The Secret's in the Sauce

by Linda Evans Shepherd

  Against the left wall was a small pink settee and an occasional arm chair, two end tables with Waterford crystal lamps, and a coffee table with a large but low centerpiece of silk lavender and pink hydrangeas. Near the back was a large cherry desk with an impressive black executive’s chair. Behind them, a wall of windows flanked by heavy draperies that matched the wallpaper. The room smelled of lilacs and aftershave.

  “My goodness,” I said without thinking. “Isn’t this lovely.”

  Luke laughed. “It’s my wife’s doings. If it were up to me, we’d have a lighthouse theme. Phone’s on the desk. Would you like something to drink? I have coffee, water . . .”

  I walked toward the desk. “No. No thank you. I’ll just make my call. I’m sure you want to go home too.” And then I thought, Too? Because to be honest, I wasn’t really sure that’s what I wanted to do at all.

  I drove home without the car radio or CD player turned on, taking the long way rather than a direct route, allowing myself more time to think. Luke Nelson’s words had nearly floored me.

  “Your mother came to Pajama Party Night dressed in a teddy,” he said.

  I could hardly believe the words. “A what?”

  “You heard me. A teddy.”

  “But where on earth would she get a teddy? My mother has never owned any such thing, I can assure you.”

  Luke blushed. “I have pictures to prove it. Would you care to see them?”

  I felt my jaw go slack. “I most assuredly would not.” The very thought was more than I could bear.

  Luke, sitting in the chair, braced his elbows on his knees and cracked his knuckles for a moment before continuing. “We had a group of college kids that came a few weeks ago to entertain. They’re a dance company.” He cleared his throat. “Your mother managed to befriend a young woman named Kimberly.”

  “Kimberly.”

  “And Kimberly brought her the teddy.”

  “Did you speak to this . . . Kimberly?”

  Luke leaned back and nodded. “I did. She reports that your mother told her she was married and she was going to use it to spice up her . . . um . . . love life.”

  I gulped. “Oh, dear heavens. I can’t imagine my mother thinking anything like that, much less saying it.”

  “Mrs. Prattle, these are the kinds of things we begin to look for in cases such as your mother’s. What I am gently trying to tell you is that pretty soon you will need to move her from this facility and into round-the-clock care. Whether in your home or at a nursing facility. It’s coming. It could be a month from now or a year from now, but it’s coming.”

  I looked toward the door for a moment, then back at Luke. “But she seemed fine awhile ago.”

  His look registered both empathy and something akin to “get real.” “I know. And you and I both know that’s how this disease works, Mrs. Prattle.” He slapped his knees with the palm of his hands. “Now, I’m not saying you have to do anything right now. After all, her meds are helping . . . some. But they aren’t a miracle cure, and I’m . . .” He cleared his throat of the knot I’m sure was forming there. “I’m suggesting you begin to think about this realistically.”

  Realistically, I thought as I pulled up to a traffic light on Main Street. To one side of the road was Higher Grounds Café. To the other, closest to me, Apple’s Restaurant. I powered down the driver’s window and allowed the aroma of fresh-baked Italian food to titillate my senses. The next thing I knew I was calling home on my cell phone, instructing everyone to start dinner without me.

  I entered Apple’s. It was Saturday night and packed out. The hostess informed me that the only available seat was at the bar. I glanced over and saw that, sure enough, there was one seat empty at the far end. “I’ll take it.”

  She escorted me, and I climbed onto the barstool. Brad, the bartender, came over. “Mrs. Prattle? What brings you to my bar on such a cold night?” Brad had been one of my students many years ago. He’s also a good friend to Clay Whitefield, our town’s star reporter who is engaged to Adam’s sister Britney. He leaned over the bar and smiled at me, sporting a deep dimple on one side of his mouth. “In fact, what brings you to my bar? I’m positive I’ve never seen you here before.” He pointed to the bar with his index finger.

  I laughed lightly as I settled in, slipping out of my coat and gloves. “No, I should say not.”

  “You look to me like you could use a drink. How about a brandy? It’ll warm you all over before you have to go back out in the cold.”

  I have never been one for taking “a drink,” but I’d certainly heard about brandy, that it was good for warming a body. “No, I—”

  He leaned on one elbow and turned a bit. “How about a coffee?”

  “That sounds wonderful. I wouldn’t mind a nice Caesar salad with grilled chicken too.”

  The coffee came first, in a pedestal mug, topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with what appeared to be chocolate shavings. Two narrow straws jutted from its depths. “My, my. What is this?”

  “To your health,” Brad said, sliding it closer to me on a cocktail napkin embellished with the restaurant’s name and logo. He took a step away. “I’ll have that salad for you in a few.”

  I watched him walk down the length of the bar and into the kitchen area before I took a sip of my coffee. I swallowed hard. There was a strong under taste, something I’d never experienced in coffee. I licked my lips and took another sip, this one long and savored. I felt a warmth slide down my spine, slipping into the veins of my arms and legs. When Brad returned I grinned at him. “Did you put that Irish cream flavoring in my drink?” I asked.

  He grinned back. “Something like that.” He chuckled. “Here, Mrs. Prattle,” he said, setting a basket of hot garlic bread before me. “You’d better eat some of this bread here before you fall off the stool.”

  My eyes widened. “Do you mean to tell me this is an alcoholic drink?”

  Brad’s ice blue eyes seemed to dance before me. “Just sip it slow and easy. I promise it won’t kill you.” He leaned his elbows on the bar again. “In fact,” he said, “it just may help you forget whatever it is that’s going wrong in your life.”

  I wrestled with it, of course. I’m not a prude by any means—at least I don’t think I am—but I’ve never resorted to “having a drink” to lessen life’s tension. I’ve not even had anything “to drink” just for the sake of having a drink. But as I took another sip (and I must admit, it was delicious) I reckoned that one little bit of alcohol in a large cup of coffee surely wouldn’t hurt me. It’s not like I’d be heading to AA anytime soon. It was just an enjoyable hot drink on a rather cold, stressful evening.

  That’s all it was.

  On Tuesday evening, as I felt the world closing in on me once again, I picked up my purse and headed for the front door of our home. In the family room Samuel was watching Cold Case Files. Michelle and Adam, as pretty a picture of an in-love couple as there could ever be, were giggling over honeymoon destination brochures spread across the dining room table. Brent was playing an excruciatingly loud game on the computer his parents had put in the downstairs room he slept in. Tim and Samantha sounded as though they were arguing over another house they’d looked at during some point of the day. And Kaci was yakking on the phone with one of her new school chums. I had visited with Mom on the way home and, as was sometimes the case, she didn’t recognize me. Instead of greeting me with her usual friendly bark, she’d cursed at me.

  I signed to Michelle that I was “going out.”

  “Where?” she signed back, looking more than a little perplexed.

  I ran the palm of my hand along the cascade of her dark hair, then lovingly patted her porcelain cheek with my fingertips before saying, “Just out.”

  I gave a cordial smile to Adam, who returned it with a dimpled smile of his own. It was easy to see what had attracted my daughter to this young man. He was storybook handsome and tall enough to have to duck a bit when entering through a doorway. He was genuinely kind
, soft spoken, and he loved my daughter in spite of her handicap. Not once had I ever heard him make excuse for her inability to hear. To Adam—who had learned to sign from the start of their relationship—Michelle’s deafness was both endearing and natural. “You two pick a good enough place for your honeymoon,” I said to him while signing to Michelle, “and I’ll be forced to stow away in Michelle’s luggage.”

  I didn’t even tell Samuel I was leaving, and by the time I returned the house was dark and quiet and everyone had apparently gone to bed. I stepped into the family room, which was still warm from the dying fire behind the fireplace screen. I folded the throw Samuel had left on the floor next to his chair and straightened the pillows on the sofa. I then sat down and kicked out of my shoes, stretching as I lay across the deep cushions, feeling the residual effe cts of the coffee I’d—this time—ordered at Apple’s bar. My head did a lazy somersault backward, and I closed my eyes.

  “Delicious,” I whispered, though I’m not sure why, then fell asleep.

  Goldie

  7

  Plane Pickings

  It took everything I had to get on that plane.

  Of course, I was anxious to get back home to Georgia, to find out how my daddy was doing. But boarding without Jack—this time—was doubly difficult.

  In previous years, during my springtime vacations, I would board with the full knowledge that while the proverbial cat was away the mouse was gonna play. Jack would, no doubt, spend as much time as possible hitting a few girly clubs and seeing his current mistress (unless he cheated on her too), and then I would return home to a lovely bracelet or brooch or some other offering of penance. While on some level I had been fully aware of what was going on, I had also chosen denial as my boarding companion, if that makes any sense. But this time it was all in the open, and a little voice kept whispering in my ear that if I were not home to be in Jack’s bedroom, then he just might stray again.

  “But why can’t you come with me?” I’d asked him as I placed a few pairs of neatly folded slacks in the open suitcase lying across our bed. It was about 7:30 on the morning of Tom’s phone call.

  “Goldie, honey. There’s no way I can take off right now. Not with spring break just around the corner. And there’s no way you can be sure how long you’ll be gone. Besides, I’m just a phone call away if you need me.”

  I rubbed my forehead with the fingertips of my right hand. “I don’t know if I can do this, Jack. I don’t know if I can do this by myself.”

  “Olivia said she’d go with you,” he reminded me.

  I had called Olivia as soon as the digital numbers on my bedside clock read 6:00 and told her about her grandfather.

  “Olivia doesn’t need to be traveling in her condition.” I shook my head. “Not with her as far along as she is now.”

  “Women give birth on planes. Happens all the time,” Jack said, handing a sweater to me that I’d laid near the suitcase for packing.

  “Jack!”

  He chuckled. “I’m just saying that women travel in their last trimester all the time, Goldie.”

  “Not my daughter.” I was going to remain firm on that, so the conversation might as well end right there.

  And so I got on the plane alone. Seat 16A, right next to the window, which is good for sleeping but just awful when you have to get up and go to the lavatory. Practically announcing to the whole world that you have to go to the bathroom is bad enough; stepping over two strangers to get there just adds insult to injury. No chance of my not having to make the trip; a woman my age nearly always has to go at some point during cross-country flights.

  The plane taxied down the runway, and I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together, my fingers clutching the book I’d brought with me, though God only knows why. I wasn’t sure that I could concentrate on anything other than Daddy and his heart attack. Please, Lord, don’t let my daddy die. Especially don’t let him die—if he is going to die—until I can get there.

  I felt the nose of the plane lift, pointing its way skyward. My back pressed against the seat until we leveled out and once again I was sitting upright. When I opened my eyes I saw that the man who sat in 16B—short, balding, and with large round glasses—was staring at me. “Never flown before?” His voice was somewhat nasal.

  “What?” I swallowed. The air pressure that had built up in my ears during takeoff popped.

  “I used to be just like you. Scared to death to fly. But I fly all the time now. It’s part of my job, you know.” He reached into his shirt pocket, whipped out a business card, and handed it to me. “Reginald McPhearson.” He pointed to his name. “That’s me, right there.” He laughed lightly. “And right here.” He pointed to himself.

  “I, uh—”

  “I work for a software company.” He grinned as he spoke. “But then again, who doesn’t these days, huh?”

  “Huh?”

  “What about you? What do you do?”

  “Do?”

  “For a job? A living? I assume you aren’t one of those women who stays at home and raises babies. Well, for one thing, you look a bit too old to be having babies—not meaning to insult you.”

  “No, I’m not—”

  “And for another, you have that look about you. Sophisticated. A woman of the world, I’d say. So, let me guess. You are . . . not a teacher, no. You are . . . now give me a minute . . . a lawyer.”

  “I work for an attorney, but I’m not a lawyer. I’m his secretary.”

  His round face seemed to only grow rounder as he smiled a toothy grin and nodded. “Yep. One thing I’m good at is guessing what people do for a living. It’s a gift.”

  “I see.”

  “You know my name.” Again he pointed to the card. “Yours?”

  “Goldie.”

  “Goldie?”

  “Yes.”

  He stuck out his hand for a shake. “Nice to meet you, Goldie.” He pumped my hand until I thought my arm would come out of its socket. “And don’t you worry your pretty little head about flying. Anything you need to know, you ask me.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but could get nothing to come out, so I just closed it and smiled, nodding back at him as I pulled my now-sore hand from his.

  He leaned closer to me. “Tell me something, Goldie. You heading to Atlanta on some big classified case?”

  I shook my head. “No. This is a personal trip.” In fact, I thought, I’d rather be working right now. Poor Chris. When I’d called him to tell him that Jack had managed to get me on a flight at noon that day and that I wouldn’t be in court to assist him, I could hear his anxiety level flying off the scale, even over the phone.

  “Got family down South, do you?” Reginald asked.

  I looked down at my book and nodded, willing myself not to begin tearing up again. I will not share my problems with this complete stranger. I will not. I no sooner had the thought than I could hear Lisa Leann saying, “Now, Goldie. You never know when you might meet an angel unaware.”

  Just as quickly I heard Donna saying, “Angels, smangels. Never trust a man with a bald head and round glasses.”

  I glanced up at my stranger—my angel unaware, perhaps—and smiled. “My father had a heart attack last night. I’m heading down to my home to be with him.”

  “So sorry to hear that. Fathers are important.”

  “Especially to their daughters. Do you have children, Reginald?”

  “I’ve never married,” he said. “Just never had time to settle down. You know, buy a house, work the old nine-to-five, dinner with the in-laws on Sunday . . .”

  I nodded. Yeah, I knew all about that.

  “Tell you what, Goldie. Why don’t you tell me about your family, and I’m sure the time up here in the air will seem like only a minute.” He grinned at me again. “Help you to relax a little.”

  I sighed, deciding not to burst the “angel’s” bubble of belief that I was actually afraid to fly. “Well, Daddy and Mama have been married since 1954.”

 
“Over fifty years. I imagine your family celebrated the big day?”

  “We did.” I turned in my seat so as not to twist my neck. “They had five children, me being the middle child.”

  Reginald twisted in his seat too, I suppose in an effort to also be more comfortable. “What is it they say about middle children?”

  I shrugged. “I really don’t know. Whatever it is, I can assure you I had a wonderful childhood and never felt neglected or any of those things.” I paused for a moment before continuing, and, just as Reginald said, our time in the air—all two hours of it—went by as though it were a minute. Somewhere in our conversation we’d been served soft drinks and then, later, coffee by perky flight attendants. As the plane glided toward Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport, I settled back in my seat and sighed deeply. I was almost home. I had an hour or so layover and then a short flight to Savannah, where Tom’s wife Melody would pick me up.

  Reginald and I had been silent for about five minutes when he leaned over and murmured in my ear, “Who is picking you up in Hot-lanta?”

  I turned my neck toward him. “Oh no. I’m flying on to Savannah.”

  He touched my arm ever so gently with his fingertips. “Got a long layover? I was thinking that maybe we might have a drink together.”

  So much for Lisa Leann’s angel theory, I thought, frowning. Donna, you are my hero! I jerked my arm away from his touch. “I told you. I’m married.”

  He pulled his glasses from his face. “But are you real married.”

  I’m just sure my mouth fell open. “Of course I’m real married! What kind of question is that?”

  Reginald began to shush me, and nearby passengers turned to stare, but I didn’t care. “Don’t you shush me, Jack Dippel!”