The Lilac Bouquet Page 10

  “You’ll need more than Mama’s ring for that. Them Grady men is like wolves in sheep’s clothing. They talk a pretty picture, but they don’t deliver nothing but bullshit,” Tandy told her. She picked up her coffee cup. “But we’re here now, so we might as well visit about something. Are you really not going to tell me a thing about that house? Is it all fancy as hell inside?”

  “Not really.” Emmy Jo slid out of the booth and bent to hug her granny just like she’d done with Diana earlier in the week. She had no illusions about things going that smoothly with Tandy, but maybe it would soften the old girl up a little bit. “It’s nice, but it looks like it was furnished in the sixties and hasn’t ever had an update. My room is really big and I have my own bathroom,” she said as she moved back to her spot.

  “Well, la-di-da!” Tandy waved a hand in the air. “I guess he got it all ready for that citified woman and when she got smart and called off the wedding, he didn’t have the heart to change anything. He always was too softhearted for his own good.”

  “Why did the woman call off the wedding?” Emmy Jo asked.

  Tandy shrugged. “She came here and saw Hickory. It ain’t Amarillo.”

  “Did you ever see her?” Emmy Jo asked.

  Libby brought their food and set it in front of them. “I’ll have those pancakes out real soon. Don’t want them to get cold while you are enjoying the omelets.”

  “Thank you.” Tandy picked up her fork and set about eating.

  “Well?” Emmy Jo asked.

  Tandy held up a finger. “Girl, you have gotten to where you ask more questions than you did when you were a three-year-old. I swear to God, you’ve gotten so nosy that it’s goin’ to get you into a mess of trouble. But yes, I saw her once. Me and Rose were at the drugstore. She came in with Seth for a cold drink while we were there filling a prescription.”

  “What’d she look like?” Emmy Jo picked at her hash browns.

  “Did you bring me here to pump me for information or to have breakfast with me?” Tandy asked, cocking her head to one side at her great-granddaughter.

  “Maybe both.” Emmy Jo smiled. “Didn’t you come for gossip?”

  Tandy sighed. “It was a long time ago, but best I can remember she was tall and skinny, had blonde hair and big blue eyes, and was dressed fit to kill. I never thought I’d be having this conversation more than fifty years later, so I didn’t get my picture made with her.” Evidently, Tandy thought that was funny, because she giggled like a little girl. “Why are you askin’ about Seth’s woman, anyway?”

  “You brought it up and just got me curious. Reckon we could make this a weekly deal. Or maybe you could make some of your famous brownies, and we could sit around the kitchen table at home and have a visit.”

  Tandy motioned for Libby to put the pancakes on the griddle. “If you bring the milk and brownies, we’ll meet at the park and share them. I’m still mad at you for choosing Seth over me.”

  “I did not choose him over you. He’s my employer. You are my granny,” Emmy Jo argued.

  “Who are you livin’ with?” Tandy shot back.

  “I’m not having this conversation. Tell me about my father,” Emmy Jo said abruptly, hoping to throw her off her determination not to talk about the past.

  “He was just a kid like Crystal. When she died, he was pretty broken up. He got religion about then and changed from a wild boy into a missionary. He went to one of those third-world countries and never came back.” Tandy spoke in a practiced monologue.

  “You told me that years ago. Didn’t he ever call or ask about me?”

  “The first year he kept in touch, and then he got married and died a few years after that. I’ve told you all that,” she said.

  “But what did he look like? There’s tons of pictures of Rose and of my mother in the house, but none of him. Did he graduate from Hickory with Mama?”

  “Two years before her,” Tandy said. “He was rotten to the core in those days, and I tried every way in the world to get her to break it off with Bubba Dale. But she wasn’t having no part of it. She had the same stubborn streak that you’ve got with Logan Grady.”

  “Logan’s handsome enough to keep anyone’s attention. What did Bubba look like? I used to picture him as tall with dark hair and . . .”

  “Gregory Dale was his real name. And, honey, he was like a little cocky rooster. Maybe five feet six inches tall, red hair, and a scruffy, hippie-lookin’ beard like somebody dragged him through a bunch of red fuzz. But your mama was took with him, and couldn’t nobody talk her out of it.”

  “Like me and Logan, right?”

  Tandy laid a hand on Emmy Jo’s. “You got that right. What’s got you all tied up and askin’ questions about your parents now? I thought we got all that settled when you was a little girl. You wanted to know why I was so much older than everyone else’s mamas in your classroom at school.”

  Emmy Jo loved the touch of her great-grandmother’s old, wrinkled hand on hers. “Granny, until this minute I never realized how much you gave up for me. You were retirement age and should have been having the time of your life, yet you were raising another child. Thank you. I love you.”

  Tandy’s nod was a bit jerky. “And I love you, but I’m not going to forgive you for leavin’ me and goin’ up there with him.”

  “It’s enough today that you love me,” Emmy Jo said.

  “I guess if you brought the milk and brownies you might come visit me. But you call first. I might be entertainin’ a guest.”

  “Granny, do you have a boyfriend?” Emmy Jo asked.

  “No, and I wish to hell you didn’t. And I wish it was anybody in the world besides Jesse Grady’s kinfolk,” Tandy said in soberness and set about eating her food.

  Emmy Jo followed her lead, thankful for the few tidbits that she’d gotten that morning. They didn’t play into the story, but then maybe there was a lot in what wasn’t said.

  When Tandy had polished off the last of her pancakes, she pushed the empty plate back and stood up. Her hair might be gray, and there were wrinkles in her face, but she was still a beautiful woman.

  “Okay, kiddo, I’ve got to go home and get some laundry done,” Tandy said. Emmy Jo wanted to jump up and dance a jig right there in the café. Her grandmother called her by that endearment when she was happy with her.

  “Reckon we might do this again next Thursday, Granny? And maybe I’ll stop by the trailer on Tuesday with brownies in my hand?”

  Emmy Jo was pushing her luck, because Tandy had said she might meet her at the park on Tuesday, since she was still too mad for her to come to the trailer.

  “Oh, okay! But you bring the brownies. And if I win at bingo on Friday I’ll buy breakfast on Thursday. If I don’t, I might not even show up,” Tandy said.

  “But I can still come home on Tuesday, right?”

  “You could sweet-talk a dead man into buying a coffin.” Tandy laughed. “See you Tuesday.”

  Emmy Jo stood up at the same time Tandy did and hugged her tightly.

  She walked out into the bright morning with Tandy and waved until she’d driven out of sight and then went straight to the library. Edith was busy with story hour for a whole group of preschool children when Emmy Jo found the section with old yearbooks and carried several to the little room she’d used before. She found her father’s senior picture a couple of years prior to her mother’s. Emmy Jo squinted at the small photo and wondered why in the world she’d never thought to look for her parents in the old yearbooks before. She did look a lot like him, except that his eyes were dark, or at least appeared so in the picture. No wonder her granny hadn’t liked him; he had the same smirk that Jesse Grady had in his senior picture.

  “The more I dig, the more I want to know,” she muttered.

  “Were you talkin’ to me?” Edith asked.

  The elderly woman’s sudden presence startled Emmy Jo so badly that she almost fell out of the chair.

  “No, ma’am, I was talkin’ to myself aga
in,” Emmy Jo answered.

  “Well, I’m going to have lunch in the office and just wanted to tell you. What is it that keeps you coming back to these old papers?”

  “My past. I just looked up a picture of my father in that old high school annual.” Emmy Jo nodded at the open book.

  “Oh, honey, I remember him very well.” Edith pulled up a chair. “He was a”—she lowered her voice—“very bad boy. Your mama was such a sweet little thing. Quite a reader. She came in here every week to check out books. But your father, never saw him one time here.”

  “So I read about Jesse Grady gettin’ beat up. Do you remember that?”

  “Jesse wouldn’t have anything to do with your past, honey. But I do remember that time very well. He was a senior and I was only in the seventh grade. Folks in town were already talkin’ to a sign maker to get us a big thing to go at the edge of Hickory that would say ‘State Champions,’ with a list of all the players. It all fell through when them hateful boys from the other team came nigh to beatin’ Jesse to death,” Edith answered. “I must get to my lunch, darlin’, but if you have any questions that I can answer, I’d be glad to help you out. You makin’ a family tree?”

  “Something like that. I should be going, too.”

  Edith smiled. “Got a date with that feller of yours?”

  Emmy Jo nodded. “Yes, ma’am, and I don’t want to be late.” She gathered up her things and headed out to the parking lot. The message on her phone said that Logan was already at the trailer with takeout from the Asian place in town. She took a deep breath and focused on getting to be with Logan for the afternoon as she drove to the trailer and parked.

  When he stepped out onto the tiny porch, the whole story of Seth’s past and her library research disappeared.

  All that mattered was Logan.

  Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, no shoes and a big smile, this was the Logan she liked best. The carefree boy she’d fallen in love with when they were in high school. She was proud of Logan the college graduate, and Logan the bank employee, but she was in love with the guy who stood in front of her.

  Their gazes locked across the tiny yard as she hurried toward him. He opened his arms and scooped her up like a bride, carried her into the trailer, and kicked the door shut behind him.

  Four hours later she rushed back to Seth’s house, wondering the whole way how time had passed so quickly. When she parked in the garage, she checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her hair was a mess, her face was still flushed, and she’d dressed so fast that she’d forgotten to put on her bra. A glance at the dashboard clock told her that she had twenty minutes, which was plenty of time to dash upstairs, get one on, brush her hair, and still get to the kitchen in time to help Oma Lynn put supper on the table.

  She took the steps two at a time. Her phone pinged four times while she was putting herself together, and the messages from Logan put a crimson flush in her cheeks. She wished she had a lemon to suck on as she splashed cold water on her still-smiling face. She reached presentability when she breezed past Seth at the dining room table and headed into the kitchen.

  “Beans and ham, fried potatoes, fried okra, and sliced tomatoes. You can carry the corn bread and the ketchup to the table,” Oma Lynn said. “What have you been doing all day?”

  “I saw Tandy this morning for breakfast,” Emmy Jo answered, still aware of the smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

  “That’s good, but seeing your granny didn’t put that look on your face,” Oma Lynn said.

  Emmy Jo spontaneously hugged Oma Lynn. “No, this comfort food did. I’m starving.”

  Oma Lynn clucked like an old hen gathering her chicks before a storm, though her eyes glittered. “Don’t know where you kids get that kind of sayin’. This is plain old country cooking.”

  “It brings comfort to our bodies and makes us happy when we eat it. Macaroni and cheese is a comfort food, too,” Emmy Jo said.

  Oma Lynn carried the last dish to the table.

  “I hate macaroni and cheese. If you want it, you’ll have to order it at Libby’s on your days off,” Seth said.

  “Why?” she asked as she pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “I swear, Seth, she’s like a two-year-old,” Oma Lynn said. “Every other word is why.”

  Emmy Jo giggled. “That’s the same thing Granny told me today. The pair of you shouldn’t gang up on me. I’m tough enough to fight you both. And for the record, I get even meaner when I’m hungry.”

  “Just like Nora,” Seth muttered. “Meaner than a junkyard dog.”

  “A hungry junkyard dog.” Emmy Jo picked up a bowl and ladled out beans, making sure to get several large chunks of ham.

  “A smart-ass mutt,” Seth said.

  “Smart—whatever!” She ladled beans into Oma Lynn’s bowl and then filled her own. And that’s when she remembered the takeout containers sitting on the countertop at the trailer. Unopened and still full.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Logan, Jack, and Diana quickly found a seat on the back pew at Tandy’s church and each picked up a hymnal from the pew pocket in front of them.

  “Smaller,” Jack whispered.

  “I know most of these people, though,” Diana said.

  Folks came in from Sunday school and milled around a few minutes before getting settled into their seats. Logan noticed Tandy two pews up when a couple of older ladies patted her on the back, one stopping long enough to congratulate her on the money she’d won at bingo on Friday night. He made a mental note to tell Emmy Jo when he saw her that afternoon in the cemetery. She’d mentioned that if her granny didn’t win, she’d swear it was bad luck brought on by seeing her. But now that she had, Emmy Jo would be Tandy’s good-luck charm.

  Edna Weatherly, one of Emmy Jo’s patients at Hickory Health whom Diana had inherited, pushed her walker through the back door and stopped in the middle of the aisle beside the back pew. “Is that really you, Diana? Well, darlin’, I’m sitting by you.” She maneuvered around to sit in their pew. “Is Emmy Jo going to join you? I love that you are coming by to take care of me, but I sure do miss her. She’s been my girl for two whole years.”

  “No, she has to work on Sundays with her new position, and she’s getting married on June tenth, so it’ll be the end of June before she’s back on the schedule,” Diana whispered.

  “She has such a lovely voice. Did you know that she sings in the choir?” Edna sighed.

  “Yes, ma’am, I did,” Diana answered.

  “You and these good-lookin’ fellers should be up there in our choir. I’ll talk to the preacher about that this week. We need the young folks to take on responsibility,” Edna said and then straightened up when a tall woman tapped on the microphone at the pulpit.

  “Good morning, everyone, on this blessed Sunday. I’d like to welcome our newcomers Logan Grady, Jack Ramsey, and Diana Watson. We are glad to have you kids. Now if you’ll open your song books to page thirty, we’ll all sing together.”

  Many of the old folks sang off-key and out of tune, but their enthusiasm, as they clapped to the music coming from an old upright piano, was infectious. After another congregational song, the preacher took the stand. Logan tried to listen, but his mind kept wandering to Emmy Jo and what she would look like in a pretty white dress walking down the aisle, whether it was in this church or somewhere in an outdoor setting.

  After the benediction, Logan fetched Edna’s walker, brought it to the center aisle, and offered her an arm to help her. Folks angled past, stopping to shake hands with Diana and Jack and asking them to come back the next Sunday.

  “Well, hello, Tandy,” Edna said.

  Logan looked over her shoulder; Tandy’s eyes bored right into his.

  “How’re you doin’, Edna?” she asked.

  “Doin’ great. Any Sunday I can get out of bed and make it to church is a good day. Ain’t it wonderful to see these kids in our church this mornin’?” Edna asked.

  Tandy winked.

 
; Logan blinked.

  “Of course, it is,” Tandy said. “Why don’t you go with me to that Asian place for lunch today, Edna? I hate to eat alone, especially on Sunday. We’ll go in my car and I’ll take you home afterward so you don’t have to call the senior citizen van.”

  “Love to,” Edna said.

  Tandy took over Logan’s job of helping, and the two old gals moved toward the doors to shake the preacher’s hand. Logan stood there in awe for a long moment. Was the wink telling him that she was going to finally accept his relationship with Emmy Jo, or was it saying that he’d better watch his back?

  The silk lilacs on Mary’s grave weren’t faded that Sunday afternoon, but Seth replaced them with a fresh bouquet as he always did. Emmy Jo made sure he was settled in his lawn chair with the tattered old quilt in his lap before she hurried away to the black truck waiting down the road.

  “It’s been a week with that girl, and there’s something happening, Mama. I’m feeling different. Not physically—oh, I’m stronger every day and Emmy Jo has even said that I’m progressing really well—but there’s something I can’t put my finger on inside my heart.” Seth’s lips barely moved. No one other than a shy little cottontail bunny peeking out from around the tombstone could hear him. “It’s beginning to look like I’m going to have to endure the sassy redhead for the entire time, and that’s okay with me now.”

  He shut his eyes and raised his chin, catching the sun’s rays on his thin, wrinkled face. “I told her things that I’ve never shared with anyone in my life. Not even Nora. Every time I reveal a little more of the past to her, it’s like I’m letting go of the burden I’ve been carrying all these years.”

  He lowered his head and hugged the old quilt to his chest. “I wish you could meet her . . . she reminds me of Nora. Most days I wish she wasn’t in my house. But when she has days off, I end up watching the clock until it’s time for her to come back. Don’t make a bit of sense, does it?”