The Prince Charming List (21 page)

I had guilt. “Ah…that was my idea. Denise wants new Christmas decorations for Main Street and I thought the PAC could raise money by hosting an event. The statue was the first thing that came to mind. People can’t wait to see it.” Maybe flattery would work.

“That’s strange. Because everyone I talk to thinks the money should have been spent on a gazebo. Preferably one from a kit. After they go on sale, of course.”

Or not.

“I’m sorry I forgot to mention it.” I nibbled on the end of my fingernail. I couldn’t
believe
I’d forgotten to mention it.

“You’ve been busy.”

He had a
tone
. Frustration sent me pacing up and down the narrow strip of vinyl flooring that bisected Bernice’s kitchen. “The Cut and Curl is a Main Street business, which means I’m automatically drafted into the parade.”

“Whatever.” Jared sounded like he didn’t believe me.

Dreaded silence. I felt like a Ping-Pong ball being bounced back and forth from Jared to My Responsibilities. My biggest fear was that Jared would think he was losing and walk away in the middle of the game.

“I miss hanging out with you.”

I almost dropped the phone. A man who could express his feelings. From what I’ve heard, this was a rare breed.
Can I keep him, God?

“I miss you, too. If you change your mind about helping out—you know where I live.”

“Right back at you.”

There was a knock on the door. Kaylie had promised she’d be back by seven.

“I should go. Kaylie’s at the door.”

“Heather—”

“I’ll call you later.” I snapped the phone shut, shouted for Kaylie to come in and started scrounging around in the cupboards for the iced tea mix I’d bought.

I could hear footsteps in the living room and when I popped up from behind the counter, a crowd of people was watching me. Kaylie. Annie. Stephen. Bree. Riley. Marissa.

“We heard you needed help with a float,” Stephen said.

I charged past the counter and threw my arms around Annie. “I can’t believe this.” I looked at Riley. “And you’re our prince, right?”

“Can’t do it. I volunteered to drive the mayor’s truck this year. But don’t worry. I got you a stand-in. And it only cost me twenty bucks.”

“The prince is
charging
you—”

“Call it a royalty fee.” Dex wandered in, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. There was a shadow of stubble on his chin and with his dark hair flopping across his forehead, he looked like a sleepy pirate.

“
You’re
the prince? You don’t like horses.”

“Horses?” His face got pale under the stubble.

“What do you think pulls Cinderella’s coach, man? A Chevy?” Riley slapped him on the back.

“I was hoping it would be a tractor.”

Riley grinned. “You can ride beside the coach on Lily while Bree drives the carriage. Lily is what we call bomb-proof.”

“And hopefully firecracker proof,” I murmured, just to see him sweat. I could make a hobby out of teasing Dex because there was never a flicker of emotion in his eyes to prove he got it.

“All you have to do is smile and wave,” Bree chimed in. “I remembered I have something else to do tomorrow morning.”

“Come on, Dex. Where are your
priorities?
”

He gave me a blank look. Like he hadn’t been guilty of secreting those notes into my Bible for the past month.

“Okay, people, we’ve only got a babysitter for an hour.” Stephen clapped his hands and we all snapped to attention. “We’ve got white sheets, fake flowers and twenty rolls of crepe paper. Let’s get moving.”

“Cinderella?” Dex walked up to Kaylie and bowed, then offered his arm.

Come on, Kaylie. Remember what I said.

She stepped back shyly but she didn’t duck her head or look away. Then she curtsied and took his arm. “My curfew is midnight.”

We got giddy on root beer and worked on the float until the streetlight dimmed to a soft glow at ten o’clock. Did the people of Prichett know that Candy was saving money this way?

“What kind of costumes did you come up with?” Marissa asked, handing me a paper rose. The ones she made really did look like roses. Mine looked more like those little scratchy things used to scrub out pots and pans.

“Costumes?” The float had consumed my attention—I hadn’t even thought about costumes. And it wasn’t like I could call people this late at night to beg for some old formals.

Marissa patted my arm. “I’ve got some things that might work. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

God, have I thanked You lately for friends? Because I’m doing it right now. Thank You!

A car pulled into the alley and parked by Jared’s garage. The next thing I knew, three people spilled out of it, laughing as they pounded on Jared’s door. I was on top of the wagon, with an aerial view that allowed me to see one guy and two girls. Blonde One and Blonde Two.

A crack of light raced out of the garage and down the alley toward us when Jared opened the door. How long had he been home? And why hadn’t he stopped over to help with the float? I scuttled over to the end of the wagon but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Everyone disappeared inside and the door snapped shut. Now it was two guys and two girls. Two
pairs
.

I miss you.

So much that he’d found someone to take my place?

“C
ongratulations, Heather!”

Denise poked her head out of the door of the variety store on Monday afternoon and waved a mop at me as I swept the sidewalk in front of the salon. The city crew had made a halfhearted attempt to clean up the remnants of the Fourth of July Frolic but, borrowing one of Mom’s phrases, they’d “missed a few spots.” Like the piece of yellow taffy I’d just stepped on.

“Thanks,” I shouted back, pausing to peel the keepsake off the bottom of my sandal.

“Tell Kaylie, too.”

“I will.”

When I got to work that morning, there was a message from Kaylie on the answering machine telling me she wasn’t coming in. Her voice had sounded a little shaky, so I hoped she was feeling okay. I’d missed laughing with her.

After the parade on Saturday, Candy had tracked us down to tell us we’d won first place in the most beautiful category, which turned out to be a ten-dollar gift certificate at Bender’s Hardware. Dex took the certificate and the adorable stuffed octopus I won at the karaoke contest in payment for performing his princely duty. I was fine passing along the gift certificate but disappointed he took the octopus. It was bright pink with little suction cups on the bottom of its feet and would have looked cute on my mirror.

I finished sweeping and went back inside to empty out the coffeepot so I could go home for the day. One thing about Amanda’s book club and her free refills, the number of people stopping into the Cut and Curl for coffee was dwindling every day.

“Are you Heather?”

I hadn’t even heard someone come in, so the sound of a voice startled me. A woman was standing a few feet away. She wasn’t one of my regulars but she looked familiar.

“Yes, I’m Heather. I’m closing up for the day but I’d be happy to—”

“I’m Kaylie’s mother.”

Those three words sucked the air out of my lungs. “Mrs. Darnell. It’s nice to—”

Her hand sliced the air like a karate chop and cut off the rest of my polite greeting. “Kaylie has been crying most of the day and she refuses to talk about whatever is bothering her. I can only imagine it has something to do with
you
. She’s been a different person since she started working here—oh, I know all about you hiring her. And I should have known that a young woman like you would encourage her to have her birthmark removed.”

A young woman like me?

“Mrs. Darnell, I didn’t influence Kaylie one way or another. The truth is, I told her—”

“Annie Carpenter convinced me that Kaylie would be fine spending time with you. I shouldn’t have taken her word for it. If you were really a Christian, you’d encourage someone like Kaylie to accept the way God made her.”

The coffeepot I was rinsing out slipped from my hands and fell into the sink. Mrs. Kirkwood might have judged my skirt immodest, but no one had ever come right out and questioned my relationship with God before.

“I
did
tell Kaylie to accept the way God made her—”

“Kaylie is no longer working for you.” Mrs. Darnell pivoted toward the door but hadn’t quite run out of ammunition. She turned around and emptied the last round. “People stare at her enough—it wasn’t necessary to put her on display in the Fourth of July parade.”

“I didn’t…” I gave up. The rest of the sentence was lost in the slam of the door as Mrs. Darnell charged away.

I stumbled up to the apartment. Tears blurred my vision and when I thought I was in range, I launched myself onto the couch. I didn’t land on cushions. I landed on a person.

“Hey!”

Arms and legs flailing, Dex and I scrambled apart.

“What are you
doing
here?” I hurled a pillow at him. I wasn’t expecting there to be a witness to my meltdown.

“You’re crying.”

“I want…” I sucked in air. “To be alone.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was dimly aware that a woman’s tears should send a guy like Dex running for cover. Instead, he tucked the pillow I’d just chucked at him behind his back and didn’t budge. “What happened?”

I turned into a miserable puddle right in front of him. I squeezed my eyes shut to stop the flow, but it didn’t help. Tears spilled over like a break in the Hoover Dam. “Go away.”

The cushions shifted. Maybe he was going to leave. I felt his fingers touch my cheeks, framing my face. “Look at me.”

“Dex—” I turned my face away. The ultimate humiliation. That someone would see me come unglued. No, that Mr. Unemotional would see me come unglued.

“Tell me.”

I couldn’t. Mrs. Darnell’s angry words were still hammering away inside my head. “I messed up.”

“Welcome to my world.”

He made me want to smile. “I just need to be alone.”

“Okay. I’ll take you somewhere you can be alone.”

Did I always have to be the one to point out the obvious? “If you leave, I’ll be alone. If you take me somewhere to be alone, then you’ll be with me and I won’t be alone.”

“You’ll be as alone as you need to be. Come on.”

Somehow he got me outside and into the Impala. It smelled like French fries. And old carpeting. He fished around in the back seat and then dropped a mashed box of tissue in my lap. The stuffed octopus I’d won was stuck to the dashboard and there was a blob of ketchup on the side of its head. If I could prove neglect, there was a chance I could regain custody.

I waited for Dex to start in on me, but he didn’t say a word. Didn’t turn on the radio. Didn’t slide sympathetic glances my way every few minutes. He did lean across me and open the glove compartment with one hand, fumbling inside until he pulled out a melted candy bar. Which he ate right in front of me. For the first time, it occurred to me that
he
was upset. I just wasn’t sure why.

“Is that Lester’s place?” I wasn’t too numb to recognize the farmhouse in the distance. It wasn’t very far from the Cabotts’.

“I hang out there sometimes.”

He drove onto the grass and followed a worn path past the barn to an old metal building. The doors were open and I could see a plane inside. The canary-yellow paint was faded but I could make out the words
Fancy Free
written in flowing script along the tail.

Crisis or not, I hadn’t lost all of my ability to think straight. And I wasn’t taking another step until Dex told me what he had in mind.

“Is that Lester’s plane?”

“It’s his brother’s old crop duster. Lester has a hard time throwing things away. This is where I come to be alone.”

My apartment, stocked with cold soda and unmelted chocolate, would have worked fine for me.

“You sit in Lester’s plane?”

“You could say that.”

“You don’t…
fly
…Lester’s plane?”

“Let’s go.”

“I’m not…you can fly a plane?” I squeaked. The world as I knew it was crashing down around me.

“I’m a licensed pilot.”

Yes, but for
real
planes? Or the kind that shoots down alien spacecrafts?

“It doesn’t look safe.” I based that assumption on the rust spreading across the underbelly of the plane like a bad rash.

“Safety is highly overrated.”

Who are you and what have you done with Dex?

It occurred to me, though, that if we crashed I wouldn’t have to face Mrs. Darnell again. This thought alone sent me clambering into the tiny cockpit. When Dex got in on the other side, he reached over and buckled me in like I was a kid in a car seat.

“Ready?”

“No.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Five minutes later, the plane was bumping down Lester’s pasture while Lester’s cows crowded together at one end of the pasture to watch. If the plane did crash and we went up in flames, there’d be enough steak to feed the entire town. Mmm. If they charged admission, Denise would have enough money to buy the snowmen. I giggled. Dex glanced at me and frowned, clearly wondering if he should remove all sharp objects from the cockpit.

The plane shook and I forgot about PAC fund-raisers for the moment. I clung to the sides of the seat, which vibrated like one of those cheap massage chairs at the mall. “Let me see your license.”

“You should have asked me that earlier. It’s in the glove compartment of my car.”

The next thing I knew we were airborne. And I was truly kidnapped.

“How long have you been flying planes?” I shouted over the hacking cough of the engine.

“A few weeks.”

I almost threw up. Dex laughed. Except for that afternoon at Annie’s, I couldn’t remember ever hearing him laugh.
Now
he decided to reveal the sense of humor I’d known was lurking below the surface.

“Since I was nineteen. This is what I’m going to do. Fly medical supplies to missionaries in the field. Sometimes I’ll fly sick people out for treatment.” The plane rocked to one side suddenly and my head kissed the window. “Sorry. I was waving to those kids down there.”

I peeked down and saw a group of people, as tiny as Polly Pocket dolls, swimming near the bridge on Marley Creek.

“Let me get this straight. You won’t get on a horse but you’ll fly a plane.”

“Big difference. A plane has an engine, a horse has a mind of its own.”

“But if you fall off a horse, you only fall a few feet.”

The plane evened out and I gathered enough courage to peek out the window again. The sun was setting and if we kept going, we’d disappear into the whipped-cream clouds on the horizon. Maybe when we came through on the other side, I’d be a different person. Maybe I’d be back in Minnesota, far away from decisions about my future. And confusing guys. And Mrs. Darnell.

Dex must have read my mind. “You know what I love about flying? Everything that happens on the ground stays on the ground.”

“That would be nice.” If it were true. I could still hear Mrs. Darnell yelling at me.

“Did Ward do something?” Dex’s voice was tight.

“Jared? No.”
If only it were that simple.

“You said you messed up.”

I scowled at him. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to give people
space
when they’re upset?”

“I thought we were supposed to help people carry their burdens. In order to do that, you have to be close enough to a person to
touch
them.”

“You want to hear every miserable detail, don’t you?”

“Yup.”

I sighed. If I were going to die, it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a clear conscious.

“Mrs. Darnell? Kaylie’s mom? She came into the salon today and accused me of influencing Kaylie to have her birthmark removed. She said if I were really a Christian, I’d encourage her to care more about what she looks like on the inside than the outside.”

Every word she’d said was stuck in my head, playing over and over like a CD with a scratch on it.

Dex didn’t say anything for a while. The plane banked to the left and skipped over a stand of trees, dragging my stomach along with it. “So this is about you?”

Hadn’t he heard anything I’d said? My teeth snapped together. “It’s about
Kaylie
.”

“Is it?”

“Yes…no.” I blinked and tears poured out of my eyes. I hated to cry. It messed up my mascara and now I probably looked like a raccoon. Which proved that Mrs. Darnell was right about me. I was the spiritual equivalent of marshmallow fluff. It wasn’t fair that when Annie opened her mouth, wisdom poured out and when I opened mine, a person got a beauty tip.

“I thought you were shallow when I met you.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“You thought I was a geek.”

I choked back a laugh.

“I get it. You
still
think I’m a geek.” There was a smile on his face that didn’t look geeky at all. I’d never seen that particular smile before and it woke up some butterflies in my stomach that must have been napping. Probably something to do with the turbulence. “Don’t worry about it. Being a geek is flattering considering what I used to be. People aren’t so simple, are they? Look at you. You’re full of surprises.”

I felt a flash of pleasure at his words. Grandma Lowell said I was the kind of person who wore her heart on her sleeve, so it was nice to have someone hint that I was mysterious.

“So are you.” I patted the door of the plane to prove the point. But he was right. People
weren’t
simple. It was tempting to slap an invisible label on them. Dealing with layers took time. Sometimes it was worth it because you found things you didn’t have a clue were there—and sometimes it left you disappointed because you expected to find things that weren’t.

Doubts pelted me and I was vulnerable against the attack. Dex was right. It wasn’t just about Kaylie. Mrs. Darnell’s words had made a direct hit into the center of my insecurities.

“There are a hundred other things I’d rather be good at. Cutting hair doesn’t really impact the world, does it?” “No.”