“You can’t do that.” She replaced the crown and slowly turned to face Miranda. Real concern showed on her face. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but your father saw the doctor today. He’s been having minor chest pains and his blood pressure is out of control. Dr. Chainey put him on a diet and medication. And he’s talking about an angioplasty.”
Her mother’s eyes filled with tears, a shocking sight in its own right. “He’s been instructed to avoid stress at all costs,” she said. “He’s not to think about anything more taxing than his golf game.”
Miranda wasn’t sure how she made it through the meal. It was like traveling through a desert dying of thirst and actually reaching an oasis full of fresh water only to be told you weren’t allowed to drink.
Her father was right there. He called her “Button” just like he always did, and he kicked up a real ruckus about not being allowed his usual martini or Rosalee’s buttermilk-fried chicken. Heart-healthy baked chicken was clearly not the same.
But Miranda could see the fear in his eyes. And she noticed that although he ranted for form’s sake, he ate and drank what he was served—a sobering confirmation that he knew this was for real.
Miranda pushed the food around on her plate and made polite conversation, trying not to be afraid for her father and trying to put the best possible spin on his chances for avoiding the very real specters of angioplasty and bypass surgery.
Her mother was right, her father’s health had to be protected at all costs. There would be no laying down of anything at her father’s wonderful feet. The burden of saving Truro was going to stay on her own inadequate shoulders.
Saturday morning’s
Truro Gazette
carried the usual amalgamation of small-town life. Births and deaths, the latter outweighing the former; the latest shenanigans of Truro’s greediest developer, who was “turning their lovely mountain haven into a magnet for Florida retirees and worse”; what was served at the St. Paul Baptist Church’s annual potluck supper; and assorted community happenings. But the column everyone—Miranda included—turned to first on Saturdays was Clara Bartlett’s “Truro Tattles.”
Miranda and her family had appeared in the column for as long as she could remember. Normally Clara contented herself with glowing accounts of the Ballantyne family’s pet charities and Miranda’s public appearances on the company’s behalf, but this week’s column was something shy of fawning.
Miranda’s heart sank as she sat at her kitchen table and read:
WHO ’ S MANNING THE BRA FACTORY?
This reporter can’t help but wonder what Ballantyne’s President and CEO was thinking when he took off for the Orient for such a long period of time.
We realize the company has been manufacturing the same sorts of unmentionables for over a hundred years, but can it really operate on automatic pilot?
Shouldn’t
somebody
be running the show?
chapter 7
O n Sunday morning Blake sat between his grandfather and his daughter at the Truro First Methodist Church and pretended to listen to the minister. His grandfather was still as stone, and Blake was fairly certain he was asleep with his eyes open, a skill the old man had perfected recently and which occasionally scared Blake half to death.
His daughter Andie wasn’t anywhere near as accomplished, and Blake had lost track of the number of times her eyes had fluttered all the way shut before she jerked back awake at the sound of the church organ or a responsorial reading.
Blake’s particular skill was feigning interest while his mind wandered where it would. When he was Andie’s age, he’d passed the time replaying football games in his mind. At thirteen he’d begun picturing the female members of the choir naked, until that awful day when he’d accidentally mentally unwrapped the minister’s two-hundred-pound wife and sworn off the exercise for life.
Today his brain teased
Her mother’s eyes filled with tears, a shocking sight in its own right. “He’s been instructed to avoid stress at all costs,” she said. “He’s not to think about anything more taxing than his golf game.”
Miranda wasn’t sure how she made it through the meal. It was like traveling through a desert dying of thirst and actually reaching an oasis full of fresh water only to be told you weren’t allowed to drink.
Her father was right there. He called her “Button” just like he always did, and he kicked up a real ruckus about not being allowed his usual martini or Rosalee’s buttermilk-fried chicken. Heart-healthy baked chicken was clearly not the same.
But Miranda could see the fear in his eyes. And she noticed that although he ranted for form’s sake, he ate and drank what he was served—a sobering confirmation that he knew this was for real.
Miranda pushed the food around on her plate and made polite conversation, trying not to be afraid for her father and trying to put the best possible spin on his chances for avoiding the very real specters of angioplasty and bypass surgery.
Her mother was right, her father’s health had to be protected at all costs. There would be no laying down of anything at her father’s wonderful feet. The burden of saving Truro was going to stay on her own inadequate shoulders.
Saturday morning’s
Truro Gazette
carried the usual amalgamation of small-town life. Births and deaths, the latter outweighing the former; the latest shenanigans of Truro’s greediest developer, who was “turning their lovely mountain haven into a magnet for Florida retirees and worse”; what was served at the St. Paul Baptist Church’s annual potluck supper; and assorted community happenings. But the column everyone—Miranda included—turned to first on Saturdays was Clara Bartlett’s “Truro Tattles.”
Miranda and her family had appeared in the column for as long as she could remember. Normally Clara contented herself with glowing accounts of the Ballantyne family’s pet charities and Miranda’s public appearances on the company’s behalf, but this week’s column was something shy of fawning.
Miranda’s heart sank as she sat at her kitchen table and read:
WHO ’ S MANNING THE BRA FACTORY?
This reporter can’t help but wonder what Ballantyne’s President and CEO was thinking when he took off for the Orient for such a long period of time.
We realize the company has been manufacturing the same sorts of unmentionables for over a hundred years, but can it really operate on automatic pilot?
Shouldn’t
somebody
be running the show?
chapter 7
O n Sunday morning Blake sat between his grandfather and his daughter at the Truro First Methodist Church and pretended to listen to the minister. His grandfather was still as stone, and Blake was fairly certain he was asleep with his eyes open, a skill the old man had perfected recently and which occasionally scared Blake half to death.
His daughter Andie wasn’t anywhere near as accomplished, and Blake had lost track of the number of times her eyes had fluttered all the way shut before she jerked back awake at the sound of the church organ or a responsorial reading.
Blake’s particular skill was feigning interest while his mind wandered where it would. When he was Andie’s age, he’d passed the time replaying football games in his mind. At thirteen he’d begun picturing the female members of the choir naked, until that awful day when he’d accidentally mentally unwrapped the minister’s two-hundred-pound wife and sworn off the exercise for life.
Today his brain teased
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