The Cupid Chronicles

by Coleen Murtagh Paratore

  “Or, maybe Mum’ll move away with him,” Stella says at dinner one night.

  “No,” I say, “Mum won’t leave us.”

  Stella and Sam look at each other. “Well, she looks awfully happy,” Stella says. “You’d want her to be happy, right?”

  CHAPTER 30

  Swarming Like Locusts

  The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne

  Burned on the water …

  Purple the sails, and so perfumed that

  The winds were lovesick with them.

  —Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

  When the Blazers’ limousine pulls up in front of the Bramblebriar Inn, the Buoy Boys just happened to be walking by. Jessie and Luke see Suzy-Jube and stop. They can’t move. They can’t speak.

  That doesn’t last for long. Within minutes of Suzanna’s arrival, word spreads.

  By the time I got back from Mashpee Commons where Tina and Ruby and I were checking on last minute details for the Dream, boys are swarming like lovesick locusts all over the grounds of the inn, peaking in windows, climbing trees with binoculars, communicating by walkie-talkie.

  There are so many boys, boys, boys, I can barely make my way up the sidewalk. When I finally reach the door, Stella opens it, pulls me in, and locks the door behind us.

  “Those boys are crazy,” she says. We laugh.

  “Where’s Suzanna?” I ask.

  “Upstairs taking a nap. Chickles says Suzanna needs to rest her vocal cords every afternoon. Her voice needs to be in top shape for her next pageant.”

  “What does she sing anyway?” I ask. I never did find out Suzanna’s talent.

  “Hello, Willa, honey!” Mama B swoops into the room, throwing her arms out for a hug. We hear a voice calling from upstairs. “Oh, good,” Mama B says, “perfect timing. Here comes my sunshine now.”

  We watch as the goddess descends from the heavens. There should be trumpets blaring or the Miss America theme song playing or bluebirds flitting around, at least.

  “Afternoon, Mama,” Suzanna says. “Hello, Willa girl!” She gives me a hug.

  “Hi, Suzanna, thanks so much for coming.”

  Sam walks in from the kitchen and takes one good, long look at Suzanna. Stella elbows him. “We apologize for all the commotion outside,” Stella says.

  “Oh, pish,” Suzanna says, waving her hand in the air. “Don’t worry about that a’tall. I’m used to it. You just call those sweet boys up onto the porch and I’ll make a brief warm-up appearance. Just a ‘howdy-do and see ya’ at the dance.’”

  Wait until Tina sees her. Wait until JFK … Oh no, what if he wins the date with her? I hadn’t even thought about that!

  Bellford T. comes in and kisses Chickles. “Is Mama happy?” he asks.

  Chickles beams. “Yes, dear.”

  “Good. Cause if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy,” Bellford says, winking at Sam. “Ain’t that right, Sam?”

  Ex-English teacher Sam-the-man doesn’t even flinch at all the “ain’ts.” He nods toward Stella. “That’s right, Bellford. We’ve got to keep these pretty ladies happy.”

  Stella smiles at him and he winks at her and in that moment it hits me, Stella and Sam are such different people. It would be hard to find ten things they have in common. If they filled out that Perfect Ten compatibility survey, I bet Tina’s Aunt Amber would never have matched them up. But yet look how much in love they are.

  Cupid.

  Sam has to call in a Bramble patrol car to escort the boys off the premises. This is so exciting. Tickets for the Dream are sold out. Boys are coming from every high school, from every town on Cape. And wait until JFK sees me in my cotton-candy pink dress. He’ll only have eyes for me. Stairway to heaven here we come.

  The Midwinter Night’s Dream will be perfect. The best dance Bramble has ever seen.

  CHAPTER 31

  Big Spenders

  … joy delights in joy …

  —Shakespeare, Sonnet 8

  Early Valentine’s Day morning, the morning of the Midwinter Night’s Dream, I am bounding down the stairs to help with breakfast when I hear an ear-curdling “ya-da-yo-ee-yo.” I turn around quick to look, and slip, twisting my foot as I land.

  Ouch. I limp to the kitchen for ice. I’ll be fine in a minute, just fine.

  In an hour the pain is worse. Stella insists we see a doctor.

  The film shows a fracture. No. They strap on an ugly blue boot.

  “Keep that leg elevated tonight,” the cruel, cruel doctor says.

  “But the dance is tonight,” I say, first in a somewhat calm voice, and then more hysterically as it becomes clear that Stella will abide by the doctor’s orders.

  “Willa,” she says, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, but we can’t be reckless here. The bone needs to heal….”

  This can’t be happening. Shakespeare couldn’t have written a more tragic tragedy.

  And so here I sit, in my room, all alone, miserable on Valentine’s night. Stella and Sam brought me a nice dinner and offered to stay, but it is Valentine’s Day, after all, and so I insisted that they keep their date plans. It’s bad enough I have to miss the Dream. Who wants to spend Valentine’s Day with your parents?

  And, in case you haven’t figured it out, Suzy-Jube’s “talent” is yodeling.

  Seriously. And, believe me, if you heard that laboring-moo-cow-sound breaking the sweet silence of morning at the inn, you’d probably injure yourself somehow, too.

  Suzanna feels horrible about my accident. So do the Blazers.

  They knock on my door before leaving for the dance.

  “Come in,” I say, peering out from my pity-party cave of covers.

  Suzanna looks like a movie star. No, like a princess. No, like a movie-star-princess. Move over Sister Cinderella. Suzy-Jube will be the belle of this ball. I think about my beautiful cotton-candy dress and my sparkly shoes and I fight back the tears.

  Mama B’s wearing a virtual rainbow of boas … red, orange, yellow, green. Papa B is dashing in a white tux with a rainbow top hat, bow tie, and cummerbund.

  “We were going to surprise you with this at the dance,” Mama B says. She walks toward me, feathers flying. “Hopefully, this will lift your spirits a bit, honey. Go ahead, Papa B, give it to her.”

  Papa B hands me an envelope.

  It’s a thank-you card. Inside there’s a picture of what looks like my Bramble Board, except that the mansion behind it is clearly not the Bramblebriar Inn.

  “That’s our California house,” Papa B explains.

  “Read what it says on the board,” Mama B says.

  I hold the picture closer. “It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.” That was the message I had on the Bramble Board the day the Blazers first visited.

  “You don’t know how those words changed our lives,” Mama B says. “Ever since we read your board last October, Willa honey, and ever since you told us about community rent at Thanksgiving, we’ve been spending money left and right.”

  “Well, we always spend money left and right,” Papa B says with a laugh, “but now we’re spending it left to build houses for people and right to help kids go to college. And, we’ve never felt so good being such big spenders.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I say. My eyes fill with tears. I guess Stella was right about the friend-raising. You never know how the good will spread.

  “You’re a big spender, too, Willa,” Mama B says. “You spend that great big heart of yours.”

  Suzanna honks in a tissue and yodels a “yippee-yay-hoo for Willa.”

  “You better go or you’ll be late,” I say, wiping my nose, laughing.

  “Absolutely-hootly,” Papa B says. “Right after you open one more thing. Go ahead, Mama B, give Willa the present.”

  It’s a check made out to the Save the Bramble Library Fund, “with thanks to our friend, Willa Havisham.”

  It’s enough money to save my library and probably two or three others, too.

  C
HAPTER 32

  Compatibly Cupid

  When you do dance, I wish you

  A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do

  Nothing but that …

  —Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

  I’m imagining the Midwinter Night’s Dream in my mind when there’s a tap on my windowpane. A branch in the wind. Then another tap, louder. Then someone calling my name. I hobble to the window to see.

  JFK is standing on the lawn in a tuxedo. I unlatch the window and slide it up.

  “Willa,” he shouts. “Come down. And bring your coat.”

  “I can’t.” I laugh. “I fractured my foot.”

  “I’ve done that before,” JFK says. “It’s in a cast or something, right? Just go easy on the stairs. I’ll meet you at the door.”

  I close the window. My heart is pounding. Breathe, Willa, breathe.

  I look in the mirror. Willa, straight. Willa, curly. I let my curly side rule.

  I put on my cotton-candy pink dress and reach for my new cherry lipstick. Right foot, blue boot. Left foot, bunny slipper. So much for the glittery heels.

  My heart is racing as I walk down the stairs, slowly, so I won’t fall. When I reach the landing I take a deep breath. I wink at the girl in the hallway mirror.

  The first thing I notice when I open the door is that JFK is wearing a red boutonniere. The same color as Ruby’s gown.

  “You look pretty.” he says, “really pretty.” He brushes a curl from my cheek.

  The second thing I notice is that there’s a light coming from the barn.

  “Lean on me,” JFK says, holding out his arm.

  I forgot my coat. He gives me his jacket. He leads us toward the barn.

  JFK has a flashlight, but the moon is so bright we don’t need it. When I stumble, he picks me up in his arms. “You’re so light,” he says with a laugh.

  He’s wearing cologne. I’m going to faint. “Your hair smells good,” he says.

  When we reach the barn, he sets me down and opens up the door.

  There’s a fire glowing in the old silver tub we bobbed for apples in on Halloween. “Boy Scouts was good for something,” JFK says and laughs.

  “How was the dance?” I ask.

  “Sort of lame, I guess, but your friend Suzanna was a hit.”

  “Who won the date with—”

  “Here,” JFK says, reaching in his pocket. “This is for you.”

  A little pink box of conversation hearts. There’s Cupid on the front.

  “Thanks,” I say, disappointed, wishing it was something else.

  “It’s a belated birthday present,” JFK says. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  There’s another box inside the candy. It says Wickstrom’s on it.

  My hands are shaking, oh, please let it be.

  Yes. The locket with the tiny gold bow He must have asked Mr. Wickstrom which one I liked, how sweet.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say, my heart pounding like storm waves against the jetty.

  I’m afraid to open the heart, but I do.

  There are no pictures inside.

  I feel sad. I guess I hoped … I guess he didn’t want to …

  “The girl decides who to put in it,” JFK says, smiling with those gorgeous blue eyes. “But … I hope you decide it’s me.”

  “Oh, it’s you,” I say, hugging him. I’m laughing and crying, too.

  “It’s funny,” JFK says, “but guess who my match was for that compatible couple thing?”

  Me, I’m hoping, me. “I don’t know, who?”

  “You.”

  “Really?” So Tina was right after all.

  “Well, actually,” JFK says, “it was you and another girl, too.”

  What other girl?

  “But the eleventh question broke the tie,” JFK says. “Do you remember what you wrote?”

  “Of course. I said I have so many favorite books, that I couldn’t pick just one.”

  JFK laughs. “Well, I guess we’ve got that in common and at least ten other things, too. Oh, and Tina said to tell you she ‘told you so’—and that you and I are ‘compatibly perfect’.”

  “Make that compatibly cupid,” I say.

  “What—” JFK starts to ask, but before he can finish, I kiss him.

  “You taste like cherries,” he says.

  “You taste like peppermint.”

  He fastens the locket around my neck. “Now, how about a dance?”

  And so we dance, careful of my foot, on this mid-winter’s night in the barn. And it isn’t a dream and I’m certain I hear “Stairway to Heaven” playing. And as we dance, the fire crackling beside us, I see something flitter up in the rafters.

  Nice work, baby, nice work.

  THE END

  (Or, as Will would say …

  “All’s well that end’s well.”

  “Willa’s Pix 2”

  Recommended by Willa Havisham (see The Wedding Planner’s Daughter for the original Willa’s Pix)

  Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

  A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote

  The Complete Works of Shakespeare

  A Day No Pigs Would Die, Robert Newton Peck

  The Education of Little Tree, Forrest Carter

  Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

  The Giver, Lois Lowry

  The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson

  Moby Dick, Herman Melville

  The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton

  Pollyanna, Eleanor H. Porter

  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred Taylor

  A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

  Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

  The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare

  Acknowledgments

  With sincerest thanks to:

  My beautiful sister, Noreen Mahoney, the biggest heart in Brewster, and to Mike, Ryan, and Jack Mahoney; my editor, Alyssa Eisner, Willa’s true fairy godmother, and to Courtney Bongiolatti, Greg Stadnyk, Elizabeth Law, and Katie McGarry of Simon & Schuster; my agent, Tracey Adams, and to Josh and Abby Adams and Karen Riskin; my brother, Jerry Murtagh, Deeplooker; my son, Christopher, who said “it’s like poetry, but it’s music”; my god-daughter, Lauren Murtagh, for the “wishing fountain,” and to Kevin, Col, Liam, and Brendan; Sheila Murphy for “community rent”; Lenny and Barb Noel for the “honey-do list”; Kim McMann of the Troy Public Library for reminding me how we “signedout” books; Leslie Saperstone of the Guilderland Public Library for years of encouragement; and to all librarians, booksellers, and teachers who match us with good books; my critique buddies, Debbi Michiko Florence, Kyra Teis, Nancy Castaldo, Ellen Laird, Karen Beil, Rose Kent, Liza Frenette, Lois Feister Huey, Jackie Rogers, Robyn Dennis, and Helen Mesick; Jennifer Groff, luminous librarian, writer, and friend; my dancing buddies, Kathy Johnson, Ellen Donovan, and Paula Davenport; and especially to my amazingly supportive and loving family: my sons, Chris, Connor, and Dylan, and my husband, Tony Paratore. You are my greatest joys.

  About the Author

  Coleen Murtagh Paratore is the author of the acclaimed The Wedding Planner’s Daughter and How Prudence Proovit Proved the Truth About Fairy Tales. She makes her home in Albany, New York, with her husband and three sons.

  She is a believer in community rent, Cupid, and the magic of Cape Cod.

  CONTINUED FROM BACK COVER

  Willa’s best friend, Tina, is positive that her compatibility test, expertly designed to pair up every girl in school with her “perfect match,” will raise money and get everyone coupled up for the Midwinter Night’s Ball. Willa, an old-fashioned romantic, is not so sure. But with a little help from Shakespeare, a Southern beauty queen, and Cupid himself, romance is striking all over Bramble.

 

 

  ive.