Looking For Salvation at The Dairy Queen, by Susan Gregg Gilmore - Excerpt
Looking For Salvation at The Dairy Queen, by Susan Gregg Gilmore - Excerpt
Looking For Salvation at The Dairy Queen, by Susan Gregg Gilmore - Excerpt
-- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- --
--
-- - -- -- -- -- --
-- --
-- ---- -- --
-- ---- -- -- - --
-- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- ---- -- --
-- -- --
-------------
-------------
-- -- --
- -- -
- - - - - - - - - - - - --
--
- -- - - - - - - - - - - - --
--
-- --
--
--
--
A
--
--
--
-- --
--
--
-- --
--
--
-- --
--
--
--
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf3 3/17/09 11:51:10 AM - 3 - ( )
NOVEL
--
--
--
--
gilmore
--
--
Looking
--
--
-
--
--
--
s u s a n g r eg g
- --
- -- - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - --
for Salvation
-- --
--
--
-- -- -- --
--
--
-- -- -- --
--
--
-- -- -- --
at the Dairy Queen
--
--
-- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- --
--
-- --
-- -- -- -- --
--
-- --
-- -- -- -- --
--
-- --
--
------------
------------
--
-- --
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
-- -- -- --
-
- -
- - --
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --
-
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf4 3/17/09 11:51:10 AM - 4 - ( )
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-307-39502-3
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
To purchase a copy of
Looking for Salvation
at the Dairy Queen
visit one of these online retailers:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Borders
IndieBound
Powell’s Books
Random House
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf5 3/17/09 11:51:10 AM - 5 - ( )
For my family
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
--- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - ---- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - -
-- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- --
--
-- - -- -- -- -- --
-- --
-- ---- -- --
-- ---- -- -- - --
-- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- ---- -- --
-- -- --
-------------
-------------
-- -- --
- -- -
- - - - - - - - - - - - --
--
- -- - - - - - - - - - - - --
--
-- --
--
--
-- --
--
--
-- --
--
--
-- --
--
--
-- --
--
--
--
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf7 3/17/09 11:51:10 AM - 7 - ( )
PA RT I
--
--
--
-- --
--
--
--
-
--
--
--
The Gospel
Grace Cline
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
- --
- -- - - - - - - - - - - - -- - -- - -- - - - - - - - - - - - -- --
--
--
-- -- -- --
--
--
-- -- -- --
--
--
-- -- -- --
--
--
-- --
According to Catherine
-- --
-- -- -- -- --
--
-- --
-- -- -- -- --
--
-- --
-- -- -- -- --
--
-- --
--
------------
------------
--
-- --
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
-- -- -- --
-
- -
- - --
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --
-
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf9 3/17/09 11:51:10 AM - 9 - ( )
CHAPTER ONE
In the Beginning
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf10 3/17/09 11:51:10 AM - 10 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf11 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 11 - ( )
be our ticket out of here, but unlike that stupid old hound
dog, we are not going to limp back home.”
My daddy said I was a little girl with a big imagination.
Maybe. Or maybe I was a patient girl with a big dream, or
a despairing girl waiting for her divine deliverance. But
either way, I was going to hitch a ride out of Ringgold,
whether it was on a fiery twister ripping a path through the
Georgia sky or on a Greyhound bus rolling its way down
Interstate 75.
Truth be told, I never even liked the name Ringgold.
I mean, there’s nothing in these green rolling hills that even
faintly resembles a ring of gold, a ring of anything for that
matter. And believe me, me and Martha Ann looked, some-
how figuring that if we could find a ring of trees or ancient
rocks, then just maybe our living here would have some
kind of meaning. But after years of searching, the best I
could figure was that it was just these darn hills that I had
stared at every morning from my bedroom window that
formed the ring, the ring that had kept me hostage for the
first eighteen years of my life.
Nobody much ever bothers to visit this town except the
truckers who stop to fill their fuel tanks because they can
get some of the cheapest gas in the state here and Mrs.
Gloria Jean Graves’s second cousin, who has come up from
Birmingham every year for the Thanksgiving holiday since
before I was born. She always said it was refreshing to get
away from the big city for a few days.
One time the governor came by for about twenty-five
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf12 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 12 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf13 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 13 - ( )
ter reason than we might have been wearing the same color
shirt. You had to wonder if they were truly looking at us.
But one thing was for certain, Martha Ann hated putting
on her Sunday clothes even more than I did. She’d have
much rather been in the library picking out a new book to
read than waiting to look at some strange man cut a ribbon.
I told her that if she didn’t stop all that stomping and
snorting, she was going to get left behind. And sure enough,
she did. She had to spend the entire afternoon with Ida Belle
Fletcher shucking eighty-four ears of corn for Wednesday-
night supper over at the church.
Ida Belle said she cooked for the Lord, but all I knew
was that she smelled like an unsavory combination of left-
over bacon grease and Palmolive soap. She kept her big,
round tummy covered with a tattered, old apron perma-
nently stained with the meals of another day. The only
time I saw her without that apron was when she was sitting
in church, and then she kept it folded in her pocketbook.
My patent-leather shoe rubbed a blister on my big toe,
but it was worth it. The governor turned out to be, if
nothing else, the most handsome-looking man I’d ever
seen. He wore a dark navy suit and a crisp white shirt that
must have been starched so stiff, it could’ve stood up on
its own. A red-and-blue-striped tie was pulled around his
neck, and the tip of a white handkerchief was peeking out
of his suit pocket. I had never seen a man dressed so fancy.
He was in Ringgold for only a few minutes, and then he
jumped in the back of a long, black car and sped off down
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf14 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 14 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf15 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 15 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf16 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 16 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf17 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 17 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf18 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 18 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf19 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 19 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf20 3/17/09 11:51:11 AM - 20 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf21 3/17/09 11:51:12 AM - 21 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf22 3/17/09 11:51:12 AM - 22 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf23 3/17/09 11:51:12 AM - 23 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf24 3/17/09 11:51:12 AM - 24 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf25 3/17/09 11:51:12 AM - 25 - ( )
far from where our house stands now. But today there’s a
real brick building and a fellowship hall and eight class-
rooms for Sunday school. Daddy hoped that in the next few
years he could build a swimming pool right behind the pul-
pit so he could baptize people inside the church building.
One thing was for darn sure, my daddy never needed
to grow a secret hiding place. He could listen to people
chatter on and on about the silliest things in the world and
always seem interested. He just saw the best in everything
and everybody, and I think people really felt like they were
in the presence of God when they were with my daddy.
They must have been because he even found it in his heart
to love Emma Sue Huckstep.
Every Saturday before Easter, Emma Sue’s grand-
mamma planned a big egg hunt at Cedar Grove Baptist
Church. Hidden in the bushes and the tall green grass were
all sorts of candy eggs—brightly colored, speckled eggs with
malted milk inside and creamy marshmallow eggs with dark
chocolate shells. There were even plastic eggs filled with
jellybeans and pieces of bubblegum. But the egg to be had
was the golden egg. It was the biggest, most beautiful egg of
all, made of solid milk chocolate and wrapped in shiny gold
foil. The sunlight reflecting off that egg was almost blind-
ing. When I was real small, I was convinced Jesus Himself
had sent this egg to Cedar Grove. He had sent this egg hop-
ing it would be found by little Catherine Grace Cline.
But every year, Mrs. Roberta Huckstep took her grand-
daughter by the hand and led her right to the holy egg.
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf26 3/17/09 11:51:12 AM - 26 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_1p_all_r1.pdf27 3/17/09 11:51:12 AM - 27 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_2p_misc_r1.pd1 4/2/09 11:25:49 AM - 1 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
Gilm_9780307395023_2p_misc_r1.pd2 4/2/09 11:25:49 AM - 2 - ( )
www.ThreeRiversPress.com
To purchase a copy of
Looking for Salvation
at the Dairy Queen
visit one of these online retailers:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Borders
IndieBound
Powell’s Books
Random House
www.ThreeRiversPress.com