Bluegrass Courtship

Until someone started singing. The crowd joined in, and when she caught sight of her mother conducting half the women’s guild with a crowbar, Janet walked off, depositing her hard hat on a table with an annoyed grumble.

Vern met her at the door of the hardware store. She took the day’s mail from him and pointed back in the direction of the church. “They’re singing. It’s like a scene from The Sound of Music over there—people in matching outfits chirping away.”

“I can hear ’em,” Vern said. He scratched his chin and narrowed his eyes. “What you got against happy people all of a sudden? Maybe it ain’t Sound of Music. Maybe it’s Snow White and I’m a’starin’ right at Grumpy.”

“I am not grumpy.”

Vern leaned against the door and adjusted his cap. “You’ve been a whole truckload of grumpy since those television folks came into town. I know I had my doubts when they got here, but they seem like good folk to me. I watched them set up yesterday. Good work. Maybe we should give them a little more credit for what they’re tryin’ to do. Ain’t no harm if they have a little fun in the process.”

Janet’s jaw dropped. That was the closest thing to a lecture Vern had given her in ages. He’d eyed her, drug his feet at some of the things she’d asked him to do, muttered under his breath now and then, but never out-and-out told her off like he just did. Given his first suspicions, this sudden outburst baffled her, and she stared at him.

The old man walked toward her. “Yeah, I was worried at first, too. And I know they’re a bit much to take. You’re sure we could be blinded by shiny lights and free T-shirts. That we’ll all be so busy looking at the cameras we won’t see them pulling a fast one on us. And I love you for caring so much about this town. But it seems to me that we ought to remember that Drew ain’t Tony. And Middleburg has good folk watching over her. So don’t go putting it on your shoulders.” He reached out and touched her cheek, his lined face folding into a lopsided old grin. “You don’t have to hold up the world, Jannybean. Just Bishop Hardware. And even that you could put down for a time or two if you wanted.”

Janet swallowed, caught off-guard by Vern’s gesture. “I’m not that grumpy, am I?”

He winked, crinkling up his face even more. “You ain’t a potful of glee.”

Potful of glee? Where’d Vern come up with that crazy image? Dinah? “Vern, I have never been a ‘potful of glee’, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be. I think Dinah’s sort of got that covered, anyway.”

Vern chuckled. “That she does.”

Janet sighed and rolled her shoulders. She had been a bundle of knots since Missionnovation pulled into town, and Vern was right: the team had yet to give her any grounds to be suspicious. “I suppose I could cut them a little slack. They are trying to do good out there, even if it is bright, shiny, good.”

Vern tucked his thumbs under his suspenders. “I reckon you can find a middle ground between grumpy and glee.”

Janet was just about to plant a kiss on the old man’s cheek when the hardware store door flew open.

“Get a load of these,” Dinah shouted, holding a tray of small cakes with green and white glaze. “Muffinnovations!”

Janet rolled her eyes while Vern said under his breath, “Well, then again, maybe you better worry just a little.”

Chapter Seven

Janet was walking back from Deacon’s Grill with a roast beef sandwich to go when she heard someone yell “Janet!” and saw Drew Downing jogging up the street to catch up with her. Remembering Vern’s admonition to give Missionnovation a chance, Janet sat down on a bench by the park and waited for Drew to join her. “Go ahead, don’t let me keep you from your lunch,” he said, motioning toward the sandwich she held in her lap. “That from Deacon’s? Everyone has been telling me to eat there.”

“They make the best pie in the county,” Janet offered. “And a pretty mean roast beef sandwich besides.”

“Looks like it. Although I have to say, I’m really much more of a cake and cookie man, myself.”

No wonder Dinah had a thing for him. “Then my friend Dinah Hopkins’s Taste and See Bakery is the place you want. You saw the…”

“Muffinnovations?” he chuckled. “I gotta admit, that’s a first. Hard to make something that green taste that good. I’m thinking we should post her recipe on the show’s Web site, if she’ll share.”

“Dinah’s very big on sharing. And she’s very big on Missionnovation. She’ll be thrilled.” Janet took a bite of her sandwich.

“But you’re not. Thrilled. Yet,” Downing added.

“Believe it or not, Vern gave me a talking-to on how I should ‘give y’all the benefit of the doubt.’”

“I just left a list of electrical conduit and wiring with him. We’ll be done framing tomorrow and ready to start pulling some of the utilities through the walls. He’s a hoot, your Vern. Reminds me a whole lot of my dad.”

“I used to call him ‘Uncle Vern’ when I was little. He’s like a member of our family, he’s been around for so long.”

Downing threw one arm over the bench and settled back against it. “Why’d you leave so quickly yesterday?”

Janet bit back the sharp answer she would have given before Vern’s lecture. “Let’s just say it was a bit too much glee for me.”

“Not used to people singing with power tools?”

That question didn’t even need an answer. Janet decided she might find Drew less annoying if she understood him better. It was worth a shot. “Can I ask you something?”

“I told you you could ask me anything.”

“Well, no offense, but how do you keep this whole thing up? Doesn’t it exhaust you to be pumped up and on camera all the time?”

Downing pulled back. “People ask me that all the time.” He shifted his weight on the bench. “It gets to the point where you don’t even see the cameras anymore. They just fade into the landscape for me. Which means, by the way, that I don’t pander to them, either. I don’t do things especially for the cameras. And here’s the thing. People see through the hype. When something’s been manufactured for the cameras—which I try to never let happen, by the way—folks can usually tell.”

“There’s a whole lot of reality TV that would prove you wrong. You can’t tell me some of that stuff isn’t drummed up for drama’s sake.”

“Well, now I’d have to agree with you there. Some of that stuff is just plain nuts. But you see—” his gestures grew as he continued “—you just proved my point—people can tell. Truth always feels like truth, even if it takes a while to get there. It’s kind of like Howard. Sometimes he has good things to say, good intentions, but you can always tell what’s the truth and what’s Howard’s grandstanding, can’t you?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I know there’s some real awful stuff out there on the airwaves. I can’t speak for what happens on other shows. All I can tell you is that as much as I can, it doesn’t happen on Missionnovation. I try to be the same Drew Downing on camera as off.” He picked at the fraying cuff of the flannel shirt he wore. She noticed half the pocket was ripped off. He was such a visual contradiction: expensive watch but ratty shirts, trendy shoes with paint splattered all over them. “You’re not the first person to ask me how I stay ‘on’ all the time. The truth is that there is no ‘on’ and it’s easy to stay this way because this is who I am. Drew is Drew is Drew.” He leaned in and one corner of his mouth curved up into an infectious, dimpled grin. “So how’s about a deal. I won’t make you sing, if you let me prove to you there’s nothing to worry about. I want you to feel free to drop by the site as much as you want.”

Janet eyed him as she took another bite of her sandwich. “You already said that. On the bus. Then again at church yesterday.”

“I can’t help it. Annie says I’m relentless.”

Janet laughed in spite of herself. “You are.”

“We can be friends, you know. I won’t bite you. You can call me Drew and everything.”

She laughed again. “You’re crazy, Drew.”

“Occupational hazard, Janet.”

“Watch yourself,” she found herself kidding back. He seemed to bring out a long lost humor in her. She used to kid all the time with Vern. With her parents. Where had that Janet gone in the last few years?

Drew checked his watch. “I came to ask you to come over to the church at four-thirty this afternoon. Kevin and I are going to talk to some government grant people—see if we can round up some extra funding for that roof and rainwater system you mentioned. I’d like you to be there. Will you?”

So he’d taken her idea seriously. Somehow she hadn’t expected that. “Sure. I can be there.”

Satisfied, Drew leaned back and looked around the park. “This sure is a pretty little town. Don’t see too many of these anymore. So many of the ones that are left are hanging on by their fingernails with half the downtowns boarded up.”

Janet took in the scenery herself. It was one of those color-soaked fall days—the kind that made Middleburg look like a life-sized postcard for autumn foliage. “We have our struggles. It’s hard to keep a small town up and running these days. The mom and pop stores can barely make ends meet anymore. So many people just shop at the big stores and shopping malls.”

“That’s why we do all the local purchasing we can. But the reality of it is that Missionnovation needs the big stores, too. We’re an expensive proposition. I can’t do what I do—what I’m doing for Middleburg—without national brands backing me up. Their dollars let us do things we couldn’t do otherwise. But I know things are tough on the little guy. Some days I’m living between a rock and a hard place.”

Janet understood the sentiment. Running Bishop Hardware was a daily excursion into the space between a rock and a hard place. Things were tougher than someone like him probably knew.

The bus was a haven of quiet after the noise of the construction site and Drew’s back and forth conversation with Janet. He wasn’t sure he’d get her to attend the meeting, even if it was about installing the full-scale rainwater system that had been her idea. He knew that if he was going to bring her around he’d have to get her on-site as much as possible. And she wasn’t coming around easy, either. She was fighting it every step of the way. He wondered what could be behind such powerful resistance.

Drew poured himself a cup of coffee and let his body fall onto the couch. He’d been up since five this morning, and it’d be after ten when things wound down at the church, now that they had a set of floodlights put up. Once the drywall went up later in the week, there’d be people in that preschool around the clock. He took a few sips of coffee and let his head fall back against the cushions. This job had turned him into a master power-napper, and he’d come to recognize when it was time to shut his body down for a stretch of time. Kevin once told a health magazine that Drew Downing got more sleep in a twenty-minute nap than most people got all night. Things had quieted down for the afternoon, and he was feeling good about getting Janet’s participation in the meeting, so now seemed the perfect time for the luxury of a snooze.

As he lay there, waiting for sleep to come, his thoughts remained on Janet. She wasn’t a great physical beauty, although her face had feminine, delicate lines. Her short hair suited those memorable cheekbones and enormous brown eyes. There was a clean strength to her appearance, a no-nonsense groundedness to the way she carried herself. If she had a lean or curvy figure, it was hard to tell under those overalls she always wore. As he almost fell asleep, he found himself wondering what she’d look like in a yellow sundress.

Which thrust his eyes wide open. Maybe he needed more sleep than he thought. He usually wasn’t the kind to let a woman turn his head on the job.

But it wasn’t like that. Not that he didn’t find her attractive in an innocent, Audrey Hepburn kind of way, but it was more than that. He admired her.

Which was funny, because really, the thing he most admired about her was how unimpressed she was with him. Janet wasn’t swayed by the tidal wave of excitement Missionnovation brought to a place. She’d been more worried about the safety of her town than the things Missionnovation could do for her store. He’d found those types of unswayed people to be solid and grounded; and she seemed to be—under all that defensiveness. Where had that groundedness—almost a hidden nobleness—come from? She had a strong sense of who she was, yet she seemed selfless, too. Janet Bishop, he guessed, would be the kind of person to make a big donation to a charity, but do it anonymously.

When you asked Janet a question, you’d get an honest answer, even if it wasn’t the answer you wanted. In the kiss up media world, those kind of people were few and far between.

What have You got going on with her, Lord? he prayed as he slumped down farther into the couch, sleep starting to overtake him. In his experience, that kind of full-out honesty grew out of some experience with deception. He wondered if that were true with her. Where did all that suspicion come from? Any plans on doing away with some of it while we’re here?

Why was that his problem? Sure, she was a “hostile,” and that instantly put her on Drew’s radar. But somehow Janet Bishop wasn’t the ordinary “hostile.” With most of the reluctant types, Drew just cared that they liked the show. It was more personal with Janet. Mostly because she was somehow making it personal. While she’d never really voiced it, he got the strong impression that she was not so much suspicious of Missionnovation as she was suspicious of him. Unconvinced of his integrity.

That was it, wasn’t it? He could handle anyone’s suspicions of the show—he had a thick skin where Missionnovation was concerned—but it was bugging him that Janet Bishop wasn’t willing to take him at his word.

And that was a sore spot, because he was feeling the squeeze in the integrity department lately. Success was a funny thing in this business. Instead of making things easier, it made things more complicated. Bigger deals had more strings. Success bred expectations of more success. You could mess up when you were small potatoes, and people would just brush themselves off and go on. Trip up when everyone’s watching, and suddenly the mishaps grew harder to put behind you.

As the projects had met with success and the show had grown over the first three seasons, people began to take notice. Media people had recognized that Missionnovationwas on to something. So it wasn’t new that a network had shown interest. Last season, they’d gotten a solid offer or two, promising visibility, production budgets and backing. But all of them made subtle requests for Drew to “dial down the God.” To use the word faith instead of Christianity—things like that. As far as Drew was concerned, that was nonnegotiable. Missionnovation was about renovating the places where worship happened. And that meant Jesus would be present and accounted for—every episode.

Drew laid his forearm across his face, shutting out the strong afternoon light that came through the bus window. With Kevin’s music not on, he could hear the birds. It felt like months since he’d been able to lie down and listen to birds. His life was so full of noise lately that some days it was hard to think straight. To listen. He shut his eyes. Keep me on the straight and narrow, Jesus. The view’s getting fuzzy from up here, and I don’t ever want to stray from Your plan for this. Just make it work.

Make it work…. He prayed over and over as he drifted off.

Chapter Eight

Some unknown time later, Drew felt an insistent tapping on his boot. He opened his eyes to find Annie standing there, clipboard in hand. He wasn’t surprised to find a worried look on her face—Annie didn’t wake him up for just anything.

“Annie, I know that look,” he sighed, pulling himself upright. “Trouble?”

“Depends on your point of view.”

Drew rubbed his eyes at the enigmatic answer. “What’s up?”

“When you didn’t check your e-mail, Charlie sent a fax. Big network meeting next week.”

Drew sat up straight when he read the fax. “Next week? He knows I don’t leave the site, ever.” He stared at the column of names at the bottom of the fax, listing the people to be at the meeting. Names he didn’t recognize, but titles that indicated they were dealing with HomeBase’s top brass and network heavyweights.

Drew pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial for Charlie’s private line at the California production office.

Charlie picked up on the first ring. “I knew I’d get your attention with a fax.”

“What gives? You get all those bigwigs in one place and you make it the week I can’t show up? You sure you can handle all that influence in one room without my supervision?”

“Bingo, Drew. There’s a lot of power on that list. Three seasons of huge exposure, huge resources. They have schedules that would choke mere mortals like us. You need to be here.”

Drew didn’t reply. He thought his own schedule was bad enough, but never did understand the subtleties of the network deal—that was Charlie’s territory. It probably took Charlie months to set this thing up.

“I know it’s not how you’d like it,” Charlie continued. “I know you’re going have to give a little on the project to be here, but you know me. I wouldn’t ask you if it weren’t important. Seriously, Drew, we’re looking at a once in a lifetime shot here. You need to be in L.A. when this happens.”

Drew began pacing the bus. “There’s got to be another way. If you’ve got them all together, and it’s that important, let’s just spend the money and fly them out here. Let ’em see Missionnovation firsthand. This one’s a dream—it’s the ideal episode for that kind of thing—they’d eat it up.”

Drew heard Charlie sigh. “I thought of that already. I proposed it. I even told them I’d charter their flight directly into Lexington and have them home by dinner—eight hours from top to bottom.”

“And…”

“No go. It’s L.A. or nothing.”

Drew ran his hands through his hair. “I hate this. Don’t do this to me. Don’t ask me to cut corners.”

“No one’s asking you to cut corners. I can have you in and out in twenty-four hours, and you know you’ve got people who can handle the site. Drew, we’ve talked about this. As Missionnovation grows, you’re going to have to step back a bit from the day-to-day stuff. That’s leadership. You’ve got to be out in front so your people can follow.”

Drew caught sight of his reflection in the bus windows. He couldn’t quite picture the scraggly lad in front of him doing deals with all those network and corporate heavyweights. This felt more like being backed into a corner than being out in front, leading. Drew had a long history with Charlie, though; long enough to know Charlie only made demands when he had no other choice. “You’re not going to ask me to wear a suit or anything, are you?”

Charlie laughed. “Do you even own one?”

“The last suit I wore was to my father’s funeral, Chuck. I don’t associate them with happy occasions.” Drew only used “Chuck” when he was making him mad or pushing his limits. This definitely qualified. Charlie had probably known this was going to be a “Chuck” call before he sent the fax. And he’d sent it anyway. That was Charlie—ready to be “Chuck” if that’s what it took to get the deal done. He had to respect that in his longtime partner. “I don’t like this,” Drew sighed into the phone.

“Welcome to the big leagues. Everything costs a little more up here.”

It felt wrong.

“Can I let you know?” he said wearily into the phone. “I need to think about this.”

“Think about it. Pray about it. You’re free to do whatever it takes to get your head around this. Just as long as you do it in the next twenty-four hours.”

And that was television: ponder all you want, but ponder fast. “I’ll call you, Chuck,” Drew said, and snapped his phone shut.

“What do you think, Annie?” Drew called as he walked to the back of the bus where she’d gone to give him some privacy. “Should I stick it to The Man or do the deal with him?”

“Charles signs my paychecks, but I work for you. I’ll back you whatever you decide.”

“So you’re not going to tell me what I should do?”

Annie pushed her glasses up on top of her head. “Do I look like the kind of girl to take God’s job away from Him?”

Janet stood on the church steps watching the government types get back into their car. “You’re very smooth, I’ll grant you that.”

“You know,” said Drew as he put a rubber band from his pocket around the blueprints he’d rolled up, “when you say that kind of stuff, it never sounds like a compliment. Can I pour on the charm to move a project forward? Yes, I can. All I did was sell the project to their needs and sensibilities. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Janet planted her hands on her hips. She would have stuffed her hands in her pockets, but she’d taken the care to put on something nicer than overalls for a meeting with state officials. It’d been weeks since she’d worn a skirt anyway, and she was looking for an occasion to wear the new boots her mother had bought her for her birthday last month.

It was a brilliant idea to propose the rainwater collection system for a government grant—she’d wished she thought of it herself. Drew, though, had clearly also pushed the project’s new TV visibility. It felt like an unfair edge. What about all the other worthy ecological projects that wouldn’t get funded just because there was no celebrity to play the high profile card? “You can’t seriously believe your celebrity status and the presence of a television camera didn’t affect the outcome of that meeting.”

Drew looked at her as she started down the steps. “Well, of course it did. But don’t you think I’d be foolish not to use that? I didn’t deceive anyone—or knock anyone else out of the running for that grant. Everything I said in there was the absolute truth.” He began tapping the tube of blueprints against his open palm. “Did I use every asset at my disposal? Sure. Every gift of gab and insight into human nature God’s given me? Absolutely.” He stopped at the bottom of the steps and turned to look back up at her. “You know, I never did buy into the concept that deep faith turned you into some kind of doormat. That you had to sit around, contemplating the Biblical truths of the universe, waiting for God to bring life to your doorstep. I count on God as much as I know how for this. But I think that includes working as hard as I can to meet the goals I believe He’s set before me. Besides—” he started across the sidewalk “—if you must know, I checked, and there aren’t any other viable applicants for that pool of funds right now.”

Janet followed after him. “Hey, look, I didn’t mean to start a fight.”

Drew paused, shut his eyes for a moment, and pushed out a breath. “Sorry—I hadn’t even realized you hit a nerve there. I’m overreacting here, aren’t I?”

It made Janet laugh. “You’re wound a bit tight, yeah.”

“I think it’s part of the job description. Actually, it might be the majority of the job description. You need to be a little bit wacky to do what I do.”

“Well, you got the church a full rainwater retrieval system and a new roof—so maybe wacky’s got its uses.” She pointed to the blueprints. “But this is a whole church roof now, not just the preschool roof. You’ll follow the specs, won’t you? Take the time to get all the details done right? Roofs are serious. Roofs are supposed to last decades. I’d hate to see the church dealing with leaks in two years’ time because someone cut a few corners to make their television deadline and you’re long gone into another blockbuster season.”

“You can supervise the installation yourself, if you want to. You seem to know more about the rainwater part than anyone else.”

Janet crossed her arms over her chest. “Some of us have to earn our living the un-televised way. You know, minding the store, all that day-to-day boring stuff?”

“Hey, that Vern looks like a pretty capable guy. He’d probably jump at the chance to be king of Bishop Hardware for a week.”