“Yes, that’s Tabby,” Molly said. “And her mother.”
“Wait, she didn’t go back to Connecticut? She’s living here now?” Meschelle’s fingers flew over her phone’s keypad, as if she was already getting started on her follow-up story.
“For now.” Molly couldn’t help smiling. “Tabitha plans to stay as long as her boyfriend is in jail here. And because she’s staying, her mother’s staying, to help with the baby.”
“But that could be years! You know how slowly the court system moves here.”
After exchanging cheerful waves with Tabitha and her mother, who’d noticed her in the crowd, Molly turned back toward the stage, a small smile on her face as she thought of the pie she and John had nearly overturned the day of Larry Beckwith’s arrest. They’d consumed a lot of pie in the days since. “I know. People do crazy things for love.”
She only hoped John wouldn’t take that to the extreme this evening.
“What about Tabitha’s father?” Meschelle demanded.
“Mr. Brighton? Oh, he’s back in Connecticut, working and taking care of the house. I think he realizes this whole thing can’t last.” Molly waved her hand at Tabitha and her mother, who’d taken their seats and weren’t looking her way, to indicate what she meant by “this whole thing.” “Their hope is that eventually Tabby, who is a very smart girl, is going to come to her senses and want to go back to Connecticut with them to raise her daughter, and maybe even go to college. Mr. B is keeping the home fires lit until that happens.”
“Well, that’s good,” Meschelle said, with an approving nod. “That Larry guy is a jerk.”
“True,” Molly said. “But he’s still her baby’s father.”
“Are his parents helping out with child support, at least?”
Molly nodded, thinking of the Beckwiths, who’d shown up at Story Time as well. “They’re as excited about their new granddaughter as the Brightons.”
“Well, that’s good, at least,” Meschelle said with a sigh.
The house lights dimmed, plunging the school auditorium into darkness.
“It’s starting!” Henry dug his fingers excitedly into Molly’s arm.
“Ow. If you’re going to be doing that the entire time—”
“I won’t.” Henry pulled his hand away and plunged it back into his popcorn bag. “It’s just that I can’t wait to see you as a blushing bride-to-be.”
Molly glared at him. “Really? You, too?”
He looked apologetic. “Sorry. The whole thing is just a rumor, I swear.”
“It had better be.” Molly couldn’t imagine anything worse than being proposed to in a public forum, like on a stadium kiss cam or in front of a flash mob. Or the way Bill had suggested John might do it.
Please, she prayed. Please, John, don’t do this.
A hush fell over the auditorium as the blue velvet curtains were parted just enough so that a muscular young woman wearing a red leotard, short white skirt, matching white fringed vest, white cowboy boots, and a red cowboy hat could slip through and address the audience.
“Welcome, everyone,” she said in a loud, clear voice, “to the annual Mother-Daughter Snappettes Reunion Show, this year featuring something we’ve never had before—a dad!”
The applause was thunderous. There was hooting and even some whistling. Molly began to feel that perhaps there was enough good cheer in the room that no matter how John’s performance went, it would be well received.
The young woman—Leila DuBois, whose mother owned the steak house where Molly had gone with John for their first ever proper date—waited for the applause to die down before continuing. “And now, without further ado . . . we welcome you . . . back to the future!”
Loud, thumping music filled the auditorium—so loud that a few startled residents threw their hands over their ears—and then the curtains behind Leila parted to reveal the entire dance team, dramatically lit in pink and blues, already posed with their backs to the audience, their pom-poms raised high.
“Five, six, seven, eight . . . !” shouted their coach.
Then the dance team, Leila and Katie among them, began to lead the audience on a journey through the past five decades, accompanied by their mothers (and, in some cases, grandmothers) and other alumni who’d agreed to join them. They started with snippets of top songs from the sixties (“Louie Louie,” “Respect”) and seventies (“Sweet Home Alabama,” “I Will Survive”) and moved quickly through the eighties and nineties (“Celebration,” “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Like a Virgin,” “Losing My Religion,” and a rousing rendition of “All I Wanna Do”), complete with quick costume changes, very theatrical lighting, and even some crowd-pleasing tumbling.
By the time they got to the aughts, Henry’s eyes were streaming from laughter (he’d seemed to particularly enjoy the team’s dramatic take on “Losing My Religion,” which they’d interpreted literally, employing nuns’ habits and crucifixes). Molly saw that both Patrick and Bill were smiling like lunatics, and even Meschelle had lowered her cell phone and was actually paying attention, a slightly stunned look on her face.
“What,” she murmured, “even is this?”
But of course nothing could have prepared any of them for John’s number. Molly knew what to expect, because she’d attended multiple dress rehearsals, often stopping by the high school after work so they (sometimes with Katie, sometimes not) could grab dinner.
But had they really made some kind of change to it that she did not know about? If they had, Molly was going to be really mad. It was perfect as it was, and the show wasn’t supposed to be about John. It was supposed to be about the Snappettes, through the ages.
So when the lighting changed and she heard the first chords for “Single Ladies,” she raised her hands to her face in nervous anticipation. She was both dreading and excited for what was about to happen.
The crowd screamed when John—nearly a foot taller than everyone else onstage—came bounding out onto the stage with all the other dancers. Although he wasn’t wearing a traditional Snappettes uniform, he still looked very much like part of the team in his red sweatpants, white T-shirt with a sequined S emblazoned across the chest, and confident attitude. The red sweatband around his forehead had been Molly’s idea, and in her opinion, it really brought the whole look together.
She’d been right about it, too. All around her, the audience was going wild, people cheering and calling, “Sher-RIFF, sher-RIFF!”
But John wasn’t distracted. The S on his shirt catching the stage lights and shimmering, he stuck every step of “Single Ladies” along with the girls, right on cue.
What he did not do during the number was leap off the stage and race toward her with a ring to put on her.
Thank God.
Then, suddenly, the entire audience was leaping to its feet in a standing ovation. The show was over, and Molly was very, very relieved, in more ways than one.
“I’m going to kill you for scaring me like that,” she said to Henry, as they both applauded.
He looked crushed. “I don’t know what happened. The rumor mill is usually right!”
“Oh, sure. Like it was about me carrying his twins when all I did was wear a high-waisted blouse and eat a whole Harpooner burger from the Mermaid Café for lunch one day?”
Henry sighed. “I’ll never listen to a single scrap of gossip ever again.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Everyone agreed, as they filed out, that the show had been outstanding—the best Snappettes performance of all time.
“The sheriff was so good,” people kept saying to Molly.
“This is exactly what the town needed,” others were saying. “It’s good for everyone to have something to come together over, something we can all agree on, despite our differences. And we can all agree that the Snappettes are amazing! And so is our sheriff!”
Molly beamed. It was nice to hear that something she’d helped work on with two people she loved so much had succeeded.
She looked for both John and Katie in the crowd—they were supposed to meet after the performance to get a celebratory dinner together—but she didn’t see them.
“Oh, Molly, there you are!” Joanne and Carl Larson caught up with her in the lobby. “I was hoping we’d see you here. Wasn’t that wonderful?”
“Hello!” Molly exchanged hugs with her former landlady and employer. “Yes. How are you both doing?”
“Great! You need to thank your sheriff for us, Molly.” Joanne was grinning as she squeezed Molly’s hand. “We didn’t think anyone could take your place, but Eric Swanson is working out swell.”
“That’s good,” Molly said. She’d felt guilty about leaving the Larsons, but when the opportunity to move into a sweet little one-bedroom apartment above Island Blooms had become available, she simply hadn’t been able to turn it down. She’d been running herself ragged trying to work nights at the inn while putting in full days at the library, especially after the new library opened. There’d been so much extra work to do.