Fame (27 page)

“Jim Flanigan is so great with the kids.” Ryan sat in the backseat, his arm around Kari. “One of these days he should stop dreaming about getting back to coaching in the NFL and come on as head coach at Bloomington High. That way I could be the part-time volunteer and take a break.” He tapped Ashley 226

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on the shoulder. “After tonight I might become a professional painter.”

She grinned over her shoulder at him. “You never know. We might have to hit the road, all four of us.” She ran her hand in front of her from left to right. “I can see it now. Painting sets for theaters in small towns across America.”

Kari laughed and poked her on the opposite shoulder. “Maybe you should see what we’re capable of first.”

“True.” Ashley looked at Landon. “I know my dear husband can hardly wait to roll up his sleeves and get started.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Right, honey?”

“Yeah.” He gave Kari and Ryan a sarcastic look in the rearview mirror. “Picasso in the flesh.” His gaze shifted to Ashley. “I told you to bring Cole instead of me. That kid’s way better at staying in the lines.”

Laughter filled the car as they parked and crossed the street to the old theater. Kari stayed next to Ashley, and when they reached the doors she mentioned how happy their father had been to watch the children for the night.

“He had the old spark in his eyes, the one he always had when Mom was alive.”

Kari wore shorts and a worn T-shirt. The clothes didn’t hide her looks, looks that allowed her to still maintain a career in catalog modeling.

“I asked Cole to help out with the little ones.” Ashley made a face as she led the way into the theater. “You don’t think it’ll be too much for Dad, do you?”

“No.” Kari stayed beside her, with the guys still talking football a few feet behind. “Little Ryan’s tired. Cole and Jessie can play with him for an hour or so, and then he’ll sleep.”

Ashley flipped on the lights in the seating area and headed up toward the stage.

“You guys can start on the burgers. I’ll get the stage ready.”

Bloomington Community Theater was more than a hundred years old, with detailed architecture that spoke of a different era.

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It had tall ceilings and a dusky cedar scent, the way an attic light smell in a century-old house. Tall, thick, black velvet curtains separated the stage from the intimate theater seating. At the back, two small balcony sections offered a different view for

other sixty people. All said, the theater held maybe four hunred people, perfect for the type of shows CKT put on.

Ashley loved the place.

The theater owners had agreed to let her have access to the stage every evening this week for the purpose of creating sets. During the day the building’s upstairs served as a dozen business

offices. But at night the facility was open for rental by members of the community.

The wonderful thing about having the painting party at the theater was that the expansive stage was the one place large enough to serve as a workspace for the backdrop.

Ashley tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear and jogged up a set of stairs to the stage. It was cool and drafty, a relief from the heat and humidity outside. She turned on the lights, worked the cords to open the curtain, and then spread the canvas out across the stage.

Ryan set his sandwich down and came to the edge of the stage, his eyes wide.

“Tell me we’re not painting that whole

thing.” He stuck his hands in his shorts pockets. “I have practice in the morning.” He gave Ashley a teasing look. “We’ll be done before then, right?”

“I told her—” Landon strolled up the center aisle and took a Ryan—”it’d take a crew of people three days to paint thing. But you know Ashley—where there’s a will there’s a

way, Ashley gave them a knowing smile and lightly stepped down stairs back to Kari and the burger they’d saved for her. “We’ll in ten minutes, and you’ll see.

It’ll go faster than you think.” Ashley opened her sandwich and took a moment to thank for ,what she had right here—a best friendship with her sis 228

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ter Kari, both of them married to guys who had loved them Since high school. It was rare and wonderful, and on nights like this she couldn’t be thankful enough.

They ate their meal, the guys continuing their teasing about the task that lay ahead. When they finished their food, they took off their shoes and walked to the middle of the canvas, where Ashley had the paint and brushes set up. They’d work from the center out. She gave out assignments. The guys would use larger brushes and paint the upper area, a row of thick trees and foliage.

“I’ve already painted the outline of the trees and branches.” She pointed to the top half of the backdrop. “All you have to do is stay in the lines. Kari and I will work on the buildings and the river.”

Landon took his brush and a can of green paint. “I tell you, you’re going to wish you’d asked Cole.”

They set to work, painting and chatting about the other Baxters. Ryan asked if anyone had talked to any of the other Baxters lately.

“I’ve talked to Luke.” Ashley was painting the roof of a general store brown.

“He and Reagan are coming out for Christmas. At least that’s the plan.”

“I wish they’d move here.” Kari dipped her brush into a pale blue paint and added more color to the river she was working on. “It’s hard having him and Reagan so far away. Our kids won’t even know each other.”

“What about Erin?” Landon was sprawled out, his section of trees growing green at a fast pace. “How’re the girls working out now that it’s been a year?”

Kari smiled. “I talked to her last week.” She sat back on her heels, her brush in her hand. “It hasn’t been perfect, but Erin doesn’t mind. The two babies have been sick, and the little girls are in preschool, learning their alphabet, that sort of thing. I can’t imagine going from no kids to having four daughters in a 229

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weeks like Erin and Sam did.” She blew at a wisp of hair and went back to painting. “I think they’re doing great.” Landon dipped his brush. “Do the older girls ever talk,,x

room?” about

“Clarisse did at first.” Kari’s smile faded. “She wa Erin d,!dn’t yell at her the way her mommy d’,le,,d to why Thats so sad. Ryan stood and stretched, admiring h\ God could’ve brought those little girls where they s trees.

be— with Erin and Sam.” needed

“Yeah, how’s Sam doing? Are the girls bonding with him?” didn’t look up from his work.

“They are.” Kari went to work again. “The babies n

any problem, but the older girls took about eight mo{“ver had ever known from men was anger and violence. I Iths. All they could bond at all.” ‘s amazing. Ashley surveyed the canvas. Already it was about

” - u a fourth

with paint. You guys, see how good you

— — -stood and marveled at their work. ‘ I was right. We ne act on the road.” q to take

“Yeah, the whole fear-factor thing was just a big .

!,winked at Ryan. “We’ve got years of this type of eOct”’ Kari :;’right Ryan?” lerience,

: Landon laughed. “You know sometimes I think i Ashley are twins. You look alike and act alike, and yot you and .! tease with the best of them.” can both

Everyone enjoyed the idea, and again Ashley was,, of how much they all had. It was hard to imagin reminded seven years ago she’d come back from Paris pregnam that only

” n st :ndalone, the black sheep of the Baxter family. BacR tlae ‘ n co and Kari might we looked alike, but they had nothing i ‘ as ‘˘non She

never could have guessed that one day they d be l, , :: Were now. ,se as they “I was at practice the other day, and I saw Brooke playing at the school park with Maddie and Hayley and Peter, Ryan got

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back down on his knees and started painting again. “I can’t believe Maddie’s starting second grade in the fall.”

“Hayley’s doing better; wouldn’t you say?” Ashley was working on the door of the general store, taking care with the hinges and handle so they’d appear lifelike.

“Brooke’s still seeing patients only three days a week, and she and Peter have a therapist coming in Monday through Friday for Hayley.”

“I know.” Ryan looked up, his eyes shining. “I took a break from the football field and jogged over to tell them hello.” His voice sounded thick. “Hayley grinned at me and said, ‘Hi, Uncle Ryan!’ I almost started crying right there.”

They were all quiet for a moment, considering the distance Hayley had come since her near drowning two years earlier. She was still in a wheelchair, but she could crawl from one side of the room to the other and pull herself up.

According to Brooke, Hayley’s therapists expected her to regain the ability to walk one day.

“No one ever asks this.” Ryan lowered his brow, his expression serious. “But do they think she’ll get everything back? Her cognitive powers, physical abilities, all of it?”

Kari looked up from the blue river she was still working on. “No one knows. No one but God.” She shrugged and shook her head. “That drowning should’ve killed her. Every bit of progress is another miracle, really.”

They all agreed about that, and for a while they painted in comfortable silence.

After a long while, Landon asked Ryan about his football team, how they looked for the coming fall. As they talked, Ashley remembered the strange scene that had played out between her and their father in his closet the other day.

“Did I tell you about being in Dad’s closet?” Ashley moved on to the town post office, the building next to the general store.

Kari twisted her face and giggled. “You were in Dad’s closet?” “Well—” Ashley exhaled hard and stifled a laugh—”I wasn’t 231

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standing there.” She stuck her tongue out at Kari. “I was opening the windows in Mom and Dad’s room, and I heard somerustling on the top shelf of their closet. I looked and it was a box of letters.”

“Letters?” Kari stopped painting and met Ashley’s eyes. “From “From lots of people. Friends and relatives, Christmas cards, lots of letters from Dad to Mom, or from her to Dad.” “How come I never knew about that?” Kari fiddled with her

“You’d think Morn would’ve showed them to us.” “The box was pretty far back on the shelf. I don’t think she

anyone.” Ashley felt her shoulders fall a little. “Maybe ran out of time.”

“Maybe.” Kari took a sad-sounding breath. “Anyway, what Ashley dipped the tip of her brush into a can of yellow paint flicked it against the post office walls, creating texture on supposed to look like old wood slats.

She finished one and looked at Kari. “So I take a letter from the box and something he wrote to Mom after Luke was born.”

“Dad’s always been thoughtful that way.” Kari’s hair hung the side of her face as she used a darker blue to accent the “Anyway…”

“Anyway, I’m reading it—you know, stuff about how Luke’s completed the family—and I’m just getting to the sentimental stuff when Dad walks in and sort of freaks out.”

Kari gave her a sideways look and tossed her hair off her face. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he gives me this strange look, and it scared me, you I mean, I was in the house all alone and I didn’t hear him icome in. So the letter drops and I pick it up.” She soaked a little more yellow into her brush and looked at Kari. “He takes the envelope from me, opens it, glances at it, folds it back up, and puts it back in the envelope.”

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“I can see that. Those are Mom’s precious things. Maybe he was too surprised to find you in there reading the letters, and he didn’t think about whether you wanted to finish it or not.”

“Maybe.” Ashley added texture to the other side of the post office. “But then he goes into this thing about how I shouldn’t read Mom’s letters, and none of us should read them, and maybe he’ll put together an album for us one day, make copies of the best ones, so we can all see them.” She raised her brows. “I felt like saying, ‘That’s okay, just let me finish the one in your hand.’ But before I could say anything he took the box and buried the letter somewhere in the middle.” She hesitated and met Kari’s eyes. “I had the definite feeling he didn’t want me reading it.”

“Hmmm. Strange.” Kari sat up and slid back so she could work on the next section of river. “I wonder what it said.”

“That’s what I want to know.” Ashley finished the trim on the post office and moved a few feet to the side. The town jail was next. “Or maybe it wasn’t what was in the letter. Maybe it’s like you said, and he just doesn’t want us rifling through Mom’s

things without his knowing about it.”

“Could be.”

“And something else bugged me that day,” She was using a reddish brown to paint the jail walls first. “Dad missed the eleven o’clock service, remember?”

“I remember.” Kari’s face was close to the canvas, studying the areas where Ashley had penciled in that a different color was needed. “I never did hear what happened.”

“Well, what happened was that Dad went to the earlier service with some of Mom’s volunteer friends.” Ashley got up on her knees and surveyed the row of buildings she’d been working on. Ten feet away, the men were doing a fantastic job on the trees, careful not to cover up the highlights and branches she’d already painted. She looked at Kari. “Mom’s volunteer friends. Does that ring a bell?”

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“Not really.” Kari stopped and propped her paintbrush on the “Should it?”

“I don’t know. It did for me.” Ashley shifted positions and her legs out on either side of the building she was painting. “I guess Dad’s been doing stuff with a group of them sort of Last Sunday it was early church and a walk down at Lake “That’s good, I guess.” Kari tilted her face. “Who’s in the “A bunch of people, most of them retired. Back in the day Mom had her first fight with cancer, she would see these come through with gift packs and encouragement. One Monday, another two on a Wednesday, that sort of thing.” I remember. When she was better, she joined them and helped out once a week or so.” i::: “Right.” Ashley switched brushes. “Each of them had lost someone they love to cancer.”