I’d no sooner thought of Brianna than she walked in from the back of the salon carrying a stack of towels. “Here’s the towels, Miss Natalie,” she said, placing them on a low glass-topped table.
“Brianna?” I said.
Brianna turned her face toward me and blushed. “Oh. Ashlynne.”
She straightened as I stood. “Hey,” I said. “What are you doing here? Do you work here, too?”
“Yeah . . . I . . . uh . . .” Brianna pushed her hands along the tops of her thighs. “The salon is one of my accounts, I guess you could say.”
“Accounts? I thought you worked at the restaurant.”
“I do. Yeah.” Brianna glanced around, as though she were a spy about to give out covert information. Her voice lowered, “I have a cleaning service and I work at the restaurant.”
“You have a cleaning service?”
Was this providence or what?
A flash of embarrassment raced across her face, but was quickly replaced by a sparkle of steel in her eyes. “Yes. I do. And I’m not ashamed of it neither.”
I realized I had offended her. “Oh, no,” I said. “I’m actually happy to hear this. I need . . . someone . . . to help me at the cottage.”
“Really? How often?”
Her excitement bothered me on the most superficial level imaginable, even for me. If she came to work for me, even periodically, would the whole “make friends while you are there” order fall away? Or could we—in spite of our age difference—enjoy each other’s company, drawing from the other what we needed, in spite of our stations in life? And so I asked, “Every other week?”
“I don’t work on Tuesdays over at the restaurant and I don’t have any clients that day either. How about on Tuesdays?”
I mentally counted the number of towels left in the linen closet. I might be able to make it. Or maybe I could figure out the washer and dryer. “Tuesday would be great.”
Brianna looked at her watch. “Well, I gotta get going. I’m due over across the street in a little while.” She smiled at me. “We’re still on for Sunday after church?”
“Of course. Why don’t you come over to the cottage around 2:00? Do you know where the Deckers live?”
“I do, but . . .” Again her cheeks flushed with color. “Well, my little girl goes down about that time and . . . do you think it would be okay for you to come to my house?”
“You have a little girl?”
Pride replaced the blush. “I do. Her name is Maris. She’s five and she’s, well, she is just my heart.”
“I’m sure she is . . .” My mind furiously did the math. Will had said he thought Brianna was about twenty-four. Which meant she would have been about nineteen when she gave birth. Eighteen, perhaps, when she got pregnant. At eighteen I experienced my first year of higher learning, gratefully surrounded by girls like me with the same expectations and dreams. And knowing I had at least four full years before any sort of real responsibility other than my GPA fell on my shoulders. Brianna, on the other hand, faced a new and tiny life, totally dependent on her.
How could I possibly connect? Understand it?
“Ashlynne?” Natalie called, interrupting us. “I’m ready for you.”
“Be right there.” I looked at Brianna again, determined once again not to step backward. I could do this, if only for a few months. “Can I get your address from Will?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. Her happy countenance returned in full. “Everyone knows where I live.”
Well, of course. Small town. Everyone growing up together, for the most part. Family and friends, one in the same. “I’ll see you on Sunday then.”
I joined Natalie at her workstation. “We’ll do your fingernails first,” she said. “That okay?”
“Perfect.”
“Want to pick your polish while I run to the back real quick?”
“Yes,” I said. I chose Spicy Red, then sat to wait. When Natalie joined me, I jumped right in with the question at the forefront of my mind. “Can you tell me how old Brianna is?”
Natalie looked toward the rear of the room from where Brianna had just emerged. “I don’t know,” she said, looking back at me. “Twenty-four I think.” She went to work on my nails by removing the polish.
Which was what Will had said. “And she has a five-year-old little girl?”
“That child is the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen.”
No doubt. But twenty-four? With a five-year-old? I couldn’t imagine the enormous responsibility, much less the loss of what Brianna might have achieved if she’d waited before having a child. I wondered then if she was married, but thought it best not to ask. “I’m sure she is,” I said with a smile. “And I guess I’ll meet her on Sunday.”
“Jeanine,” someone said from across the room.
The young nail tech popped her head up. “Yes, ma’am?”
“What in the world is your little sister doing in the back on a school day?”
I turned my head toward Jeanine, as though I were a part of the conversation. “Playin’ hooky. She says she’s got a hurt leg,” the woman drawled. “But I can tell ya right now, I ain’t seen a limp out of her all day.”
I nearly bit through my tongue to keep from laughing.
“Get your nails done?” Will asked after I entered our office. The police scanner squawked across the room, Alma and Garrison were in their corners hammering away at their respective jobs, and a woman I’d never seen before sat at one of the two middle-of-the-room desks where no one ever sat.
I looked from Will to her and back to Will again, hoping the Who is this? question I had in my mind came across in my eyes.
“Oh.” Will stood. “Hey, Janie?”
Janie—a petite doe-eyed brunette—looked up from her work. “Yeah?”
“This is Ashlynne. Ashlynne, Janie.”
I took the two steps necessary to reach her desk and extended my hand. She looked at it as though it were a dead fish, then gave me a loose shake. I frowned. I never liked shaking the hands of women who didn’t know how. We weren’t at a tea and I wasn’t the queen. We were in a business setting, for crying out loud. Shake.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“Yeah, you too . . .” She looked at Will. “I need to get back to work so I’m not late. Sorry.”
“No worries,” Will said to her, apparently unaware that I’d been dismissed, something that would have never happened at the offices of Parks & Avenues. To me he said, “Sit. Sit. We’ve got a busy day and it’s half over.”
And with only a few words, I felt back “in the groove,” as Dad often says. “Get in the groove, Kitten.” or “Are you in the groove yet, Princess?”
I waggled the “Spicy Red” fingers of one hand at Will as I dropped my purse into the empty drawer with the other.
“Lovely,” he said. “Toes too?”
I sat in my chair, pointed a Jimmy Choo–sandaled foot toward him. “Of course.”
“Nice shoes,” he said, more to them than me. “You wearing those tonight?”
I hadn’t really thought about what I would wear to the game. What did people from small Southern towns wear to football games? “I haven’t thought that far.”
He leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’ll want to wear purple and silver, of course.”
“Purple and silver?”
“School colors.”
I mentally ran over the items in my closet, knowing surely there would be an issue when it came to what I’d wear tonight. A new problem for me. “Anything else I need to know?”
Will seemed to think for a moment. “Can’t think of anything.” He returned to his work.
I smiled. Maybe Will Decker wasn’t so bad after all. “Hey, Will?”
He looked at me.
“Did you know Brianna has a little girl?”
“Sure.”
“And she works two jobs?”
“A lot of folks around here work two jobs. Times are hard, in case you didn’
t know.” The friendliness in his voice had left, replaced by hard words spoken too loud.
“Yes, I know.” My dander elevated.
“Not everyone can afford Karan and Wang and Jimmy Choo, Miss Bloomies.”
My shoulders squared as heat rose from my belly. “I know that. Why do you assume I don’t know that?” And furthermore . . . “And how is it you know Karan and Wang, because you certainly didn’t learn it from living in Testament.”
“What’s wrong with living in Testament?”
“Nothing,” I shouted, standing to full attention, every fiber of my being now on fire.
All sound ceased, with the exception of the occasional squelch of the scanner. All typing stopped. I didn’t dare look around to see who might be watching, what their expressions might hold. I folded my arms and stared down on William Decker, who appeared both amused and unhappy, strangely at the same time.
A visual standoff.
But when he didn’t say anything in return, I inched down until I felt myself reach the chair. My own deep breaths reverberated within me. I felt both vindicated and defeated. Yet not once did I break contact with Will’s eyes, nor did he with mine. Steel had met steel. Determination; determination. His jaw flinched, he blinked, and turned toward his computer screen.
Only then did I look around. Two of the three girls from advertising stood in the open doorway near Garrison’s desk, both with their lips pulled tight. Garrison seemed confused. Alma, disappointed.
In me?
Of course in me.
Me.
16
Rob showed up two minutes early dressed in a pair of jeans, a gray tee, and a plaid long-sleeved oxford. He wore the oxford untucked, unbuttoned, and with the sleeves rolled three-quarters of the way up. His hair and his five o’clock shadow remained as they’d been when I first met him, letting me know this wasn’t his “I just woke up” look, but rather his “I’m cool” look.
I liked it.
Will Decker could learn a lot from Rob Matthews.
“Hey there,” he said, his voice shy, as though we’d not spoken every night since we’d met.
I stepped back from the door. “Want to come in for a minute? I just need to get my purse from upstairs.” He seemed taken aback by my invitation. I smiled. “I won’t bite.”
Even in the early shadows of evening, I could see him blush. “I know,” he said, shoving his hands into his jean pockets. He looked over his shoulder. “I just don’t want to do anything that might look bad on Miss Bobbie and Mr. Shelton.”
I didn’t understand at first, then realization hit. Old-fashioned chivalry. Well, hello . . . you and I have yet to meet. “Ah. How about if we leave the front door completely open and you stand where they can see you?” If they were looking at all.
He pressed his lips together before acquiescing. “All right.” Rob Matthews stepped over the threshold of my temporary home.
I was halfway up the stairs when he said, “Um . . . Ashlynne?”
I looked back at him, my hand on the narrow railing. “Yes?”
“Are you wearing . . . that?”
My eyes rushed past what little bit of purple and silver I had been able to find—a purple Halogen pencil skirt, which I topped with a lavender-and-silver sweater set. “Yes, why?”
I took two steps down. “Is a skirt not a good idea?”
“Oh, no . . . ,” he said and his eyes twinkled. “You look . . . great. In that skirt. It’s just that . . . purple and silver are the opposing team’s colors.”
I took the three steps back to the first floor. Anger stirred deep inside. “I thought purple and silver were our team’s colors.” As if I’d not been through enough today thanks to William Decker, he’d purposefully steered me wrong with the school’s colors?
Yes, of course he had. A prank best served by a junior high girl.
“Ah. No. We’re red and white.” He grinned a little. “What made you think we were purple and silver?”
I raked my teeth over my bottom lip to keep from exploding. “I guess I misunderstood.” As if . . . “I’ll change and be right back down.” I hurried up the stairs, got to the landing and turned again. “Just curious. Do you think the sixty-yard line or the fifty-yard line is the best seat in the house?”
Rob’s laughter was nearly contagious, but I wasn’t in a kidding mood. “Well, that would have to be the fifty.”
“And the sixty? What is that? The worst?”
He crossed his arms. “No, ma’am. There isn’t a sixty-yard line.” His hand—fingers together—made a line in the air. “See, here’s the fifty and then it goes forty/forty . . .” His hand worked back and forth in demonstration. “Thirty/thirty, twenty/twenty, ten/ten, then you’ve got your goal lines and your end zones. See? Like that.” His head cocked to one side. “I know you said you don’t know a lot about football, but have you never been to a football game?”
I didn’t answer. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “Dressed in the best red and white I can find.”
He laughed again. “You do that. I’ll wait outside in one of these chairs out here.”
As I went the rest of the way upstairs I heard him say, “Well, hey Buddy. Sis . . .”
Lucky me. I had a pair of red Topshop shorts, to which I added a white Lafayette 148 New York sleeveless sweater. I pulled my hair up in a ponytail, found a charming pair of red-and-white earrings with a matching bangle, slipped my feet into a pair of backless white sneakers, and flew down the stairs and out the door. Rob stood as soon as he heard me. He turned and his mouth gaped. “Wow,” he said. “Ashlynne, if you don’t mind my saying so, you look gorgeous.”
I grinned. Just the effect I had hoped for. “Thank you.” Just wait, I thought, till Will Decker sees me. Then I wondered where the thought had come from. And why.
“No one, but no one is going to be watching the game tonight.” His eyes twinkled and he looked at his watch. “We’d best get going. We may be late as it is.”
“We’ll make a grand entrance then,” I said.
He escorted me toward his car. “How about we get something calorie-laden and nonnutritious at the game? Afterward, we can get something substantial.”
“I can’t believe you drive a Prius.”
He opened the passenger door for me. I was met with the sweet scent of berry and leather. “I’m earth-conscious.”
Unlike William Decker, whose old truck probably emitted enough toxins to kill a small rain forest. When Rob settled into the driver’s seat, he turned to me and asked, “So, how about the food idea? Something at the game, then we’ll go out later?”
I nodded. I had no idea there were restaurants (or cafés perhaps?) at football stadiums. Or even what they served. “Sounds marvelous.”
“Good.”
As we drove toward the high school, Rob filled me in on small portions of his life, intermittently asking about mine. I told him about Gram. My parents. What my apartment was like back in Winter Park. “I’d like to see Winter Park some time,” he said. “It sounds like something out of a Dickens novel.”
“You read Dickens?”
He blushed again, something I found endearing. “In high school. We had to, you know.”
We. Him and Will, going back to diapers. “I can’t imagine Will reading anything in high school.”
“Will? Nah. Will’s been a voracious reader since we were kids. If he couldn’t find anything new to read at the library, he’d bury himself in the encyclopedias.”
I strained my brain to get the picture. Difficult, at best. And better to shift the subject back to Rob. “Maybe you can come to Winter Park to see me . . . after I go home, I mean.” Which would be after Christmas.
Christmas. The holiday seemed both eons away and just around the corner. How much of it, in Winter Park, would I be expected to miss? Or would Gram and Dad’s edict mean I had to spend it here?
A glimpse of what the Country & Christmas Tea cover might look like came to mind.
I turn
ed to Rob, to ask him about what the holidays were like in Testament. But before I could, he blinked, all the while keeping his gaze straight ahead, then turned his face to mine ever so slowly. “I’d like visiting you in Winter Park,” he said. “I’d like that very much.”
I heard the low bass and rat-a-tat of drums long before I saw the lights from the stadium. I clapped like a child. “This is exciting,” I said.
“You can hear the music . . .”
“Yes. I like music.”
“I’m surprised you never went to a game when you were in school.” Rob turned into the high school parking lot, easing through a sea of parked cars, trucks, and occasional pedestrians.
“We didn’t have football at my school. We had basketball. And tennis and track. And we had soccer. I guess soccer is a lot like football.”
Rob cut the car off. “That’s what they say. You know, of course, that in the true South, football is like a religion.”
I smiled. “I’ve heard. Faith . . . family . . . football.” I held up three fingers, one at a time.
Rob laughed as he opened his door. “Hold on. I’ll come around.”
My back straightened. I liked this. Rob Matthews was a real gentleman. A Southern gent, Gram would call him. My door opened and Rob extended his hand to help me out. “Thank you, sir,” I said, doing my best to sound ladylike without being pretentious.
Rob opened the trunk to his car, pulled out what looked like two briefcases, both red and white.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Seat cushions,” he answered, slamming the trunk shut. “These fold out and form like little chairs. They keep your back from aching and your backside from going numb.” He blushed again.
I giggled.
“There’s even a cup holder,” he added.
Oh. Well. “How convenient,” I said.
When we got to the ticket booth, Rob pulled a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and then a laminated card. “What’s that?” I asked, thinking that I had started sounding like a parrot.
“My season’s pass.” His eyes found mine and, for the briefest of moments, I studied the coffee-colored warmth. “If you’d like, I can buy you one.”
The Road to Testament Page 15