SHORT TRACK SUMMER
By Christy LaShea
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Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer.
Romans 12:12, NKJV
Chapter 1
December 1955
Hickory Creek Country Club
Maggie Sheridan clutched a tray of appetizers she was supposed to offer guests, but her sisters hurried ahead of her. “This isn’t a good idea!” She yelled after them.
But they continued their sprint toward the veranda. “I’ll show them,” she mumbled. With her simple black flats planted on the sidewalk, she would refuse to go any further. She couldn’t be forced to do something, no matter what her sisters said.
Her sister, Charlotte, turned around and huffed at Maggie. “Hurry up!”
“No. This is a bad idea.”
Their younger sister, Esther, ran back to Maggie and grabbed her by the arm. “It doesn’t hurt to peek.”
Charlotte and Esther’s satin dresses bounced like colorful clouds around their knees. Beside them, Maggie stuck out like a bumble bee on a dollop of soft serve ice cream dressed in her waitress uniform. Maggie could have dressed pretty, too, since their family were guests at the wedding rehearsal dinner of Lance Elrod, Maggie’s secret crush, and Betty Smith, whose father owned the only car dealership in the county. But as an employee of the club, she couldn’t turn down an opportunity to earn a little extra money when several of the staff caught the stomach bug.
Maggie needed all the extra hours she could get. Working kept her mind off the fact that she’d misjudged Lance’s feelings for her. Ever since Lance returned from the races in North Carolina, with Betty as his fiancée, and announced they were going to live in Hickory Creek, Maggie decided she couldn’t stay home and be miserable. She’d always wanted to study business and it seemed the Lord had just given her a perfect reason to pursue a degree. She was already a semester behind, but she figured she could double up on her courses if needed.
However, in the wee hours of the night, Maggie’s resolve to be strong and independent crumbled, which had resulted in she and her sisters working on a plan to cure Maggie’s broken heart. Now, as the party was in full swing, Maggie realized plans created after midnight were ill-advised and just plain stupid.
Large windows lined the ballroom’s side entrance. Twinkling lights were strung across the hearty shrubs. Lance worked part time on the landscaping crew, which was how she and Lance had become better acquainted a year ago. The days he worked Maggie tried to keep her duties near the windows where she could admire him from afar. He was meticulous, a true artist who could probably sculpt a shrub the way a potter worked clay. When preparations started for Christmas, Maggie had been impressed by his eye for design and decoration.
But Maggie knew where his true interests were, and that was stock car racing on the dirt track just two miles beyond their hometown of Hickory Creek. Racing was one of the things Lance and Maggie had in common. She’d spent most of her childhood leaning over the hood of whatever car her father was repairing, and sometimes he’d let her drive them.
Lance loved to drive, and she loved to watch him drive. Maggie’s love for Lance had her sneaking out on her waitressing duties, and that didn’t feel right. She needed to forget her daydreams over Lance. He’d be married tomorrow, and soon would be decorating Betty’s house.
“I can’t go through with this, girls,” Maggie said as they all pressed their noses against the cold glass and peered through the fogged windows at the ballroom. Maggie backed away. “This is their rehearsal dinner. The wedding is tomorrow. It’s too late. I’m no wedding wrecker.”
“Good,” Charlotte pressed her fists on her hips. “Because our dear Lord did not intend for you to marry Lance Elrod.” Charlotte glared back at her. “He knows Sheridan women need men who are strong. And tall.”
Sixteen-year-old Esther had climbed up an oversized column to stand on the ledge aside a large window. “Who is that talking to Lance?”
Charlotte and Maggie moved back to the windows. She swiped the window clean of the steam her breathing caused. But as she gasped, the window steamed up again. “That’s Jenny Boone. I didn’t see any of her family on the guest list.”
“Yeah, I thought the Elrod’s hated the Boones,” Charlotte added.
Maggie spied her supervisor scanning the room. No doubt, her boss was looking for her. “I’ve got to go back to work.” She picked up the appetizer tray she’d set on a nearby table.
Charlotte had seen her supervisor, too. “Go in the side door so Lurch won’t see you were out here.” The girls were eleven months apart, but they shared the same thoughts many times. “We’ll come back inside in a minute. Something is about to happen with Jenny and Lance.”
Fanciful streamers swept the ceiling from one corner of the room to the other. Chandeliers blazed creating slices of light across the glossy wood floors. Couples swayed and coasted across the dance floor in an elegant waltz.
Maggie entered behind the band and slid toward the guests so it would appear she’d been serving the appetizers this whole time. But a woman’s high-pitched squeal drew her attention.
A table away, incredulous surprise bugged Jenny Boone’s teary eyes as she gaped at Lance. “You’re giving up on us? You said you loved me.”
~
Clayton Hinton pushed the drink away and scrubbed his hands down his face.
“This is a bad idea,” he mumbled to his friend Bobby Boone. He did a double take. The guy sitting next to him wasn’t Bobby. He didn’t even know the person.
Squinting, he looked around the ballroom. Lights were too bright. The band and it’s incessant drum, too loud. Who had a band and a dance floor at a wedding rehearsal anyway?
Betty did. His ex-girlfriend liked to have parties more than she liked breathing. He used to love that about her. And his parents had loved the possible union of Smith Ford Dealership with Hinton Auto Parts.
He’d disappointed his parents, yet again. His goals simply didn’t line up with what his family wanted for his life. His folks wanted him to be an auto parts sales magician and all he wanted to do was design cars to make them faster. He’d moved to Hickory Creek to do just that, even though his parents wanted him to manage their Atlanta office.
Clayton heaved in a deep breath and loosened his tie. He rejected stuffy meetings and paperwork. And he hated wearing tailored suits. Agreeing to be Lance’s groomsman had been his second worst decision. The first mistake was letting Betty slip out of his grasp. He’d come close to loving her, closer than he’d ever been before.
Heartbreak or not, Lance was his cousin, and family stood by family no matter what.
Woeful, he scanned the room. Susannah Mackenzie stood with her husband a few feet away. Clayton took a step forward and promptly bumped another guest.
“I need to speak with her. I gotta get over there.” He pushed his way through the dancefloor, hollering the whole way. “Miz and Mister Mackenzie! Sue! Nick!” He waved when Susannah and Nick glanced his way.
Nick headed toward him, moving through the crowd with ease. Susannah followed.
“I need to speak to you about this motor I’ve built.” Clayton yelled even though they were an arm’s length away from each other.
As the room spun, he stumbled into Nick. “Woah, Slick. What’s your hurry?”
“I’ve built this car. She’s a Plymouth Deluxe. I swapped out the engine and she’s the fastest in the southeast. Bobby and I are getting a team together. Where’s Bobby?” He looked around as he held onto Nick’s shoulders.
“I think you need to sit down, Clayton.” Susannah said.
“I will, I will, Sue. But first, I need to tell you somethin’” Clayton licked his parched lips. “Bobby and me, we got a plan. A plan to beat the socks off Lance and his number 65 crew.”
Nick looked around and smirked at Susannah. “Slick, you’re surrounded by their crew.”
“I don’t care who hears.” He pointed toward the ceiling. “I’m claiming this in front of God and everyone, Bobby and me are gonna get a team together and we’re gonna beat the socks off Elrod’s Ford.”
Susannah smiled. “That’s fine, but what did you want to speak to me about?”
Clayton clutched Nick’s shoulders and leaned toward Susannah. “I want you,” he turned to Nick, “I want her, to drive for us.”
Nick chuckled. “Sue’s got her own team, Slick.”
“Oh yeah.” Clayton clapped Nick’s chest. “I forgot, brother. Sorry.”
“Why don’t you come and sit down,” Nick began to lead him to a table. “Let’s get you some coffee.”
“I think they’ve got coffee at the bar.”
“No,” Nick pulled him in another direction. “They don’t.”
“I think you need to lay off the bar tonight,” Susannah warned.
“My mind is clouded, but I can still grasp the hairs of good sense,” Clayton slurred. “I appreciate your help.” Whirling around, he tried to find his footing. And as he fought to remember where he was going, he stumbled forward.
~
Balancing the sterling silver tray of stuffed mushrooms, Maggie headed toward Lance. Jenny’s angry appearance confirmed their confrontation could get ugly quick. She glanced toward the left, across the dancefloor. Fingers and noses pressed to the window, Charlotte and Esther made no effort to hide themselves from the partygoers, not caring they looked desperate standing there. Maggie prayed no one had seen her doing the same.
Lance was alone with Jenny who was about to make a spectacle of herself. Lance needed Maggie’s help.
She inhaled all the confidence she could and inched forward, dodging hungry partygoers reaching for her tray.
Inches from Lance and Jenny, she shifted the tray until it was between them. “Stuffed mushroom?” Forcing a smile, she shifted her gaze between them, but Jenny’s stony eyes were focused solidly on Lance, and she wasn’t budging.
Relief washed over Lance’s face. “Margaret?” Hooking his index finger under his collar, he adjusted his tie. “I didn’t know you were working tonight. How are you doing?”
Jenny’s gaze shifted to Maggie. “This is a private conversation.” She turned to Lance. “I love you. I thought you loved me, too.”
“Shucks, Jenny. That’s real sweet, but you know Betty and I—”
“Of course, I know!” People surrounding them seemed to all be interested in their conversation. “Of course, I know,” Jenny repeated, not trying to keep her voice quiet. “We’ve been together for two years. I don’t understand what happened, but I still love you. I had hoped when you heard me say those words that it would change your mind about marrying her.”
Maggie stepped back. She’d intended to tell Lance the same thing.
But Jenny and Lance had been going steady for two years? How had Maggie not known about them? She thought she was Lance’s only girl.
His eyebrows bobbed, making the lines on his forehead deepen. But as his shoulders sagged, something heavy sank in her stomach. Jenny must have felt the same as she clutched her belly, and a look of pure desperation took hold.
“Jenny…” He shook his head at her. “I’m marrying Betty tomorrow. Nothing is going to change my mind.” His eyes slanted away. “You’re a good friend.”
“Friend?”
“You meant a lot to me.”
Past tense verb usage was never a good sign. The Boone family had a history of trouble. Judging by Jenny’s fists, Lance was about to get pummeled.
Maggie stepped forward, between Lance and the person he’d obviously lead on. “Jenny, why don’t you and I go get something to drink and calm down?”
But Jenny was on the brink of rage. “I’ve been your girl for the past two years,” Jenny said, not caring who heard. Her voice climbed as she continued, “I’ve picked up your laundry, bought your groceries, fed your cat, cleaned your house. You told me that I was the one you wanted to marry. I don’t understand what happened! What happened, Lance? I’ve been cooking for you. Can Betty Smith take care of you the way I do? Does Betty know that you like your bacon a little soft and not crispy?”
Jenny’s fists swung and Lance tried to lean back. As he reared back, another man bumped him, which pushed Lance forward into Jenny who was swinging wildly, and yelling, “Not crispy! Not crispy!”
Maggie should have backed up, but somehow, she was in the middle of it. Maybe it was hearing Jenny mimic her own thoughts that had her frozen. Had she been that desperate over Lance? It was frightening to see a woman go off the deep end over a man, but it also could have happened to Maggie since that was just the plan she and her sisters had devised.
She tried to turn away as Jenny’s words spewed and her fists worked like a tornado on Lance’s muscular chest.
Maggie swiveled away as waiters and guests jumped forward trying to pull Jenny off Lance. Her elbow jabbed a solid rock that happened to be covered in a tailored suit. The sole of her shoe slipped, jolting her sideways. The mountain she’d rammed into was taller than she, and his large fingers gripped her arm in a faint effort to save them from disaster.
Barely a second fell between the collision and the upending of the large serving tray. Decadent bites of warm stuffed mushrooms flew above Maggie, above the heads of the people surrounding her, and the man who now held onto her for his dear life. It was as if there were firecrackers inside the ballroom, only instead of launching bright lights, it was those fungi appetizers, popping across the ballroom, falling onto victims like raw eggs. The mess spread across the glossy wood floor as people slid—and some fell—pulling their respective partners with them.
As the horror unfolded around her, Maggie clung to the tray, the last of the mushrooms smashed against her blouse. One plastered against her nose, angling across her eyelid. If she’d wanted to look at the stranger still gripping her arm, she couldn’t have seen him through the mash of breadcrumbs and seasoning.
She forced one eye open. Large hands clamped her arms. Green eyes the color of an oak’s leaf, but more magnificent, stared back at her. Hanging from his dark hair was a particle of the stuffed fungi.
Music stopped and the room fell silent.
“Are you alright?” Though Green Eyes words were slurred he took possession of the tray. Those pupils were familiar. She hooked her finger and pushed away the edible plaster that had smashed across the bridge of her nose revealing Betty’s ex-boyfriend and Lance’s cousin. Clayton Hinton.
There was no hiding the stunned look on his face.
She inhaled a deep breath, her heart pounding to the beat of some new feeling. Was it embarrassment? Perhaps. Except she’d been embarrassed plenty in her twenty years of life and this felt different.
He wiped his hand down the front of his suit and clasped a bunch of gooey breadcrumbs that stuck in his hair, shaking them to the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” she managed as Clayton straightened to his full height.
“I’ll be all right.” He stumbled to the left, then back to the right. “If anyone should apologize it’s Lance and Jenny.”
At the sound of their names, Maggie and Clayton looked to their right. Several yards away, Betty wove through the crowd toward them. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t want her to see what’s going on with Lance. If she finds out, she may not marry him tomorrow. Let’s help Lance, shall we?” Clayton stared at Maggie as he gripped her upper arms. His gaze shot up. “We’re under the mistletoe.”
His hands moved to her waist. “Wh—” Maggie’s question was vanquished as Clayton swooped and captured her lips with his.
Heat swam from his surprisingly soft mouth to her fingers. Even her toes pulsed with an exhilaration she’d only dreamed about it. For a moment, she was floating. On waves of surprise, shooting her to a star-filled sky, she didn’t want to return from this new state of being.
As oohs and aahs passed through the crowd, her joy dissolved until all that was left was awareness and anger.
She pushed back, sputtering. “What in the world are you thinking?” Her lips tingled where his had been.
Grabbing a mushroom that had survived and was dangling from his lapel, Clayton popped it in his mouth. “I don’t want Betty hurt. I can’t help it she chose my sorry cousin to marry. Maybe seeing me kiss you will distract her.”
“So, you kissed me to help Betty and Lance?” Appalled, Maggie stepped back. Betty, who’d stopped in the middle of her guests, stared at Maggie and Clayton. “I don’t know how she could go away tonight and not find out what happened.”
With Jenny hauled from the ballroom, Lance moved toward Betty, straightening his suit, and plucking a random mushroom off to the floor. Guests began ambling around, chatting amongst themselves as everyone attempted to recover from the impromptu boxing match and the food fight they’d been involved with.
Maggie glared at Clayton. “You had no right to kiss me.”
He gave a tight-lipped smile and raked his hand over his thick dark hair, pulling a mushroom down with it. “You’re right, and I’m sorry.” He bent at the waist in an old-fashioned bow. “I suppose I’m not in my right mind tonight.” He shot a glare across the room at Betty and Lance. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my mistakes and leave.”
She stared after him. That had been her first kiss. Static filled her ears as embarrassment drowned her. Cautiously, she gazed from one corner of the room to the next. Every pair of eyes was on her. And she was either going to faint, or vomit, or both. She lowered her eyes, toward the empty tray, and turned toward the exit. Still, the new and uncomfortable tingling sensation that had erupted across her lips remained.