The Strawberry Hearts Diner(66)

Nettie got so tickled that she nearly shot coffee out her nose. “I don’t imagine your senior prom dress would have impressed him any more than those skimpy shorts.” She wiped at the coffee stains on her shirt with a hankie that she pulled from the pocket of her jeans. “Jancy, tell me about your date with Shane.”

“We sat in that ’58 Chevrolet he is restoring and he put the top down. There’s not much moon, but we looked at the stars and made out like a couple of high schoolers on a back road. And then—” Jancy could feel the heat traveling from the back of her neck all the way to her cheeks. “He said that he respected me and wanted to do things right. Which I guess means that he doesn’t want to fall into bed with me until later.”

“Like I said, he’s the town sweetheart. You won’t find no better, Jancy,” Nettie said on a yawn.

“That’s the gospel truth, Nettie. He said that I’ve helped his self-esteem, but I feel like he’s bringin’ stuff home for me, too,” she said.

“You are welcome,” Nettie said.

“I’m going to claim the bathroom first this evening. Good night.” Vicky stood up, stretched the kinks out of her neck, and headed inside.

“I’m worried about her,” Nettie said in a low voice.

“Why?”

Nettie sighed loudly. “She’s worrying too much about Emily. That’s what happens when a mama only has one chick in the nest. She puts all her energy and love into that one little baby and then spends the rest of her time trying to make life perfect for her.”

“And what is perfect for the mama ain’t always the same for the chick, right?”

“Pretty good thinkin’ for a kid your age. Vicky is on the way to total acceptance, but she needs a little more time. Getting involved with the wedding plans is going to help a lot,” Nettie said.

Jancy patted Nettie on the shoulder as she headed into the house. “You are so wise. I wish my car would have burned up in the parking lot about four years ago.”

“Timing might not have been right then,” Nettie said.

“Have I told you that I adore you, Nettie?” Jancy stopped long enough to give her a gentle hug and then disappeared into the house.

Nettie kept the swing going for a while longer. All alone on the porch with nothing but years’ worth of memories, she could feel a change in the air. It didn’t have anything to do with the weather, the mosquitoes buzzing around her ears, or even the bad or good luck of the summer. It went deeper than that. She could only hope that it brought peace to Vicky and happiness to Emily—and maybe even more self-confidence to Jancy, who’d sure put a smile on her face with that compliment.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


Shane poked his head in the door at exactly eight o’clock that Thursday evening and smiled at Jancy. “You ready to go, or do you need to go change clothes?”

“Do I need to get all dolled up?” Jancy asked Emily.

“Heck, no! I’m wearing what I’ve got on. We’re going to be cleaning a trailer, not walking down a fashion runway,” Emily told her.

“We’ll meet y’all there soon as we get finished making the tart shells for tomorrow,” Nettie said.

“Ryder’s finishing up doing the last of the underpinning before y’all get here,” Shane said as he led the way to his truck. “He’s pretty scared that it ain’t good enough for you, Emily, but he’s most w-worried about Vicky.”

“I’m so excited that I can hardly sit still. I don’t care what it looks like. I get to live there with Ryder,” she said as she crawled into the truck.

A tiny streak of jealousy shot through Jancy at the idea that things still weren’t completely settled in her life.

It was cramped with three of them in the front seat, but that just meant Jancy got to sit real close to Shane, and that was fine by her. She snuggled close to enjoy the ride.

A picket fence encircled a little white frame house with a wide front porch. Thirty yards off to the north, a white trailer house faced the road. It looked to Jancy like it had just rolled off the assembly line. She’d lived in trailers most of her life, and none of them had looked a thing like that.

“Oh! It’s beautiful,” Emily said as she hurried out of the truck.

“That thing’s really used?” Jancy asked.

“It’s four years old, but it was lived in by an elderly lady who had it parked next to her son’s place down south of Palestine. They sold it wh-when she died,” Shane explained.

“Did she die in the trailer?” Jancy asked.

“No, in the yard w-workin’ in her flower beds. I w-would love for Gramps to die in our house. I hate the idea of him leavin’ this w-world in that care center.”

“I’m surprised that he’s in one,” Jancy said.

“Me, too, but it w-was his idea not m-mine. It ain’t easy.” Shane’s voice cracked as he walked with Jancy to the trailer.

Shane knocked on the trailer door, and Emily threw it open. “Come in, come in! Ryder and Shane have already cleaned this from top to bottom and it smells brand-new. Jancy, you have to see the room where we are putting the nursery.”

“We’ll have a real porch by the time we get married. For now those tacky old concrete steps will have to do.” Ryder waved at Nettie and Vicky, who were walking across the grass toward the trailer. “Come inside. We have lemonade and doughnuts. The other furniture won’t arrive until next week.”