Badly Done, Emma Lee

by Leah Marie Brown

  Chapter Six

  Emma Lee Maxwell’s Facebook Update:

  A simple hey there could lead to a million things.

  Miss Isabella said Knightley would be waiting in the arrivals area just outside customs and immigration. She told me a whole mess about her oldest son. She said he is a bigwig at a publishing company, that he is quiet, bookish, and hardworking. Knightley—she said, beaming with pride—portrays good judgment and high moral character. He is the most sensible and reliable of my sons. All who know him hold him in the highest esteem, despite his occasional lapses of severe judgment and sharpness of tongue.

  On the strength of Miss Isabella’s description, I am expecting the adult male version of Hermione Granger, from the Harry Potter movies, or Dorky David, the nerdy law student in Legally Blonde. The Knightley Nickerson of my imagination is a wiry man with a receding hairline and round glasses with thick lenses.

  So, when I breeze through the sliding doors, rolling my suitcases behind me and clutching a big old box of bourbon balls, I am looking for a man in a wool pinstripe suit and oxfords, toting a walking stick umbrella with a chestnut crook. I scan the throng of people waiting in the arrivals area—an elderly couple, limousine drivers holding handwritten signs, a family wearing matching bright orange T-shirts, a hottie in a leather jacket and Ray Bans leaning against the railing, but no Dorky David.

  I maneuver around the crowd and that’s when I see him sitting on one of the molded plastic seats: a wiry man in a pinstripe suit holding a smartphone, his gaze fixed on the screen, a grim expression on his pale face. I move closer—close enough to observe him without drawing attention—and notice he is wearing scuffed oxfords and a cheap tie with an oily stain. It appears he hasn’t had a decent shave in days, the hair at the top of his head is, indeed, thinning, and are those tobacco stains on his—

  He looks up from his phone, notices me staring at him, and smiles. I roll my bags closer, and the stench of stale cigarette smoke assaults my nose. Sweet Patti Stanger and all the cherubs in heaven! Now I know why Miss Isabella enlisted my help in finding her sons suitable mates.

  “Knightley Nickerson?”

  He stands and stares at me. Not at me, exactly, but in my general direction. Poor wonky-eyed Knightley Nickerson with his scuffed shoes and aroma au cigarette! Finding him a wife won’t be easy, but I am determined!

  He takes a step closer and then walks right by me.

  “Wait!” I say, grabbing his arm. “You’re Knightley Nickerson, aren’t you?”

  Someone standing behind me clears his throat.

  “I believe you are looking for me.”

  I let go of the wonky-eyed faux Knightley and turn around to find a tall, broad-shouldered man in an impeccably tailored three-piece suit of gray Glen check. This Knightley is well-groomed, with thick, wavy black hair.

  “Shut up!”

  His mouth quirks in a brief smile.

  I want to die, y’all. Last year, the ground gave away in Greenwood, South Carolina, and formed a big old sinkhole. Why, why can’t the ground give away now, so I don’t have to stand here staring at gorgeous Knightley Nickerson with my heat-flushed cheeks?

  “Sorry,” he says, lowering his voice. “Was I too loud?”

  “What? No! You’re perfect.” His lips quirk again and the flush moves down my body, from my cheeks to my shiny red rubber-encased feet. “I mean, your voice was perfect. You weren’t too loud.” I thrust the box at him. “I’m Emma Lee Maxwell and these are your balls . . . bourbon balls! I mean, I brought you a box of bourbon balls to thank you for picking me up from the airport. They’re a Charleston specialty.”

  His eyebrow lifts and it’s only then I realize he is holding a Costa coffee cup and a white, waxy paper bag.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emma Lee Maxwell,” he says, taking the box of candy and handing me the coffee cup and bag. “I thought you might be hungry after your flight. I hope you like orange scones and black coffee.”

  I take the bag without saying a word because I am too mesmerized by his brownish-green eyes, his thick, fringy black lashes, and the deep timbre of his voice.

  “By the by, when you meet my brothers, you might want to open with a handshake and a hello. In England, shut up is considered an informal greeting, usually reserved for family or close friends.”

  He’s teasing. Sensible Knightley Nickerson is teasing me, and I am just standing here like Helen Keller at a rock concert. He tucks the candy box under his arm and then reaches around me and lifts my suitcases as if they are paper bags filled with fluffy orange scones. I catch a whiff of his cologne, a woodsy, mossy scent that reminds me of a sun-dappled forest. Sun-dappled forest? Where did that come from? Lexi would just die if she could hear me waxing poetic about Knightley Nickerson’s cologne—and eyes, which, coincidentally, also remind me of a forest.

  A tendril of steam curls up from the hole in the coffee cup lid and tickles my nose. Coffee. Scones. Airport noise. Snap out of it, Emma Lee, before you make an even bigger fool of yourself. You’re in an airport, not a mossy forest.

  “Where are my manners?” I raise the coffee cup and paper bag. “Thank you for bringing me breakfast. You’re very considerate.”

  We start walking.

  “Considerate?” He chuckles. “Don’t tell my mother. She believes I am too obsessed with my career to fuss over niceties, like scones and coffee. She might misinterpret the gesture.”

  “Misinterpret?”

  We follow the signs pointing to short-stay parking.

  “I don’t mean to frighten you off, Miss Maxwell—”

  “—Emma Lee.”

  “Emma Lee.” He clears his throat. “I think my mother has designs for us.”

  “Designs?”

  I look at him with a dazed and bewildered expression, my eyes wide, mouth agape, because Isabella doesn’t want him to know she hired me to find him a girlfriend. Knightley, Brandon, and Bingley Nickerson are my first clients—they just don’t know it yet.

  “I think she is hoping we will fall in love and get married.”

  “What?” I laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. She hardly knows me.”

  “Since her return from Charleston, I have heard of nothing but Emma Lee Maxwell.” He looks over at me and my stomach does a loop-the-loop, like it did when my high-school boyfriend scored a touchdown at the homecoming game and pointed the football at me. “You have enchanted my mother, Emma Lee, and that is no easy feat.”

  “Your momma is the kindest person I have ever met,” I say. “I am glad she is enchanted with me, because I am enchanted with her.”

  Returning a compliment with a compliment is a Southern thing, instilled in every little girl before she’s old enough to strap on her first pair of Mary Janes and head to Sunday school. Saying I am enchanted with Isabella Nickerson is not one of those reciprocal compliments. I am enchanted with her. Not because she knew my momma and has promised to tell me loads of stories about her. Not because she is my first official matchmaking client. She’s stylish and sophisticated, but also maternal and motivating. She’s the sorta momma I always imagined my momma would have been if she had lived.

  We enter a glass skywalk spanning the distance between the airport and a multistory parking garage. I gaze out the window at the leaden sky, the steady drizzle pattering the glass, and say a quiet prayer of thanks for my Burberry trench and shiny red wellies. I peek out of the corner of my eye at Knightley walking beside me. Sweet Jesus! He sure is gorgeous—even in profile.

  “You’re wrong.”

  He looks at me.

  “I am? About what?”

  “Your momma wouldn’t be surprised if she found out you brought me coffee and a pastry.” I take a sip of the coffee and shiver as the warmth hits my belly. “Kind is the first word she used when she described you.”

  “Is that so?” He raises an eyebrow. “What else did she say about me?”

  Hmmm, let’s see. Your middle name is Phillip. You’re allergic to ginse
ng. You broke your collarbone playing polo. You’re a workaholic. You haven’t had a serious girlfriend in four years. You have a flat in Marylebone, but you spend most of your free time at Welldon Abbey, the Nickerson family seat two kilometers from Northam-on-the-Water. You have two wolfhounds you named after characters in your favorite novels.

  “Not much.”

  “Not much?” He chuckles. “I find that rather difficult to believe. Brevity has never been my mother’s strong suit.”

  We exit the skywalk through sliding doors and step into the parking garage. The damp cold slithers and snakes its way up the sleeves of my coat, and the flesh on my arms goes all goose bumpy. Tara tried to talk me out of wearing a sleeveless blouse, but I shushed her because I thought it looked prep with my new trench. Now, I’m wishing I wouldn’t have been such a stubborn chick. I should have listened to momma hen and pulled my J.Crew Tippi sweater over my blouse.

  “She said you were into competitive archery when you were younger”—I shift the coffee cup and scone bag to one hand, so I can button my coat with the other—“and that you had dreams of going to the Olympics.”

  I don’t repeat the story she told me about the time Knightley was trying to teach his then-girlfriend, Jane Bleddyn, how to shoot, and Jane accidentally shot one of his dogs, because I got the sense Isabella didn’t care for Jane much.

  “That’s it?” He slants a knowing look my way, his lips curling in a playful smile. “Have I told you about my son, kindly Knightley? He used to fancy archery. Full stop.”

  I laugh. “I don’t think she referred to you as kindly Knightley.”

  “I suspect the conversation sounded more like, My firstborn, Knightley, is bloody brilliant. He won the spelling bee when he was in primary school, aced his A-levels, and graduated from Oxford with distinction. He is six-foot-three, weighs two hundred pounds, and has an O positive blood type. He is nearly perfect, though he occasionally demonstrates a sharpness of tongue and has an annoying tendency toward officiousness. Oh, and he has two left feet. A complete disaster on the dance floor.”

  I laugh, imagining Knightley, in his bespoke Savile Row suit and starched shirt, trying to Whip and Nae Nae on a dance floor. Deep down, though, I suspect this handsome bachelor is as smooth on the dance floor as he is in an airport parking lot.

  “You laugh,” he says, directing me to a sleek navy BMW, “until she drives you to Harrods to register for china and cutlery. You’re not the first woman my mother has attempted to embroil in her thinly veiled matchmaking schemes. If you’re not careful, she will have you wed to one of my brothers before the year is out.”

  “Are you so opposed to marriage?”

  He pops the trunk and turns to look at me, his brown-green gaze fixing on my face. “I’m not opposed to marriage, just matchmaking schemes. Some things should be organic, don’t you think?”

  “Hello,” I say, thrusting my hand at him. “I’m Emma Lee Maxwell and I’m a professional matchmaker. Pleased to meet you.”

  Professional-ish.

  His lips quirk in a grin.

  “My mother told me about your ambition to start a matchmaking business in Northam-on-the-Water. You do realize most of the people living in the Cotswolds are in their late forties and married?” He lifts my suitcases into the hold. “I wish you every success, though I am afraid your pool of potential clients will be quite small.”

  “Every pool begins with a single droplet,” I say, smiling my biggest, brightest Colgate smile. “I am confident I will find a droplet in Northam-on-the-Water.”

  Or three droplets.

  He slams the trunk and looks down at me, his eyes twinkling, his lips curved in a wry smile, like he is an indulgent adult and I am a silly, simple child. I expect him to pat my head and coo hollow praise: What’s that? You want to be a fairy princess and solve the world’s problems with pixie dust and strawberry cupcakes? Aren’t you a clever girl.

  He doesn’t pat my head or coo hollow praise. He nods and steps around me, unlocking the passenger door with a push of his key fob. I can’t help but wonder what kindly Knightley, with his Oxford distinctions, thinks of a Clemson grad with aspirations to be the next Patti Stanger, minus the sleazy reality show and gold-digger clients.

  He opens the passenger door.

  “Knightley?”

  “Yes, Emma Lee.”

  “Is it okay if I call you Knightley?”

  “Of course.”

  “There were a lot of people in the arrivals terminal. How did you know it was me?”

  He grins. “Your rubbers.”

  “My what?”

  “Your boots.”

  I climb into the passenger seat and then look down at my feet, smiling at the light reflecting off my shiny red toes.

  “What about my boots?”

  “They’re awfully shiny, aren’t they?”

  “They’re new.”

  “And red.”

  He says it like it’s a bad thing.

  “What’s wrong with red boots?”

  “Nothing, if you are the flashy sort.”

  “I do not need a pair of flashy red boots to get people to notice me, Knightley Nickerson!”

  He grins, and my heart does another one of those loop-the-loops. “No, you don’t.”

  He slams the passenger door, leaving me to wonder if wearing flashy red rubbers is a good thing or a bad thing. Great! Mr. Distinction is in my head now. Making me doubt my boots, my move to England, myself.

  Chapter Seven

  Emma Lee Maxwell’s Facebook Update:

  Sometimes what you are looking for comes when you are not looking.

  While Knightley maneuvers his BMW through the airport parking lot, I make like Taylor Swift and try to “Shake It Off.” Kristen would tell me to focus on my strengths and visualize myself doing them successfully. I close my eyes and mentally see myself in my Clemson cheer uniform. I take a deep breath and do a standing backflip, sticking the landing like a pro (in my head).

  ’Cuz the haters gonna hate.

  If I could stand in Death Valley—Clemson Memorial Stadium, not the real Death Valley—and shout cheers to eighty thousand spectators, I can stand a snooty Brit throwing a little shade my way.

  I open my eyes and stare out the rain speckled windshield at the people in the parking lot, passengers pulling wheeled suitcases. Gray and black blurs on a drab gray canvas. I squint, peering between the raindrops. There does seem to be a shocking profusion of drab colors. Gray raincoats. Black umbrellas.

  I peek out of the corner of my eye at Mr. Distinction, in his gray Glen check suit, his long fingers curled around the gray leather steering wheel.

  Flashy.

  What’s wrong with being a little flashy?

  If you want to be heard in the back of the stadium, you better raise your voice, darlin’! Besides, I would rather be a single flashy splash of red than fifty shades of gray.

  Thinking of fifty shades of gray makes me think of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey, which makes me think about the awkward way I presented Knightley with the bourbon balls, like I was some kind of pervert. Here are your balls. Lawdy! Why didn’t I think that gift through? When I was standing in the Candy Kitchen, inhaling the addictive scent of chocolate, pralines, and caramel, I didn’t imagine a little old box of bourbon balls could make me feel so much shame.

  I replay the scene in my head, like a movie, only this time, I imagine the white-gloved ghost of Miss Belle floating between us, practically hear her gasp when I say the word balls.

  “What made you decide to become a matchmaker?”

  I blink until the ghost of Miss Belle disappears.

  “There wasn’t a big enough demand for fortune cookie writer.”

  He laughs, and for a moment I forget about the drizzly rain and drab skies. There is only sunshine and warmth and the unexpected joy I feel at making him laugh.

  “Seriously,” he says, his gaze flicking my way. “Why would a woman with a degree in public relations decide to
become a matchmaker?”

  “Life is filled with a whole mess of pain. I like the idea of doing something that brings people pleasure, and I imagine falling in love is the most pleasurable experience ever.”

  Knightley stops at a traffic light.

  “You imagine?” He looks at me, his brown-green eyes sparkling. “Haven’t you ever been in love?”

  My cheeks flush with heat. A Southern gentleman would notice the color rising on my cheeks and avert his gaze. Knightley is not Southern. He stares at me, a teasing smile tugging the corners of his lips, and prickles of embarrassment make their way up my body.

  “Me? In love?” I force a laugh. “I’ve not met a man worthy enough of my love. I have high expectations, Mr. Nickerson.”

  “Is that so?” He chuckles. “Care to share them, Miss Maxwell?”

  “Them?”

  “Your expectations.”

  The light changes. Knightley shifts the car into gear and we are off, speeding toward a motorway on-ramp.

  “Well, let’s see,” I say, keeping my tone light. “He would have to be tall, muscular, and handsome, with an impeccable wardrobe and impeccable manners. Honest. Charming. Compassionate. Spiritual. Close to his mother, but not in a creepy, codependent way. He should know how to do manly things—”

  “Manly things?”

  “Shoot a gun, ride a horse, pitch a tent.”

  “So, you are looking for a cowboy? You do realize you are relocating to the heart of England? I am afraid you won’t find too many gunslingers in Northam-on-the-Water.”

  “Ha, ha,” I say, resisting the urge to stick my tongue out at him. “My daddy knew how to do manly things, like change flat tires and fix leaky sinks. Resourcefulness is a manly trait.”

  “Right, resourcefulness,” he says, shifting into a higher gear. “What else?”

  “He should be successful.”

  “Rich, then.”

  “Do you measure success in dollars?”

  “I don’t,” he says, changing lanes. “Do you?”

  “Dollars don’t hurt, but if I’ve learned one thing since my daddy died, it’s that wealth is not the most important thing, and it certainly isn’t a fair measure of a man.”