Waiting for Sparks

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Then Emma had felt guilty about wanting others to solve her problem, then gotten mad about feeling guilty, then guilty about being mad about it. Then she’d eaten way too many slices of butter-soaked cinnamon toast to forget the whole matter.

The pungent odor of extrasharp cheddar cheese twitched her nose. Mr. Telford and his wife had sold the grocery store to their son Vince. He’d graduated a few years behind Emma. Vince broke off his whistling to greet her from behind the meat counter. Resting his big forearms in front of him, he grinned. “Emma, what can I get you? Got some nice chops. How’s your grandmother?”

“My grandmother is going to be fine. She’s a Chambers.” Her eyes roamed the deli case. Mmm. Twice-baked potatoes. A little comfort food might help tonight while she changed a lifetime pattern and came up with a good idea fast.

One crummy day to get it right.

Vince’s gaze shifted up and beyond her shoulder. “Sparks! Looking for lunch?”

Emma whirled to find Sparks looking at her, his expression changing the second she locked eyes with him. Those questions when she caught him watching her... Was he thinking, “What is her problem? What is the big deal here?”

As she hurriedly began to inspect every single item in the deli case as though it was the most fascinating deli case on the planet, a new idea struck.

“Hey, Vince, I’m looking for someone to run the Jamboree. Wanna apply?”

Vince laughed as if she’d told the funniest joke he’d ever heard. “Em, this weekend has been a great start to the summer so far. My barbecue went out the door in slabs.” He tied the string around the potato wrapped in white butcher paper and pushed it toward her. “Hope the Jamboree will be enough.”

Emma grasped the package and tucked it in her basket. “Enough for what?”

As he bent across the deli case to respond, a bullhorn voice, elevated to carry into the next county, vibrated through the store. “Vincent, how do you expect to stay in business if you don’t have what people need?”

Vince patted Emma’s hand and stepped aside to wait on Sparks, whose eyes had widened at the stentorian bellow.

“It’s only Beryl,” Vince reassured him.

Feral Beryl wore a chip on her shoulder the size of Heaven Lake, daring anyone to breathe on it, much less knock it off.

While Emma was growing up next door to the woman, balls that went over The Berlin Wall never came back, at first. Grumpa would have to go and get them. Then one day Beryl started returning the balls over the fence and that was that. To be fair, Emma thought, Beryl had had her share of hard times.

After leaving the deli counter, Emma dropped a loaf of sourdough from a local organic bakery into her basket alongside the tomatoes, lettuce and bacon.

Beryl and her alcoholic husband had screamed at each other for years until the night he’d gone for beer and didn’t come home. Old Mae Cunningham swore that evening’s events had sealed the deep line between Beryl’s eyebrows and gradually added more than a hundred pounds to the woman. Now Feral Beryl lumbered around in a caftan and sandals. Once she retired, she spent most of her time working in her backyard and criticizing town events.

A warm hand landed on Emma’s shoulder and caught her attention. Sparks. In the produce aisle. Standing very near to her.

“Look,” he said, his hand remaining on her shoulder until Emma shot a pointed glance toward it. “You don’t want to plan this Jamboree.”

“I don’t.” Finally they agreed on something.

He spotted the items in her basket. “BLTs! How ’bout I buy some more bacon and we make ’em together?” At Emma’s silence, he shrugged. “Sorry.”

Although...maybe the sandwich making would give her an opportunity to convince Sparks to take on the five-day Fourth of July event.

“I don’t want to plan it, either, to be honest. I’m on vacation. A man of the world, committed to no one. So let’s find someone else.” His grin indicated his pleasure at solving both of their problems.

Emma sighed and moved toward the checkout. Great. Only she’d already solved both of their problems.

As she opened her mouth to reply that she was busy—man moratorium, you know—the phone in her pocket buzzed and played the opening chords of “I Will Survive.” She moved a couple of steps away and answered the call. “Hello?”

It was the nurse she’d spoken to at Garden Terrace, the temporary facility for the next step of her grandmother’s recovery. The doctor had cleared her grandmother for rehab, but Naomi was having none of it. “There’s no medical reason to keep her at the hospital...and I think they need the bed...” The nurse’s voice trailed off. She thanked the woman, said she’d be in touch and ended the call.

Emma decided on and then added shortbread cookies and chunky chocolate fudge ice cream to her basket as she tried to think of something helpful. A breath later, she felt, rather than saw Sparks beside her, his warmth reaching out to her.

What was she going to do? Her mind flashed to a picture of her grandmother grinning and holding up a map of England, taunting her.

She changed directions and headed toward the checkout, and heard Beryl again, informing Vince of more of her opinions. “If I was running the Jamboree, there’d be changes, I can tell you.”

Evidently, Beryl’s changes would start with changing the organizer’s title from Jamboree coordinator to supreme empress of the universe. Her grandmother would hitchhike from Garden Terrace as soon as she heard crazy news like that. Not that it would ever happen. Nomi would never allow it.

Emma stepped up to the checkout, Sparks at her side. He had the sense, she was relieved to find, to not say a word. Something. She had to come up with something to get her grandmother to rehab. If she didn’t get better— Tears smarted in Emma’s eyes.

“I’d get rid of that Cadillac Naomi rides in during the parade. It smacks of elitism. And if you ask me...”

Nobody had asked Beryl. Nobody ever did. Naomi had first rode in a Cadillac in the early 70s as mayor when an Evanston car dealership offered it; Grumpa had ridden with her as fire chief. Eliminating that tradition from the Jamboree had as much chance of happening as Beryl did of running the show this year or any year.

Emma’s feet stopped moving. If Nomi knew Beryl was thinking of changing the Jamboree... Of running the event? This...this might work. Her grandmother would never agree to go to Garden Terrace unless—unless her grandmother got something she wanted in return. This time the tears were for Emma herself.

She hit Redial and was connected to the nurse. “I’ll get her there,” Emma promised. It took only minutes to make the arrangements. A pang in her heart struck deep. But the longer her grandmother was not in rehab, the less she’d recover. Could Emma depend on the lengths Nomi might go to keep Beryl out of the Jamboree?

Emma closed her eyes, feeling faint. Had it come down to this? The shores of England began to cloud with fog. An image from the movie My Fair Lady, which she and Grumpa loved, faded quickly.

With the basket slung over her arm, Emma forced her legs to engage and continue walking to the register.

“Are you—” Sparks began.

Emma flung up a hand as if to ward off his kindness. “Please.”

“Can I help?”

“No.” To get lost in those eyes would ruin everything for her. The man moratorium had to get her through.

Another intense gaze, and then he nodded as though confirming something to himself. Sparks turned and strode out of the store.

* * *

AFTER LETTING TROUBLE OUT, filling the Omni with gas and grabbing a yogurt at the house, Emma headed for the Organic District before driving to the hospital.

Emma had no doubt that her grandmother would take the bait, once she dangled Beryl’s potential involvement in the Jamboree in front of her. The chasm between Nomi and her neighbor had erupted long before Emma had had memories, and nothing could induce her grandmother to let Beryl replace her.

A special loaf of bread would, however, hopefully reward the hospital staff for taking care of her difficult relative. They would need a treat, for her grandmother was, so far, still refusing to go to Garden Terrace.

A few miles out of town, a large carved sign heralded what was referred to as the OD. Organic farmers, ranchers, artisans and crafters rented small wooden stalls and sold their wares to residents and tourists passing on the county road. Organic gardens stretched behind the buildings.