A Little Bit Engaged

by Teresa Hill

  “Okay,” Gretchen said again. “I’ll just be out here, taking messages, all day. No one gets through. I can do that.”

  She probably thought Kate was nuts all of a sudden. Wait until the priest rumors started making the rounds. Then the phone would really ring off the hook.

  “Ahh!” Kate groaned, not able to hold it in any longer…

  The door popped back open. Gretchen stuck her head in. “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” Kate insisted. She must have been louder than she realized. Either that or Gretchen was listening at her door. “All I did was volunteer with Charlie’s wife’s organization!”

  “Big Brothers/Big Sisters, right?” Gretchen said tentatively, hovering in the doorway, half in and half out.

  “Yes. Charlotte brought it up in front of Charlie, and you know Charlie. He knows everyone. His firm is the biggest one in town. Just getting a little bit of his mortgage referral business would be great for us, and he loves it when people volunteer to help his wife’s organization.”

  “So you volunteered? To get in good with Charlie?”

  “Yes,” Kate confessed. “I went yesterday, and there was the cutest little girl, Allie, with wild, kinky, curly hair and no front teeth. She wanted me to be her big sister, which I said I’d love to do. And I was thinking it was okay, even if I’d come for the wrong reasons. I mean, sometimes good things just happen, right?”

  “Right,” Gretchen said.

  “But then… Well, then—”

  “Is this the part where the priest started hitting on you?” Gretchen asked.

  Kate groaned once more.

  Kate hid quite skillfully all day. It wouldn’t last, but by 4:15 p.m., she’d successfully avoided all contact with anyone but her clients, their attorneys, their real estate agents and the myriad of other people involved in getting people into a home of their own. The only nonwork item that got through was from Melanie, telling her that her little sister could meet her at 5:30 p.m., if that worked for Kate.

  Chicken that Kate was, she had Gretchen call to confirm.

  The meeting was set for Magnolia Falls Park, a long strip of land that ran along the river though town. Kate arrived promptly at 5:25, excited for the first time since the whole Big Brothers/Big Sisters debacle began.

  She couldn’t wait to see Allie again. Surely things would go smoothly from here on out, at least between her and her new little sister. With two real sisters of her own, Kate felt like she could hold her own with any little girl, especially one as outgoing and happy as Allie. All Charlotte asked was that Kate touch base with Allie once a week, hopefully get together for two hours or so, the activities of their own choice, from educational to pure fun.

  Pure fun had never been Kate’s forte, but maybe Allie could teach her.

  Once the girl arrived.

  Kate stood at the meeting spot—next to the ice cream stand in the midst of Magnolia Falls Park—at precisely five-thirty and fought the urge to pace.

  The only young female she saw was…well, frightening was the first word that came to mind.

  Nothing impish or cute about this girl.

  She might be thirteen and she might be twenty. It was impossible to tell. She wore a little ribbed tank top that clung to her uncharacteristically pale skin. A disreputable-looking black leather jacket and oversize black cargo pants with a huge black belt and what looked like army boots.

  So…she definitely wasn’t a shoe person.

  She’d probably done that really bad dye job on her hair herself—inky black, of course—and had pierced her ears too many times to count, plus her eyebrows. She’d painted her fingernails black and managed to find purplish-black lipstick somewhere.

  She pursed those wicked-colored lips and took a slow, deep drag off her cigarette, staring belligerently back at Kate and arching a blackened brow as if to say, What is your problem?

  Kate nearly laughed at that. This girl was the one with problems.

  She dismissed Kate with another smirk and started to blow smoke rings into the air, much to the annoyance of the ice cream man, who was trying to wave it away with his hands.

  “It’s not Halloween yet, is it, Kate?” Bernie, the ice cream man, asked.

  The girl looked bored, as she took another puff on the cigarette, her gaze remaining dismissively on Kate.

  “Not for another few days, Bernie,” Kate said.

  “Can I get you something, Kate?”

  Nerves getting the best of her, she said, “Sure, I’ll have a fudge bar.”

  He dug it out of his cart and Katie took it, handing him a dollar bill and thanking him.

  No one else had shown up. This was the only ice cream cart in the park. It was in the same place every day. Everyone in town knew where it was.

  Waiting impatiently, Kate wondered how much of her own life story she should share with Allie. Kate’s own father died at the hands of a convenience-store robber when she was only eight. And of course, her mother died of cancer six months ago, when Kate was twenty-seven. Life had not been easy for her, and yet she thought she and her siblings had turned out okay, her current situation with Joe and that odd thing with the priest notwithstanding. There wasn’t a wild, rebellious, indignant or irresponsible bone in Kate Cassidy’s body.

  Which made her think of the girl beside her. If Katie had to guess, she’d say the girl was at least wild and rebellious, and she seemed to have a good head start on indignant, just looking at Katie, in her favorite black suit and her pretty black pumps. How could anyone object to a classic black suit?

  She glanced at her watch. Five thirty-four.

  She ate her fudge bar. Ghoul Girl, as Katie had come to think of her, finished her cigarette and threw what was left of it down onto the ground.

  “Hey,” Bernie warned her. “That’s not where it goes, and believe me, you don’t want to find out what the fine for littering in this park is.”

  That earned him a glare, too, but the girl picked up the cigarette butt and threw it into the trash. Katie finished her fudge bar and threw it away.

  Five thirty-seven.

  She had hoped to make the 6:15 advanced-cardio-burn class at the gym, but time would soon become an issue. Katie pulled out her cell phone and paged through the numbers programmed in the phone, for Charlotte Sims’s number. Charlotte, cheery as always, answered.

  “Hi. This is Kate Cassidy. I was supposed to meet my little sister seven minutes ago, but she’s not here. I was wondering if she’d called to cancel?”

  “Katie. Hi,” Charlotte said. “She’s not there? I hope nothing happened. I’ve got her cell phone number right here. Let me try her and see. Can you hang on?”

  “Sure.” Thank goodness for cell phones. She tried to never be without hers. Although, a six-year-old having a cell phone…? That sounded a bit odd.

  Charlotte put Katie on hold, and, oddly enough, someone else’s phone rang. Ghoul Girl’s. Even her phone was all black.

  “Yes,” the girl said into the phone. “Yes, I’m here. I was even early.”

  Oh, no.

  “Sure,” the girl said. “I can hang on.”

  “Darling?” Charlotte came back on the line with Kate. “She says she’s right there. I don’t know how you two could be missing each other.”

  Kate gaped at the girl, looking back at Kate with what she imagined was equal parts horror and disgust. Turning to put her back to the girl, Katie whispered into the phone, “I thought I was getting Allie. Remember?” Impish. Pigtails.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I thought Melanie called you. We really needed someone for Shannon. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to get through to her, and when I spoke to Charlie about it, he said you were the one for the job. In fact, he said you can handle anything,” Charlotte said, sealing Katie’s fate then and there.

  She couldn’t have Charlie Sims thinking she couldn’t handle one rebellious, frighteningly dressed, nicotine-addicted teenage girl.

  “Oh,” Kate heard herself say. “
Okay. Whatever you need.”

  “Great. Her name is Shannon Donnelly. Don’t let the look fool you. She’s only fifteen and very, very intelligent.”

  Intelligent? No way, Katie thought, glancing at Shannon, who looked bored once again and was reaching for another cigarette.

  “Call me later and let me know how everything goes,” Charlotte said.

  “Sure.” Kate closed the phone and faced Miss Shannon Donnelly.

  Shannon lit another cigarette, took a big puff and said, “Hey, sis.”

  Kate nearly choked. Surely this was her punishment for coming into this program for all the wrong motives and maybe for flirting with the priest and not facing up to her problems with Joe.

  “What’s the matter?” Ghoul Girl asked. “Scared?”

  “Of you? Amused is more like it.”

  It wasn’t a promising start, considering she was supposed to help this girl, but what could she do? Politeness wouldn’t get her anywhere, Kate thought, and neither would kindness right away. She couldn’t afford to let the girl think she was intimidated, either.

  Time for some tough love.

  Or…tough affection, maybe.

  Tough help.

  “You really do look like you dressed up for Halloween today,” Kate said, testing her theory.

  “And you look like an uptight old woman,” the girl returned.

  Okay. The girl respected toughness and bluntness. They could communicate on that level and work toward something more civil at a later date.

  “Guess we won’t be swapping fashion tips,” Kate said.

  “Guess not,” the girl said, then hitched her chin up a notch and flung back, “So, you’re just doing this to impress the director’s old man?”

  Oh, great.

  The girl grinned. “I heard enough that I guessed that’s what you might be doing. I mean, you don’t seem like the do-gooder type.”

  “That’s what got me started,” Kate admitted. “Who twisted your arm to get you here? Because I can’t imagine you coming here willingly, either.”

  The girl’s composure slipped for just a moment, and she looked half human. Okay. They were getting somewhere. Kate wondered who had enough influence over the girl to make her do anything—and why that person hadn’t forced her to do something about that awful hair.

  “What if I didn’t?” The girl shrugged.

  “So, we’ve both got our reasons for being here, and neither one of us can back out. So…we might as well make the best of it? Getting together a few times should be enough to keep everybody happy, right?”

  “Yeah,” the girl agreed. “That’ll work.”

  If anyone overheard the deal Kate just made, they’d think she was a really lousy person and still trying to impress Charlie, which she was.

  But now that she’d met the girl…

  She obviously needed help, and she looked like a real challenge.

  Kate loved a challenge.

  Besides, she liked fixing people. She happened to think she was great at it, although her siblings were starting to complain, something about her advice sounding more like meddling, that her need to have things in perfect order was starting to bug them. Kate was trying to cut back on her advice, but it was a tough habit to break. Maybe she could make this girl her project, instead.

  “Why don’t we start over? I’m Kate Cassidy.” She held out her hand, which the girl pointedly ignored. Were they supposed to smack their hands together or something?

  “Shannon Donnelly.”

  “Want to sit down?” Kate invited.

  She got that I-couldn’t-care-less shrug again, but the girl sat on the bench.

  Kate sat beside her. “So, anything going on that I could help you with?”

  “I don’t think so.” Shannon laughed again. “Anything I can do for you, Kate?”

  “I doubt it.” Kate sat there, racking her brain for something else to say. “I was pretty good in school, in case you need any help there.”

  “Like I’d care about school? Please.” Shannon rolled her eyes dramatically. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “And everything’s startin’ to go, huh? The body? The face?”

  “Hey?” Kate frowned. “I thought we were going to make this as painless as possible for each other? Could I get a little cooperation, please?”

  “Look, I don’t need anything from you,” Shannon said, looking like a little girl for maybe a split second, if that was possible under her disguise. “I don’t need anybody. So, what do we have to do? Look at each other once a week or something? Is that it?”

  “I think that’s it.”

  “So…” Shannon got up. “Here? Next week? Same time? That work for you?”

  “That’s fine.” Kate opened her purse and took out a business card. “Take this. Just in case something comes up. Like…you can’t make it or something. Don’t leave me standing here, okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Shannon?” The girl finally stopped still for a moment and looked at Kate, who felt a strong urge to do something more. She was just a child, just fifteen, and she seemed achingly alone in this world. “The offer’s good for anything. You never know. Believe it or not, I’m good at solving problems.”

  “Yeah? Me, too. I give out advice all the time. Like…what to wear for Halloween and stuff. You got a costume, Kate?” The smirk was back.

  “Not yet.”

  “I could loan you something of mine. And…hey, this would be funny. You could loan me something of yours, too, and I could go as a first-class, uptight b—”

  “Hey! We were going to be nice, remember?”

  “Yeah. See you next week.”

  Chapter Five

  Shannon left the park with her stomach in knots. She’d done what Ms. Williams said she had to do. She’d met with the woman, and Shannon would see her next week and the week after that, if that’s what it took. Nobody ever said Shannon and Miss Uptight had to get along, just that they had to see each other.

  Fine.

  Shannon did a lot to simply get along in this world. Seeing a way-too-serious woman in a horrible black suit was far from the worst thing she’d done.

  Her stomach rumbled as she walked, maybe from hunger, maybe from the fussiness it had displayed of late, and she wondered whether it was safe to eat or if the food would just come right back up. She held a hand over her belly, refusing to think about what was inside, just knowing that she wouldn’t be able to hide it much longer, and she had no idea what she’d do then.

  If someone was going to send help her way, they’d better do it soon.

  Yesterday she’d thought maybe help was arriving, but not anymore. Ms. Williams had gotten mad at her for missing school and threatened to report her to the office. That would have meant a three-day suspension, which would have meant not seeing Paul at all, because school was the only place she saw him now.

  Shannon couldn’t handle three days without him. Then Ms. Williams said she’d forget the absences if Shannon would enroll in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program. Shannon was about to refuse, but then she remembered what Ben had said—about sometimes not recognizing help when it came your way. She’d thought maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would actually help.

  Should have known better, she thought.

  She didn’t expect much from anybody. Not the boy who’d done this to her or the woman she’d just met in the park. Not from her father or the priest or God.

  Just when she was feeling good and sorry for herself, it started to rain.

  “Oh, great,” she muttered, hunkering down as best she could inside the leather jacket. It wasn’t the warmest thing, but at least the rain ran right off it.

  She had more than a mile to walk before she got home. Not that she wanted to be there or to even see her father. He hated her hair, her clothes, her piercings, her makeup, the things she said, the way she said them, the expressions on her face. Basically, everything about her. If the
y passed each other in the house, she looked the other way and tried to keep her mouth shut. He worked nights mostly, and if she was lucky, slept during the day and went out in the evenings. Sometimes he left money for food, and sometimes he didn’t. Either way, she got by. She wasn’t bad at picking someone’s pocket or getting what she really needed from the grocery store, and she didn’t even feel that bad about it anymore.

  A girl had to eat, after all.

  She stepped in a puddle, the water soaking through the hole in the bottom of her boots—cold, wetness soaking through her socks all the way down to her toes.

  Great.

  As she rounded the last corner to the rundown duplex where she and her father lived, she saw a car she didn’t recognize in the driveway.

  Immediately she thought there was some kind of trouble.

  She’d have turned around and gone the other way if the front door hadn’t opened, revealing her father and a very well-dressed woman.

  “That’s her?” The woman grimaced at the sight of Shannon.

  “Yeah, that’s her. Shannon, get your butt in here right now.”

  Shannon couldn’t imagine what she’d done to upset the woman. She was all made up and put together, looking like she was afraid of getting dirty or something, and the car looked brand-new, like it probably cost more every month than the place where Shannon and her father lived.

  “Now!” her father said.

  Shannon stood just inside the doorway, not going any farther.

  “This woman says you know her son,” her father said, “that you’re trying to cause trouble for them.”

  Shannon gaped at the woman. Paul didn’t look or act like a rich kid. Not that they’d talked that much or anything. But still she was surprised.

  “You are the one, aren’t you?” Mrs. Bradshaw said. “The one who’s after my son?”

  After him?

  No, she was just having his baby.

  It might be stupid, but it hadn’t been a calculated move on her part, and it had taken both of them to get her this way.

  “My son is going to college, like every other member of his family has. We have plans for his future, and no one is going to get in the way of that. Do you understand?”