by Leslee Green
"I sure did," Linda said, thinking it was funny how enthusiastic Jenny became even asking about him.
“Did you talk to him?”
Linda nodded a yes.
“Did you ask him to dance?”
"He asked me," Linda said.
Jenny gasped. “Did you...!” she yelled, and then whispered, “kiss him?”
“No.” Linda laughed.
“Are you two going to get married now?”
"Probably," Linda said with confidence.
“Are you going to change your name?”
“Linda Lockwood,” she said to herself, seeing if it sounded good. “Yes, I suppose I’d have to if it sounds that good.”
“Are you and Blake going to have kids?”
"Yes. Many." They were completing their first full circle around the arena. "Blake and Linda Lockwood," Linda said again.
“So that’s your name!” a voice exclaimed from behind Linda, startling her.
Jenny clasped her hands over her open mouth.
Standing before the two girls was none other than Blake Lockwood himself.
“How much of that did you hear!?” Linda asked, mortified.
“Enough of it to be embarrassing.”
Linda covered her eyes. “We were just joking around.”
“Well, I did get down on one knee, I can see how it could have been misunderstood.”
Linda, despite her initial shock, was reminded of how immediately happy to see him she was by the butterflies that fluttered in her stomach. “What are you doing here, Blake?” she asked.
“Funny story actually,”
“BLAKE!” an obnoxious voice yelled from out front of the nearby office where Emily and Caroline did most of their “work.” Emily was swiftly heading over to greet their guest. “Oh, I had such a good time with you last night!” she shouted.
“Sorry, who are you again?” he asked Emily as she arrived in the arena.
Emily threw her head back and laughed. “Oh Blake, you’re so funny. Did you come all the way here just to see me?” she asked, batting her eyelashes.
“No.”
Annoyed, Emily confronted Blake rudely. “Then what are you doing here?”
“I came here to-“
“See me of course!” shouted Caroline as she joined them. “Blake, It’s so good to see you, I just didn’t expect you to come and find me again so soon!”
“I didn’t.”
This made Linda very nervous. If he revealed to them that they had met at the dance the night before, the consequences for her could be unthinkable.
“What are you doing here then, Blake?” Caroline asked him, angrily.
Linda’s thoughts were racing, sweat formed on her forehead and she was completely at a loss for words. She wanted desperately to jump in and save the situation but he had already clarified that he did not come to the Stagecoach Stables for two of its workers, and there was only one left.
“I-“ he began to say.
“Uncle Blake!” Jenny shouted and ran to his side, excited.
Blake was very confused by the action, but before he could react, Jenny had thrown her arms around him, only coming up to his waist.
Jenny's acting prowess was not top notch, and she went a little over the top with the affection she showed for her beloved uncle. First, she gave a ridiculous Eskimo kiss to his hip bone like a toddler might do, and then she began rubbing his butt a lot.
"I knew you would come watch me ride, Uncle Blake!" she shouted. "You know I want to grow up to be a bull rider," and with each of her last three words, she gave him a hard smack on the butt, "JUST. LIKE. YOU!"
Linda jumped in to save the situation, “Hey! Jenny! Your mom is probably waiting for you in the parking lot.”
“Nooo, I’m going home with Uncle Blake!”
Not even understanding what Jenny was trying to accomplish, Linda insisted, “No, Jenny, your mom is here to take you home. Come on, I’ll walk you.”
Blake, not knowing what was going on, followed along. "Yeah, let's go, Jenny," he said and pushed her to get her moving. "I'll walk with you."
"We'll come too!" said the stepsisters, to the dismay of both Linda and Blake.
In the parking lot, Jenny’s mom sat in a minivan waiting for her.
“Well, hi Blake!” her mom said, knowing exactly who he was.
"Hi... my... sister!" he said, watching the stepsisters with the corners of his eyes. Jenny's mom stared blankly back, wondering if he had meant to say that.
“Go on now Jenny, I’ll see you next week,” said Linda.
Jenny embraced Blake and held onto him tight. He gave an embarrassed smile to her mom and patted her on the back in an effort to get her to stop. "Goodbye, Uncle Blake," she said. "Oh, and this is my riding instructor, Linda. You guys haven't met."
Then she winked at Linda using half her entire face in clear view of the two stepsisters.
They didn’t understand the wink, but they watched to see what Blake would do. He held out his hand to Linda and she took it.
“Blake Lockwood,” he said to her.
“She knows who you are, she practically stalks you,” said Emily, growing angrier by the moment.
“Yeah, you should tell him about all the pictures of him you have above your bed,” said Caroline.
Blake and Linda were still shaking hands and she closed her eyes in sheer, cold embarrassment. At least they hadn’t caught on.
"Always nice to meet a fan!" Blake said and gave a warm, teasing smile that made her feel better, though her cheeks were bright red. "So," Blake said, wishing the stepsisters would leave, "Nice place you guys got here."
“Our mom owns it,” said Emily.
Blake looked at Linda, impressed. “So, it’s a family business!”
"Sort of," Linda said.
"Linda's dad used to own it, but he died," Caroline said without sympathy or tact.
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” Blake said softly to Linda.
"Linda needs to get back to work now," Emily said, rudely.
"Thank you for coming by to see Jenny, Blake," Linda said, remaining in character.
"Well Linda, it was nice to," he looked at the stepsisters out the corner of his eye, "Meet you?"
Linda nodded, letting him know he had the right idea.
“It was nice to meet you as well, good sir,” she said, practically curtseying, her acting skills no better than Jenny’s.
"Um," Blake said, uncomfortable by how close Linda's stepsisters were standing, "can I take you out tonight?"
Rage boiled up behind Emily and Caroline’s eyes, but Linda stayed in character.
“You may,” she said and, for some reason, curtseyed again.
"Okay, just find my profile and send me a private message later, I... want to leave now," he said, indirectly referring to the two stepsisters who now stood in his personal space with their arms crossed and their blood boiling. Feeling obligated, he put his hand out to them as well. "I'm Blake, by the way."
“WE’VE MET!” they yelled simultaneously and he pulled his hand away.
"Bye, Blake," Linda said with a smile.
“See you later.”
Blake went to his truck and drove away.
The three sisters were left with each other in the parking lot, two of them staring at Linda like they wanted to tear her apart, but neither being able to come up with something to say to her.
“Well, like you said, gotta get back to work!” said Linda in only a mildly taunting tone, but was unable to contain the smile on her face.
When she entered the stable and found her snow shovel, she heard the office door slam and one of her stepsisters scream in anger from inside.
There was nothing they could do. Linda was going on a date with Blake Lockwood, at least it sounded like a date, and she couldn’t have felt happier, or more surprised. How had he even found out who she was? She would ask him tonight, on their date.
She threw the snow shovel down and, with a h
uge grin on her face, danced her way over to Carl and gave him an enormous hug around the neck. He tolerated it.
“Oh, Carl,” she said, “I’m going out with another man tonight, will you be jealous?”
Carl passed gas and Linda didn’t know how to interpret the response, but she was walking on clouds and would remain unbothered by anything for the rest of her work day. She took her most prized possession, the hat Blake had given her as a child, and flung it into the air of the stable, then caught it, and put it safely back on her head.
She could not wait to tell Blake all the things she had wanted to at the dance, how she had watched him best the top scoring bull in Omaha for an upset victory, and seen him take his injury in Bozeman, and how badly she wished she could see him ride in person again, how she had been thinking about it since she had seen him ride the first time, all while not sounding creepy.
Her jealous, cruel sisters were out of luck. There was nothing that could stand in her way.
Nothing, she remembered, besides her wicked stepmother.
CHAPTER SIX
Linda adjusted herself in a small, broken mirror that, like everything else that was hers, she had taken from the garbage after one of her sisters had thrown it away.
Linda lived with her stepfamily in a three bedroom home on a sparsely populated lane with neighboring houses spread short drives apart. Her stepmother and sisters each occupied one of the rooms to themselves, and Linda lived in a small, damp basement with the laundry machines and some mice.
The mice usually kept to themselves, though she did occasionally catch herself talking to them, and the laundry machines didn’t bother her because she was the only one in the house who did laundry.
Along with doing everyone’s laundry, her chores included dishes and sweeping and cooking and virtually every other household task. She was too old for chores, but what could she do? She lived in the house of people that weren’t really her family and didn’t pay them rent, though the money her stepmother took out of her paycheck was often cited as going to this purpose, so she felt she was simply earning her keep by helping out, and she didn’t make enough money to live anywhere else.
The first person to come to the top of the stairs to harass her (no one ever set foot in the damp, cold basement except Linda) was her stepsister, Emily.
“How are you going to go on a date without any clothes to wear?” she asked in a snotty tone.
"I'll find something," Linda responded while adjusting her hair.
"Stay out of my closet," Emily said as she walked away.
Emily, of course, had not one but two closets, both filled to the brim with wonderful clothing, along with an additional standing wardrobe full, but she was so averse to her stepsister getting her hands on any of it that she refused to throw anything away for fear of Linda digging it out of the trash (which she definitely would have done).
Linda made do with an older pair of jeans that had grown tight and almost looked like she bought them that way, and a flannel shirt from when she was shorter that fit snugly enough around her waist to show it off.
Caroline was next.
“How will you go on a date without any makeup?”
“I won’t wear any.”
Caroline was absolutely appalled and even shocked by this answer, opening her mouth and gagging with her tongue out.
“Stay out of my makeup cabinet.”
Carline had an entire dresser full of makeup, much of it unused, and she also kept it locked away and hoarded, safe from her stepsister.
But Linda had a stash of about four dollars’ worth of drugstore makeup in a broken drawer that she touched herself up with, though she knew the cheap stuff would magically vanish at the stroke of about thirty minutes from now like something her fairy godmother might muster up.
She was nearly finished getting ready and had already sent the address to Blake, and felt that nothing her sisters could say or do to her could dampen her mood tonight.
A long shadow rose into the doorway and stretched across the floor of her room.
Linda stopped putting on her makeup.
Heavy footsteps from hard, wooden heels echoed off the bare brick walls of the basement as they came down the stairs for the first time in years.
Linda turned and saw the person that had joined her.
Now, she was scared.
A tall figure stood before her, long in every feature; chin, fingers, nose, and hair. She kept a painfully tight, intimidating bun of grey hair on top of her head and wore the same outfit she always wore: a strange, Victorian style dress that was mostly grey and very plain, but had enough volume at the bottom to conceal all the movement below her waist, causing her to appear to float around the house like a wraith, if it weren’t for the clacking of her wooden heels.
Linda’s stepmother smiled.
“I hope you’re not forgetting that you need to take out the trash before leaving the house, Linda.”
She spoke with a smooth, slow elegance that was almost hypnotic, but she had the voice of a dragon, which caused everything she said to send shivers down Linda’s spine.
“Of course not,” replied Linda, “I’ll take it on my way out.”
“Take it before that. It’s starting to smell like something of yours up there.” She gave a pleasant laugh through her nose, but her eyes were burning with fire.
"Alright," Linda said, wanting only to progress this interaction to its completion without making it worse, like a child receiving a spanking.
“And do a load of wash towels before you go.”
“But,” Linda started, becoming defensive, but with just a slight widening of her eyes, her stepmother reminded her to watch her tone. “But I don’t have a lot of time and I need to go soon.”
“Well,” the woman said with a smile that could put someone in a trance, “we need wash towels.”
Linda didn’t know what they would use wash towels for when they never washed anything.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll do them,” Linda said, knowing that a load in the machine would take too long but that she could do them by hand fast enough.
Linda waited with her head lowered and her body shrunk small, as if there were less of a chance of her being seen that way. But no more demands came, and she sheepishly asked, “Is that all?”
“That’s all.”
Fireworks of celebration went off inside Linda, knowing that she would make it out of this dungeon tonight after all.
“We wouldn’t want you to be late for your big date,” her stepmother said with such compassion and grace that Linda knew that this was not over.
As she ascended the stairs, Linda begged her with her mind to clear the doorway without turning around, and she did.
But then, her head poked back into view.
“Oh, there was one more thing,” she said very sympathetically. Linda’s heart clenched. “There was a man walking past earlier and he was smoking a cigarette.” She stepped back fully into the doorway. “You see, he quite audaciously flicked his cigarette butt onto our lawn. Would you mind going and finding it before you go?”
She dared not cross her stepmother, but attempted to outsmart her.
“Sure. I’ll just toss it in the trash after I find it.”
Her stepmother lowered her head and took on a look of deep regret and sympathy, inhaling through her nose.
“No, no, no,” she said, “I simply will not be able to sleep knowing that it’s out there. Bring it inside and set it on a dish outside my room before you go, I’d appreciate it.”
Linda had one more trick up her sleeve, knowing that most likely there was no cigarette butt on the lawn, but she would be out on the town later and could find an ashtray somewhere. “Alright Mother, but you go to bed and when you wake up I promise you will find it outside your room in the morning.”
“NO!”
The volume and power from the woman’s voice reverberated in the walls as if the whole house was possessed by a malevolent ghost. And just as
quickly as her expression had changed, it changed back into a devious, but understanding smile.
“Find it now,” she said, and disappeared.
Linda didn’t know what to do.
She could wash the rags quickly enough and take out the trash, but the cigarette butt would be almost impossible to find, even if her stepmother wasn’t making the whole thing up. She felt the chances of her making it on her date steadily slipping away.
Where was her fairy godmother now?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Linda went ahead and washed the rags. When they were done, she carried the trash bag out the front door and onto the driveway.
On my way. A text from Blake read.
She supposed her only hope was to, somehow, find the cigarette butt, or any cigarette butt, in the dark with only a porchlight to see by somewhere on three acres of property where nobody smoked. She had no idea how this was going to work out.
Focusing on one thing at a time, she opened the lid on the trash can and a face inside it said to her, “Surprise.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” was Linda’s appropriate response as she slammed the lid down hard onto someone’s head and then instinctively kicked the can as hard as she could with her boot, sending it toppling over. She ran a few yards away and then turned to see what was crawling out of the can.
She saw a thin figure propped up on its elbows halfway out of the can and a single dreadlock bobbing around on its head.
“Fairy-“ Linda interrupted herself. Screaming at the top of her lungs had not caused her embarrassment, but before she spoke her next two words she scanned her surroundings very carefully for any ears that might be listening. “Fairy godmother?” she whispered, not knowing what else to call the woman.
“Help me pick the can back up.”
Linda, upon hearing her voice and knowing for sure who it was, returned to the can.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ll just crawl down inside and you pick the can up, otherwise I’ll never get back in here.”
The old woman crawled into the can so that her weight was at the bottom. “Okay... but do you need to be...” The woman remained crouched in the can, silent. There was garbage in the can too. Linda didn’t bother questioning it and went ahead and lifted the can up with the lid open.