“Jimmy Martin’s got a donkey. And there are cows all over the place.” Ellen brushed back her long brown hair. “All we would need is a camel. Anybody have a camel?”
“Hugh Jones has a zebra. Will that do?” The banter continued, while Cait tried to decide how to redirect the rehearsal to music. Quickly, before someone asked a question she didn’t want to answer.
“Wait a minute, folks.” Timothy held up a hand and the choir quieted. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves here. We haven’t heard what Cait’s got to say.”
“I thought we’d start on some Christmas music,” Cait said. “But that’s as far as I’ve gone.”
Ellen nodded. “Music is good, but these kids need to learn their parts. Who have you picked for Mary and Joseph? And the announcing angel?”
“I haven’t chosen.”
“You had better get busy.” Regina Thorne, alto, gave her a stern look. “Anna always has these things worked out by now.”
“Anna lives here,” Timothy pointed out, with a grin at Cait. “Caitlyn isn’t quite so settled. But she’ll get into the swing of things. I’m sure her pageant will turn out just fine.”
The tension in the air relaxed, and the singers settled back into their chairs. Now they were all staring at her expectantly, waiting for some grand pronouncement.
“I don’t know that I’ll be directing the program,” Cait said, as confidently as she could manage. “I think the person who does should choose the parts and the costumes and—and all the rest.”
A stunned silence fell across the small choir.
“Why wouldn’t you?” Ellen said, finally.
“I—I expect Anna will have had her baby by then. So I’ll have to get back to work.”
Another lull in the conversation. “But she won’t be ready for all the work the pageant involves. Not with a new baby.” Regina shook her head. “You’ll just have to stay.”
Every member of the choir nodded, as if the issue were settled. Cait couldn’t fight them all, so she simply ignored the issue. “Open your hymn books to page 153. We’ll warm up with a few verses of ‘Silent Night.’”
The rehearsal proceeded smoothly after that, except for the suggestions that popped up with every new Christmas song—ideas about staging and casting and props, until Cait thought she would start pounding out a Bach fugue on the organ, just to keep everyone quiet.
Once they’d finished singing, Timothy joined Cait at the organ. “We’ve got money set aside in the church budget for the pageant, you know. You don’t have to put something together on a shoestring.” He winked at her. “As church treasurer, I might even be able to pad the expense account a little. Just tell me what you need to spend and I’ll see that the money’s there.”
“That’s good to hear,” she told him. “But—”
“No buts.” Timothy squeezed her shoulder and headed for the door. “You just leave it to me.”
Ellen was the last one to leave, standing by while Cait straightened her music. “You’re not really planning to leave Anna stranded on this pageant, are you?”
Cait slapped her notebook closed. “No, I don’t plan to leave her stranded. I plan to be sure there’s someone else to take on this project. You, for instance.” She gazed at the soprano as the obvious finally hit her. “You’d be perfect, and you already have some great ideas.”
“Oh, no. Not me.” Ellen backed away, shaking her head. She was a tall, heavy woman with an incredibly pure voice. “I’m no good at telling people what to do.”
“This won’t be like ordering them to—to clean up their rooms or take out the garbage. They’ll be glad to do whatever will make the pageant work.”
Again, Ellen shook her head. “I’ve got three kids under eight. My husband works up at the furniture factory and he’s not about to baby-sit when he comes home after a ten-hour day. My mama keeps the kids on Thursdays so I can come to choir, but she’d never stand for me putting in the kind of time this program will take. I just can’t.” Walking backward, she reached the door. “You’re the one to do it, Cait. You know that.” And then she was gone.
“No, I’m not,” Cait said to the empty church. Ben Tremaine would understand. Strange, how they were so completely different, and yet they shared this—this phobia, she supposed they should call it, about the holiday most people loved.
“Yulephobia,” she said aloud, walking to Anna’s car through the cold November night. She would have to remember to mention the word to Ben when she had a chance. With pleasure, she could imagine the slow widening of his grin, the dawning laugh in his eyes. She liked making Ben laugh.
Anna didn’t laugh the next morning when Cait recounted the conversation at choir practice. “I could have told you Ellen wouldn’t be able to take on the pageant. She’s got all the responsibility she can handle at home.”
“That’s what she said.” Cait studied her sister, noticing the lack of light in Anna’s brown eyes, the absence of color in her cheeks. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Kinda achy,” Anna admitted. “Tired. The baby moved around a lot last night, and I couldn’t sleep.”
“You should go back to bed. There’s nothing going on that I can’t handle—a few dishes, a little laundry.” She got up and closed her hands around Anna’s shoulders, easing her to her feet. “Go on. Git. I’ll wake you up for lunch.”
With a sigh, Anna headed for the bedroom. “Give me enough time to take a shower first. Peggy Shepherd’s coming by this afternoon. I ought to look halfway decent.” She glanced at the mirror in the hallway. “As if that’s really possible anymore.” Her slow, scuffing footsteps faded as she moved down the hall.
Cait got the chores done, then sat down with her guitar in the living room, still playing around with an arrangement for “Bobby McGee.” Why did the sweet, stirring words automatically bring Ben to mind?
Not much of challenge there—the man was seriously, fatally attractive. And off-limits to a rootless player like herself. One reason his assumptions had made her so angry on Sunday was that he was pretty much correct. The few close relationships she’d experienced hadn’t lasted long. Working in the entertainment industry pulled people apart, no matter how much they cared about each other. And in the end, she’d always chosen the job over the man. So she would just have to put these Ben Tremaine fantasies completely out of her head.
Determined, she strummed up a loud and rowdy version of “Hit the Road, Jack.”
Midmorning, David bolted into the house at his usual double-time speed. “Where’s Anna?”
Cait ran through an arpeggio. “She was tired this morning, so I sent her back to bed.”
He stopped dead in the center of the room. “Is she okay?”
“I think so. Just tired.” David always worried too much.
“Have you checked on her?”
His voice had taken on a harshness she’d never heard before. Startled, Cait stared up at her brother-in-law. “I figured she’d call if she needed something.” By the end of the sentence, she was talking to herself. David had stalked down the hallway to the bedroom, his heels like rocks pounding on the wood floor.
In a minute he was back. “She’s asleep.”
“That’s what I figured.” Cait smiled teasingly.