Debra Clopton - Dream a Little Dream

What was happening to Bob was as close to getting involved on a personal level as she’d ever gotten. That was a really sad thing if she let herself dwell on it. She had a problem with closeness. But really, with the life she had chosen, closeness wasn’t a factor.

She stepped off the plank sidewalk and started across Main Street. At the sound of a fast-approaching vehicle, she glanced over her shoulder, jumping out of the way just in time for a gray minivan to whiz past her. There was nothing like nearly getting creamed to make a person lose her train of thought. Molly’s mouth fell open in a silent scream as she glimpsed the driver looking over her shoulder talking, completely unaware she’d almost mowed someone down.

Molly’s heart was pounding at the near miss. She couldn’t move for a few moments, trying to collect her wits, but her eyes were glued to the disappearing van of death.

She didn’t recognize it so she assumed it was from out of town. At the end of the street, at Prudy’s Garage, the brake lights came on and the vehicle careened to a halt beside the gas pump. It had no sooner stopped moving than suddenly heads popped out of every window! From this distance Molly thought it looked like the van literally exploded with kids. Five at least. No make that six…seven!

She was counting, when the driver stepped from the vehicle in her spandex-looking black pants and her four-inch red heels.

Oh my. That didn’t look like a mother of seven. Molly immediately wondered what her story was? Her imagination started chugging, drawing her toward Prudy’s. Stranger in town. Car full of kids. Was it by accident? Was she a woman looking for a cowboy?

There certainly could be a story in this, despite the bad headline. As Molly drew closer, the woman leaned back into the van and pulled out what looked suspiciously like a cake. A pound cake. Yes, from this distance she thought it looked like a pound cake settled on a square of foil-covered cardboard, wrapped with pink transparent plastic wrap. She squinted in the sunlight and could see a purple square in the center, like a name tag.

Was there a cake sale going on somewhere Molly didn’t know about? Maybe there was a fund-raiser going on? No, she would have known if there was a fund-raiser. That was her job to know these things.

Prudy ambled out of the grease bay squinting at the woman through his oil-speckled glasses. Molly racked her brain, making mental notes as she tugged her pencil from behind her ear and pulled her emergency notepad from her back pocket. Nearing Prudy’s, she heard the woman ask a question. Molly knew it was a question, because all of a sudden Prudy’s greasy hands began to move and wave and gesture. Everyone knew Gordon P. Rudy—Prudy for short—talked with his hands. It was fairly entertaining. And since Mule Hollow was such a small place, a person needed all the entertaining they could get. The problem was that most of the time Molly didn’t understand Prudy’s sign language!

Nobody did.

So there she was, pencil poised, paper in hand, only to watch as her story sashayed back to her van, yelled at the kids to buckle up, then sped off.

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