| |
Randy pulled into the garage of her rented home and pushed the button on her dash to lower the door behind her. She hefted shopping bags out of the car, each one bearing the grinning cartoon face of a purple teddy bear. She frowned, mentally counting the bags as she hooked her fingers through the handles. Seven? How could she have seven bags of clothes? She’d been in the store for less than an hour. But the colors, the ruffles, the bows... She shook her head. She’d need to hurry to get food on the table before her friends arrived.
She juggled the bags and her keys and hustled into the house. Her ordered, punctual life had turned into a race with the clock over the last couple of days. If she examined the cause, she could lay it all at Astor’s size-two feet, but Randy didn’t mind.
If, and it was still a big if in Randy’s thoughts, Celeste stayed gone, then she’d have to get used to juggling the needs of a soon-to-be toddler. That thought terrified her a bit less today than it had yesterday.
Randy dumped the bags in the corner of her kitchen and busied herself with the food for tonight’s planning session. She pulled out the pasta salad she’d made the night before and stirred in a light ranch dressing. Sliced cheese and shaved ham with an assortment of crackers came next, followed with a fruit salad for dessert. Moderately healthy choices, she hoped, since the off-the-shoulder wedding dress she’d found in a consignment shop had already seen one expensive round of alterations.
“That,” she whispered as she scooped ice into glasses. “And Mac.” Randy grinned. Mac took her job as their personal trainer very seriously. Whether she did it consciously or not, their next workout would be a brutal session if Mac thought there were extra calories to burn off.
After setting the table, Randy brought out the supplies they’d need for addressing invitations and constructing the little tulle bags of bird seed. Accomplishing these small tasks brought the reality of her future a little closer. In five weeks, she’d be Miranda Page. She grasped the back of the chair to still her shaking hands and marveled at the way small things often added up to life changing events.
How could she have predicted that an attempted purse-snatching while attending a Reba concert almost eighteen months earlier would culminate in a proposal of marriage? Randy shook her head, remembering the first time she’d looked into Eli’s clear blue eyes as he straddled the back of the crook. But Eli had been the thief when he’d handed her bag back to her with a smile that stole her breath and her heart. Randy’d been tempted to kiss the thug right on the mouth out of sheer gratitude.
The doorbell interrupted her thoughts, and before she made it into the living room Mac, Jesse, and Charley had already let themselves in and were busy shedding their winter coats.
“I think I saw snowflakes on my windshield.” Mac draped her coat over the back of a chair. “It’s March. Shouldn’t that mean spring weather?”
“Wimp.” Jesse shook her long black curls free of a striped knitted scarf. “I’ve waded through snow at Easter. I’m afraid that groundhog knew his stuff this year.”
Randy cocked her head. “Where’s Alex?”
“She’ll be along,” Charley told her. “But she needs to hurry. Kinsley wasn’t feeling well, and I don’t know how long I’ll get to stay.”
“What’s up with Kinsley?” Randy asked.
“I don’t know. She says her legs ache. Last time that happened, she grew two inches in three months.”
Jesse tossed her jacket on top of Mac’s. “Real life growing pains, huh?”
“Probably,” Charley said. “I gave her some Tylenol, and Jason’s at home with her, but even at thirteen going on twenty, she still wants me when she doesn’t feel well.”
“Poor baby,” Mac said.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Charley rubbed her hands together. “I also had to cook dinner before I left. Dinner I did not get to eat, and I’m starving. What’d you make?”
“A new pasta salad I saw on Pinterest. I think I nailed it, ‘cause it looks yummy.” Randy motioned for them to follow her, stopping after two steps when the front door opened a second time.
“Sorry I’m late,” Alex said. “Hunter called at the last minute to say he couldn’t get free to take the boys to their thing at the school.” She added her coat to the pile and fluffed her short brown hair. “I swear he thinks he’s the only one in our family with a life.”
“They beat you by a whole five minutes,” Randy said. “And just FYI, we’re doing wedding stuff, so no negative husband talk. It makes the bride nervous.”
“The bride is certainly in a better mood than she was a few days ago,” Alex said. “At least she’s willing to be a bride. Did Celeste come home?”
“Not that I know of.” She motioned to the chairs around the table. “Let’s eat, and we can talk about Celeste later.” The friends sat and, after a quick grace, dug into the meal.
Alex forked up a bite of the pasta. “This looks great.” She nipped it off the fork and chewed. “And tastes even better. Needs pepper though.”
“You and your pepper.” Randy started to rise, but Alex stopped her.
“Sit down. I know where it’s at.” The petite pastor’s wife slipped into the kitchen. A few seconds later she looked around the door frame. “Oh, Randy...you got some ‘splaining to do.” The words came out in a heavy Ricky Ricardo accent.
“It’s on the back of the stove.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about the pepper.” Alex came around the corner, the pepper shaker in one hand and a ruffled pink dress in the other.
“That’s cute,” Charley said. “Did you get that for Astor to wear to the wedding?”
“Well, if she did”—Alex reclaimed her seat—“Astor’s going on the honeymoon as well. There are a dozen sacks in there, stuffed with new outfits. Her kitchen is a sea of purple.”
“Purple.” Mac grinned. “You went to Teddy Bear’s.”
Randy looked at Alex. “You’re such a snoop. For your information, there are seven bags, not twelve.” She focused on Mac. “And how do you know purple sacks come from Teddy Bear’s?”
“I’ve been in there a time or two to buy baby gifts. Every time I go in there to shop, I leave wishing Riley was a sweet baby girl and not a smelly teenaged boy.”
Jesse leaned forward, propped an elbow on the table, and braced her chin on her fist. “I think we need to accelerate our discussion.” She grinned. “We’ll eat, you talk.”
Charley nodded. “Good idea. Four days ago, Astor was the end of your world. Today, she’s your personal dress up doll. What gives?”
The question hung over the table while everyone went back to their dinner. Randy picked at her food. Her friends expected an answer, but it was hard to separate what she could tell them from all the things she couldn’t. She scooped a piece of melon onto her plate, cut it into tiny pieces with her fork, then mashed it to pulp.
“How many times have I told you that the dinner table is for eating, not playing?” Her mother snatched Randy’s plate away. “I’m working myself into an early grave to put food in your belly, and you aren’t the least bit grateful. Well, tonight you can do without. Go to your room.”
In the memory, Randy fled. She preferred going to bed hungry to being on the physical end of another of her mother’s mood swings. The threat of that dark closet was an ever present reality.
“Randy?”
She looked up at the question in Alex’s voice and put down her fork. “I don’t know,” she said, hoping that her friends would think that she’d been contemplating an answer to their question.
“I’ve been praying about it and really trying to listen to what God wants me to do.” Randy twisted the corner of her napkin, rolling a little bit of paper into a pellet. “You know I never wanted kids.”
“That’s what you always said.” Charley said. “But you’ve never said why.”
“It’s not something I like to talk about.” Randy picked her way through a minefield of shrapnel-producing explanations before she continued. “After my dad left us, Mom was...difficult to live with. She was unhappy, and she didn’t know Jesus, and she took a lot of her anger out on me.”
“Oh, Randy...” Jesse’s expression was filled with the very sympathy Randy dreaded.
“I survived.” Randy smiled at the faces around the table. “I never shared any of this with you guys, because you knew my mom after she accepted Christ. You loved her, and I didn’t want my bad memories to change your good ones.” She took a deep breath. “The hardships I dealt with made me strong in a lot of good ways, but they didn’t leave me with any mothering skills to share. I always thought it’d be best if I never tried. But now...” She looked up and squared her shoulders. “It’s not Eli’s fault that Celeste grew up to be a self-centered brat. Eli and I have been dating for a while now. I’ve seen him and Celeste together. I know he expects a lot out of her, and sometimes he’s hard on her, but he loves her, and he raised her to be responsible.”
She held her hand out, and Alex passed the dress across the table. Randy laid it across her knees and smoothed the ruffles in her lap. “It’s not Astor’s fault either. She’s a victim.” The words snapped on a light in a corner of her heart. We’re both victims of careless mothers, and that’s a bond we can build on.
Randy looked at her friends and grinned. “I even babysat for a while yesterday while Eli ran some errands.”
“That’s awesome,” Charley said. “How’d it go?”
“It was awful,” Randy admitted. “Astor cried the whole time, and nothing I did made it any better, but when we were both worn out, she fell asleep in my arms, and something just clicked. If I love Eli as much as I say I do, I have to give this a shot, even if it scares me to death.”
Randy scooted her chair back. “Enough of this. Let’s get this table cleared off. We have a wedding to prepare for.”
Someone’s phone squawked with an incoming text, and they all reached for their bags or pockets.
“It’s me,” Charley said, pulling hers free. She deflated a bit as she read the screen. “I have to go. Kinsley has a fever. I’m sorry.”
Randy shooed her away. “Go do what you have to do. We can handle this.”
“Before she leaves,” Jesse said. “We have a surprise for you. A Fancy surprise.”
“Because we don’t want you to have the blues no more,” Alex grinned.
Randy cocked her head and frowned at her friends.
“Because,” Charley added. “Rumor Has It...”
“That you Have Faith in Love,” Mac sang the words.
Randy recognized the words as snippets of, or titles to, various Reba songs. She narrowed her eyes. “What are you guys...?
Charley pulled an envelope from her pocket and laid it on the table in front of Randy.
Randy studied her friends before picking up the envelope and breaking the seal. She sucked in a sharp breath when she saw what was inside. “Reba concert tickets?”
“To celebrate how you two met,” Jesse told her.
Mac sighed. “They told me he took down a mugger for you.”
Alex put a hand over her heart. “And the rest is history.”
“Or soon will be,” Charley said. “Surprise!”
Randy sat back in her chair. “You guys. I can’t believe this. She doesn’t tour much anymore and hasn’t been close...” She stopped and looked at the tickets. “Dallas?”
Charley nodded. “Saturday night in Dallas. Leave in the afternoon, make the two-hour drive, and enjoy dinner and the concert. You’ll be home in plenty of time to get a few hours of sleep before church the next day.”
“But it’s not just the two of us,” Randy reminded them. “Astor—”
“Yeah,” Mac said. “We planned our surprise weeks ago, before Celeste left you with Astor. It’s not a problem. You bring her to me Saturday morning. I’ll spoil her rotten all day and bring her back to you at church Sunday morning. Just be sure to pack one of those pretty new outfits. You get your date, and I get my baby doll fantasy. Win-win.”
Randy fingered the tickets and frowned as another piece of information caught her eye. “Guys...these are floor seats...three rows from the stage.”
Alex looked at the ceiling and put on an innocent face that Randy knew too well. Something more was cooking here than just concert tickets. “All right, what else is going on?”
Jesse gigged Alex in the ribs with an elbow. “You just can’t keep your mouth shut, can you.”
Alex stepped back and rubbed the point of contact. “I didn’t say a word.”
“Well there goes that surprise,” Charley said.
“Guys...” Randy put her hands on her hips.
Alex huffed. “You know Reba’s from Oklahoma right?”
Randy nodded.
“Well,” Alex continued, “my mom has a friend who has a sister-in-law, who... Oh well, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that there are backstage passes waiting for you at the arena.”
“Backstage...” Randy stood and opened her arms. “You guys are the best sisters a girl ever had. Thank you.”
Charley stepped out of the group hug. “I really have to go. Call me later and tell me what Eli says about our surprise.”
“I will.” She brought the tickets up to her chest. “You shouldn’t have spent the money, but after the week we’ve had, some alone time is just what Eli and I need.”