Page 25 of July Skies
She almost called Wayne to discuss her findings. Yet as her phone hovered over his number in her address book, she thought of something a little more radical. For her, anyway.
“Hello?” came the feminine voice from the other end of the line. “Rachel Gibson.”
“Hey, Rachel. It’s Dahlia, from Hibiscus Films.” Dahlia bit her lip. Was it too late for her to hang up and go back to the old life she understood a little too well? “Only wondering if you were still interested in helping with the documentary about Paradise Valley. You know, the lesbian town?” she cleared her throat. “Yeah, unfortunately, I lost one of my crew to an ongoing health issue, and we got held back long enough that the other two had to come back for other commitments. I still have much to do in Oregon, though. Was thinking of starting over, actually. So… are you…”
Rachel Gibson had spent weeks trying to get Dahlia to take her input seriously. Now that Dahlia was finally calling her?
Even after Dahlia put the phone down, she could hear Rachel chewing her out in between shouts of excitement.“Hey, babe, guess who’s calling me?”Rachel shouted to another woman. Dahlia sat back and sipped her coffee. She hadn’t turned on speakerphone, yet she heard the raucous laughter of two women while staring at another still of Karen on the all-in-one monitor.
The Mayor all but dared her to try to come back.
Chapter 15
KAREN
In the two and a half weeks that passed since the departure of Hibiscus Films, Karen Rath did her damndest to get back to business as usual. After all, there was a town-wide Pride to coordinate, and what better way to take her mind off things than to throw herself into work?
Part of that work included reaching out to the members of her community who had expressed frustrations earlier that month. When Karen popped into Frankie’s Deli one afternoon for lunch, she had anticipated assuring the businesswoman that Dahlia wouldn’t be around to ruffle any feathers. Instead of pleasing Frankie, however, she received a countenance of consternation that suggested things could have gone another way.
“Seems a shame that they gave up so easily,” Joan Sheffield said, when Karen purposely popped into Crafts & Things when she knew it would be slow. Joan sat behind the front counter, doing paperwork while carefully positioning herself on a cushioned stool. Although the temperatures had climbed to an easy eighty degrees that July, Joan sat in her semi-ventilated shop with a loose sweater and sweatpants. While she didn’t look unprofessional, necessarily, Karen couldn’t help but notice the strange choice in fashion.Who wears something like this during the summer? Even around here…Then again, Karen was a woman who donned pantsuits on days she didn’t go into city hall. Who was she to judge how the locals dressed in their offices? “I was interested in seeing what they’d come up with, even if it was less than flattering.”
“Yes, well…” Karen cleared her throat. “We also have to keep in mind the image of the town. We rely so much on tourism, especially this time of year.”
“Still, we know the truth about this town. Besides, the lady doing the filming was pretty to look at.”
Karen raised her brows.
“Oh, don’t tell Lorri I said that. She can get sooo jealous, you know? Anyway, I admit it. I have a type. I like women who are pretty tough and run things the way they see fit. Doesn’t matter if they’re making movies or working in a hardware store.” Joan chuckled. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear me ramble about that.”
Karen wasn’t surewhatshe wanted to hear from anyone. Confirmation that Dahlia and her team sucked? Ranting and raving about movies ruining their fair town? Stories about how unprofessional everyone had been? Instead, Karen flitted about Paradise Valley, hearing sadness at best, absolute disbelief at worst. Meadow Hobfield called Hibiscus Films a bunch of cowards for not delivering on their film. Dr. Brandelyn Meyer expressed lament that she had missed the fuss. Anem Singer gasped in horror, right there in the middle of the supermarket, and exclaimed that showing up in an interview was the only thing she had to look forward to all year.
But nobody was more upset than Christina, who had been more sullen than usual around her mother. Karen determined it was for reasons similar to Anem’s. What excited a young woman more than being on TV? Not that Karen would have signed off on Christina’s appearance for a million dollars. Her daughter didn’t turn eighteen until next spring. She could deal.
“Whew,” Xander said late one evening, when the mosquitos buzzed in the yard and crickets chirped in the woods behind their house. “You’d think you had gone into her room and broken all of her toys.” That came hot on the heels of another minor blowup between mother and daughter. Karen had asked Christina to take care of the dinner dishes, but all Christina wanted to do was scowl at her mother and fly into her bedroom. “What did youdo,Mom?”
“Me? Who said I did anything? She’s the one who got in trouble.” There was no point grounding Christina. She already suffered enough, since most of her friends skipped out of town in July to go to camps, relatives’ houses, and places like Disneyland. She spent most of her days lying in the backyard, earbuds in and sunglasses on her face.
“Does this have to do with that filmmaker? I’ve overheard Christina on the phone saying she was going to kiss your butt to that Dahlia woman. You know, the cute lady who…”
“Why are we talking about her?” Karen snapped. “Don’t remind me about that.”
“Oh ho ho.” Xander silently volunteered to do the dishes in his sister’s stead. Karen knew her son didn’t do this out of the goodness of his own heart. He’d find a way for Christina to repay him. Probably in the form of mowing the lawn. “I’ve hit a sore spot. Must be because she had the hots for you, Mom.”
Karen snapped her head around the moment the dishes hit the sink. “What?”
“I mean, I was joking, but also repeating what I’ve heard everyone around town saying.”
If there was one thing to make Karen jerk back in her seat, it wasthat.“Dahlia did not have ‘the hots’ for me. She’s straight, for one thing. That was one of the reasons it was painfully obvious it wasn’t going to work out. For her project, I mean. She didn’t have the eye for what she needed to film.”
“Say what you want, Mom.” Water sprayed against the dishes. A few flecks of water landed on Karen’s lap. She didn’t care enough to move. “I overheard some of the ladies who frequent Paradise Lost saying you two had ‘hilariously good’ chemistry. There was a betting pool about whether you two had hooked up or not. Guess I broke a few wallets when I said you hadn’t, and I would’ve known.”
There were a hundred things for Karen to home in on there, but the oneglaringthing was, “What in the world were you doing at a bar? You’re not twenty-one. Don’t get me in trouble with the authorities,please.” It was bad enough having the sheriff drag a drunken Xander home while he was in high school. The last thing she needed was him getting an alcohol supply from the gay bar. If she was connected to its closure…
“Would you relax?” Xander laughed at his mother’s pinkening cheeks of maternal rage. “I didn’t goinside.I was talking to people outside of it. It’s not that far from the library, you know. I see people coming and going!”
Karen pressed her fingers to her temples. “While you’re doing this, I think I’ll check on the garden.”
“I already watered the plants today.”
