out." Heaving his ma.s.sive frame out of the booth, he continued, "I"ll jes" have me a look-see, and git back to ya . . . y"all gonna be right heah?"
Emma and Sam looked at each other-where else could they go?
"Fine," Emma said. "And I can pay you by cash or traveler"s check, if you prefer it to a credit card," she added.
"That"d be jes" fine, ma"am," Sonny said, am- bling toward the door. He turned back to them and bucked his head toward the floor shyly.
"That"s mighty purty stuff you"uns got on," he added, then went through the door.
"Told you," Sam said with her chin up. She headed for the jukebox, which featured mostly country artists. The only ones Sam knew were Elvis Presley and Garth Brooks, so that"s what she played.
Emma and Sam slid into a booth to the strains of "Heartbreak Hotel." Sam let her foot dangle off the edge of the seat and admired her newly dry cowboy boots.
"I would have had a coronary if these boots got ruined," Sam said.
"It"s amazing that you found another pair,"
Emma said, unsuccessfully attempting to lengthen her tiny mini skirt. "They"re almost exactly like the ones that got wrecked when we were lost at sea."
"I know," Sam agreed. "I felt positively super- st.i.tious until I had them back on my feet." She wriggled her toes blissfully.
""Scuse me, but no legs up on the upholstery,"
came a female voice so deep and raspy that it sounded as if the speaker were in the bottom of a well.
Sam and Emma looked up at a female version of Sonny. She^ was six feet tall, well over two hundred solid pounds, with steel-gray hair and arms the size of tree trunks. The woman"s mouth was wrapped around a filterless cigarette.
"I"m Ma," the voice boomed. Ma looked over their outfits with obvious disdain. "Will y"all be orderin"?"
"Hot chocolate?" Sam asked.
"I"ll have tea," Emma added meekly, again attempting to adjust her skirt.
"Hmph," was Ma"s reply as she turned away.
"I"m changing," Emma hissed as she began to slide out of the booth. "This outfit is tacky."
"Well, thank you very much, Miss Heiress,"
Sam said in a hurt voice. "That happens to be one of my favorite outfits."
"I"m sorry, Sam," Emma said. "I didn"t mean anything by it. I mean-"
"Look, it"s nothing to me if you don"t want to wear it," Sam said, but Emma could tell how hurt she really was.
"I"ll . . . I"ll keep it on," Emma said, sliding back into the booth. "Probably it"s just that I"m not used to it, right?"
Ma sat the tea and hot chocolate down on the table before Sam could answer Emma.
"Kitchen opens in five minutes," came Ma"s huge, gravelly voice. "Catfish platter comes with your catfish, your homefries, and your slaw.
Catfish dinner includes that plus your choice of two from your green beans, your white beans, your turnip greens, and your hush puppies. Will you ladies be wantin" to order?"
Emma wasn"t too sure she liked the spin that Ma put on the word ladies, but figured it might just be her imagination. Sam hadn"t eyen noticed.
She was too busy reveling in the joys of a down- home catfish dinner.
"I"ll have the dinner," Sam said promptly, "with green beans and extra hush puppies."
"Uh, the same," Emma said with what she hoped was a ladylike smile at Ma.
"Hmph," was Ma"s reply as she trundled away toward the kitchen.
"Wow, a catfish dinner!" Sam exclaimed hap- piiy- "I believe my father uses catfish as bait,"
Emma said, turning a little green.
"I wonder what a hush puppy is," Sam continued, ignoring Emma"s comment.
Emma gulped. "I"m just hoping it doesn"t involve an actual canine."
"Culinary adventure is a wonderful thing,"
Sam opined.
The door opened, and the first of the dinner customers started to filter into the restaurant.
"See?" Sam pointed out. "All the locals can"t be wrong about the place to eat!"
As the restaurant filled up the girls noticed that several people had musical instruments with them, which they laid carefully on a chair or leaned against a wall.
"Catfish," Ma announced unceremoniously as she set the overloaded plates of food in front of them.
"Dig in!" Sam cried, and cut into the golden breaded fish.
Emma watched Sam with a look of trepidation on her face.
"What am I, the royal taster?" Sam asked around the food in her mouth. "Like if I die, you"ll know not to chow down?"
Emma picked up her fork, delicately speared a piece of fish, and put it into her mouth.
"It"s actually . . . good," she said finally.
"Two new foods in one day-oh, heart of mine, be still!" Sam laughed. She picked up a small fried blob. "By process of elimination, this must be the ole hush puppy." She bit into it. "It"s bread. Fried cornbread," Sam said with disappointment. "My mother makes fried cornbread."
"All of this is really very good!" Emma said with her mouth full. "If you don"t mind eating fried, that is."
"Throw caution to the winds, live danger- ously," Sam suggested.
They chewed happily for a while. Even Emma finished most of what was on her plate.
Finally Emma couldn"t fit another morsel of food into her stomach. She daintily patted the side of her mouth with her napkin and asked Sam, "How long do you think we should wait before checking back with Sonny about the car?"
"Speak of the devil," Sam said, nodding toward the door of the restaurant, where Sonny, Jake, and Scott had just entered. "Ask him now, if you want."
The three guys waved to Ma, smiled at Sam and Emma, and took a booth near the door. Ma immediately sashayed over with three steaming plates, as if she"d been waiting for them.
"On second thought,"~said Sam, "maybe you"d better wait till after they eat."
Emma was feeling a bit uneasy. If her car was ready, why wasn"t Sonny presenting a bill? Of course, if it was a major problem, maybe he"d have to finish fixing it after dinner. A terrible thought crossed her mind: maybe the top couldn"t be fixed and he just didn"t want to tell her. She finally decided to be optimistic, and ordered an after-dinner cup of coffee. They were hours off their schedule, and would have to drive well into the night to reach Asheville.
Soon they heard the sound of stringed instru- ments being tuned. Sam and Emma watched as dinner tables were moved back against one wall to make room for a band and dance floor.
Sam was shifting in her seat, craning to see the table where Jake, Scott, and Sonny were now drinking coffee. She noticed Scott was doing the same thing in their direction.
"He"s looking at me!" Sam whispered trium- phantly to Emma.
"Of course he"s looking at you," Emma said.
"Everyone is looking at you. You"re wearing a bra and mesh."
Sam flipped her hair back over her shoulder.
"It was a fashion risk worth taking."
Suddenly the fiddle player got up, gave his instrument a quick tune, and started playing a merry, spirited bluegra.s.s jig. Soon other players joined in, and the room swelled with music.
A number of people left their seats to join in an animated dance. Emma was fascinated. So this is clogging! she thought. The women, whose bodies hardly seemed to move at all, were beating out a rapid, complicated rhythm with their feet. The men did the same, but their steps were punctu- ated with occasional kicks, stomps, and some- thing they did with their elbows that looked like a chicken flapping its wings. When the first song ended, Emma forced her attention back to the problem at hand.
"Listen, I don"t want to be rude, but I really have to go ask Sonny about my car. I"m having an anxiety attack."
Emma strode purposefully to Sonny"s side, where she had to lean close to his ear to make herself heard over the music.
"My car," she said with as much decorum as she could manage at this volume. "Were you able to fix it?"
"It wuz jes" like I figgered: a li"l belt come loose from the motor that runs yer top. Din" take but one li"l turn of a wrench, and she"s good as new."
"That"s wonderful! Let me get my wallet, and-"
"Fergit money," said Sonny, his eyes shining as he gave Emma another wink. "You know what I want."
Emma"s heart thudded in her chest. "Ah, no.
Not really . . ."
Sonny stood up, towering over Emma. She took a step back in fear. Surely somebody would help her. What was this giant going to try to do?
"I want," he said in a low voice, "a dance."
Emma just stood there a moment. Then she remembered Sam"s silly remark about her being a clogging champion. Jake and Scott must have told Sonny. So that"s it!
"I"m sorry," Emma began graciously. "There appears to be a misunderstanding here-"
"Sonny told us he"s not givin" your keys back until you dance with him," Jake said with a grin.
"Might as well not fight it," Scott added. "Sonny here is a dancin" fool."
Emma looked over at Sam, who was laughing so hard she could barely catch her breath. No doubt about it, Emma said to herself. I am going to kill Sam, and then I"m making a run for it.
"Look, Sonny, I"m sorry if-"
Emma never got to finish her statement. The next thing she knew, Sonny"s ma.s.sive arms were around her, her hand was in his bearlike paw, and she was being led into the dance.
Sonny, it turned out, was remarkably light on his feet. And even though Emma had not a clue as to how to do this kind of dancing, her early ballroom dance training at Madame Junot"s in Lucerne held her in good stead. In other words, she knew how to follow.
The next half-hour pa.s.sed in a blur of sound and motion. Emma had glimpses of Sam trading off dances with Jake and Scott, but she couldn"t see much of anything around Sonny"s five-acre chest. Sonny seemed determined not to relin- quish her hand for even a moment, and the band moved from one song to another without pause.
Finally the band announced a break. Sonny let go of Emma just long enough to reach into his pocket. When he grasped her hand once again, it was to press her car keys gently into her palm.
"Hope I dint hold j^aU up too long," he said with a sheepish grin. "But it sh.o.r.e was worth it!"
Sam and Emma paid their tab, made their good-byes, to Jake, Scott, and Sonny, and didn"t speak again until they were in the car and pulling out of Ma"s lot.
"Yeow! Git right on it, li"l darlin"!" Sam hollered in an accurate impersonation of Sonny.
"I ought to kill you for pulling that stunt,"
Emma told Sam, but her voice told Sam that her heart wasn"t really in the words.
"Come on, admit it," Sam wheedled, "you had fun."
"I did!" Emma laughed with delight. "I didn"t even care after a while that this stupid skirt of yours rode up practically to my waist."
"Wait till Kurt sees the pictures I took," teased Sam. "I"ll just innocently say that this is the guy Emma"s been dating at school."
Emma laughed. "You"re terrible!"
"I know, and you love it!" Sam crowed, cranking up the tunes on the radio.
Life with Sam is certainly never dull, Emma had to admit as she turned onto the highway for Asheville. She smiled to herself and headed to- ward the mountains.
Carrie was sorting laundry and planning to do a load of vacation clothes in the dorm"s laundry room when a short tap on the door and a melodic voice calling her name announced Mona"s pres- ence in the hall outside.
"Ms. Carolyn Alden?" the voice inquired with, mock formality. "I have a delivery here for you."
Carrie opened the door to find Mona practically hidden behind an enormous bouquet of long- stemmed red roses.
"For me?" she cried jubilantly. That Billy! she thought to herself. He"s so impetuous with his money sometimes!