Kaye Dacus - Stand-In Groom

Seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper, the grits melted in his mouth. She’d salted the tomatoes to bring out their full flavor, and butter dripped down his fingers as he bit into the crisp, sweet corn. The ham steak was among the best meat he’d ever put in his mouth.

She took the plate as soon as he laid down his fork. “Now you get on out of here and let me get back to work.” She shoved a small plate of cookies into his hands when he stood. “And take these with you. You children these days, wanting to be skin and bones.” She shook her head and mumbled to herself.

He carried the cookies back up to the office to start over on the spreadsheet. His position as head of the household staff had just become an empty title.

Instead of getting straight to work, he opened the Bible program on the computer and searched for the verse Ketty had quoted. Isaiah 30:15. “In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.” He printed the verse, cut it out, and taped it to the bottom of the monitor.

“In quietness and trust is your strength.”

“Father, help me to be quiet and trust You for strength. You know I’m going to need it.”

“George is acting weird.” Anne tipped her wide-brimmed hat forward to better shield her face from the midmorning sun. She couldn’t show up at the church with a sunburned nose.

“Hmm?” Meredith’s distracted voice came from behind a biography of Claude Monet.

“I said George is acting weird.”

Meredith slipped a bookmark in to keep her place and scooped her strawberry blond hair over her shoulder. “Define weird.”

“Ever since he came to lunch last Sunday, he’s been…acting funny—not like himself, like I’ve said or done something that offended him and he doesn’t know how to tell me.” Once again, she went over everything that had been said and done at Maggie and Errol’s Sunday afternoon, trying to figure out what might have upset him.

“Have you asked him about it?”

“I haven’t had a chance. He’s been avoiding me all week.” Something tickled her ankle, and she jerked her foot out of the inflatable kiddie pool. A leaf from the ancient oak tree overhead careened away on the wake caused by her movement. She put her foot back in the tepid water. As long as it wasn’t a bug.

“Maybe he’s just been busy with getting ready for his boss coming into town for the engagement party next week.” Mere fanned herself with her straw hat. “Jenn better get back soon with that ice. It’s gotta be nearly a hundred degrees out here. But at least it’s not raining like last year.”

“He didn’t come to Thursday dinner last night and canceled brunch with me today.”

“Do you think maybe someone said something to him when you weren’t around Sunday? Something that scared him off?”

“Are you kidding me? With as much as the whole family wants to see me married?” Anne paused. “Maybe that’s what frightened him. Maybe they tried to pressure him into making a commitment.”

“Or he could’ve overheard you telling Marci about Cliff, and he’s scared he can’t compete with a movie star.”

“Bite your tongue!” Anne splashed water toward Meredith with her foot. “I can’t stand Cliff Ballantine. He’s nothing compared to George. He’s nowhere near as kind, considerate, funny, caring, compassionate, generous—”

“Okay, okay,” Meredith splashed back. “I get the picture. Sheesh. All George needs is a dragon to slay to ensure his sainthood.”

Anne smiled, but it faded quickly. “I hate Cliff Ballantine. If it weren’t for him, I never would have dropped out of school. I’d be Dr. Anne Hawthorne now, teaching English at some fantastic, quaint little four-year college, redbrick buildings covered with ivy….”

“Yeah…” Meredith’s voice had the same dreamy quality Anne’s had taken on. “Instead, you have your own business, you’re a leader in the community, you love what you do.” She leaned across the low table between them and poked Anne’s arm. “ ‘God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love Him.’ God has blessed you, Annie.”

“Did someone send for ice?”

An avalanche cascaded over their shoulders and into the shallow water.

Meredith yelped and yanked her feet out of the pool. Anne laughed and kicked hers to mix the ice in with the warm water.

“That was a twenty-pound bag.” Jenn flopped into the third chair, breathless. “And the only one Bordelon’s Grocery had left. I’ll take the coolers out to the restaurant and fill them from the ice machine there for tonight.” She kicked off her sandals and dunked her feet into the cooling water. “You know, if our landlady would get the real swimming pool fixed, we could be floating around on inflatables instead of sitting around a wader like three rednecks.”

“I told you before that there’s no way I could get someone out here on the Fourth of July.” Anne scooped up a few ice chips and tossed them in Jenn’s direction. “Besides, I wouldn’t be able to do more than this even if we could use the pool.”

“What time do you have to be at the church?” Meredith tested the water with her toes, then slipped her feet in with a sigh.

“I have to be there at noon to get the setup started, then I’ll run out to the park to meet the caterer and get them situated. I’ll be running back and forth all afternoon.” She glanced at her watch. She needed to leave in half an hour. “I’m so glad Jason agreed to help out. He’s a natural, but he insists on staying a cop instead of joining me as my assistant.”

Meredith laughed. “You know him. He wants to be chief of police someday so that if Forbes ever gets elected mayor, the two of them can work together to make all the changes they think this city needs.”

“You have so much work, you need to hire a full-time assistant, not just temporary part-timers.” Jenn dug a piece of ice out of her glass of tea and rubbed it across the base of her neck.

Anne sipped her tea and resumed fanning herself with her book. “I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve got George’s wedding in October—”

“His employer’s, you mean.” Meredith winked and flashed a grin.

She shrugged. “Same difference. Between now and then, I have a wedding, engagement party, or other event every weekend but two. Then the mayor’s wife called me about planning the fall debutante cotillion in September. That’s on top of a couple of reelection events for her husband’s mayoral campaign and the Lou WESA conference Labor Day week in Baton Rouge.”

“Louisa conference?” Jenn asked.

“Louisiana Wedding and Event Specialists Association. That’s the week before the cotillion.”

“Speaking of debutantes,” Jenn said as she crunched ice from her tea, mouth open the way that made Anne’s skin crawl. “You’ll never guess who I ran into at the grocery store.”

Anne didn’t bother guessing—Jenn would tell them anyway.

“Patsy Sue Landry.” Jenn drawled out the name, imitating the middle-aged Southern belle. “She remembered me from when I used to babysit her younger girls after you started college, Anne. She asked about you.”

Anne cringed. She hoped the woman wasn’t going to call her again. She didn’t know if she could avoid the woman’s questions without lying to her about George and the plans for Courtney’s wedding.

“She said she’s leaving for the Riviera next week and will be gone four or five weeks.”

“Thank goodness.”

“While we were chatting, I saw on one of the local rags on the magazine stand that Cliff Ballantine might be coming to town next week. Something with his fraternity, they figure.”

Anne snorted. “I’ll make sure to be on the lookout so I can avoid him, then.”

“Don’t you think it’s time you forgave him?” Meredith’s sincerity and concern soothed Anne like a squirt of lemon juice in the eye.

“Look at the time.” Anne jumped up from the lounger. “I’m going to be late.” She rushed inside and took the stairs to her second-floor apartment two at a time. Coward. The passage she’d read from Matthew in her quiet time that morning came back to haunt her. “For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

She had no right to withhold her forgiveness from Cliff for what he’d done to her. After all, Jesus was willing to give His life to forgive her for all of her sins.

She slammed the apartment door behind her. “Okay, Lord! I forgive him! Does that make You happy?” She felt stupid even as she yelled at the ceiling. Of course her outburst didn’t make Him happy. She said the words, but her heart wasn’t in it. She just wanted the Holy Spirit to leave her alone with the whole guilt thing.

Halfway through changing clothes, she sank onto the edge of the bed. “Jesus, You’re going to have to teach me how to forgive him, then give me the strength to do it. I’m not going to be able to do this on my own.”

George’s image flashed in her mind. “I can’t be with George until I rid myself of Cliff once and for all. I don’t know what’s going on with him right now, Lord, but give me the strength to resist my attraction to him until I’ve worked through the Cliff issue and can approach the relationship without baggage.”

* * *

“Why don’t we go back to the church for your car later?” Jason handed Anne her duffel bag. Behind them, the wedding reception limped on, not as much fun for the guests now that the bride and groom had left. “We’re already at the park, so we might as well take my Jeep over to the pavilion, have dinner, watch the fireworks, and then get your car on the way home.”

Her change of clothes was in her tote bag in the backseat of Jason’s vehicle. She glanced at her watch. “You’re right. Papere would have fired up the grill about half an hour ago, so the first hamburgers and hot dogs should just now be coming off.” She slung the duffel’s strap over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

On the other side of Schyuler City Park, she dashed into the public restroom, changed, and then tossed everything into the open-top Jeep. Mamere reserved the same pavilion every year for their Independence Day cookout—the one between the playground and the privy, with an unobstructed view of the fireworks.

Her mouth watered at the smoky barbecue aroma that wafted over from Papere’s huge charcoal grill. She jogged straight toward the gaggle of children running amok in the grassy field.

“An-Anne! An-Anne!” Seven girls under the age of ten surrounded her.

“We saw the wedding people when we drove into the park.” Ten-year-old Jordyn Babineaux hooked her arm through Anne’s. Slim with long dark hair, the tween would be unintentionally breaking hearts in a few years. “Was it a beautiful wedding?”

She tweaked the girl’s nose. “Of course it was. I planned it, after all.”

“An-Anne, when are you gettin’ married?” eight-year-old Kaitlyn Guidry asked.

“Probably not for a long time, sweetie.” At a tug on her shorts, Anne turned.

Six-year-old Megan’s brown eyes beamed up at her. “But Mama said you’re gonna marry Mr. George, sooner better than later.”

Kaitlyn covered her younger sister’s mouth none too gently. “Shush, Megan. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Anne’s cheeks burned. She knew if the girls’ parents had been discussing her at home, the rest of the family was, too.

“Do you like him?” Jordyn ducked her head and kicked at something in the grass.

“Sure I like him. He’s a very nice man.”

The adolescent heaved a dramatic sigh. “That’s not what I mean. Do you like…like him?”

Good grief! Even the children were getting in on the matchmaking. “I’m not sure, Jordy. I need to get to know him better.”

“He’s here.” Megan tugged on Anne’s shorts again. “Over there with the boys, fishin’ in the lake.”

Anne shielded her eyes against the setting sun. Her heart thumped. George sat on a pier between Cooper, seven; and Christian, four; kicking his feet back and forth in the water. The boys giggled and yelled as the water sprinkled them.

Lord God, I want this man to be the father of my children. She stopped dead in her tracks. Never in her life had she given serious thought to having children of her own. Just the opposite. She’d never wanted children of her own.

A bell clanged at the pavilion. With war cries Geronimo would have been proud of, the girls beat a path to go get their supper.