“Have you found her baking book?”
“No baking book, what is it? What does it look like?”
“It’s a book where she collected her special recipes. She took very well care of it. It must be somewhere in the house. It was red.”
Emelie rolled her eyes.
“Of course it was. I guess we just have to find it. But what do you say, Christer?”
Christer nodded, slowly.
“It used to be so nice, until…”
He took a deep breath and continued:
“But perhaps, for Astrid’s sake…”
He was quiet for a while. Emelie and Andreas peeked nervously at each other. Christer tilted his head and stared right into the air as if he was considering something. Then he looked back at Emilie, smiling.
“We’ll arrange Astrid’s Christmas market! It should be on December 14th! I will get the old committee together – and the two of you are committee members from now on.”
It felt a bit ceremonial, and they were all quiet as they got up, a bit overwhelmed by the sudden turn of events. They cheered with the cordial left in their glasses, walked back through the community centre and, on the way out, Christer showed them the notice board where one could read about everything of importance that happened on the island. Among ads about old lobster cages and rooms to let, Emelie noticed a small note.
“Oh, line dance, how fun! There’s a class on the pier on Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Emelie tore off a small reminder note and turned towards Andreas.
“Do you want to join me?”
Chapter 10
“Hello everyone, it’s wonderful to see so many of you today. Welcome, all of you, familiar and new, young and old. My name is Sussi and today I will teach you a simple line dance called Cowboy Hustle. It works with all kinds of music which means that you can dance it wherever and with whomever you want. Okay, there’s 18 of us, so let’s divide into lines of nine and turn against the sea and me.”
Some giggling and confusion later, all 18 of them were standing in two rather straight lines. Sussi was standing in front of them with her back turned against her pupils. She was wearing a white, short-sleeved, tight-fitting blouse that ended mid-hip, a pair of well-fitting, tight jeans tucked into her reptile patterned cowboy boots and a cowboy hat made of straw pushed down over her short, blonde hair. She looked over her right shoulder and continued with a loud voice:
“I’ll show you slowly and then you follow me, first without music, and then with. You start on your left foot, which means that you’ll have your right one free. Start by moving the foot like a sun feather. Stand on the heel and move the toe straight forward and then out to the right, out, in, out, in, out, in while counting 1, 2, 3, 4.
She peeked over her shoulder to make sure they were all following, and so far there were no problems. Emelie looked at Linn, who was standing on her right side, and then at Liv and Linnea, who were on her right. She got a thumbs up from Liv. Sussi continued:
“Then you do two heels to the front and two heels backwards, then you shift between toe and heel, right toe to the front, right heel to the back, right toe front, right heel back. Now let’s put it all together and start with the sun feather and try it with the music.”
The country music started echoing over the water as the 18 people on the pier were struggling to make the choreography work. Sometimes they collided with one another and apologised, giggling, and sometimes everyone managed to do the right steps and they all moved together as one. 45 minutes later, Sussi declared that they had done a really good job, and that they deserved a break for coffee and cookies.
“Over with my darling Stina in Pollux, the boathouse, you will find coffee, cordial and plenty of cookies. I’ll meet you here again in half an hour, and then it’s time for the grand finale!”
Everyone gave Sussi a round of applause and started queueing up at Stina’s coffee boathouse. There was a table in the entrance to the little building and behind the table stood a woman, who Emelie guessed was Stina. She was dressed in a cowboy shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, just like Sussi, but instead of a cowboy hat she was wearing a white and blue bandana to keep her long, dark hair out of her face. She was so beautiful that it was hard to look at her. Olive skin, almond-shaped, green eyes and a big smile. What was a beauty like her doing here when she should be making the big dough on the catwalk in Paris or New York?
“Welcome everyone, the cookies might not be homemade, but I made the coffee myself”, Stina said in a thick Scanian accent that didn’t quite match her exterior.
The summer guest behind Emelie in line whispered to his friend, that with a face like that, she could have sold cream puffs at baker’s association’s yearly board meeting, and Emilie giggled, agreeing. She bought some coffee, cordial and cream puffs and sat down by one of the tables on the pier where her kids were already sitting. It was the same table that they had been sitting by on Midsummer, throwing down punch. But no one else seemed to think about that, so she shook the uncomfortable feeling and focused on her daughters, who were going on about how much fun it had been to dance. Sussi was walking around between the tables and eventually got to theirs. She sat down next to Andreas.
“It’s so much fun to see you here! You’ve never been to any of my dance classes before, what did you think?”
“It was actually more fun than I had imagined, and it’s Emelie who brought me here,” Andreas said, smiling warmly at Emilie.
He introduced her and the girls to Sussi and they all promised that they had had a wonderful time and that they would return the following week.
“But you should consider upgrading the cookies”, Andreas laughed, waving a rather dry-looking cream puff that.
