this dark, dark green.” He tapped a reservoir with his socket wrench.
“This baby’s leaking clear fluid. Not a good sign.”
“I have some product to drop off in Woodland.” Robert glanced at his watch. “Missy said she’d make me up a plate.”
Big John grinned. “Sounds right hospitable of her.”
“I put the hoses in your office and left the purchase order on your desk.”
“Good, you got ‘em. How was Missy?”
“Civil.”
“Did she tell you she invited Gary to church last Sunday?” John unscrewed the cap to the oil reservoir.
“No.” Robert caught his breath. When she’d declined Gary’s proposal to elope, he’d assumed, maybe hoped, they were over.
Fried Chicken and Gravy - Christian Romance Page 22
