7 Clues to Winning You

by Kristin Walker

  You have almost solved the clue, so hang on to your hopes.

  But first there is a hunt for large manila envelopes.

  Open each, and go the way the arrow tells you to.

  Reach the end, and you will have the answer to your clue.

  Also on the paper was a bold black arrow pointing straight up. Up must mean forward, I guessed, because forward was the only direction I could go to get out of this hallway. I jogged to the end and saw a manila envelope on the ground exactly where the halls intersected. It hadn’t been there here five minutes ago when I passed this spot. Where had it come from? I snatched it up and opened it. Inside was a sheet of paper that said, MAY, in the same large, black font as in the note on my car. Okay, I thought. Something about the month of May, perhaps?

  Below the word was an arrow pointing left. I turned and started walking. I could see another manila envelope on the floor way ahead, so I ran to it. Inside was another sheet of paper. It said, I, with an arrow pointing left again, down the hallway beside me. Off I went.

  I passed two hallways before I saw the third envelope on the floor in front of the main office. It said, TAKE, and the arrow pointed through the office doors. The secretaries and staff were still milling around inside. I tucked the papers and envelopes under my arm and timidly opened the office door. I glanced around the area in front of the counter. I tried to peek inconspicuously under the waiting chairs and in the wastebasket.

  I heard a quick whistle and looked up. Gladys beckoned me over to the counter. Without saying a word, she slid a manila envelope across the countertop to me. “Do you know who sent me this?” I asked. Her answer was wink and a grin before she trundled back to her kitty cat desk. I slid my finger under the envelope flap and opened it. The word was YOU.

  MAY I TAKE YOU … ? What did that mean? Were these words in a sentence? Were they even in the right order? Would I have to figure it out like a puzzle in the newspaper? Oh, no! Was there punctuation missing? Because, “May I take you seriously?” is much different than, “May I take you to be my wedded wife” or “May I? Take—you are welcome to it. Please help yourself.” Not to mention the all caps! AGH!

  I wasn’t going to get the answer standing here in the office. I looked at the arrow pointing to the right. But I was turned around now, facing the counter. Did it mean to turn right from where I was standing or turn right as I exited the office? Which way?

  I heard another high whistle. Gladys again. She hitched her head to her right and gave me another wink. She meant that I should turn right, out of the office. Good old Gladys, always keeping tabs on everyone else’s business. I smiled, waved thank you to her, and left.

  May I take you … May I take you … May I take you … someplace. That was the most logical conclusion. But where? And by whom? Was this just going to take me to another string of clues? God, I hoped not!

  I spotted a manila envelope tucked between the sliding glass panes in the display case outside the auditorium. I slid it out and tore off the flap.

  The word: TO.

  The arrow: pointing right, into the auditorium.

  May I take you to … what? To China? To paradise? To court? I pushed through the wooden double doors to the auditorium. Why would I be brought here? Was the sentence going to be May I take you to your seat? Ugh! So frustrating.

  (But so fun!)

  I trotted down the center aisle. In the very front row of seats, next to the aisle, was a chair with an envelope lying on it. I grabbed it. RIP went the top.

  Word: THE.

  May I take you to the … The what? The moon? The beach? The outer ring of Saturn? The edge of a cliff so I can push you off?

  I checked the arrow. It went right, then zigzagged up, then went left, then down, almost in a square. HUH? I looked around. I didn’t see any other envelopes nearby. What could it mean? The only thing I could do was follow it. I turned right and walked as far as the side wall of the auditorium; to my right was another aisle. To my left was …

  Stairs! Stairs up onto the stage!

  I raced up the stairs and onto the stage until I hit the curtain. I turned left and started crossing the stage. I stopped in my tracks halfway because to my left on the stage, directly down front and center, stood a movable podium. On it lay a manila envelope. I tiptoed quickly to the podium and plopped my stack of six envelopes and papers on top. I grabbed the seventh envelope and tore into it like it was a Christmas present and I was a six-year-old.

  My heart stopped when I read the word.

  PROM.

  MAY I TAKE YOU TO THE PROM.

  Ohmygod! Please let this be from Luke! Please! Please! I scanned the auditorium. The entire place was empty. Every seat. Every aisle. Where was he? Wait, was this even the last word? Maybe this wasn’t the last word! There was no question mark, after all. Plus, there was another arrow. It pointed up, then it curved over and pointed down like a U-turn sign.

  I had to turn around.

  I spun on my heels to see Luke in a rumpled tuxedo from the costume shop, holding one last sheet of paper that said, PLEASE?

  Punctuation plus etiquette. Was this guy for me or what?

  I squealed like a pageant queen and jumped into his arms. I pressed my mouth to his, and he held me up off the ground as we kissed. I might as well have been out in space.

  He set me back down on earth and said, “I guess that’s a yes, then?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. “That’s a yes. How did you do all this? When?”

  “I started planning it last week. That’s why your sign entry was held for ‘review.’ I needed to make sure that the next clue you got was mine. Just so you know, your sign entry was brilliant. The best by a mile. Everyone loved it.”

  “I used all the letters! And the punctuation marks!”

  “I know!” He mirrored my enthusiasm. “Yeah, so originally, I had planned to do all this yesterday, but … yesterday was kind of a disaster.”

  I pinched an inch of air. “Just a little bit.”

  “Today was much better.”

  “Much, much,” I agreed.

  “I’ll send you the real clue number seven for the Senior Scramble later.”

  “Don’t bother,” I said.

  “You’re not quitting now, are you?” he asked.

  “First of all, Cy and Jenna are going to win. They’re tearing it up. Second, I don’t need that scavenger hunt because I just won my own.”

  “Technically, it was more of a treasure hunt,” he said.

  I nodded. “You’re absolutely right. It was definitely for treasure. And I found the treasure. I won the prize.”

  He touched his forehead to mine. “Yes, you did,” he whispered.

  I’d won the best prize of all.

  I’d won Luke.

  I lifted my face and kissed him again right there, center stage, in the silent theater, with no one but us and echoes of lines from Shakespeare. My phone rang in my pocket, but I ignored it. My hands were busy running through Luke’s hair as we kissed.

  And kissed.

  We finally pried ourselves apart after the third time my phone ding-donged to let me know there was a voice mail message. Luke laughed and said, “I know you want to get it. Just get it.”

  I slid my phone out of my pocket as Luke nuzzled the nape of my neck. I selected the new message and held the phone to my ear. A cheerless nasal voice said:

  Hello, I’m calling for Blythe McKenna. This is Nurse Darlene from Shady Acres Nursing Home. Blythe, Ms. Calhoun has requested that I call you and tell you that she needs you here as soon as possible. Please return this call or come to Shady Acres during visiting hours.

  My heart instantly shrank from a hot-air balloon to a nut. I was afraid that Darlene’s message meant only one thing: Ms. Eulalie was dead.

  “Luke,” I heard myself barely whisper. “Can you come somewhere with me?”

  Luke drove me to Shady Acres. When we got out of his pickup truck, the sun was bright and I could smell the early lilacs bloomin
g in the garden. I closed my eyes and hoped with every cell in my body that this was a good sign and not a lesson from the universe about contradiction and irony.

  Luke took my hand as we walked through the front doors. When I stopped to sign us in as visitors, the woman at the desk frowned at me and then became absorbed in her book. We turned the corner and passed Darlene’s desk. It was empty. I was glad. I didn’t want any delays on my way to see Ms. Franny. The quiet in the hallway was unsettling. I struggled to listen for any sound coming from the ladies’ room, laughter, arguing, anything. There was only silence.

  I paused at the door to their room before Luke and I went inside. I closed my eyes and steeled myself for what I was surely about to learn: Ms. Eulalie was dead and Ms. Franny was in pieces.

  I inhaled. I exhaled. I inhaled again.

  Luke firmed his grip on my hand.

  We went inside.

  A tongue depressor flew past my face and clattered into a clean bedpan on the bureau.

  “Bull’s-eye!” Ms. Franny threw her hands in the air.

  “Whoo-hoo!” Ms. Eulalie yelled, clapping. “That’s five in a row for me!”

  She was alive. Alive!

  And apparently, a great shot with a tongue depressor.

  “Hi, ladies,” I said timidly. Luke flashed a quick wave as well.

  “Baby girl!” Ms. Eulalie cried. “Come on over here and give me some sugar. I missed you so.”

  I ran and flung my arms around Ms. Eulalie’s soft round shoulders. She smelled like Jean Naté After Bath Splash, and it was even better than the lilacs to me. “I missed you too,” I said.

  Ms. Franny pointed a tongue depressor at Luke. “So who’s the beanpole with the x-ray specs?”

  Luke took half a step into the room. “My name’s Luke Pavel, ma’am.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Ms. Eulalie said extra loudly. She winked at me.

  “Well, you’ve got yourself one long set of legs there, boy,” Ms. Franny said. “Use ’em to get in here.”

  Luke blushed and smiled at the linoleum floor. He stepped over to Ms. Franny and extended his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Calhoun. Blythe has told me many complimentary things about you.”

  “Ha!” Ms. Eulalie yelped. “Then baby girl lied to you, boy.” Ms. Franny tossed her tongue depressor at Ms. Eulalie but missed, I’m pretty sure, on purpose. Ms. Eulalie gracefully held her hand out to Luke like she was royalty. Which, to me, she was. “Eulalie Cornelia Stallworth Jones. Stallworth was my maiden name. You can’t throw a five-pound rock in Alabama without hitting a Stallworth or their kin.”

  Luke took her hand gently and shook it. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Jones.”

  She waved her free hand at him. “Oh, you just go on and call me Ms. Eulalie. Everyone else does.” She narrowed her eyes at Ms. Franny. “Except one.”

  “I’m so happy you’re okay, Ms. Eulalie,” I said. “I was really worried.”

  “I knew,” Ms. Franny belted. “That’s why I had Nurse Ratched call you. I didn’t want you stewing for a week about whether or not Ukulele had croaked yet.”

  I smiled at her. “I was worried about you too, Ms. Franny.”

  She went, “Psssh! I was fine. No need to worry about me.”

  I leaned close to Ms. Eulalie. “She was a basket case,” I whispered. “She’s a total mess without you.”

  “I can hear you!” Ms. Franny cried. “I’m old, not deaf, and I was not a basket case or a mess. I was … I had a stomachache. I was medicated.”

  I made the cuckoo sign with my finger circling beside my head. Ms. Eulalie giggled, and Ms. Franny flung another tongue depressor at us. I picked it up. “What are you doing with these?”

  “Playing HORSE,” Ms. Franny said. “Ukulele’s whipping my butt, if you can believe it.”

  “Believe it, ’cause it’s true!” Ms. Eulalie crowed. “That is, when she don’t cheat by making noise when I throw.” Ms. Eulalie plucked the tongue depressor from my hand and flipped it across the room. It pegged Ms. Franny on the shoulder, and she pretended to fall over dead with her tongue hanging out.

  Luke cracked up so loudly that one of the orderlies poked his head in. That might have been the moment the ladies decided that Luke was all right with them.

  “You young folk should get out and take in the day the Lord has given you.” Ms. Eulalie held out her arms to me and I hugged her again for a long time.

  “I can’t stay anyway,” I said. “I don’t know if Darlene told you, but I got fired from volunteering.”

  “Mmm-hmm, she told us,” Ms. Eulalie said.

  “Couldn’t wait to tell us, in fact,” Ms. Franny said. “But we let her know how we felt about the situation.”

  “That we did!” Ms. Eulalie echoed, and they cackled together. Luke looked back and forth between them and wouldn’t stop grinning.

  I went over and wrapped my arms around Ms. Franny too and promised both of them that I’d be back to visit soon. Luke promised to come with me.

  As we left, Ms. Eulalie called, “Go make hay while the sun shines!”

  Once we were out the door, we heard Ms. Franny say to Ms. Eulalie, “You do know that saying means to go fornicate while you’re still young, right?”

  “Oh!” Ms. Eulalie gasped. “No, it don’t! It don’t mean that! Tell me it don’t mean that!”

  “And I thought I was the one with the dirty mind.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus, please forgive me.”

  Luke hooked his arm around my waist and drew me against his body. “I see why they’re so special to you. They’re certainly more entertaining than Dumpster-diving.”

  I nudged him sideways with my hips. “Only a little.”

  Darlene was at her desk down at the end of the hallway.

  I grabbed Luke’s arm. “I have to talk to that woman really quick, okay? You go on out. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “No prob,” he said.

  “And Luke?” I said. “Thanks for coming with me.”

  “Of course.” He landed a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll be outside.”

  I walked to Darlene’s desk. She was peering intensely at a chart through reading glasses on a chain around her neck. She took off the glasses when I said hello. “You’re here,” she said flatly.

  “Yes.”

  She hitched her head toward the ladies’ room. “Seen ’em yet?”

  “Yes. Thank you so much for calling me. I was really worried. I appreciate you doing that.”

  She nodded once and put her glasses back on.

  “Darlene?” I said.

  She took the glasses off again and looked at me impatiently.

  “I want to apologize for being rude to you yesterday,” I said. “I was having an exceptionally bad day. I took it out on you, and I’m sorry.”

  Darlene’s mouth scrunched to the side. She let her glasses hang down. “Are things better today?” she asked, almost sounding interested.

  I laughed and glanced toward where Luke had gone. “Some stuff, yes. Some’s still a total mess.” Darlene raised her eyebrows and half-smiled. I said, “That’s why I was so happy to see Ms. Eulalie back. It meant a lot to me. So thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” Darlene slid her glasses back on and went back to her chart. “And Blythe?” she said without looking up. “You may return to your position next week.”

  “But I thought …”

  “Those two griping grannies threatened to forget their adult diapers if I didn’t let you volunteer again,” she said. She smiled at the chart, but I saw it. “Anyone who can keep those battle-axes happy and off my back for a few hours is fine by me.”

  I suddenly sensed what Darlene had to go through with her job. How she had to work long hours with failing bodies and fading minds. How she had to keep staff in line and still not melt down herself. How she had to play the bad guy and put up with residents disliking her because unpleasant things had to be done and Darlene was the one who did them.

  “Thanks, Darlene,”
I said. “Let me know if I can do anything else to help out.”

  “Will do,” she said. She flipped the page and went on reading.

  I left to find Luke.

  He was in the garden, bent over one of the lilac bushes with his nose buried deep in a clump of purple blossoms. I walked to him so quietly that I was nearly beside him and he still hadn’t seen me. I watched him silently as he smelled cluster after cluster of flowers. Around us, the garden was in its first breath of fullness. Leaves had unfurled, colors peeked out, and each plant was plump and glossy and ready to erupt into the abundance of spring. The garden was on the very cusp of beginning. It was poised to flourish.

  Just like Luke and me.

  Why had I ever cared about happy endings?

  Happy beginnings were so much better.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26