That Certain Summer (12 page)

“Or he might be busy. He has a summer job, doesn't he?”

“Yeah, but he's got plenty of free time. Erin says she's seen him bumming around with Paula.”

Another woman.

Even worse.

Karen thought about telling her daughter she'd get over her current heartthrob, that there were other fish in the sea, that someone better would come along who would be more loyal. But those platitudes wouldn't mitigate teen angst.

She leaned down and kissed the top of Kristen's head. “Always remember I love you.”

“I'm glad someone does.”

The tears in her daughter's voice tightened her throat. It might not be the most Christian thought, but she hoped Gary found out what it felt like to be dumped too. Soon.

“Would you like me to stay home with you tonight?”

“No. That's okay. I'm going to watch a movie.”

“If I get back early enough, would you like to run down to Mr. Frank's?”

“I guess.”

Not good. If a trip to the popular frozen custard stand didn't raise Kristen's spirits, she was in serious doldrums.

After giving her daughter's arm one more encouraging squeeze, Karen continued toward the front door. She wasn't going to renege on her choir obligation, but she'd make it a point to get back in time for an outing with her daughter, even if she had to leave early. No hardship there, considering Scott Walker's attitude problem.

She exited, pulling the door closed behind her, and walked toward her car. If things didn't improve with the choir soon, people were going to start dropping out and . . .

“Hello, Karen.”

She pulled up short at the greeting, hand flying to her chest. “Michael! You startled me. What are you doing here?”

“Kristen called and said she'd like to see more of me. I decided to pay her a surprise visit. Is she home?” He stuck his hands in his pockets, the move calling attention to the weary droop of his shoulders. There were also faint shadows under his eyes, and fine lines had appeared on his forehead.

For the first time since she'd met him, he seemed old.

“She's inside watching a movie. And your timing is impeccable. She's in a funk and feeling neglected. The broken leg is keeping
her from hanging out with her friends, and I think her boyfriend dumped her. Your visit will cheer her up.”

He gave a distracted nod, but his focus remained on her. “Have you lost weight?”

“Some.”

“And you did something different with your hair. I like it.”

“Thanks.” Much to her disgust, his compliment pleased her.

“Well . . . I guess I'll see what Kristen is up to.”

“And I'm late for choir practice.”

Karen started toward the car, sorry now she'd left it parked in front of the garage instead of pulling in after work. He followed, reaching down to open the door for her. She slid in, and after he shut it he leaned on the roof and gazed down at her with the intimate look that had turned her insides to jelly during their courting days.

“You really do look good, you know.”

At his husky tone, she blushed—like in the old days.

Oh, for goodness' sake.

How sad was that?

This man had cheated on her. Dumped her for a newer model. How could she still be susceptible to his flattery?

She jammed the key in the ignition and looked away. “I'm late, Michael.”

“Okay.” He took his time removing his arm from the roof. “See you later.”

She didn't respond. Instead, she put her sunglasses on and backed the car out of the driveway. She would
not
look back.

Yet much to her disgust, she found herself glancing in the rearview mirror as she pulled away. Michael was still standing there, hands in his pockets, the familiar stance bringing back a rush of memories. He'd always waited like that after she left his apartment during their dating days, watching until she was out of sight. And just before she turned the corner, she'd flick her lights. One. Two. Three. I. Love. You.

Her hand was actually moving toward the light control when she caught herself and snatched it back.

No way.

Those days were gone. Forever. She was over Michael. Whatever love they'd once shared had died long ago.

He'd moved on.

And so had she.

Ten minutes later, when she arrived a bit tardy at choir practice, Scott was in the midst of berating the basses for a missed note.

“No, no, no! I've played this twice already. It's not that hard. Try it again.”

She slipped into her seat and sent a sympathetic glance toward the three members of the congregation who constituted the bass section. Only one of them read music. The other two learned by repetition, and Marilyn had always been happy to pound out their line over and over again. Scott, on the other hand, expected them to pick it up after a couple of run-throughs. It was obvious he wasn't used to dealing with amateurs.

The basses made one more dismal attempt.

Scott glared at them. “Okay. We don't have any more time to waste on this. Work on it on your own. I'm moving on to the alto line.”

He played through it once. “Okay, let's try it.” He started to play again. Several measures in, after Teresa Ramirez went up a note instead of down, Scott stopped and rubbed his temples.

“I hope I don't need to tell you that you weren't even close.” Sarcasm dripped from his words. “Let's try it again.”

They did. Several times, with Scott stopping often to correct missed notes—and leaving the altos as upset as the basses.

“All right, let's see if the sopranos can do any better. Since you have the melody line, this should be simple.”

He played through it once, then they joined in. It was an unfamiliar piece, with an odd key change halfway through, and Karen did her best. But the other sopranos were struggling too, and their rendition was far from perfect. The arrangement was much too advanced and complicated for a small, amateur church choir.

As the rehearsal progressed, the skin tightened over Scott's cheekbones, and the tension in the room grew thick as the humidity of a Missouri August. The muscles in Karen's stomach tightened, just as they had whenever Michael had gotten angry at her or berated her for one of her many shortcomings.

“Okay, let's try and put this together.” Shoulders stiff, Scott launched into the introduction.

The choir made a valiant effort, but the piece sounded terrible, even to Karen's untrained ears. The altos kept going flat, and the basses wandered all over the scale, totally lost. The tenors and sopranos managed to hit a fair number of the notes, but not enough to salvage the song.

Halfway through, Scott stopped playing and stood. “It would be a travesty to bestow the term ‘music' on what you all are doing. I don't know how you can call yourselves a choir. Let's start with the basses.”

As Scott ripped their performance apart, something inside of Karen snapped. She'd had her fill of disapproval and sarcasm from Michael, was tired of it from her mother, and up to her ears in it from Kristen. She'd suffered through that kind of abuse for years, and she wasn't going to take it anymore. She would not sit here passively and let an arrogant jerk rebuke her for doing the best she could, as a volunteer, in an activity that had once given her great pleasure.

Lifting her jaw, she gathered up her things, stood, and made her way to the end of the aisle. Scott stopped speaking midsentence, and silence fell over the room. She could feel fourteen pairs of eyes boring into her back as she walked toward the exit; apparently
everyone was as surprised by her show of assertiveness as she was.

But even though her hand was shaking when she reached for the door handle, she didn't pause. She pulled it open, stepped through, and let it shut behind her.

And this time, she didn't look back.

“Scott? Is that you?”

As he shut the front door behind him, Scott lifted a trembling hand to his forehead and kneaded his temples. “Yeah.”

Dorothy stepped into the living room, took one look at him, and closed the distance between them in three long strides. “What happened? You look terrible!”

“Choir practice was a disaster.”

She took his arm and led him to the sofa, pressing him down. “Where's your medicine?”

“In the bathroom.”

She disappeared down the hall, returning a minute later with two capsules and a glass of water. Scott downed them in one gulp, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch.

After taking the glass from his hand, Dorothy sat in a chair beside him. “It must be a bad one.”

“Yeah. It came on right after rehearsal started.”

“Crummy timing.”

“No kidding. And listening to a bunch of off-key amateurs didn't help.”

“They do their best.”

“It's not good enough.”

“They try hard, though. I know you're used to working with professionals, but most of the choir members are there because they like to sing, not because they're Metropolitan Opera caliber. If your standards are too high and you get too upset with them, people won't enjoy the experience anymore and they'll drop out.”

“I'm finding that out. I think I lost one tonight.”

“What happened?”

“I was trying to teach a new piece, and I got a little . . . upset. My head was pounding, and we were getting nowhere with the music. I guess I was too hard on them. Hard enough that one of the choir members got up and walked out.”

“Which one?”

“I don't know. A woman. One of the sopranos.”

“Older or younger?”

Although he tried to conjure up an image, details of her appearance eluded him. No surprise there. He'd never bothered to focus on any of the faces. “Younger, I guess. Shoulder-length reddish-brown hair.”

“That had to be Karen. But walking out—that doesn't sound like her. She's usually not a wave maker.”

“Like I said, I guess I came on a little too strong.”

“You must have, if Karen walked out.”

“I ought to quit. This isn't going to work.”

A beat of silence passed before his mother responded. “We need a music director.”

“I don't think I'm the right person for the job.”

“Okay.” She leaned back in her chair. “What will you do instead?”

“Maybe I'll just veg.”

“You've been doing that for two months. You need to start thinking about your future.”

“I don't have a future.” His response came out flat. Hopeless. The way he felt.

“That's nonsense.” For the first time since he'd come home, Dorothy's eyes flared with anger. “You do have a future. It may not be the future you planned, but you do have one. It's up to you to find it—and to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

She leaned forward, her posture intent. “Lots of people face tremendous challenges. Lots of people see their lives turned upside down. Remember that student I mentioned, Steven Ramsey? He was a promising football star until an accident at practice a few months ago left him a paraplegic. Now there's a young man who has to rethink his entire life. Not just his career, but his everyday life. Next to him, your injuries are minor. You can still get out of bed. You can still eat and drive and go to the bathroom by yourself. He has to relearn how to do all those things.”

She moved even closer. In-your-face close. “You can still have a career in your field if you want it. That option isn't available to Steven. You need to think about that and get some perspective.” She paused before she delivered her zinger. “Maybe you should follow your doctor's advice and see that psychologist.”

The pounding in Scott's head intensified. He wanted to lash out, to tell her she was wrong and that he had every right to feel sorry for himself . . . but he couldn't argue with anything she'd said. He
had
been too hard on the choir. It
was
time to decide what he wanted to do with his life. He
did
need to regain some perspective.

And perhaps he also needed help.

Reaching out, Dorothy laid her hand on his arm and softened her tone. “I'm sorry if that sounded harsh, but it needed to be said.”

“That still doesn't mean the choir job is a good fit.”

“Why don't you talk to Reverend Richards about it? Maybe the two of you can come up with some ideas about how to deal with the service music until he finds a replacement for Marilyn. I know he'd be open to suggestions.”

He sighed. “I guess that's the least I can do.”

Dorothy gave his arm an encouraging squeeze and stood. “Will you join me on the screen porch? I made some lemonade.”

“I'll be out in a minute.”

He watched as she left the room. There was that lemonade analogy again. If life handed you lemons, you were supposed to make lemonade. He hadn't discovered how to do that yet, but his mother was right. It was time he learned.

And he also needed to make amends. To the choir as a whole—and to one member in particular.

The door to the physical therapy waiting room opened, and Karen glanced up from the magazine she was paging through. A sandy-haired man holding two cups of coffee stood on the threshold. He scanned the room, then spoke over his shoulder to the receptionist seated behind a frosted glass window. “Judy, have you seen Mrs. Montgomery's daughter?”

Laying her magazine aside, Karen stood. “Excuse me . . . I'm Mrs. Montgomery's daughter.”

At the man's puzzled expression, Karen put two and two together. This had to be David, her mother's therapist.

Smiling, she amended her reply. “I'm her other daughter, Karen. Val's under the weather.”

The flash of disappointment on David's face was brief but telling. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

“Just a summer cold, I think. Is everything okay with Mom?”

“Yes.” He glanced down at the two cups of coffee he was holding, and a flush crept up his neck. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“Margaret will be out in a few minutes.”

As he disappeared behind the door, Karen sank back into her seat. So that was David. The man Val had described as good-looking in a boy-next-door sort of way. But she had definitely underplayed the considerable assets of the tall, muscular, handsome man who had wowed Margaret—and perhaps Val. Based on the little tableau
that had just played out, there was certainly interest on his end. Did Val feel the same way?

An intriguing question.

One she intended to get an answer to come Saturday morning.

As Scott glanced around Reverend Richards's organized, uncluttered office, he tapped the arm of his chair in a rapid, staccato rhythm. He didn't belong in a minister's office. And if his mother hadn't laid that guilt trip on him, he wouldn't be here. She was the one who'd gotten him this gig; she could have gotten him out of it.

On the other hand, he was thirty-eight years old. If he wanted to back out of a job, he supposed he should do the dirty work himself.

The door opened, and Reverend Richards hurried in. “Sorry to keep you waiting. A water pipe in the basement's about to blow, and while a fountain in the sanctuary might be pretty, there are better ways to accomplish such an architectural feature.”

Smiling, he held out his hand. Scott returned the man's firm clasp, and as the minister settled into the seat beside him, a ray of sun from the window highlighted the faint brushes of silver in the brown hair at his temples as well as his kind eyes. The man radiated the same peace up close as he did from the pulpit on Sunday.

Lucky him. It must be nice to feel that secure of your place in the world.

“What can I do for you on this glorious day?” The minister wasted no time giving him the floor.

Scott cleared his throat. “I wanted to talk to you about the music director job.”

“I've been meaning to speak to you too. You know, the choir has never sounded better. I like some of the new music you've introduced.”

“I don't think the choir does.”

The pastor smiled. “We all have a tendency to get set in our ways and not push ourselves too hard. There's always some resistance to change and challenge.”

Considering the stony faces on the other side of the piano, “animosity” might be a better term than “resistance.”

“The thing is, Reverend, I don't think this is working out.”

He expected the minister to be upset. Instead, the man's expression remained placid, his posture open, his tone conversational. “Why not?”

“For a lot of reasons. Physical ones, first of all.” He lifted his left hand. “My hand doesn't work right, and the keyboarding has been difficult. I also get blinding headaches that make me impatient and difficult to deal with. You can ask the choir about that. I guarantee you'll get an earful.” He gripped the arm of his chair with his good hand. “On top of all that, I'm not religious. I haven't attended services for years, and it feels wrong to be involved in church music. I just can't muster any enthusiasm for the job.” He sighed and lowered his voice. “Or anything else, for that matter.”

Leaning forward, Scott clasped his hands between his knees and studied the subtle pattern in the carpet beneath his feet. “The truth is, since the accident I've been living under this dark cloud. All I want to do is stay in my room and shut the door. Going to choir practice is a real stretch. I'm not ready to deal with people. Or, frankly, with life. I only took this job because my mother pushed.”

Scott felt the minister studying him, but he didn't look up.

“Why don't you tell me about the accident?”

At the man's quiet request, he eased back, putting a bit more distance between them. “I don't remember much.”

“That's okay. Whatever you can recall.”

His pulse edged up, and he stared out the window at the huge, sheltering oak tree on the lawn. “I don't talk about it much.”

“Then let's go back a little further. Tell me about your career.”

His stomach contracted. That subject was almost more painful. “I don't have a career.”

“The one you had before.”

The man wasn't giving up. Might as well throw him a few crumbs and hope he'd back off.

“I thought Mom had told you. I was a jazz musician.”

“Yes, she mentioned that. What was it like?”

Scott closed his eyes, recalling the moments when everything had clicked, when every note had throbbed with passion and feeling and meaning. When he'd lost himself in the melody and been one with something bigger than himself. When he'd carried the audience along with him, given them a glimpse of the power and beauty of music. The connection, the emotion, had been so intense it often took his breath away.

“Amazing.” That single word summed up the awe and wonder of it.