by Kasie West
“No … Well, I mean yes … sir. Not by choice.”
“He has a job to do at these events and I’d like him to focus on that.” He waved his hand at me. “Without distractions.”
“You’ll need to talk to him about that.”
“Right now I’m talking to you, who could obviously use a lesson on professionalism.”
I could feel my face burn up, which immediately made my eyes water. I hated that when I was angry it looked like I wanted to cry. “I am very professional.”
“Just like your mother?”
My mouth dropped open and I snapped it shut quickly.
“These events aren’t social hour,” he continued. “Understood?”
I feared if I spoke too much, my anger-stung eyes would fill with actual tears. “Understood perfectly.”
Jett turned to leave, and Lance, a chair tucked under each arm as he passed me, said, “He’s just a bucket of sunshine, isn’t he?”
“Pretty sure he’s a steaming pile of something else, but I won’t go there.”
Lance laughed and continued walking. I thought, not for the first time, that I should find a different job. One that was more than just a paycheck.
By the time I got back to the van, my jaw hurt from clenching it so tight. I threw open the doors, where now Micah was sitting with Andrew. He was pointing out some bone on her forearm.
“Did you honestly fall for the help me study for anatomy line, Micah?” I asked darkly.
“It wasn’t a pickup line,” Andrew said, and Micah gave me a look that said she wasn’t falling for anything.
“Whatever. It’s been five minutes,” I said to Andrew. “Get out.”
Micah tilted her head and studied my face. “What happened? You look like you’re going to kill someone.”
“It’s going to be him if he doesn’t leave,” I said, nodding toward Andrew.
Micah moved to her knees, took my hand, and pulled me into the van. Then she shut the doors and said, “Spill.”
The front windows let in some light so it wasn’t pitch-black. But it was dim enough that my eyes were now in shadows, I was sure. Still, that didn’t mean I wanted to talk. I just wanted to go home. Or better yet, to a big city somewhere, where I could sit on a bench downtown and nobody would know who I was for hours while I listened to life bustle around me.
“Don’t shut down,” Micah said, pulling me out of my head. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened. Oh”—I looked at Andrew—“except your dad is a huge jerk, but that’s not new.”
“Excuse me?” Andrew asked.
Micah seemed to realize that maybe now, with Andrew in the van, wasn’t the time I should be venting about his father. She tried to backtrack. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“What did my dad do?” Andrew asked. “Look at you funny? No, wait, did he insult your centerpieces?”
I gritted my teeth. “He insulted my work ethic … and my mother.”
“Because she was throwing herself at him today? He gets that a lot, so he has zero patience for it.”
“Get out of my van,” I said coldly.
“Gladly.” He closed his computer and stood, immediately whacking his head on the ceiling. He sucked in a breath of air. I probably shouldn’t have thought that was instant karma, but I did.
“Wait,” Micah said, grabbing Andrew’s arm. “Don’t leave like this. There is some misunderstanding between you two and we need to figure it out.”
“No misunderstanding,” I said.
“None at all,” Andrew agreed.
“Sit,” Micah said. Andrew was still hunching, his hand on the back of his head. He sat. I sighed.
Micah looked at Andrew. “So your dad is kind of a jerk sometimes.” Then at me. “And your mom does flirt with men she thinks might be a means to security. Can we at least all agree on that?”
I took a few deep, angry breaths then reluctantly nodded. Andrew let out a grunt.
“There. See, don’t we all feel better when we find common ground?”
Andrew and I both started talking at once, me saying exactly how uncommon our ground was and him saying that his dad was under a lot of pressure or some other stupid excuse.
Micah put up her hands and yelled, “Stop!” Then she looked defeated. “It really sucks that you two can’t get along.”
She was good at making me feel guilty. I noticed that Andrew looked a little ashamed himself. That was a new look.
“Is that what I think it is?” Micah asked, pointing to a yellow piece of paper that was folded next to Andrew’s leg. She picked it up and opened it.
“It’s everything you’d ever want to know about Sophie,” Andrew said. “According to her mother.”
“And why do you have it?” I asked.
“Thought you might want it.”
“Because I need a study guide on myself?”
Micah started laughing and I realized she was reading it. “Walk the Moon? Scared of thunder?”
“I know,” I said.
She hummed a tune I didn’t recognize at first. Then she sang out, “ ‘Don’t you dare look back, just keep your eyes on me.’ ” Walk the Moon’s most popular song. “Remember how much we loved that song?”
“Yep.”
“You have some blank answers here.”
“We didn’t finish.”
“Okay, challenge,” Micah said. “We each have to answer one of these remaining questions honestly. I pick who gets which one.”
“You get to pick your own question?” I asked. “How is that fair?”
“Because you know I’d answer any of them. I’m an open book.” She held up the page. “What do you say, you in?”
“What are the questions?” Andrew asked.
“You’re either in or you are out,” Micah said.
“I’m in,” I said, mostly because Andrew was hesitating and I was petty enough to want to do the exact opposite of what he was doing.
“Fine,” he said.
Micah smiled big. “Okay, Andrew first, then.” She read and reread the questions and apparently figured out who would get each one because she finally asked, “What, my friend, is your biggest fear?”
“Answering personal questions,” he said.
She kicked his foot with hers. “Nope. I reject that answer. Try again.”
He drummed his fingers on his leg. “If I answer this honestly, you two have to do the same.”
Micah held up her hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“That’s not the sign, but whatever,” he said. “My biggest fear: making friends.”
“What?” she asked, like he had answered it with a throwaway answer again.
A stray sunflower petal stuck to my palm and I picked it off and rolled it between my thumb and forefinger. When nobody said anything, I asked, “Because you move so much?”
He met my eyes and gave the smallest of nods.
“So you’re scared to let yourself get close to people?” Micah asked as though she hadn’t suspected this about him at all. I wasn’t surprised.
“Yes. I mean, I’m really good at being friendly with people.”
I let out a single laugh.
“Well, most people,” he amended. “But getting close to people when I know I’m just going to leave? What’s the point?”
“The point is,” Micah said, clutching her hands to her chest, “everyone needs to bare their soul from time to time.”
“I never need to bare my soul,” he said. “My soul is pretty surface level.”
I smirked. “Micah has all her soul barings scheduled.”
“I probably should do that,” she said. “It might help. Well, Andrew, your biggest fear has come true. You have friends.”
I pointed to Micah. “Just the one, really.”
He laughed.
Micah shoved my shoulder and shook her head. “No, really. I’ve already added you to the friend column on my spreadsheet, so it’s set in stone.”
“Spre
adsheet?” he asked.
“Yes, it helps me keep track of people. There are a whole one hundred fifty-three students in the ninth through twelfth section of our school. I like to keep them organized.” She smiled. “There’s the friends-only category. Then there are students who are good at certain subjects and willing to take notes. The guys I’ve already dated and the ones I can’t date because my best friend has dated them.”
I was 99 percent sure this spreadsheet didn’t exist and she was just being funny.
Andrew turned his gaze on me. “In a town this small, you still have the best-friend’s-exes-are-off-limits rule?”
“Of course.” Micah looked back to the yellow paper and then at me, and I was suddenly wondering why I had agreed to this.
“Soph, how do you react when angry?”
Andrew let out a scoff. “I got biggest fear and she gets that question?”
“Everyone reacts differently when they’re angry,” Micah said. “It can say a lot about a person.”
“I think I’ve seen her angry enough to know exactly how she reacts,” Andrew said. “I say she has to answer the fear question too. Both of you do.”
“No,” I said at the same time Micah said, “Okay.”
“Traitor,” I shot at her.
“He’s right. It’s fair. Biggest fear, Soph.”
“Yes, spill it, Soph,” he said.
There was a pounding on the back of the van door and I jumped. The doors were flung open and Jett Hart stood there. First, he gave me the coldest look in the history of looks, then he said, “Drew, let’s go.”
Andrew didn’t argue or try to score an extra few minutes. He just slid out of the van and walked away.
As they got into an expensive black car and drove off, Micah sighed. “Is he your biggest fear?”
“Jett Hart?”
“No, the younger one.”
“Absolutely not. He’s my biggest pain.” I stared out at the now-empty parking lot. “My biggest fear is that I’ll never get out of this town.” That I could never make it anywhere else but here.
ROSE
Hands down the most recognizable and popular flower. Maybe it’s its intoxicating scent or velvety texture that inspires hundreds of poets to compare it to love and beauty, but whatever the case, it’s overrated, just like its comparisons. People seem to forget about the thorns.
I stood in the master bedroom of an old colonial-style house. The Stanton Estate was the only wedding location in town that wasn’t a church … or a barn. I watched as Minnie made a last-minute alteration to Janet’s wedding dress while Janet sat on a chair in her white silk robe. Minnie was sitting at the desk with her sewing kit and the classic white gown spread out before her. My fingers itched to do the alteration myself, because I would’ve been a lot faster. But instead I gripped the box that contained Janet’s bouquet and waited my turn.
“Are you giving Minnie a dirty look?” Micah whispered from next to me. She was also waiting her turn. She had a question to ask about the menu and we’d realized quickly that Janet couldn’t focus on more than one thing at a time. Considering the ceremony was supposed to start in less than two hours, I understood. But also, Minnie wouldn’t let us get a word in edgewise. She was talking and talking about whatever seemed to pop into her brain—the tractor that had been sitting on the side of Holiday Road for days, the graduation ceremony at the high school two weeks ago, how the Harris boy who’d received Mr. Washington’s scholarship was going to Alabama State, and how good of a football team they had.
“Yes, I am,” I said.
“She’s like seventy,” Micah said.
“There’s an age requirement for who I can give dirty looks to?”
“Yes. Besides. I thought you were over that.”
“She is the only person in town with any clothing-design experience and she wouldn’t give me a job. I will never be over it.”
Micah laughed, and then threw her hand over her mouth when Minnie looked back at her. “Sorry,” she said, and Minnie got back to work. Micah lowered her voice again. “She already has an employee who has worked there for a hundred years and it’s not like she does anything more than alterations. You can do those in your sleep.”
“I know … but it would’ve looked good on my applications.” I sighed. And I could’ve sat at a sewing machine all day instead of staring at flowers. I lifted the bouquet box. “It would’ve given me inspiration. I need inspiration.”
“Is your portfolio giving you issues? Maybe if it wasn’t a huge mess of jumbled pages and random pieces of trash, you’d have a freer mind.”
I gasped. “Trash? There is no trash in my notebook. And that’s how I work best. In chaos.”
“Sophie?” Janet said when Minnie paused in her talking. Janet was staring out the window into the backyard, where workers were scurrying about, preparing for the event. “I think it’s going to rain. It’s not supposed to rain. The sun is supposed to be setting, the heat is supposed to be evaporating, and this is supposed to be the perfect wedding day.”
“It’s not going to rain.” I was 70 percent sure of that. Or at least the weather app on my phone was. It claimed 30 percent chance of rain, but the sky wasn’t supporting that prediction. The sky looked straight out of a horror movie.
“We could use some rain,” Minnie said. “The heat is stifling. Last time it was this hot, there was a five-city-wide power outage and poor Mrs. Frieson, bless her heart, lost her entire fridge full of meat for her party.”
Janet’s eyes became panicked.
“The power is not going to go out. It’s not that hot,” I said. “And these overcast conditions will make for beautiful pictures.”
“But rain does not make for beautiful pictures. It makes for drippy, soggy, wet pictures.” Janet pointed to her hair. “These curls took two hours to perfect.”
“You look gorgeous.”
Minnie stood, hung the wedding dress up on the wardrobe door, and tucked her supplies back into her bag. “You’re all set.” With that she headed toward the door.
Micah elbowed me in the ribs; apparently I was still scowling.
“Nice to see you, Ms. Baker,” Micah sang.
“And you as well, ladies.” Minnie let herself out of the room.
I set the box I was holding on the white lace coverlet on the bed. Janet needed a major distraction and I was glad I had it.
“I have your bouquet!” I announced. I pulled it out of the box. Between thinking about the bouquet, being trained by Caroline, doing several practice versions, and finally picking out the best roses and placing each one perfectly into the foam holder, I had spent basically the entire month on it. I had added zero designs to my sketchbook in that time, but apparently I was an expert bouquet maker now.
Janet gasped. “Sophie! It’s like you knew exactly what I wanted when I didn’t even know.”
I had been cursing flowers all month but now I was relieved. “I’m happy you like it,” I said, meaning it. Janet’s expression made me smile.
“I do. I love it.”
“It’s really pretty, Soph,” Micah said.
Janet picked up the rose bouquet and cradled it in her arms. “People still save these, right? How do I save it? Put it in the freezer or something?”
“No, that’s what you do with the cake. This you can just hang upside down and let dry out.”
She raised the bouquet to her nose and inhaled. Her eyes fluttered closed and she let out a happy sigh. “It smells amazing. I just love roses. Don’t you?”
“Yes, they are nice.” I picked up the box. “Did you need anything else?”
“I need for the rain to stay away.”
“Do you want us to put the tents up?” I offered. “We brought the tents.”
“The tents are so intrusive. I want to see the stars tonight.”
“You’ll see the stars.”
She smiled her perfectly painted lips. “Will you send my mom in if you see her? She’s supposed to help me put
on my dress.”
“She’s in the kitchen,” Micah said. “Talking to Jett.”
“Jett Hart,” Janet said. “Do you believe Jett Hart is catering my wedding?”
“Pretty unbelievable,” I was able to cough out with effort.
“I hope the food is good,” Janet said worriedly. “He talked me into this weird thin-cut, seasoned meat when I just wanted pulled pork on buns.”
“The food is amazing,” Micah said. “You’ll love it. And I just had one question for you …”
I squeezed Micah’s arm and went out into the hell. Several women in matching maroon dresses—bridesmaids, no doubt—poured out of the room across the hall and swept past me into Janet’s room.
I took the stairs and poked my head into the kitchen. Jett was at the stove, and sure enough, Mrs. Eller was on the other side of the counter. She was giving him a second-by-second accounting of the day.
“Mrs. Eller,” I said. “Your daughter is looking for you. She’s ready to put her dress on.”
“Oh! Yes, it’s time! Thanks, Mr. Hart!” She whirled around and flew by me.
Jett gave me a curt nod, like I had done that for his benefit. Of course he thought the world revolved around him.
I had basically given up on climbing out of the hole I’d somehow dug with him. If we were going to have a good working relationship, if he was going to see my worth at all, it would have to happen naturally. I still hoped it might, but I wasn’t counting on it. I couldn’t count on it.
I took a step back and let the kitchen door swing shut. I had plans before he came and they would still be the same after he left. I didn’t need him.
Minnie was right; outside felt like a sauna. The dark clouds hanging overhead had turned the air muggy. I questioned my own sanity at wearing a silk blouse. I should’ve gone with cotton. Understated was best for weddings, I’d learned. So I wore a pale pink top with a black skirt and black heels. I had been tempted to sew a ruffled flare to the bottom of my skirt, and my red heels had been calling my name, but I’d resisted. I hadn’t resisted the line of small pearls I’d sewn along the pocket of my blouse. But they were subtle. The only person people should be looking at today was Janet.