Sweet Southern Hearts

by Susan Schild

  Dottie gathered her into a hug. “There, there, sugar. It’s a hard thing, but it’s not the end of the world.”

  The other women murmured consoling words, but Linny still felt bereft. How could she have been so careless as to not lock a door? With her rings gone and her sense of safety violated, how was she going to stay in this RV for the last few days of this trip? She wanted to go home. All she wanted to do was talk to Jack and let him comfort her. But he was clear across the United States and out of cell range.

  With a tough-as-nails look in her eyes, Dessie threw back her shoulders, grabbed her phone, and announced, “I’m going to scout out this place for clues and suspects.”

  A scowling Ruby leaped to her feet. “I’m coming with you. We can talk to my friends at nearby campsites to see if they saw anything suspicious.”

  The two marched out.

  “I need to call Kate,” Linny said, brushing the streaming tears from her face with the back of her wrist.

  “Of course you do,” Mama said in a soothing tone and handed her a box of Kleenex. “Go on out to the picnic table where you can get you a little privacy and I’ll bring you some iced tea.”

  She slumped onto the picnic table and dialed her sister. When Kate answered Linny spilled her story, brushing away the tears starting to trail down her cheek again. “Someone has my rings. I keep picturing some thug’s teenaged girlfriend who’ll wear them on her right hand while she’s shoplifting makeup from the drugstore. They’re my rings.”

  “I know, honey, I know,” Kate said and took one of her Tai Chi–inspired deep breaths. “Would it help you to picture a desperate older man stealing it to pay for his poor wife’s medication that they can’t afford?”

  Linny thought about it. “Not really.”

  Kate sighed. “Wouldn’t help me either, but it was worth a try.” She paused. “I’ve been reading the teachings of the Dalai Lama.”

  Linny sat up straighter and felt chagrined. Though typically a voracious reader, these days life was going too fast for her to concentrate enough to read a book, let alone a serious one. The last thing she’d read had been in a Star magazine Mary Catherine had passed on to her: an article about how starlets attained the Kim Kardashian rear end.

  “You’re probably having a she’s-so-deep-and-I’m-not moment, but cut it out,” Kate said firmly. “A new woman in our book club picked the book and we all grumbled about having to read it, but it’s really good. Anyhow, the Dalai Lama says we need to become detached from worldly goods and treasure the jewels of inner peace and love.”

  Linny thought about it for a long moment, feeling some of her racing anxiety quiet.

  “So he would say a ring is just a symbol of your love and that your love stays strong with or without the ring. He’d say let no one and nothing rob you of your peace.” Kate sighed. “Now, having said that enlightened stuff, I need to go tidy up Miss Ivy and prepare to yell at Jerry. He high-tailed it out the door to Lowe’s for a sudden and urgent errand because the baby pooed in her diaper and he didn’t want to change her.”

  Linny burst out laughing. “Love you, Kate.”

  “Love you back.”

  Linny stood and rolled her shoulders to stretch them out. She felt a little better. As much sentimental attachment as she had to the rings, she could work on thinking about them as just things. She’d loved them while she had them. Her phone signaled and her mouth crooked up as she read the text from Kate: One more thing. Go find a health food store, buy white sage, and smudge the heck out of that RV ASAP.

  * * *

  By the time Dessie and Ruby got back, Officer Delmarco, a young policeman from the Pigeon Forge Police Department with an earnest air about him, had arrived. He asked the women questions and took careful notes. After searching the RV and the perimeter for clues, Officer Delmarco shook his head, handed them his card, and promised to be in touch.

  Mrs. Don Boyer stopped by, wringing her hands, apologizing profusely, and begging them not to write bad reviews online about the Breathtaking Vista.

  When they’d both left the four women sat around the dining room table looking dejected.

  “When Mrs. Don said this had never happened before in the six years they’ve been owners, I believed her,” Dessie said. “Her eyes weren’t darting back and forth like liars’ eyes do.”

  “Plus the hyperventilating,” Ruby, the budding junior PI added. “Seems like liars wouldn’t have to breathe into a paper bag.”

  “You two Jessica Fletchers come up with any clues outside?” Dottie asked.

  “Not a one,” Dessie said, her shoulders slumping. “No one has seen anyone or anything suspicious.” She glanced at each of them darkly. “I just wonder if this deal was an inside job.”

  Glumly, the women finished packing up and got ready to leave. Usually when they set off for the day, their spirits were high. They giggled about something funny that had happened the night before and speculated wildly about upcoming adventures. But today they were subdued as they buttoned up the RV. The burglary had deflated their spirits.

  Clinking a spoon on a saucepan to get their attention, Linny looked at the others. “I have a thought for the day. Kate says no matter what was stolen, no one can rob us of the most important thing we have: our inner peace and our love for one another.” Nervously, she glanced at the others to gauge how her spiritual talk was being received. The others gaped at her.

  Dessie cleared her throat. “Very deep for early in the day, but I agree. Let’s leave all that mess behind us and enjoy every minute of this trip.”

  Her mother nodded and said staunchly, “That’s what Jesus would say to do.”

  Ruby joined the pep talk. “We’re on a grand adventure with amazing friends. It’s going to be a beautiful day and we’re headed to Music City!” She stood and put her hands on her hips. “Hey, let’s all wear our SWAT Team T-shirts. We haven’t all worn them on the same day and we could kind of make a statement about . . .” She paused and glanced at the ceiling.

  “Solidarity,” Dottie said firmly and nodded. “I’ll get mine.”

  Linny breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled out of the Breathtaking Vista, now dubbed the Money and Ring Taking Vista by the women. Mama, her co-driver, slipped on her Ray Charles sunglasses, turned on Waze, and buckled in. She called back to Dessie, who was seated in the back. “So what’s our plan, Dess?”

  “Nashville is about four hours away. We’ll take our time, not try to set any land speed records and get there around suppertime. Our campground is just fifteen minutes from downtown. We can Uber to the sites we want to see. Tomorrow we’ll visit the Johnny Cash Museum, the Ryman Auditorium and ride out to the Grand Ole Opry.” Dessie smiled like the cat who’d found the cream. “We splashed out and booked a backstage tour.”

  “Oh my!” Ruby sounded thrilled.

  Before they knew it they were on the outskirts of Nashville. The women said they needed to stock up on food and a few supplies, so Linny wheeled into a Walmart Supercenter. Still nervous about trying to maneuver a twenty-five-foot RV in tight spaces, she came to a stop a safe half a football field away from the cars. She was happy to stay in the RV while the others shopped. Enjoying the time by herself, she phoned Officer Delmarco see if there’d been any developments in their case. He wasn’t in, but she left him a voice mail.

  She sank back in her seat and felt a sinking pang of homesickness. The Avery men would be out of touch for much of the next few days. She rubbed her face with her hands, a knot forming in her stomach as she thought about how she’d left things with Jack. Did Vera see Linny’s being out of town as an opportunity? Was she using her confabs about Neal and their trip to insinuate herself more and more into Jack’s life? Linny gave herself a mental shake. No sense getting all revved up about it, but still, she was feeling unsettled.

  A bracing dose of Mary Catherine’s bright self would be a tonic. Linny picked up the phone and dialed.

  A woman with an upbeat voice identified herself as Shani
a, the new office manager, and asked her to hold for Mary Catherine.

  Her friend came on the line and without a hello said, “I’ve missed you. Just had a client cancel. Talk to me.”

  Linny exhaled, smiling. “I’ve missed you, too.” She stretched out her legs and leaned back, ready for a chat. “How is Shania working out for you? Are you being nice?”

  “Shania is both chirpy and bossy,” Mary Catherine pretended to grouse.

  “So she’s working out great,” Linny said knowingly.

  “Yeah,” Mary Catherine admitted.

  “What’s been going on with you all?” Linny crossed her legs.

  “Work is way too busy. Mike’s painting some fancy coating on the floor of the garage. Dare brought his new girlfriend Breeze home for supper. He didn’t bother to tell me she was vegan.” Mary Catherine blew out a frustrated sigh. “Mike had grilled steaks and I’d whipped up au gratin potatoes and even made a cheesecake. All she ate was some green beans and a few pine nuts I’d used in a recipe last year. No wonder she’s skinny as a twig.”

  “Do you like her?” Linny asked.

  “I do,” Mary Catherine said. “She’s the smart, quiet type and she gives Dare a hard time. Always a good trait in a woman. Give me the lowdown on the trip. Are you and Dottie getting along? Is it peaceful, bucolic? Maybe a little dull?”

  “Hardly,” Linny said ruefully. “This morning someone stole my wedding band and engagement ring.” She filled her friend in.

  “Sorry about your rings. I really am. But you can’t let the trashy people get you down. I work with them every day so I know. You cannot let them get you down,” Mary Catherine said firmly. “Other than that, how is the trip going?”

  Linny smiled, reassured. “Everybody’s getting along pretty well. Mama’s still claiming she and Mack are just old-shoe kinds of pals, never mind that they’ve been madly dating for months.” Linny paused. “Ruby is on a manhunt for a new husband and has been hitting the internet hard and filling up her shopping cart with husband prospects. We’re helping screen the men. Dessie has decided she’s going to start being more of a femme fatale because her new beau Perry the junk man’s ex-wife was a Miss New Hanover County.”

  “Good grief.” Mary Catherine burst out laughing. “There goes my pretty picture of a peaceful, pajama-party-and-girl-talk trip. I’m around men so much, I guess I’d kind of dressed up a girls’ trip in my mind.”

  Linny grinned. “On another note, did you know that if you can’t find a campsite, you can park your RV overnight in most Walmart parking lots?” Linny watched the shoppers pulling in and out of the parking lot, a safe distance away from where she’d parked.

  “Fascinating,” Mary Catherine said drily. “You’re turning into a real camping girl. You’ll have to fill me in on everything when you get back.”

  “I will,” Linny promised and saw Mama and her friends walking toward the RV, their arms laden with grocery bags and laughing about something. “Oops, the women are back. I need to run.” Promising to call Mary Catherine when she got home, Linny ended the call.

  The women clomped into the RV.

  “The SWAT Team T-shirts were a hit. Some man insisted we go in front of him at the checkout. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we weren’t officers of the law,” Ruby said, easing her handful of grocery bags onto the table.

  “Show me what you bought.” Linny grinned at the three shoppers.

  “We stuck to our lists and tried to stay within a budget,” Dessie said, unpacking. “Milk, cheese, bread, tuna, lunch meat, push-up bra, lip plumper . . .” She shot a sheepish glance at Linny. “The girls made me buy those last two items.”

  “I only got necessities,” Mama said, looking self-righteous as she pulled out toilet tissue, marshmallows, two half gallons of ice cream, caramel popcorn, a bag of pork rinds, and a big box of Luzianne tea. “We were dangerously low on tea bags,” she explained.

  “I mainly focused on Dessie. I always try to help others,” Ruby said virtuously. Her purchases included avocados, a bag of tortilla chips, a box of false eyelashes, a leopard print skirt, and a red silky shirt with a plunging neckline.

  Linny shook her head and grinned as she sat back down in the driver’s seat. “We have one more stop. Kate says we need to hit a health food store to find sage to burn and get the thief’s bad energy out of the RV.”

  “Sounds like Episcopalian claptrap, but if it makes you feel better, okay,” Dottie said, sighing like a martyr as she opened the pork rinds and popped one in her mouth.

  “I’ll find a store.” Dessie grabbed her phone and started tapping. “There’s a Healthy World just eight miles away in the next town,” she announced.

  They set off. Linny clutched the wheel and fought heart palpitations as she navigated alarmingly narrow streets and squeaked under one low-clearance bridge with no height restriction sign. She blew out a breath when they finally wheeled into the parking lot of the shopping center. Dessie jumped out to buy the sage.

  “We’re supposed to open all the windows and doors,” Linny said, and the other two women hopped to.

  When Dessie got back, bag in hand, Linny dropped the bundle in a bowl and tried to remember what Kate had said when she’d smudged her aqua trailer the year before. The pressure was on with the three women lined up beside one another on the couch, looking nervous and watching as she lit the small bundle. Linny paused. Seemed like a pretty personal thing to do with her mama and her friends, but burning sage would make her feel like she was reclaiming control. Glancing at her bare left hand, she pushed her shoulders back and started smudging. Waving the earthy tang of smoke into every space, Linny said, “We call upon God, the angels, and the universe to clear out negative energies and purify our home. We invite in positive energy, light, peace, and calm.”

  “And keep the creeps out of our RV,” Dessie added.

  “Amen,” Mama said loudly.

  Soon they were on the road again. Linny adjusted the big sun visor and Dessie, her second-shift co-driver, checked the Waze map route against the Triple A route and nodded approvingly.

  Ruby called to them from the sofa. “I saved up all my new responses from the love websites on my desktop. I’ve got enough battery to read them to you and you can tell me what you think.”

  “Good. Let’s hear some,” Dottie said, as she knitted away, her needles making quiet clicking sounds that Linny heard from up-front and somehow found comforting.

  Ruby clapped, sounding excited as she began. “This fellow is named Charles and he’s from . . . Bangor, Maine. Hmmm. Must be freezing up there.” She leaned in to look more closely at the screen. “It looks like he wrote this at two in the morning. He says he loves the institution of marriage. Hmmm. He must love it. He’s been married four times and has eleven grandchildren. LOL.” She frowned, looking baffled. “What’s the LOL for? Is what he said funny?”

  “Delete,” Dottie said firmly.

  Ruby got rid of him with an emphatic click of a keystroke. “Now this fellow says he’s an incredibly successful businessman who wants a confident and fun woman to travel with him to Italy, Greece, Bora Bora, and other dream destinations.” She sighed, and said, “I’ve always wanted to go to those places. I think I should write him.”

  “He’s throwing out a lot of bait there,” Dottie said. “Did he say anything about what you wrote about yourself or your interests? Did he say why he liked your write-up?”

  “Go, Mama,” Linny called over her shoulder.

  “Maybe because I look confident and fun,” Ruby said, sounding a little miffed.

  “Well, it can’t hurt to drop him a note,” Dessie said. “But ask him why he liked your profile. Let’s make sure he’s not a Casanova doing some cutting and pasting.”

  They ruled out a man who had been separated for three years and the man who was looking for a lady to change my mind about all women being evil.

  “This gentleman is not into head games,” Ruby read and giggled as she hit Delete. “Dar
n. I just love head games.”

  Dottie weighed in. “Mack’s dance instructor buddies from the cruise ships say it’s just as rough out there in the dating world for middle-aged men. He says the women have gotten into money messes and need to be bailed out or have sons who just got out of rehab or bankruptcy who are living with them or want a man to slip right into the old shoes of their late husbands.” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “Thank goodness I’m not in the dating world.”

  The silence spun out until Dessie finally spoke. “Then what exactly are you and Mack doing, Dottie? Seems like you’re eating out at fun restaurants, seeing shows, playing pickle ball, and going to church. These days, is that not called dating?”

  Dottie’s needles clicked away faster. “I’m not sure what we’re doing,” she admitted. “We’re keeping each other company is all I know.”

  “Well, there’s not a thing in the world wrong with that,” Ruby said. “Just because I’m getting married doesn’t mean the rest of you need to get married. You all can just let the wind blow you wherever you want to go.”

  Dessie looked over her shoulder and said firmly, “Nobody on this bus is blowing in the wind, Ruby. Dottie and I are just taking our time and getting to know these fellows. Getting married isn’t the hard part. Mr. Bangor Cabin would probably marry you next week. Finding a man who’ll make you happy: now that’s the hard part.”

  Her mouth in a thin line, Ruby rose and flounced off, which was hard to do because the RV was so short. From a seat in the sofa that converted to her bed, she clicked on her seat belt, pulled out a copy of Good Housekeeping, and rustled the pages of the magazine as she aggressively flipped through it.

  * * *

  Thursday morning Ruby had recovered from her snit and Dessie was at the wheel as they motored away from the Nashville skyline toward Memphis. Though Linny and the others were all tired, they chatted animatedly, rehashing the highlights of their visit to Music City.