After All These Years by Sally John

her exasperation. “Tam, it’s a discipline thing. If you’re not a damsel in distress, I gotta move on.”
    She stomped her foot on the ground. “I
am
in distress! I miss you!”
    Cal laughed and walked away. “See you.”
    â€œGoodbye!”
    He strolled through the crowd, studying the faces. Some of the kids were familiar to him, the older ones because they’d been in trouble, the younger ones because they were children of his classmates. That fact always brought him up short. He couldn’t imagine having kids already. Come to think of it, he couldn’t imagine having a
wife
, let alone kids. He and Tammy were on the same wavelength with that concern. It was one of the things he liked about her. Right after her looks.
    She was a lot younger. They hadn’t known each other growing up in Valley Oaks, but he knew she had won different beauty pageants, county fair queen kind of stuff. She could have been a model, but instead settled in Twin Prairie where she taught preschool. She was good-looking.
    Speaking of looks, what did Lia’s little girl look like? Would he even recognize her? She had been asleep that night. He knew her hair was shorter than her mom’s, but just as black. When he had laid her down on the bed, he noticed her creamy skin, like her mom’s. What was it called? Porcelain. That was it, like dolls. Two china dolls plunked down in the middle of Valley Oaks.
    Cal made his way to the picnic area. Long lines of people stretched from the food tent, eager to get the town’s famous grilled pork chop sandwiches. He greeted folks, rounded the end of the lines, and spotted Lia in the nearby playground, kneeling before a dark-haired little girl and hugging her tightly.
    Well, that situation was resolved. Apparently the new pharmacist was a little high strung when it came to her daughter.
    That niggling corner of his mind stirred. What was it? Yeah…that was it…the outdated alarm system. And the back door’s flimsy lock. Apparently Lia wasn’t overly concerned when it came to home security. But wasn’t that and the kid’s security one and the same?
    Hmm. Something didn’t jibe here.

Six
    Tony popped the last of his pork chop sandwich into his mouth. They certainly did know how to cook around these parts, he had that to say for them.
    He chided himself for the uppity attitude. Not everyone south of Chicago was a closed-minded bigot who thought a whining voice set to twanging guitars was music. Take Izzy, for instance. Though unsophisticated, she had gone to college and was bilingual and bicultural. No, he had to admit that the majority of Valley Oaks residents he had met so far weren’t the stereotype he imagined. Homemade and maybe a bit hokey, but decent and open. Only those three men in the café the other morning displayed true redneck colors. They drove big ugly trucks, spoke loudly, chewed loudly, and teased the waitress mercilessly. From their undisguised scrutiny of his person, he figured their notion of him was highly suspect. He did what he could to display his own rendition of machismo, winking and smiling at the waitress before making a mental note to leave his Gucci loafers at the motel from now on.
    He looked across the picnic table where Dot Cassidy sat, dabbing daintily at the cole slaw dressing at the corner of her mouth. She was older, attractive, and no doubt a knockout in her younger years when the platinum didn’t come from a bottle. The tone of her eager friendliness, though, led him to believe that she was the town’s leading gossip who bent stories as easily as she batted her mascara-laden eyelashes. Her husband probably drove one of those big ugly trucks.
    Tony gave himself a mental shake. He was a journalist. Professionally, he needed an unbiased posture when researching a story. Even if he threw out three-fourths of what Dot told him, there would be useful nuggets. He focused on her again,