She nodded. “Absolutely.”
Max, who knew that in chess there was always one move that decided a victory, made it. He went down on one knee and proposed. Partly because he was swept up in the moment and partly because he’d learned the hard way that life came with no guarantees and, while this was a new day and sometimes the nerd did get the girl, he wasn’t taking any chances on letting Elle get away again.
To his profound surprise—and relief, she said, “Yes, Max, I think I will.”
Their kiss was accompanied by a group hug that Max could have lived without and an ear-deafening applause that seemed to make the plate-glass windows rock. Slowly they made their way though the throng of well-wishers toward Elle’s office. Elle had just paused to share a tearful embrace with Noreen when the bell over the door jingled. Their mutual gasp made him look.
Jane.
Elle tightened her grip on Max’s hand as her sister stepped across the threshold. She had no idea what to expect from Jane. Today had been that kind of day. From telling her dearest friend goodbye to seeing Max’s name on her dateathon page—along with fifty or so other profiles. She hadn’t given the other men a single glance, but she’d read his intently, and she’d known immediately which answers were his and which had been tweaked. By the members of his chess club, she’d guessed.
That demonstration of devotion provided the little extra push Elle needed to admit the truth. She loved Max. They were meant for each other. But Jane still had the power to make living in Fenelon Falls unpleasant.
Jane’s chin lifted proudly as she looked around. Customers not privy to the family drama being played out detoured around her to get in line and order.
Elle squeezed Max’s hand and whispered, “I should probably handle this order myself. Wait for me?”
“Not a chance,” he said with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to make a latte.”
They were standing side by side at the cash register when Jane stepped forward. She didn’t say anything for a minute, then she cleared her throat and announced, “A grande cappuccino decaf, hold the whipped cream…please.”
Elle reached across the counter. Their hands met. “My pleasure. Welcome to Cup O’Love. I named it after something Dad always said. Remember?”
Jane, with tears in her eyes, nodded. “Coffee is just coffee unless the person closest to your heart makes it, then it’s a cup of love.”
Elle sniffled. “Are we going to be okay now?”
Jane nodded. “I took roses to Mom’s grave today. And put some on Dad’s, too. I… They both loved us very much. And, if the upstairs is still available, I think Mom and Dad would be tickled to know their granddaughter was using the space to create her art.”
“Her very successful card business,” Elle corrected. “Would you like to see her Valentine to me?” Elle had left it displayed on the counter.
The outside featured a woman pulling a bright red heart from a laden tree. Below were the words: I pick you. Opening it, she read the inscription aloud. “Dear Aunt, If given a choice I could not have picked a better aunt…or friend. I love you. Becca.”
Elle blinked back tears.
“It’s wonderful,” Jane said.
“I know.”
“Where is she? She left a message on my cell about helping Lucky and Josh…”
Elle honestly had no idea. Well, maybe one idea. She didn’t get a chance to explain, though, because Max reached past her to hand Jane her coffee, which Noreen had helped him make. “Here you go, Jane. Happy Valentine’s Day. Oh, and by the way, you can disregard the message I left on your machine this morning.”
Jane looked confused. “I haven’t checked my messages. I needed to do a little soul searching, so I ran by the church before I went to the cemetery.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I still can’t believe Pastor Josh is selling out and leaving Fenelon Falls.”
Elle didn’t know what message Max was referring to, but she did know that Jane didn’t handle change well. And whether Elle was the catalyst or just an innocent bystander, ever since her return home, things had been evolving in Jane’s life. With Becca. With the impending loss of the Fenelon Falls Community Church. With their relationship.
She looked at Max, hoping to signal him not to mention his proposal or the dateathon. Later. When Jane’s had time… Max’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head. To Jane, he said, “Change happens, Jane. Nothing stays the same, and I, for one, am indisputably grateful because I just asked your sister to marry me and she said yes. I have witnesses.” He motioned toward the women still gathered around the Wifi station. They backed him up, with hoots and whistles.
Jane’s mouth dropped open and the cup in her hand started to wobble. In the past, Elle might have apologized for causing a scene, but not this time. She waited, her breath caught in her throat, to see how Jane would react.
“C-congratulations?” Jane stuttered.
That appeared to be good enough for Max, who beamed. “Thanks. Elle will fill you in on the details later. Right now, we have to call the kids. I want to be the one to tell my boys, and you know how fast gossip flies in Fenelon Falls. Plus, it might take us hours to reach Nora. Right?” he asked Elle. His mischievous wink told her phoning wasn’t the only thing they’d be doing.
“Come to the party, Jane. Please,” Elle called to her sister as Max tugged her toward her office.
She wished Jane would come. Possibly, Becca would put in an appearance. With Will. Lucky wouldn’t be there. She was already on another road.
So much had happened in such a short time. At the rate their lives were changing, one almost wondered if Cupid—or some outside hand—was directing things.
But all thoughts, divine or otherwise, disappeared from her head the moment Max closed the door of her office behind them and pulled her into his arms. Unfortunately his kiss didn’t last long enough. “I love you, Elle,” he said, his tone serious. “But I feel like a heel for messing with your dateathon page. I should have let you make up your own mind without any tricks.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I guess I was afraid some slick dude might slip in and sweep you off your feet. You’re still the coolest girl in school to me, and always will be.”
“Some slick dude,” she repeated with a giggle. “Max, that terminology has been passé for twenty years, at least. But I can understand why you might not trust me.”
He tightened his hold slightly. “No. That’s not it. Ellenore Adams, you changed my life when you agreed to go to the Valentine’s dance with me our senior year. Just knowing that I was worthy of your friendship was a validation that only a kid—a nerd—in high school can truly appreciate.”
“But we didn’t go together. I backed out two days before the dance.”
“I know. Which means…you still owe me.”
She smiled. “We’re going to the dance on Saturday. Will that make us even?”
He nuzzled her neck. “It’s a start. Ask me again in thirty-whatever years from now.”
Elle looped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. She’d started this dateathon as a way to best Cupid at his own game. And whether Cupid had a hand in this gambit or it was all Max, she really didn’t know…or care. She’d found her match, and that was all that mattered.
A VALENTINE FOR REBECCA
Molly O’Keefe
A special valentine to Joe, Dana, Evan, Teagan
and especially—the champ—
Anlun Meyers
Dear Reader,
No other holiday carries the burden of expectation quite like Valentine’s Day. New Year’s Eve doesn’t even hold a candle to my anticipation of the Lover’s Holiday. For years I was one of those women who liked to pretend I didn’t need or want the cards or flowers, that I would not fall victim to the commercial shlock of the holiday. Foolishly my husband believed me. I suffered in passive aggressive silence for about two years and then explained to him that I did want the emotional shlock and a ten-dollar bouquet
of flowers. He’s caught on and I stopped pretending, and now Valentine’s Day is one of our favorite holidays. Last year our valentine was our son—which will be difficult to top this year.
It was in this anticipation and expectation that the idea of Who Needs Cupid? was born. This anthology has had lots of great input, beginning with the fantastic Melinda Curtis who started this project on an early-morning walk in Seattle. Debra Salonen and Susan Floyd have been perfect partners in crime and I have enjoyed this process immensely! I hope you have a great time at Cup O’ Love!
Molly O’Keefe
P.S. Please stop by www.molly-okeefe.com or visit www.drunkwritertalk.blogspot.com and join in the fun!
CHAPTER ONE
January 18—Thursday
“HEY, MS. POTTER, what do you think?” Tony DeLona slid a thick piece of white sketch paper under Rebecca’s nose.
She glanced up quickly at the grinning twelve-year-old and then down at his paper.
The assignment today had been perspective and Tony’s project was a pencil sketch looking down at a skateboarder in motion. She sucked in an astonished breath and glanced at Tony. He grinned back, his dark eyes twinkling.
“I think it’s awesome,” she said and the boy’s smile could have lit up her studio for hours.
She wished the rest of the kids in her after-school program had a tenth of his talent. But she also wished Tony had about a tenth of his new crappy attitude. Tony had changed in the past year, and it was more than just the awkward changes every boy his age went through.
His parents were in the middle of a terrible divorce. And Tony was getting lost in the shuffle.
“I really like the holes in the jeans and the untied shoelaces. Very real and kind of funny.” She pointed to those details in the sketch and Tony nodded, taking in her praise like new grass takes in water. “You might think about adding a little more to the area outside the sidewalk.”
“I wanted to, I just sort of ran out of time.” She handed him the sketch, and he took it, blushing so hard he nearly ignited.
“Hmm, I wonder why you ran out of time?” She laid it on thick and Tony’s ears turned red.
“Ms. Potter, I told you—”
“I know, I know, it wasn’t your fault. But guess what?” She stood and circled the old Formica kitchen table that served as her desk, so she was right beside him. “It is. You were a half hour late, Tony, and you’ve got to take responsibility for that. There’s no note from your teachers, so I have to tell your mom.” She shrugged. “You’re not a little kid anymore.”
Tony scowled and she held her breath, wondering if maybe she’d pushed too hard. These days she could feel Tony’s usual good spirits becoming gloomy. She braced herself for the “whatever” teenagers so loved to say and she so hated to hear, but instead he shrugged.
“Sorry, Ms. Potter.”
She smiled and patted his thin shoulder. “Tony, I just want you to be able to spend every minute you can on your drawing. You’re really talented.” She said it earnestly, willing the boy, who was just growing that tough outer shell of indifference, to believe her.
Encouragement at the right time could do wonders. Or so she assumed, mostly because she’d never had it.
“Cool?” she asked.
“Cool,” he said and headed for the door, his book bag hanging off one shoulder.
Rebecca heaved a big sigh as the silence of her empty studio enveloped her. Ten kids ranging in age from six to thirteen for two and a half hours was enough to challenge anyone. Some days, when the kids behaved and picked up eagerly on the lesson of the day, the time flew by, but other days… Other days she wondered why she didn’t just take that full-time accounting job her parents kept offering her.
She made a face at the thought. She was proof that having a degree in accounting did not actually make one an accountant.
But no matter how terrible the day, how much finger paint was splattered on the walls, how late Tony was, or how much glitter Dora ate—thinking it was cookie sparkles or fairy dust—she liked kids. She liked their creativity. Their guilelessness. Their innocence. She like the way their brains worked, free from cynicism and the darker thoughts of maturity. They were honest and fair and didn’t judge.
Completely unlike adults.
More importantly, she got them, and they got her. It was adults who seemed mysterious and unreadable. A roomful of adults always made her feel as if she’d walked into church naked.
She turned and found Penny Blakely, her newest student, still in her spot in the far corner. Her pale blond hair covered her face as she bent over her work. Her fingers held a red crayon in what could only be called an eight-year-old’s death grip.
“Penny?” she asked, making sure her voice was low and careful. The girl’s head snapped up, her blue eyes huge in the twilight.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Rebecca smiled and approached the quiet child. She climbed up on the table in front of the one Penny sat at and put her feet up on a chair. She’d kill the kids for sitting like this, but breaking her own rules was one of the perks of being the teacher. Since she’d paid for the secondhand tables and chairs, she figured she could do what she wanted.
“Whatcha working on?” Rebecca had asked the same question every day for two weeks. And every day Penny answered the same way.
“Nothing,” she muttered and covered her drawing with her hands so Rebecca couldn’t see it.
“Who’s picking you up tonight?”
“My dad. Aunt Elaine has choir.”
“Okay.” Rebecca checked her watch. Five minutes. Five minutes before Will Blakely walks through those doors and you say something stupid. Or do something stupid.
Her hands were suddenly dripping and her stomach wanted to reject the meager lunch she’d managed to eat a few hours ago. Just the thought of Will Blakely drove her blood pressure someplace unhealthy.
“You’ve got about five more minutes if you want to finish that or…” tell me what’s making you so sad?
The little girl had a sustained unhappiness surrounding her that could break the most jaded heart and Rebecca’s was far from jaded. But whatever it was in Penny’s young life that had caused her to be so cautious was a secret the girl wasn’t telling.
“I’ll finish.” She bent back over her red masterpiece. Rebecca, who’d tried for two weeks to reach out to the little girl, still had one more surefire weapon in her arsenal.
“Well, then I think I’ll join you.” Rebecca stood and grabbed her own card stock and India ink from her desk at the front of the room.
She sat down next to Penny and spread out her work, making it impossible for the girl not to see her sketches and materials. She made a big show of pushing up the sleeves of the old red cardigan she’d knitted during one of her knitting phases. Penny cast curious glances as Rebecca dipped the end of her pen into the black pot of ink. She took a piece of the thick white paper and drew a cartoon version of Penny with big eyes and pencil-straight hair. She made sure the girl was watching and added a tall fairy princess hat, a lion tamer’s whip in one hand and a crayon in the other.
From the corner of her eye she saw Penny smile, and Rebecca added a ballerina tutu and big galoshes. She put some birds and butterflies and little bits of fairy dust in the air around her.
Penny giggled and Rebecca finally looked right at her.
“I thought you were working?” Rebecca asked with all the false indignation she could muster.
“That’s me!” she said in her little girl voice.
Rebecca managed to look surprised. “You know, I think you’re right. Let’s just make it official.” She dipped her pen back in the ink before adding a big P to the ballerina tutu and then in small print she wrote under the drawing Super Penny.
“For you.” She pushed the drawing over to Penny, who beamed with all the sunshine of a June day.
“This is for you,” Penny said, pushing her own work over to Rebecca. This time, Rebecca’s surprise was real. She opened the folded
paper. The red masterpiece was actually a giant heart that took up most of the page. In the corner, written in Penny’s precise print, were the words: For Ms. Potter.
Rebecca had gotten plenty of hand-drawn cards and gifts in the year she’d been teaching this class, but this one, either because of its sheer unexpectedness, or because of Penny’s big sad blue eyes, made her blink back tears.
“You’re nice, Ms. Potter.”
“Thank you, Penny,” she managed to say past the lump in her throat. “So are you.”
“It’s for Valentine’s Day,” Penny said.
Rebecca’s heart seemed to stutter. “Is that coming up already?” she muttered. She knew it was, of course. Lucky Morgan and Aunt Elle had been harassing her for weeks about supplying Lucky Duck Collectibles and the Cup O’ Love Café with cards, but it didn’t make the encroaching holiday easier to accept.
Dumb, stupid holiday. Dumb, stupid holiday that allowed her to keep her art program running, dumb stupid holiday that every year made her feel like the kid picked last for kick ball.
Dumb, stupid holiday.
“It’s in four weeks.” Penny nodded. “I know because Dad put a big black mark on our calendar.”
Rebecca swallowed and tried to think about ice and cold but she still felt the blush creep up her face, until she thought the tips of her ears would ignite.
Valentine’s Day was coming up, and she had a crush on Will Blakely.
Was there anything in the world more pathetic than a twenty-seven-year-old woman with an unrequited crush on Valentine’s Day? And considering how every crush she’d had since Eric Northfield in fifth grade had crashed and burned, she could only hope that she’d catch Will picking his nose or kicking a stray dog or yelling at his daughter, before Rebecca’s foolish heart led her to dangerous places.
There was nothing like being lovelorn and alone on Valentine’s Day to bring her future into crystal clear focus. Tea cozies. Coffee cake. Pants with elastic waists. Hairy legs.
Who Needs Cupid? Page 9