The Wedding Planners of Butternut Creek (2 page)

“We have a sort of diner restaurant in Louisville. Has great hamburgers and a jukebox.”

“You proposed at a hamburger place?” Blossom gasped, fell against the back of her chair, and placed her hand over her heart.

“At a diner?” Disappointment colored Winnie’s voice.

“Not, of course, that there’s anything wrong with a diner,” Birdie stated clearly. “Not a thing wrong with a diner.”

“Of course not,” Winnie agreed. “But not a romantic place like that train.”

“How could you possibly believe a diner would be the place to propose to a young woman?” Mercedes asked.

“It was the best I could afford.” He shrugged. “She accepted.”

Ooh, he looked so smug.

“Did you hide the ring anyplace?” Mercedes asked. “To add a little romance?”

“I’ve always thought that was silly and dangerous,” Blossom said. “A person could swallow the ring and choke to death.”

“Was there anything at all romantic about your first proposal?” Mercedes persisted.

“I brought a roll of quarters and put them in the jukebox to play romantic songs.”

“That’s sweet,” Blossom gushed.

Honestly, she was the gushiest woman Birdie had ever met.

“But there was only one love song, Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You.’”

“Good choice. You did something right,” Winnie said.

During all this, Birdie watched. She hated the fact she hurt so much, couldn’t say a word without sounding cantankerous. Oh, my Lord, she hated this weakness.

“So I put in a whole bunch of quarters and punched it over and over. Unfortunately…”

“This isn’t going to turn out well,” Birdie muttered.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people before me had chosen songs.”

“What
did
you propose to?” Mercedes asked.

“Something by Jay-Z.”

“Who’s Jay Zee?” Blossom asked.

“Some sort of rapper,” Birdie explained. “Bree says he uses a lot of bad words.”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t understand anything,” Adam said.

“Doesn’t sound very romantic,” Mercedes said.

“No, it wasn’t.” He lifted both hands, palms up, as if he was saying
Go figure
. “But she did accept.”

“Is that how you’re planning to propose to Gussie?” Oh, Birdie had pushed too far. The preacher’s bulldog expression underscored her error. She should shut up and allow the others to take over. They’d been doing fine on their own.

“Ladies.” He paused. Looked like he was trying to think of a polite way to tell them to go away and leave him alone.

He didn’t succeed.

“That’s between Gussie and me.” Although his voice sounded polite, the clipped words and his glower conveyed that this was none of their business, none of their business at all.

Words and facial expressions had never stopped Birdie. “But you are going to ask her?” As the head matchmaker she had a right to ask that, but she’d sounded mean.

When the words tumbled out, Mercedes stood, moved to Birdie’s chair, took her good right arm, and said, “Time to go, Bird.” She gently pulled Birdie to her feet and led her toward the door Winnie held open.

Birdie deserved a mutiny. She’d been rude and pushy. However, she still had to take charge of the insurrection. “Ladies, we have a lot of work ahead.”

They all left with Blossom fluttering along behind them.

But that shoulder. No matter how often she rotated it as she walked back to work—surreptitiously because she hated to show weakness—the movement didn’t help. On top of that, her feet hurt.

“Dear Lord,” she whispered, “please don’t let me fall apart yet.”

As the Widows left, Adam relaxed. He’d survived an interrogation by experts. If there’d been a bright light shining in his face, it would have looked like a scene from a police movie. Thank goodness for Blossom Brown. With her, he had the good cop on his side.

But he worried about the pillar. Not that she’d allow him to do anything for her, but he still worried about her pain, which made her extra surly.

He should have known better than to relax. At two thirty, the same time Adam stood to leave having completed his sermon preparation and, he knew, the time Miss Birdie finished her lunch shift, she knocked on the office door—which was not her usual MO—and came in without waiting for his answer, as usual.

“Nice sermon Sunday,” she said. For a few seconds she stood in front of his desk.

When Miss Birdie harked back to a sermon preached nearly a week earlier, he knew it was an apology for her earlier behavior, as good a one as he’d ever get. “Thank you,” he accepted graciously because he knew even this little bit of reconciliation was hard for the pillar. “How’s that shoulder?”

“Fine.” She nodded and turned to leave, mission accomplished, as if the only reason she’d dropped by was to compliment a sermon she probably didn’t remember. No one remembered sermons. “Good-bye.”

The pillar stopped at the door and turned back. “One more thing.”

Every time he’d thought she had completed the meeting and he’d survived, she had one more question. Birdie MacDowell, the Columbo of Butternut Creek.

“What are you doing about the air-conditioning? Summer’s not far away and you know how hot this place can get.”

He sighed. “Miss Birdie, I don’t know. I’ve talked to the property committee. They’ve seen Howard down at the bank, but we don’t have the money for it and can’t get a loan.”

“We need it before it gets too hot here or everyone’ll go to the Baptist Church,” she said. “They’ve got a really good system.”

“I know.”

“When I go there, I have to take a sweater. Not that I go there often. Blossom takes a sweater when she goes to the Church of Christ because they have great air-conditioning.” She nodded, her get-busy-on-this nod, before she turned and strode from his office.

“Thank you,” he called after her. “I’ll consider all you’ve said.”

Her departure left him to ponder the terrible financial situation the church faced, which meant no raise for him and no air-conditioning this summer. No air-conditioning meant lower attendance.

With the increase in attendance and giving, the board had given him a one-hundred-dollar-per-month raise a few months ago, but that didn’t go far. Not receiving more of a raise meant no new car, not even a less-than-ten-years-old one with a good paint job and an engine that didn’t give up at the most inconvenient times. Hector had mentioned the kids called his poor old vehicle “the turtle” because it was old, slow, and ugly but usually got them where they were going. They were stuck with the turtle.

On top of that, how could he possibly afford a ring for Gussie when Janey had hit a growth spurt that meant her ankles showed when she wore last year’s jeans?

Monday, Birdie had started out the door of her little house to work the lunch shift when the phone rang. Nowadays, with the possibility of a college scholarship, she didn’t ignore a phone call. “Hello?”

“Good morning,” the voice on the other end of the phone said. “This is Coach McGuffey from Sunshine State College. May I speak to Bree MacDowell?”

“I’m sorry, she’s not home.” Why didn’t these people realize a high school student would be at school on a weekday morning? But Birdie forced a pleasant response because, after all, these were people who wanted to pay for Mac’s college education in exchange for her playing volleyball. Heaven knew, Birdie couldn’t afford tuition, couldn’t add much other than a tiny bit of spending money, and she didn’t want Bree to acquire a huge debt.

“May I take a message?” she asked with a cheerfulness she seldom used. Took a lot of effort because today her feet ached like the dickens.

When she hung up after scribbling a note, Birdie reflected on the amazing fact that a college would offer scholarships because Bree could execute a perfect kill or Bobby could drop a ball into a hoop from twenty feet away or Hector could make a bounce pass through a zone defense.

Not that she minded. Bree would be the first MacDowell to go to college. Oh, Birdie had wanted to; then she’d fallen in love with Elmer when she was seventeen. Martha Patricia—their daughter and Mac and Bree’s mother—had never shown a bit of interest in college or even high school. No, she’d been boy crazy. When she was sixteen, she ran off with that no-good man who got her pregnant twice. Birdie hadn’t seen Martha Patricia since the day she left Mac with her in Butternut Creek nearly two years after she’d left Bree here.

Not all bad, although she wouldn’t have believed anything good could have come from Marty’s partying her way out of school and leaving Butternut Creek with that man.

Goes to show what God could do with the tragedies and disasters of life. She had two marvelous granddaughters. They counted as the best thing that had ever happened to Birdie. Well, after Elmer. Not that she’d tell the girls, because it wasn’t good for them to get swelled heads and she’d probably get all mushy and emotional. She had no desire for anyone to know what a softie she was about those two.

With a glance at the clock, she realized she’d better hustle, at least as much as she could. Lordy, she wished she could afford better shoes. The sole on the left one seemed to be pulling away a little. She opened the junk drawer, pulled out the glue, and dribbled a bit in the loose place. That should fix it. She hoped her foot wouldn’t stick to the floor.

Then she hurried toward the door. Halfway there, Carlos the Cat darted out from behind the sofa and grabbed her ankle. Birdie nearly fell over, and he ran away.

Idiot cat. Didn’t he know that if she fell, there’d be no more cat food for him? If the girls didn’t love the sneaky creature so much, she’d give him away—but no one would want him.

Before she could make it out the door, the phone rang again. Torn about the need to get to work and the necessity of encouraging those recruiters, she chose the latter even if it meant dragging the cat a few feet.

“Mrs. MacDowell? This is Miss Phillips, the guidance counselor at the high school.”

Guidance counselor. That meant Bree or Mac was okay. The principal had called a lot when Martha was in school. A call from the guidance counselor meant the girls weren’t in trouble, not unless one of them had gone crazy and had been dragged to the counselor’s office. Didn’t sound likely.

“Yes?”

“I want to talk you about Mac. As you know, she’s very bright in science.”

“I know she likes science.” Mac had a poster of Stephen Hawking over her bed, which had always seemed odd to Birdie. She noticed Carlos’s paw reaching out from under the telephone table. She scooted her foot back before he could grab her shoelace.

“Her teachers tell me she’s an outstanding student,” the counselor said as Birdie fought the cat off. “They suggest she needs more of a challenge. We’d like to put her in a couple of science classes next year and prepare her for two or three AP exams when she’s a senior.”

“AP classes?” Birdie dropped into a chair. She hadn’t realized her granddaughter was a genius. She struggled to get her mind around the concept. Where had her interest and ability and
brain
come from?

“Advanced placement. She can get college credit for high school classes.”

“Yes, I know that. I didn’t realize Mac…” Birdie stopped babbling to get to the point. “What do I need to do?”

“I’ll send some information home with her. Please read it and get back to me if you have any questions.”

Birdie clicked the phone off. Didn’t that beat all. Oh, she knew Mac had won the science fair in seventh grade, but that was a small-town event with only three entries. Who knew it served as a sign of things to come? Mac’s grades were A’s, consistently. Birdie never had to force her to study.

Bree called her sister “Little Miss Perfect” for her fastidious ways. She said Mac wasn’t merely tidy but
compulsively
neat. Yes, she was. Mac set everything parallel or at right angles with precision. Probably that scientific genius kicking in.

Birdie turned on the phone again to call Mercedes. All of Mercedes’s children had gone to college, a couple to graduate school, and one had a PhD. Now Birdie had something to crow about. Then she’d call the preacher and tell him.

But first she had to get out the door before that stupid cat could attack again.

Friday afternoon, Chewy loped along next to Adam toward the parsonage. Some might consider Chewy ugly—well, Adam did, too—but because the dog had attached himself loyally to Adam, he couldn’t hurt the creature’s feelings. He allowed the dog to follow him around the parsonage and church except on Sundays.

Adam waved to his neighbor Ouida—a Southern name pronounced, strangely,
Weed-a
—Kowalski sitting on the front porch of her huge Victorian, the architectural twin of the parsonage. Her two daughters played on the lawn.

“Come on over and see Gussie later,” he shouted.

“Thanks. We’re going out to dinner when George gets home. Maybe tomorrow.”

Sounded as if everything was going well in the Kowalski household. With Carol, the older daughter, in kindergarten and Gretchen in day care three mornings a week, Ouida had time to paint and sketch, at least until their third child arrived in late spring.

Fridays, Adam loved Fridays. He loved Saturday and Sunday even more since Gussie spent weekends in town. Although their courtship had been rocky, it had smoothed out. Maybe he could sneak a kiss or two. But he especially loved this Friday because Butternut Creek High School had a basketball game tonight.

By the time he reached the porch, Chewy had bounded ahead of him and sat by the door patiently, at least as patiently as Chewy ever waited. His tail beat out a steady tempo against the porch floor, his entire body wiggled, and he gave a demanding “Woof” all in the few seconds it took Adam to climb the porch steps.

“I’m home,” Adam shouted as he opened the door and Chewy bounced inside ahead of him.

Home. He looked around at what had been an empty and echoing building when he first arrived, a huge parsonage built for a family with half a dozen children. Now Hector and Janey Firestone lived here and it had become home.

He started upstairs to change into a Butternut Creek Lions shirt. Gussie would meet them at the high school gym for what could be Hector’s last high school basketball game, one of the regional games. Lose this and the Lions had completed the season. A win meant one game closer to the state title.