Chance of a Lifetime (4 page)

Before opening, Emily checked for another entry in one of the volumes of The Secrets of Comeback Bay. None this month. Then, she hurried down the stairs to let in Pamela Sue.

The volunteer rushed in protecting her newest hairstyle like it were a work of art. Her long, overbleached hair had been tied atop her head by what looked like a bungee cord.

As always, Emily complimented the latest creation while Pamela Sue set down her many bags of yarn and crafts.

The slender middle-aged lady bragged that she loved reading, but Emily had never seen her check out a single book that didn’t come from the craft section.

On the bright side, Pamela Sue was always punctual. Which in the land of volunteers made her perfect. The other Saturday volunteer, Wes Derwood, Emily always thought looked like he might have been a descendant from some line of the rodent family. He came every Saturday as well as Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. He never made it on time and would disappear for hours, claiming he’d been “lost in the stacks” as if the small library were the Amazon. He liked to shelve books and was happy to leave Pamela Sue tethered to the main desk by her knitting yarn.

The part-time secretary and a children’s librarian in her eighties who worked weekday mornings called Wes “the finder” because he loved to be given the title and number of a lost book.

The last member of the staff was the library cat everyone called “Old Gray.” He wasn’t friendly. He slept on the top shelf in reference and ate all the snacks Wes didn’t get to first.

Emily suspected the janitor, Sam Perkins, sometimes misplaced books just to see the excitement on Derwood’s face when he found the missing book.

At exactly ten o’clock, Emily waved to Pamela Sue and walked out for her morning break. The cold wind hurried her across the street to the Three Sisters’ Bakery.

Tiny, the largest and oldest of the sisters, was manning the counter. “Morning, Miss Librarian, how’s business?”

“Business is slow.” Tiny always made Emily smile. “Got any chocolate chip muffins left, Tiny?”

Tiny handed her one already in a bag. “I saved you the last one. I put in a sausage ball for that old gray cat.”

She circled the counter, fixed her own coffee, and joined Emily by the window.

The baker didn’t beat around the bush. “I read the paper this morning about the town council’s agenda next week. Appears library budget is on the list.”

Emily nodded. “This time it might not go my way.”

Both women were silent till Tiny said, “Thirty years ago when my sisters and I started this bakery, we thought we’d only do cakes and cookies. Business wasn’t good with two other bakeries and a hundred Girl Scouts in town. We tried everything, including dropping off samples. We increased business to four or five cakes a week, but it wasn’t enough to pay the bills. Then, one cold day my sister Geraldine got the idea to sell breakfast baked goods, opening at six in the morning. My father knocked a hole in the wall so people could drive up and get coffee and breakfast on the run. We started showing a profit.”

Emily smiled, knowing there had to be a point to Tiny’s story. “You’re suggesting I open a bakery inside the library or maybe have a drive-through check-out desk?”

“No, dear, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to serve more than one thing.”

“We tried having a few college classes.”

Tiny nodded. “What about community classes?”

“On what?”

“How about on writing? You could start one of those writers’ critique groups where people could come read their work. I’d even furnish the refreshments if you’d let my sister Geraldine in it. She’s been saying she wanted to write a book since she could talk. It would look good to have a dozen people meeting regularly. Darn near fill up the parking lot.”

“Do you think there are a dozen people who want to write in this town?” Emily couldn’t help but think of her
moments book she wrote in. She could never see herself reading it to anyone.

“Sure. If you ask me, half the people in this town spend more time in fiction than reality. Make up a poster and see who you get.”

Emily forgot about her muffin and hurried back to work. Within an hour, she had posters up announcing Harmony’s first writing club. By two o’clock, three people had already called to sign up: Martha Q Patterson, who owned Winter’s Inn Bed-and-Breakfast; the owner of the used bookstore, George Hatcher; and Tiny’s sister, Geraldine.

By closing time, Emily was beginning to think the writers’ group just might work. As she locked away the cash drawer, a man who looked to be homeless stepped through the door. He had oil stains on both elbows, what looked like tobacco drippings that dotted the lapel of a patched coat, and glasses so thick his eyes reminded her of fly eyes.

“Miss,” he said politely, “is it too late for me to sign up for the writers’ group?”

“Oh no.” She managed a polite smile.

“Then I’d like to be in the group. I’ve always considered myself a pre-writer. Zack Hunter’s my name.” He grinned. “And fiction is my game.”

“I’ll sign you up and look forward to seeing you next Friday, Mr. Hunter.”

Zack bobbed his head. “I’ll be here.” He backed away, bumping into Tannon Parker on his way out.

Emily was still smiling when she met Tannon’s gaze. He never came in except on Fridays when the library was open late. “I was just closing up, Tannon,” she said formally as she tugged off her glasses. She wasn’t vain, but sometimes she felt like she looked out at the world over the rims of her reading glasses.

“I know.” He removed his hat. “I came to ask a favor.”

“Of course. If I can.” She began cataloging what he might ask. A ride home. A few minutes to look up something. The use of a phone.

“I was wondering if you’d have a few minutes to come over and see my mother. We moved her to the assisted living unit of the nursing home a few nights ago. It’s not far.”

“I…” She’d never been to the nursing home. In a town where five generations filled several rows in churches, Emily was an exception. She had no living relatives. But her mother and Tannon’s mom had been good friends. At least they had been before what her mother used to call “the accident” happened during Emily’s junior year of high school. After that, the mothers still spoke, but they slipped into being more acquaintances than friends.

She needed to remember that “the accident” was fifteen years ago when they were more kids than adults. Tannon was asking for a favor now.

“I wouldn’t ask”—he rushed on as if he could read her thoughts—“but she’s been asking for your mother all day. The doc said your mom must have meant a great deal to her when she was young. I figured you look so much like your mother maybe it would calm her down just to see you. Once she gets in a rage, it takes days, sometimes weeks, to calm her down.”

When she hesitated, he added, “I’ll be right there with you. If it doesn’t work, we’ll be in and out of her room in five minutes.”

“If she doesn’t know you, she won’t know me.” Emily didn’t want to see Mrs. Parker. Her parents died while in a car with Paulette and Ted Parker. Tannon’s parents were in the backseat and, though hurt, had survived. Emily’s parents, both in the front seat, hadn’t been so lucky.

“They’re trying out some new drugs on her. You might help. A memory coming back spotty like this is worse than no memory at all. She quits cooperating with the staff and all hell breaks loose.”

“All right, I’ll go visit her, but only for a bit.” She picked up her coat, wondering what she would say to a woman she hadn’t seen in years.

“I’ll drive you over. They’re building a new wing, so parking is tricky.” He held the door for her.

“Okay, if you’ll follow me home first. I don’t want to leave my car here.”

He nodded, probably guessing she didn’t want to have to return to the parking lot after dark.

As she drove to her apartment building, she couldn’t help but think about how Tannon’s and her lives crossed back and forth over the years. They’d taken their first swimming lessons together with their mothers watching. They’d pestered each other at cookouts and Christmas parties before they started school and traded books from the time they both began to read. She even remembered being the first person to ride in his car when he’d gotten his license three months before her. He’d taken her for an ice cream, after which they’d circled around the town square a dozen times before he drove her home.

Emily smiled remembering that the ice-cream date had been one of her first memories she’d written in her book of moments.

She parked in her spot in the underground garage and walked out to his pickup, wishing she could remember the hundred fun times and forget the one bad memory when he hadn’t been there for her.

They didn’t talk as he drove to the nursing home. He parked on a dirt lot that had been roped off for temporary parking and cut the engine. Neither made any effort to open the door. “Emily, I know this is a big favor. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll understand. You don’t owe me this.”

“I know,” she answered, “but if I can help, I will. My mother would have wanted me to. Though my mom and yours were an unlikely pair, they were best friends.”
So were we,
she thought. “The night my folks were killed, I think your mom and mine were getting close again. Mom had written me that week telling me how excited she was that all four of them were going to a Cowboys game in Dallas. I’d talked to her that morning and she told me she’d bought her and dad Cowboys jerseys to wear. I remember
laughing thinking how funny they would look sitting next to your parents. I never saw your father without a suit on, and your mother would wear fur to the game.

“If a drunk driver hadn’t ended it all, I think Mom would be at your mother’s side now.”

“Probably so.” Tannon didn’t sound convinced.

Silently they walked into the nursing home. Tannon held the door for her and they slipped into his mother’s room.

The room was lovely, done in pale yellow with flowers on every table, but the sight of Mrs. Parker, curled in the fetal position, broke Emily’s heart. She’d withered to frail, and her black hair was snow white. She held a pillow against her as if it were all she had in the world to hang on to.

“Mother,” Tannon said as he moved to her side. “Mother? Can you hear me?”

Paulette Parker didn’t open her eyes.

Tannon knelt beside the bed and lightly touched her arm. “Mother. I’ve brought someone to see you. Do you remember Shelley Tomlinson’s daughter?”

Emily stood just behind him having no idea what to do. Paulette had been her idea of a perfect lady when she’d been a child. She was always laughing, always the center of attention and drew people to her everywhere she went. She had suits to wear to church with hats and gloves to match. She even owned fur coats, which she wore when her husband took her to plays in New York City. The Parkers weren’t any richer than the Tomlinsons, but they seemed to be with Paulette’s little touches around the house and her wild stories of their ordinary vacations.

Tannon looked back at Emily. “She’s not asleep. She’s just closing us out of her world. She does that when she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

Emily knelt beside the bed and whispered to the shell of a woman who’d defined class to a small shy child. “Paulette, it’s nice to see you. I was just thinking of how you once taught me how to set the table for high tea. You even had a cover for the teapot you said came all the way from England.”

Gray eyes slowly opened. “It did, Shelley, you know it did.”

Emily smiled. “Yes, I knew because you always reminded me.”

Paulette’s thin lips pulled to a smile. “We did have a laugh about that, didn’t we? I never told Ted that it was sent to me by an exchange student we met at the state fair in Dallas. He would have had a fit. I wrote the fellow all through our senior year, and when he said he was sending me a surprise, you and I spent hours trying to guess what it was. A teapot cozy wasn’t even on the list.”

Emily grinned. “I’d forgotten that.” Her mother had died during Emily’s junior year in college with what seemed a million things left unsaid between them. She’d never known that her mother even went to a state fair. It seemed far too wild a thing for Shelley Tomlinson to do. After all, she played the piano in church and married before she was twenty. “Do you remember what you and Shelley did at the fair, Paulette?”

“Of course.” Tannon’s mother straightened, shifting onto her pillow as she tugged up her covers. “We told our parents we had to stay a day longer at the state FHA convention, but we went to the fair. You ate so much fried food you got sick. While we were sitting in the shade, waiting for you to recover, we met these two boys from England. I swear they looked like they could have been the Beatles’ brothers. Or at least the one who liked me could have. Yours was red-headed and had a habit of making fun of the way everyone talked, like we were the ones talking funny and not him. Remember how bored we got with him?”

Tannon offered Emily a chair as his mother told a story Emily felt sure no one in either family had ever heard. Paulette swore she fell madly in love with her date for the day, but Shelley had her feet firmly planted on the ground as always and wouldn’t give the redheaded Englishman a second glance.

“We ran the park like wild children, sneaking into places and eating food we’d never tried. Just before it got dark, we
walked along the back of the fair grounds where people were camped out like gypsies. There was a radio playing music like we’d never heard and little kids with sparklers dancing around in the dark. An old lady read our palms for free.”

When the nurse came in, Paulette didn’t fight the medicine. She introduced Emily as her best friend, Shelley. “I begged her to go away to college with me,” Paulette told the nurse, “but she was determined to marry and now I’m back after a year of higher learning and I can’t believe how she’s changed.”

For a moment, Emily saw the woman Paulette had once been. Her words might not make any sense, but her manner still had polish. She was living somewhere in her late teens when plans could climb to any height and needed no roots.

The medicine began to take effect. When Paulette lay back in her bed, Emily brushed her white hair away from her cheek and kissed her gently. “Good night, dear. Sleep tight and we’ll talk again.”