by Rachel Hauck
I’m not ready to jump my corporate cruise ship for a dinghy in the middle of the Atlantic. Dad has a great business, sure, but I pined for years to get a life out of Beauty—I can’t imagine returning. It’d be like double-crossing myself. And there’s enough of that going on already.
Be true to you, I always say.
Dad outlines the details of The Food Connection deal. I smile, half listening and half analyzing my life up to now. It’s been a good life, so why do I feel so bland and beige? I have great friends. I’ve trotted the globe for Casper, managed a staff of trainers and tech support. I’ve stuffed my closet with designer clothes and parked a BMW convertible in my garage.
Other than my recent career smack down and breakup with Chris, shouldn’t I have some sense of achievement and satisfaction? What’s missing?
“We’re having a little launch party the first weekend in May. I’d love for you to come.”
I tune in to Dad. “Come? To what?”
“The launch party for The Food Connection and Moore Gourmet Sauces. Rhine will be here, along with some of The Food Connection executives.”
“Good for you.”
“You’ll come? May sixth.”
“I’ll check my calendar.”
Mom calls up the stairs, “Earl, it’s chilly tonight. How about a fire?” Her Southern lilt is intertwined with hints of her childhood in England.
Dad slaps his knee and rises. “Be right down, Kitty.”
“Macy, you want some hot chocolate or tea?” Mom calls to me.
“Hot chocolate, please. With whipped cream.”
“If I have any.”
“See you downstairs.” Dad tweaks my toes. “And think about coming May sixth.”
“Okay.” I flop onto my belly and rest my chin on the edge of the bed.
Peering into the present from the window of my past, I understand now that my problem wasn’t this house at 21 Laurel Street, the city of Beauty, or the state of Georgia.
Nope. The problem was me, Macy Moore, and my state of mind. I thought life’s answers were out there somewhere. Now I realize the answers are in me, in my faith in Jesus and His love for me.
Sunday afternoon Dad, Mom, Cole, Suzanne and I trail the after-church lunch herd to Sizzler. We’re last in line because Mrs. Riley caught me after the service and wanted to know all the latest news. She’s storing up so she can haunt me the rest of my life.
I gave her the view from twenty thousand feet: clear skies and smooth sailing.
She cackled, patted me on the arm and meandered down memory lane as if she hadn’t heard one fluffy word I’d said. First stop, my third-grade Christmas solo. Dad, talking to Pastor Gary, heard Mrs. Riley mention “Away in a Manger” and beckoned me.
“Time for lunch, Macy.”
So here I am, mooing my way down the Sizzler salad bar. Suddenly Joley McGowan, a former classmate, scurries over.
“Macy, I thought that was you in church this morning.” She wraps her svelte arms around me as if we were long-lost friends. I almost drop my plate into the coleslaw.
“Hey, Joley.” I regard her casually—you know, just to see if she’s sagging or bulging. Rats! She’s as gorgeous as ever.
“Look at you!” she gushes, and hugs me again. “A big-time career woman. You’ve heard about our fifteenth class reunion, right? Of course you have. Well, I’m on the committee this year.” Joley is animated and vibrant. I didn’t like her much in high school, since she dated Dylan Braun, my high school heartthrob. Think fabulous smile, gentle voice, athletic, blond and hunky.
“Good for you.” I continue down the line. Joley strolls beside me like a gazelle—graceful and long legged. I’m losing my appetite.
“Macy, would you please be our emcee this year?”
“What?” I stop gathering lunch. Joley’s almond-shaped green eyes are locked on me.
“Well, you were voted most likely to succeed.” She sweeps her hand in the air over my head like reading an imaginary headline. Macy Moore Makes It After All.
I grimace. “I’m a regular Mary Richards.”
Her glow fades. “Huh?”
“You know, The Mary Tyler Moore Show? Her character was Mary Richards. Don’t you watch TV Land?”
She beams again. “Oh, yes, of course.”
I’m holding up the salad bar line, so I step forward. “Are you sure you want me? What about Lucy O’Brien? She’s a reporter for one of Florida’s biggest newspapers. Or John Friedman? Isn’t he a millionaire?”
“Don’t be so modest. You’re perfect for the job.” She taps the side of my arm. “Skip is a millionaire, but we wouldn’t ask him to be emcee.” She tee-hees behind her hand. “Can you see Skip talking in front of a mike?”
I make a face. “Skip who? Skip Warner?”
She smiles and holds up her ring hand. “Yes, I’m Joley McGowan Warner now. We’ve been married for two years.”
“Really. Well, congratulations.” Good grief. Joley McGowan and grease-under-his-nails Skip Warner? Is no one’s life turning out as I’d planned?
Joley and Skip Warner. Wow. Hold it. Did she just use the words millionaire and Skip in the same sentence? I covertly give her the once-over again. Her Sunday dress is pretty, but simple. Her shoes? Go-with-everything taupe pumps. I peek at her left hand again and see a simple gold band coupled with a modest diamond. Skip, a millionaire? Is she sure?
She’s still talking. “John Friedman is a fuddy-duddy. Come on, be our emcee.” She smiles her perfect smile. “You’ll be great.”
“Let me think about it.” I can’t promise more than that, really I can’t. I grit my teeth to keep from blurting out the truth right then and there, confessing in front of the entire Sizzler congregation that Macy Moore is not a success after all, but a failure.
I can’t emcee our high school reunion when my life is on a carousel. I can’t. I won’t.
“I saw you talking to Joley Warner.” Dad eyes me from the other end of the table.
“She wants me to emcee the class reunion.”
“Wonderful. You should do it.” He sips his iced tea.
I lean his way. “You never told me she married Skip Warner and that he’s a millionaire.”
“You never asked.” He spears a piece of steak with his fork.
“Are you going to tell me how he’s a millionaire or do I have to ask twenty questions?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Macy. He’s into cars.” Mom flutters like a mad hen. She hates this kind of table talk. “He owns a fancy, imported car dealership. Lots of rich clients.”
I shove my salad around on my plate. He asked me out once in our senior year, but I turned him down. Not my type, I told Lucy.
More and more I want to run home, crawl into a hole and surface sometime after a nuclear attack.
I gather my wits and look at my salad plate. Apparently I wasn’t paying attention. Two leaves of lettuce, a smattering of shaved carrots, and a mountain of bean sprouts. This won’t do.
I hop up, get back in line and add tomatoes and cucumbers to my plate with some ham bits, grated cheese and a ladle of dressing.
Back at the table, Suzanne is telling Mom about her current class schedule. Across from me, Dad and Cole are in an intense discussion about an upcoming NASCAR race.
“Jeff Gordon.”
“No, Dale Junior.”
NASCAR is not my kind of Sunday-lunch chatter. I join Mom and Suzanne’s discussion, desperate to focus on something besides me. My whine is getting a little sour.
“Ten years of part-time school and finally I see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Suzanne says fervently, her chestnut bangs falling across her Sandra Bullock-like face. “I can’t wait.”
“I’m proud of you, Suz,” I say, meaning it.
She presses her hand on my arm, squeezes up her shoulders and wrinkles her nose. “Thank you. I’m so excited and relieved. Now I can get a real job, like you, Macy.”
I smile. “Hopefully better than me.”
By two o’clock the family waddles out to the parking lot discussing the insanity of all-you-can eat food bars. I catch sight of Skip and Joley climbing into a shiny silver Hummer.
Figures.
I face the family. “I’d better get going. I don’t want to miss my flight. Can’t change my ticket again.”
Chapter Seven
As I fiddle with the gas nozzle at the 7-11 near Sizzler, I console myself. So I’m not married to a millionaire. Okay, I’m not married at all, nor do I have any prospects. Forget the fact that I’m temporarily a failure.
I top off the tank, put the gas nozzle back in the thingy and screw on the gas cap. I head inside to pay.
From the corner of my eye I catch a flash of red. I turn. Lo and behold, Dylan Braun is at the pump across the way. Propped against the side of his red Dodge Ram, arms folded across his chest, his white shirt collar open, his dark tie loose, he looks like an image from the cover of GQ. And he’s looking at me.
Zing!
I wave as I stroll, gliding like a runway model. “That thing got a hemi?” I call out. Light, airy, cute.
I don’t see the next pump island rising out of the pavement. My toes jam into the concrete and I fall face-first into the trash bin. My right hand and face are buried in greasy paper, half-full soda cups and candy wrappers. I knock an “oomph!” out of me as I spin and hit the ground.
Oh, please, say this isn’t happening.
“Macy! Are you okay?” Dylan runs to my rescue.
I bounce around, rubbing my knees and flinging soda from my hand. “I’m all right.” I make an effort to gather my cool while my voice squeaks up an octave or two.
“You went down face-first.” His eyes never leave my face.
“Any other way and you’re a coward.”
He laughs. A good, hearty, that’s-funny laugh.
My right knee is throbbing and my pride stinging. I prop my hand on my hip, then drop it by my side, then on my hip again. I’m not sure what to do with my hands.
Worse, I’m not sure what to do with myself. Dylan’s blue-green eyes watch me. Oh no, please tell me I plucked that one dark hair from my chin this morning.
“You’re looking good, Macy,” Dylan finally says.
Yes, I yanked it. I borrowed Mom’s tweezers. “Thanks.”
Hard to imagine I once loathed Dylan. In fourth grade he wrote a haiku about me that the class chanted for a month. In those days I was a little pudgy due to my affinity for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and vanilla ice cream smothered in chocolate syrup.
I can still hear him read his stupid little ditty before the entire class.
I went out to play
And I saw Macy Moore
She’s fat.
The class howled. I slid under my desk and despised him.
I carried a small grudge—okay, a huge grudge—until junior high. By then, Dylan was incredibly popular, athletic and handsome. He breezed through puberty unscathed. All the girls liked him. I, however, couldn’t get beyond “she’s fat.”
But during church camp the summer after seventh grade, I forgave his dumb haiku when our counselor described the crucifixion of Jesus for my sins. It had me in tears and I could no longer justify seething over Dylan’s poetry.
I stole a peek at him during the closing prayer and caught him wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. My heart melted a little.
By the time we started high school, I fell face-first in love—pure, unrequited love. Any other way and you’re a coward. But he never knew.
“I think you’ll live,” Dylan says, reaching for my hand to examine the scrapes. He brushes away the dirt and gravel. I feel light-headed. For a man built like a Mack truck, his touch is tender.
“And not die of embarrassment? Please, give a girl her due.” Perhaps a swoon is coming on. This is definitely a swoon moment.
“Never let it be said I kept a girl from her due.” He laughs low and peers deep into my eyes.
Well, well. Dylan Braun. “I thought you would be fat and bald by now.” My senses start to solidify and my composure returns.
“That was the plan, but some things just don’t turn out.” His grin is still his best feature—rakishly Clark Gable.
“Married?” I flirt, knowing he’s not. His mother, Margaret Braun, and my mother are birds of a feather, descendants of blue-blood Europeans with dukes and duchesses in their lineage. If Dylan married, I’d hear about it.
“Not yet. You?”
“Not yet.”
“Haven’t met Mr. Right?”
I laugh. “Oh, sure I did. Turned out to be Mr. Wrong.”
He stares at me for a long second. “I saw you talking to Joley in Sizzler.”
He was in Sizzler? “She wants me to emcee the class reunion.”
“Will you? I told her to ask you.”
“You?”
“I’m reunion coordinator this time. Don’t ask me how I got roped into it. Did you get Alisa’s flyer?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.” I regard him for a moment, seeing a new side to him. “Why me as emcee? And don’t say because I was voted most likely to succeed.”
He slips his hands into his pockets, rolls his big shoulders forward and looks away. “I wanted to have the prettiest and the smartest, that’s all.”
The prettiest? Did he just say prettiest? Is there room to swoon? Can I swoon without it looking like another pratfall?
“We’re proud of you.” He regards me openly.
We? We who? We as in the plural of Dylan, we?
“I wasn’t the smartest, Dylan.”
“No, but the smartest and the prettiest.”
That’s it. I’m swooning. I glance around, but can’t find a place to light. “When is the reunion again? I may have a business trip scheduled.”
“Fourth of July weekend. Surely you’re not booked then.”
Surely I’m not, but I just can’t say yes when my life is sagging. If I could get a new job, I could emcee with dignity, but who knows what the next few months will bring. “I just don’t know, Dylan.”
“Say yes.” He grips my hand again and peers right into my eyes.
I blurt out, “Yes. Yes, I’ll do it.” I’m an idiot.
“Good. And by the way—” he nods toward his truck “—it has a hemi.” He winks.
Meltdown complete.
Monday morning I stride toward my sunny corner office with my confidence reservoir up a fraction. My trip to Miller Glassware was a moderate success, I had a nice weekend in Beauty and—blow the trumpets—Dylan Braun called me pretty.
I dock my laptop and boot up, carefully store my bag in the bottom desk drawer and flop into my chair. Despite recent upsets, being in my office gives me a sense of normalcy, as if the world is right side up again.
Wearing a pair of rustic red capris, I feel light and breezy. This is the feeling I wanted yesterday when Dylan watched me tumble into a pile of trash. I wince at the mental instant replay. Bless Dylan for not letting loose with a knee-slapping belly laugh.
Attila the Hun pops her giant blond head around my door. “Hello, Macy.”
“Roni.” Her presence makes me queasy.
“Be sure to file a report on your Miller trip, and we need your input on the Holloway proposal.” She waits for my okay.
“Sure,” I say without looking up. I’m feeling very passive-aggressive today. Sure, I’ll do it. Next week. Maybe.
Once Roni is out of earshot, I autodial Lucy. One ring and she picks up. “Lucy O’Brien.”
“Hey.”
“How was Beauty?”
“Believe it or not, great.” I peruse work e-mail, reading and deleting.
Holloway Proposal. Delete.
“Wonders never cease.”
“Oh, you of little faith.”
I click on the Delete folder and retrieve the Holloway proposal. So Roni is a self-promoting shrew—it doesn’t mean I should stoop to her level. I do not want to be like her when I grow up.
“I never understood why you were so desperate to leave home. Beauty is a wonderful, cozy little town,” Lucy says.
“I talked to Joley McGowan at Sizzler.” I smile, knowing she’s going to die when I tell her the news.
“What’d she want?” Lucy, sweet Lucy who loves everyone, never cared much for Joley on account of my crush on Dylan and the fact that Joley dated him.
“She wants me to emcee the class reunion.” I recline back in my desk chair and gaze out the window. I see nothing but blue skies and the tops of green palms.
“Are you going to do it?”
“I told her maybe.” Never mind what I told Dylan. I attended reunions five and ten strutting around like a proud peacock over my Casper career. The girl most likely to succeed did.
The fifth reunion came right after my trips to Madrid and London, and right before my trip to Florence. Not South Carolina either—Italy.
I bragged and gloated. Snubbed those stay-at-home moms with their two-year-olds. I regaled the room with my “travel abroad” stories.
The tenth reunion came right after I’d been promoted to team leader. Two years later I made manager.
Serves me right. Pride goes before a fall. Now look.
“Macy, be the emcee,” Lucy says with resolve. “You’re perfect for the job.” While she is no way as alluring as Dylan, she is my best friend and that has to count for something.
“Maybe,” I say. “But never mind that. Guess who’s a millionaire?”
Open bomb-bay doors.
“Besides John Friedman?” She’s dying to know, I can tell.
“Skip Warner. And he’s married to Joley McGowan.” Bombs away!
“What? I knew that. Tell me something I don’t know, Macy.”
“You knew?” I shoot out of my chair. “Then why don’t I know? What kind of friend are you?”
“Oops, I meant to tell you. I guess I forgot.” She sounds sheepish and repentant, but I’m not letting her off that easily.
“Then I guess I forget to tell you what Dylan said to me yesterday.”
“What? You can’t keep Dylan news a secret. Details, details.” She’s yipping like my aunt May’s toy poodle.
