CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was a normal Saturday morning. The cabins were full, which meant lots of extra cleaning, but Brook was home to help all day. Tawny had unloaded her burden to Zed and made a decision that she swore she’d have no regrets about. So why did she feel like a weight was tied to her heart that morning?
She stared at her reflection in the mirror and wished she could see past the superficial and actually take a peek at her heart. Maybe then she’d know how to remove that heavy feeling. As she passed by her trinket shelf, she added a cigarette butt that she’d found beside the bench the night before and made a circle above it with her forefinger.
“Thank you, Uncle Zed.”
She had a chip on her shoulder when she reached the café, and it just got bigger when she heard Harper whistling and Dana talking to Brook about the evening. They deserved their smoke rings, but she didn’t, because she didn’t have the nerve to tell them her big black secret. If they knew, they’d never trust her again, not with the company’s books or even to fold towels in the laundry room.
“Good mornin’,” Harper said.
“What’s so damn good about it?” Tawny popped off.
“We’re alive. We’ve got jobs and we’re makin’ good money,” Dana answered.
“Sounds to me like someone has some regrets, after all.” Zed’s face popped up in the serving window.
“What’s got your panties in a twist, Aunt Tawny?” Brook asked.
Tawny stormed off to the kitchen without answering her. She made a plate of bacon, eggs, and biscuits and pulled up a stool to eat right there in the work area.
“Young lady, you take that to the dining room or else everyone will want to eat in here and they’ll get in my way. What’s put you in this Jesus mood anyway? I thought you were in good shape last night.” Zed’s tone left no room for argument.
“They’ve come clean with everyone and I can’t. And what is a Jesus mood?”
“Annie got in one about once a year. It’s when not even Jesus himself, nor all the angels in heaven, could live with a person in such a mood. I reckon you got that from her along with the ability to make the right decision. It’ll pass, but it’ll take at least a day,” he answered. “Now get out of my kitchen. I don’t allow no Jesus moods in here. Time’s too short for anything but sunshine and happiness.”
She shot a dirty look toward him and carried her plate back to the dining room, where she sat down at a table in the corner so that she wouldn’t have to talk to her sisters. Did they get the gene for a Jesus mood, too? If they did, she sure didn’t want to be around them when it hit, because it was miserable.
Zed had a radio in the kitchen, and he kept it on classic country music all day. If the folks who came into the café didn’t like country, they could stay away—Granny Annie’s words. She stabbed a fork full of eggs and was about to put them in her mouth when Kenny Rogers started singing “The Gambler.” Even after the song ended, the lines kept running through Tawny’s mind.
She’d thrown away a pretty good hand the night before. The one she was holding that morning was a dud, and she couldn’t even bluff her way through it.
“You ready to tell us what’s eatin’ on you?” Harper asked from across the room.
“You ready to tell me if you’re sleepin’ with Wyatt?”
“Hey, that’s personal.” Harper’s eyes went from warm to cold in an instant.
“What is goin’ on? Y’all are actin’ like you did when we first got here. Am I going to have to bring Uncle Zed out here?” Brook asked.
“Breakfast is ready. Come on in here and help yourselves,” Zed yelled. “Don’t mind her. She’s in one of your granny Annie’s Jesus moods and it’ll take her a while to work things through her mind and get it over. Just give her lots of space so she can figure things out.”
Tawny held out her hands. The right one was empty and the left one had the story of why she had to do community service. The weight of the left one was the rock tied around her heart, but she wasn’t ready to let it go. She pushed her chair back, left her breakfast on the table, and marched out of the café and to the laundry room.
Brook didn’t say a word when she arrived in the laundry room but simply headed out to clean the rooms of the fishermen who’d left before daybreak. A twinge of guilt tried to hit Tawny in the heart, but it couldn’t get past the hardness. She should be letting Brook talk about how happy she was that her time spent in isolation at school was over. Right then, all Tawny could think about was that empty right hand and how that it would take part of the burden from the left one if she was willing to tell her sisters and niece.
Folks in Texas said that after Easter summer would arrive with heat and very little rain. Harper considered them prophets as she went outside after the noon rush that Saturday to catch a breath of air that didn’t smell like grilled onions. She was sitting on the bench when Zed motioned her to come back inside.
“Phone’s for you,” he said. “We might ought to look at gettin’ some of that cell phone service in this area for you girls.”
“We’re makin’ it fine without it.” Harper followed him back inside the café and picked up the receiver from the wall-hung phone. “Hello.”
“Hey, darlin’.” Wyatt’s deep voice sent tingles through her body.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Stuck at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. I was supposed to be in Dallas right now, but there’s some kind of bomb threat up here and they’ve grounded the planes, so I won’t be there for Brook’s family thing. It’ll be after midnight when my plane lands and tomorrow I’ve got a one-day trip with some fishermen out on a lake up near Wylie, so I’ll be workin’ on very little sleep. See you tomorrow night.”
“I’ll be right here,” she said.
“I wish you could have come with me. The boat show was amazing. I picked out my next one. Got to go, darlin’. My battery needs charging and I have to find a station.”
If she didn’t have to be in the kitchen seven days a week, she could have been there with him. He’d asked her if there was any way she could take off two days, but she wouldn’t even ask her sisters, not since they’d lost Flora.
“Call me when you have time,” she said.
“Will do,” Wyatt said and the line went dead.
She stomped her foot and growled. “Dammit!”
“Problems?” Zed asked.
“He can’t make it tonight. Brook is going to be disappointed.”
Zed pursed his mouth and poured two glasses of sweet tea. “I’m goin’ outside for a cigarette. Might as well join me.”
She followed him outside, plopped down on the bench, and folded her arms over her chest.
“Guess Tawny ain’t the only one who’s in a foul mood today. Amazin’ how little it takes to turn pretty blue skies to dark. Your granny Annie used to say that it wasn’t the mountain that put her in a bad way, but the grain of sand in her shoe. Brook will be fine.” He crushed the cigarette butt on the heel of his shoe.
She didn’t need a lecture or words of advice, especially when they made her feel guilty for feeling the way she did. What she needed was Wyatt. She made it through the days just fine, but the nights were a different matter.
“Tawny hasn’t got a monopoly on Granny’s moods,” Harper said. “But I do remember Granny saying that hard work would cure anything. I’m going to go mop the floors. That little blonde-haired girl spilled a whole glass of Coke and it’s still sticky.”
“I saw you lookin’ at her with yearnin’ in your eyes,” Zed said.
“I won’t ever be completely over it, but it’s getting better.”
Zed leaned back against the building and shut his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun and thinking of Annie. If she was going to have a Jesus mood day, it would usually arrive on June 1, because that’s when the girls used to come for a month. He understood and prepared for it, giving her lots of space and doing all he could just to get through the big disappointment.
“You asleep?” Dana whispered.
“Naw, just restin’ my eyes. Sit down and enjoy this beautiful day with me,” he said without opening his eyes.
He could feel her presence and, right along with it, her anger. Lord, he prayed silently, now you know it was about all I could do to handle Annie when she was havin’ one of these days, but to throw three of them at me at the same time, well, that’s a load that even Samson couldn’t bear up under.
“Payton called. He’s got a problem with a tank and he can’t come tonight,” she finally huffed.
“Wyatt’s stuck in Chicago at the airport and he won’t be here neither and I’ve been feelin’ a mite under the weather, so I ’spect y’all are going to have a girls’ night. Why don’t you go on up to Tyler and do some shoppin’? Do y’all good to get out for the evenin’. Cabins are all full and rented, so you ain’t got no late folks comin’ in.”
He didn’t say that he was all out of advice for them or that he really wanted an evening to himself for a change. Nope, that wouldn’t be something Earl from that television show would do and if Zed was going to be an angel, then he had to take care of his responsibilities.
“Saving Grace,” he said out loud.
“What?” Dana asked. “Is that a store in the mall?”
“No, it’s a television show that was on some years ago. This big guy played Grace’s second-chance angel. I just now remembered the name of the series.”
“I loved that series. Earl was the angel’s name, and he stole my heart,” Dana said. “Come to think of it, you are our Earl, Uncle Zed. You’ve given us all a second chance.”
“Don’t go gluin’ no wings on me or floatin’ a halo up above my gray hair. It was Annie that give y’all a second chance,” he said. “You’re in a mood over Payton not comin’ tonight? I’d like to put all three of you in a tow sack, throw it over a clothesline, and let y’all fight it out.”
Dana patted him on the knee. “I hear a vehicle pullin’ up in front of the store. Go on and get that tow sack out, because none of us is fit to live with today. Brook’s even in a snit. I don’t think a trip to the mall would even help, especially when her two aunts—”
He cleared his throat and gave her a sidelong look.
“Okay, all three of us are in a pissy mood.”
“Chocolate ice cream is in the freezer. You take a half gallon home with you and hand out four spoons. You can’t stay mad at each other forever when you’re eatin’ out of the same ice-cream box,” he said.