Jane Austen Girl (20 page)

Why had she entered this contest in the first place? She regretted it more than she could put into words. But to drop out now would be to concede that her daddy was right, that Kyle was right, that she had no business even trying to win such a thing. And so, here she was, on the verge of asking for her mama’s help, something she had never even once in her life done.

Telling herself that it was her only hope, Andy slid out of the truck, slammed the door, and marched into the salon.

Priscilla, working at one of the stations near the front door, looked up when Andy stopped at the front counter, staring at her mother with as little expression as she could muster.

“Well, hey, Andy,” she said, clearly trying hard to hide her surprise.

But Andy saw the little crack in her mama’s composure and some of the hardness inside her softened a bit.

 “I was wondering if you might have time to give me a—” She stopped there, unable to say the words, pride, fear and too many other emotions to identify choking them off.

Priscilla waited a few seconds, then said, “A makeover?”

“Yeah,” Andy said, suddenly feeling ridiculous.

“Well, you know I’d love to, honey,” her mama said, delight overriding her surprise. “Let me just finish up with Ellen here. I’ll be with you in about five or ten minutes, okay? Why don’t you sit down over there and read a magazine?”

Andy did as she suggested, flipping through the pages of
Vogue
and then
Vanity Fair
, the pictures of current supermodels and other glamorous people reinforcing her awareness that this guy she was trying to win a date with could probably get a date with any of them.

She felt her cell phone buzz in her pocket and reached for it. The text was from Kyle.
Where are you?

Like she was going to answer that. She turned her phone off, and put it back into her pocket. She’d nearly talked herself out of going through with getting in her mama’s salon chair when Priscilla finished up with Ellen and waved Andy over.

Reluctant, Andy sat down, avoiding her image in the mirror. She focused on her mama’s face instead.

“Are you going to tell me what you want, or just let me have my way with you?” she said, her voice teasing in a way Andy rarely heard.

“Just to look pretty.”

Priscilla leaned back and gave her a long, leveling look. “Andy. You’re already pretty. Surely, you know that.”

Andy looked down, shook her head. “You’re a little prejudiced, don’t you think?”

“I may be, but I know beauty when I see it, too.” She turned the chair and forced Andy to look at her. “It’s time you let yourself see what the rest of the world sees when they look at you.”

The words surprised Andy, and she couldn’t deny that they felt nice to hear. The root of self-doubt that normally dissed such comments stayed quiet for once.

Priscilla trailed her fingers through Andy’s hair. “A sprinkling of highlights, maybe. Just a sprinkle, mind you.” She stepped in front of the chair and ran her thumb over Andy’s eyebrows. “And we could clean these up a bit. We’re doing this wonderful new facial that ought to make your already peachy skin just glow. And then of course, there’s a mani-pedi.”

“How long will all this take?” Andy asked.

“As long as it needs to,” she said with a smile. “You got somewhere else to be?”

“No.”

“Wanna get started then?”

“Yes,” Andy said, suddenly confident that if anybody could make her beautiful, her mother could. “Let’s do it.”

“We give each other crap most of the time, but you know I’d give you the shirt off my back.”

Darryl Lee on his wedding day to best man Bobby Jack

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It was nearly five o’clock when Bobby Jack heard Darryl Lee’s truck pull up to the construction site. He didn’t need to look to know who it was. He knew the sound. And anyway, he’d been expecting him.

From his spot on the ladder, just off the front porch, Bobby Jack hammered another nail into a lantern wall mount, refusing to look back.

“Hey,” Darryl Lee said.

“Hey,” Bobby Jack said, still not looking around.

Silence hung for several seconds before Darryl Lee threw out, “You think maybe we ought to talk?”

Bobby Jack hammered in another nail. “Talk about what?”

“Last night,” Darryl Lee said.

“I don’t guess there’s a whole lot to talk about.”

“I got a little crazy,” Darryl Lee conceded.

Bobby Jack turned around and looked at his brother. “Not the first time though, is it?”

Darryl Lee scuffed a booted toe against the porch floor. “What were you doing with her?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“Man, you’re my brother.”

“And you’re married.”

“So you’re really after her then?”

“I am not after anybody, Darryl Lee,” Bobby Jack said, climbing down off the ladder, suddenly weary of the subject.

The two of them looked at each other long and hard. And then finally Bobby Jack began to feel the air seep from his anger, and he saw his brother as he always had. A little bit of a loose cannon, foolish at times. All that, and yet, he still loved him.

“You’re a jackass,” Darryl Lee said. “And you hit like a girl.”

“Yeah, where’d you get that black eye then?”

“Good point.”

“Where are the boys?” Bobby Jack asked.

“With Dreama.”

“You two talking now?”

“Barely.”

“You got any plans to change that?”

 “Does it ever occur to you to cut me a break?”

“Not on this, no.” Bobby Jack picked up his toolbox, sat down on a porch step and started cleaning it out.

Darryl Lee sat next to him, looking as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the courage.

“What is it, Darryl Lee?”

“There’s something I haven’t told you.”

“What?”

A good stretch of silence followed the question. When Darryl Lee answered, his voice was low and lacking its usual note of confidence. “I wasn’t the one who cheated, Bobby Jack.”

“Come again.”

“You heard me.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

Bobby Jack stared at his brother, not sure what to say that would in any way help. “Man, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“I didn’t want you to.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew you would look at me exactly the way you’re looking at me now.”

“And you were willing to let me think you were the bad guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Who is it?”

“Does it matter?”

“If I’m gonna kick his ass, I need to know his name.”

This actually made Darryl Lee smile. “Nice to have you in my corner anyway.”

“I’ve always been in your corner.”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“It’s not pity.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“What is it then?”

“Regret, maybe, that I’ve been giving you such a hard time.”

“I’d rather have you giving me a hard time than have you feeling sorry for me.”

“You should have told me.”

“Like it would change anything?”

“I could have been a little more supportive.”

“Maybe,” Darryl Lee said, aiming for a smile and falling short. He got up from the porch, dusted off his jeans, and walked to his truck, opening the door and then turning back to look at Bobby Jack. “I walked by Priscilla’s this afternoon on my way to the hardware store. I saw Andy in there getting all fixed up. She looked amazing.”

The news hit Bobby Jack with a thwack in the chest. “I didn’t know she was going.”

“Seemed like they were getting along real well. Actually talking to each other, you know?”

For minutes after Darryl Lee had backed out of the driveway and drove off, Bobby Jack thought about what his brother had said. In all fairness, he should be happy to hear that Andy was showing her mother a little grace. But all he could manage to feel was resentment and yeah, even a little jealousy. He’d had Andy to himself for a long time, and the wall that Andy had chosen to erect between her and her mother had, if he could admit it, served Bobby Jack well. As long as Andy was punishing Priscilla, he didn’t have to.

“Even a caterpillar gets to turn into a butterfly.

Am I ever gonna be pretty, Daddy?”

Age twelve, Andy to Bobby Jack

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Andy closed her eyes and held her breath. “Okay, don’t look yet,” her mama said, slowly turning the salon chair to face the mirror. She fussed with the ends of Andy’s hair. She fluffed a little here, fluffed some more there, as if she were nervous about whether Andy would like it. And then finally she said, “Okay, you can look.”

Andy slowly opened her eyes, and then sat staring wide-eyed at the girl looking back at her from the mirror. Was that really her?

“Well,” Priscilla said, her voice wavering a note. “What do you think?”

“I. . .I can’t believe that’s me.”

“Well of course it’s you,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Don’t you like it?”

“I. . .I love it.” Andy looked at her reflection, hardly able to believe what she saw. True to her word, her mother had streaked in some highlights to her medium-blonde hair. The resulting effect was something like dapples of sunlight. Andy’s previously one-length hair now looked stylishly tossed. Her eyebrows were arched and neat, and one of Priscilla’s assistants had darkened them just a shade so that all of a sudden Andy’s light blue eyes looked lighter and bluer. She had even waxed her legs and performed the manicure and pedicure while the foils in her hair developed.

“Thank you,” she said, finally letting herself meet her mother’s gaze. And what Andy saw there surprised her. It was relief. Her mother actually felt relief that Andy liked what she had done. They watched each other for a few moments while something new settled in around them. Something Andy didn’t remember feeling before. The seeds of friendship.

“I’m really glad you liked it, Andy.”

Just then the front door swung in, and Andy glanced up to see her daddy standing at the entrance, looking like a Texas thundercloud.

“Bobby Jack,” Priscilla said. “We’re just finishing up.”

He stared at Andy for several unnerving moments, his gaze clearly taking in the new changes in her. She waited for him to say something, willing herself not to speak first, not to seek his favor the way she always ended up doing. But he didn’t say anything at all. He just turned around and left.

Virginia Tech Expected to Make

Play for Quarterback Kyle Summers

Timbell
Creek Gazette
Headline
 Sports
Page

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Kyle was sitting at the stoplight on Amherst and Main when a big, black limousine drove by. Not something regularly seen around Timbell Creek, the car immediately caught his eye. Just as he wondered who might be inside, he saw the magnetic sign on the back door that read, “Jane Austen Girl –
Dream Date
, Coming to the KT Network. Check Your Local Listings.”

The light turned green, and he pulled into the intersection behind the limo.

Five different emotions hit him at once.

One of the girls from the contest had been at the Dairy Queen last night, talking about the fact that George would be arriving the next day to help judge the end of the contest. The very thought of that nampy-campy, very likely royal jerk talking to Andy set his nerve endings on fire.

He’d stopped himself from calling Andy last night, not trusting the jealousy inside him to keep itself contained. How much more ammunition was he going to give Andy to shoot him in the heart? Whether she knew it or not, she already had.

On both sides of Main Street, people started coming out of stores and offices to stare and wave at the limousine. Kyle rolled his eyes, and got close enough to the long car’s bumper to see the back of a tall, young guy’s head through the rear window. A woman sat on his left, laughing at something he had just said. The guy lowered the back window and waved back at the people waving at him from that side of the street.

Kyle resisted the urge to blow the horn, tailgating instead to show his irritation with the car’s speed. He was already late because he’d helped his dad get his old car running. But even though he should’ve taken the next left to get to school, Kyle followed the limo to the Inn, where it hung a right and slid to a stop at the front entrance.

Kyle pulled into a parking spot near the back of the lot, and slid down in the seat, hopefully low enough not to be seen, but still get a glimpse of the duke Andy was so high on.

The driver got out and opened the door on the woman’s side first, and then walked around to open the duke’s door. Kyle’s heart pounded like a freight train, ridiculous as it was. He found himself holding his breath as the guy slid out of the car. For some reason, he had expected him to be tall. But when he realized the duke was well under six feet, Kyle felt a spike of gladness that surely ought to be beneath him.

He took a second to revel in the fact that Andy had always said she liked tall guys. Since he was six-three, that suited him. But then he noticed the way the duke held himself. Straight, shoulders back in the regal posture that only those born knowing they’re important manage to carry off. His hair was thick and blond and cut stylishly long at the front, shorter at the back in a way that seemed to say
Aristocrat
.

A pretty woman came out of the Inn, shook hands with the lady from the car, and then with the duke, smiling and saying something that looked like it was gracious and appreciative. The duke inclined his head and smiled a wide, white smile that drew out an instant response from both women.

The woman who had just come out beckoned for the two of them to follow her, and they disappeared inside. Andy’s truck sat parked at the front of the lot, and Kyle knew she was in there somewhere waiting in anticipation with all the other girls to meet him.

Kyle let himself picture Andy’s smile, and he knew it wasn’t a smile many guys could resist. Not even a duke.