Sugar Plums for Dry Creek

After a moment’s silence, the attendant had finally asked, “So do you want the mechanic to come over to fix that heater? He doesn’t keep regular hours, but he can get down here in fifteen minutes flat.”

Lizette had shaken her head. “Thanks though.”

She barely had enough money left to get her ballet school going; she couldn’t afford to fix anything that wasn’t actually falling off the car. The heater was spitting out just enough warm air to keep her from freezing to death, so it would have to do for now.

She’d looked out her rearview mirror as she’d pulled away from the gas station and had seen the man with the snake on his arm watching her leave.

It wasn’t the first time since she’d left Seattle that Lizette had wondered if she was making a mistake.

Her whole life had changed in the last few months though, and she needed a new beginning. Besides, where else could she get free rent to start her own business? Lizette had learned to be frugal from her mother, Jacqueline. Indeed, it had been Jacqueline who’d found the ad for free space.

Lizette had not known until recently that her mother had saved for years with the hope that they could open their own ballet school someday. When Lizette’s father had died, years ago, Jacqueline had given up the fledgling ballet school she and her husband had started and had taken a steady job in a bakery. At the time, Lizette had not realized the sacrifice her mother was making to keep them secure, probably because Jacqueline never complained about giving up the school. When she’d first tied on her bakery apron, she’d even managed to joke. She said she wished her husband could see her. He’d say she was really a Baker at last.

Her mother had made the job sound as though it was exactly what she wanted, and Lizette had believed her back then. Maybe that was because Lizette herself was happy. The bakery was a playground to her. She loved the warm smells and all of the chatter of customers. The bakers even got into the habit of asking Lizette to try out their new recipes. They said she had a taste for what the customers would like.

Giving up that ballet school was only one of the many sacrifices Jacqueline Baker had made for Lizette over the years. Lizette hadn’t even known about some of them until her mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. That’s when she’d started giving instructions to Lizette.

“You’ll find fifteen thousand dollars in this safety deposit box,” Jacqueline told her as she handed Lizette a key. “I wanted it to be more, but it’ll get that school of ours started if we’re careful. Then there’ll be no need for you to work at the bakery—you’ll be free to dance. The money should cover everything for a year. We don’t need anything expensive—just something with good floors and lots of room for practice.”

Lizette was amazed and touched. So that was why her mother’d never spent much money on herself, not even after she became the manager of the bakery and started earning a better salary. Lizette could see how important it was to her mother to start what she was calling the Baker School of Ballet.

As the pain increased and Jacqueline went into the hospital, she talked more and more about the school. She worried that Lizette had not been able to find an affordable space to rent even though she’d gone out to look at several places. Jacqueline even asked the hospital chaplain to come and pray about it.

Lizette was surprised her mother was interested in praying. Jacqueline had shown little use for God over the years, saying she could not understand a God who took a man away in his prime. Unspoken was the complaint that He had also robbed her of her beloved ballet school at the same time.

But now, at the end, who did her mother want to talk to? The chaplain.

If they hadn’t been in a hospital when her mother asked to speak to a minister, Lizette wouldn’t even have known how to find one. She herself had never been to church in her life. Sunday was the one day she could spend with her mother, and Jacqueline made it clear she didn’t want to go to church, so Lizette never even suggested it.

Yet on her deathbed Lizette’s mother spent hours talking to the chaplain about her hopes for a ballet school. Lizette quietly apologized to the man one afternoon when the two of them had left the room so the nurse could give Jacqueline an injection. Lizette knew the chaplain was a busy man, and she doubted he was interested in ballet schools—especially ones that didn’t even exist except in a dying woman’s dreams.

The chaplain waved Lizette’s apology aside, “Your mother’s talking about her life when she talks about that school. That’s what I’m here for. It’s important.”

In the last days, the soft sound of the chaplain’s praying was all that quieted Jacqueline. Well, Lizette acknowledged, toward the end it was also those expensive injections that kept her mother comfortable. Lizette never did tell Jacqueline that those injections weren’t covered by their insurance plan.

It didn’t take much money to open a ballet school, Lizette told herself when her mother kept asking about sites. By then, the extra hospital bills had used up the entire fifteen thousand dollars, and Lizette’s small savings account as well. Lizette said a prayer of her own when she promised to open the school in the fall.

“You’re right. Fall is the best time of the year to start a ballet school,” Jacqueline said as she lay in her hospital bed. “We can start our students right out on our simplified version of the Nutcracker ballet, and they’ll be hooked. Every young girl wants to be Clara. Plus we already have all of those costumes we made for you and the other girls when you were in dance school.”

Part of the deal in the sale of her parents’ ballet school had been that the new owner, Madame Aprele, would give Lizette free lessons. Lizette had studied ballet for years, and even though she didn’t have her mother’s natural grace, she still did very well.

“And you’ll be there to watch.” Lizette dreamed a little dream of her own. “You’ve always loved the Nutcracker.”

Her mother smiled. “I can almost see it now. I remember the first time I danced Clara as a five-year-old. And later, the Sugar Plum Fairy. What I wouldn’t give to dance it all again!”

Lizette vowed she’d find a way to open a school even without money. Then maybe her mother would get stronger and they could run that school together. With all of the praying the chaplain was doing, Lizette figured they were due a miracle.

Later that week Jacqueline claimed she’d found a miracle—right in the middle of the classified section of The Seattle Times. The ad offering free rent for new businesses had been buried in the used furniture section of the paper. Lizette called the phone number from the hospital room so her mother could listen to her end of the conversation.

Free rent would solve all of their problems for the school, and Lizette wanted Jacqueline to share the excitement of the phone call. Lizette hadn’t realized until she was halfway through the conversation that the free rent was in a small town in Montana.

Jacqueline kept nodding at her during the conversation, so Lizette found herself agreeing to take the town of Dry Creek up on their offer. She couldn’t disappoint her mother by telling her that the free rent wasn’t in Seattle.

Of course, Lizette had no intention of actually going to Dry Creek, Montana. She knew nothing about the place. Something about the phone call calmed Jacqueline, however, and she seemed truly satisfied. The chaplain said she made her peace with God the next afternoon. After that, nothing Lizette did could stop her mother from slipping away.

After Jacqueline was gone, Lizette remembered the small town in Montana. Seattle seemed the emptiest city in the world without her mother. Lizette couldn’t stay at the bakery, even though she’d worked there for the past six years. Lizette enjoyed the job, but she knew her mother would have scolded her for hiding away there.

Besides baking, the only other skill Lizette had was her expertise in ballet and there were no jobs for young ballet teachers in Seattle. Oh, Madame Aprele offered her a job, but Lizette knew the small school didn’t need another teacher, and she wasn’t desperate enough to take charity.

No, she had to go somewhere else, and she didn’t much care where.

So, here she was—moving to Dry Creek, Montana, and all because of a phone conversation with an old man and an offer of free rent. Lizette wasn’t sure the school would work. A small town in eastern Montana wasn’t the place she would have chosen to open the Baker School of Ballet.

Not that it was absolutely the worst place to start, Lizette assured herself. So few people appreciated ballet these days, and it gladdened her heart to remember the enthusiasm in the old man’s voice when she had called in response to the ad. The man she’d talked to on the phone was gruff, and she couldn’t always hear him because of the static, but he seemed excited that she was taking the town up on their offer of six months’ free rent. He kept talking about how large the area was that they could set aside for her.

The old man had mentioned tables and chairs and counters, so he might not be too familiar with ballet, but Lizette wouldn’t let that discourage her. It was the enthusiasm in his heart that counted. She’d be happy to educate this little town on the finer points of ballet.

Lizette was going to go ahead with a modified Nutcracker ballet. Her mother had been right that it was a great way to start. Lizette decided she would even make Sugar Plum pastries for a little reception after the performance. Stuffed with dried plums and vanilla custard, they were a Christmas favorite with many of the customers at the bakery.

The people of Dry Creek would like them as well.

Yes, Lizette thought to herself. A little music, a little ballet and a cream-filled pastry—the people of Dry Creek would be glad she’d opened her school in their town.

Chapter Two

Judd Bowman was standing at the back of the hardware store in Dry Creek counting nails. He figured he needed about fifty nails, but every time he got to thirty or so, one of the kids would interrupt him because they had to go to the bathroom or they wanted a drink of water or they thought they heard a kitten meowing. Judd sighed. Trying to take care of a six-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl was no picnic. Fortunately, the hardware store had a heater going, and it took the edge off the cold.

“Just sit down until I finish,” Judd said when he felt Amanda’s arm brush against his leg. He’d gotten to thirty-seven, and he repeated the number to himself. He knew the kids needed reassurance, so he tried to speak two sentences when one would have done him fine. “I won’t be long and then we can go over to the café and have some cocoa. You like cocoa, don’t you?”

Judd felt Amanda nod against his knee. He looked over to see that Bobby was still drawing a picture on the piece of paper that the man who ran the hardware store had given him earlier.

Amanda seemed to squeeze even closer to his knee, and Judd looked down. She was pale and clutching his pant leg in earnest now as she stared around his leg at the men in the middle of the hardware store.

Judd looked over at them, wondering what had stirred up the old men who sat around the potbellied stove. Usually, when he came into the store, the men were dozing quietly in their chairs around the fire or playing a slow game of chess.

Today, with the cold seeping into the store, the fire was almost out. There was wood in the basket nearby, so there was no excuse for anyone not to put another log in the stove.

But the men weren’t paying any attention to the cold or the fire.

Instead, they were all looking out the window of the hardware store and across the street into the window of what had been an old abandoned store that stood next to the café. The store wasn’t abandoned any longer. Judd could see the woman as she tried to hang what looked like a sign on the inside of her window.

Judd didn’t usually pay much attention to women, but he’d have remembered this one if he’d seen her before. She was tall and graceful, with her black hair twisted into a knot on the top of head. He could see why men would be looking at her.

“They’re just talking,” Judd said as he rested his hand on Amanda’s shoulder.

Judd had little use for idle conversation, but even he had heard a week ago that a new woman was moving to town. Several months ago the town had placed an ad in The Seattle Times inviting businesses to move to Dry Creek. The town had sweetened the deal by offering six months of free rent. Even at that, the woman was the only one to actually agree to come, so the town had given her the best of the old buildings they owned.

Judd squeezed Amanda’s shoulder as Bobby walked over to stand beside them as well. The boy had become attuned to his sister’s moods, and it never took him long to know when Amanda was frightened.