A second team immediately slid a temporary wall into place that would protect the existing rooms while the framework for the new school wing was constructed. Kevin and Mike walked through the cheering crowd with a collection of bright green crowbars, showing volunteers how to dismantle the fallen lumber and remove the nails. Like happy ants in green T-shirts, volunteers began crawling over the wall, breaking it up and carrying it away. Janet permitted herself a smidge of admiration. They were doing it right.
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