What Are Friends For?

by Patricia McLinn

  “That is not the point,” Corine glared. “A kidnapper on the loose, a child in danger, officers responding to an APB and a civilian—all in danger because of you.”

  Warren shrank in his chair. “I know.”

  “We’ll finish restoring the police system,” Zeke said after a moment. “With a few improvements for Corine as an apology.” Corine preened. “Then we’ll see about fixing your system so you can do some real work.”

  From Warren’s expression, Zeke had single-handedly made the sun rise.

  Chapter Nine

  Darcie didn’t see Zeke or Warren for the next two days. She heard rumors, though.

  From Corine, whose grumbling eased into faint praise as they completed fixing and upgrading the department computer system.

  From Benny, who despaired of being able to fit into any of his clothes since he spent so much time in Mrs. Z’s kitchen while Zeke and Warren lost themselves in techno nirvana.

  From Yolanda Wellton, who insisted on giving Darcie a free trim in preparation for the Lilac Festival’s big weekend, with the coronation, parade and ball, but also gave her a headache with unrelenting praise of Saint Zeke.

  Then, Thursday, Benny had a family emergency when his daughter was hit in the mouth with a foul ball during phys ed and needed stitches, so Darcie was back on Zeke duty.

  She arrived at Mrs. Z’s shortly before time to leave for Lilac Commons for the final run-through of tomorrow night’s coronation. Zeke and Warren were in his bedroom, their rapid exchange of techno mumbo jumbo an undercurrent to Mrs. Z’s exclamations of concern over Benny’s daughter.

  Mrs. Z called to Zeke that it was time to leave. He paused in the hallway when he saw Darcie, and for no reason other than his look, she felt heat spreading from the pit of her stomach up through her body, hampering her breathing when it hit her lungs, then stinging her cheeks as it continued up.

  His mother’s flow of explanations about Benny’s daughter and exhortations not to be late covered the fact that neither Zeke nor Darcie said a word until they were in the car, alone, and the silence had stretched long enough to be wearing thin.

  As she was about to say something—anything—Zeke surprised her by saying, “It’s nice to be your passenger again.”

  “Thanks. Benny’s so used to a carload of kids, he keeps the radio loud.”

  He nodded ruefully. “Nobody needs a scanner, just wait for Benny’s patrol car to go by.”

  She chuckled. “Sounds like you and Warren have been having a good time—now and the other day at the station.”

  “I haven’t let him forget that what he did was wrong,” he said defensively, and Darcie suspected he’d gotten so involved in what he was teaching Warren that he’d forgotten exactly that.

  “I didn’t say that,” she said mildly. “I simply was commenting that it must be fun to teach an enthusiastic pupil.”

  “I suppose it is.” He gazed straight ahead with the unfocused stare of someone seeing something from a new angle.

  Only after several minutes, when he shifted in the seat did she say, “You’re good with Warren. You’re a good teacher.”

  “I had a good teacher myself.”

  “Yes, you did.” Which was as good an introduction as any to what she wanted to explore. “You’ve asked me a couple times why I didn’t leave Drago. Now it’s my turn to ask. Why did you leave, Zeke?”

  “You know why.”

  She found a parking spot not far from a side entrance to the park. They’d have a bit of a walk, but it was pleasant. They got out of the car, then fell into step as they climbed the three steps into the park.

  “Humor me,” she said. “Tell me again why you left. Why you couldn’t wait to leave Drago.”

  “I wanted to do more.”

  “More than what?”

  He sidestepped that. “I wanted to be respected.”

  She pursued it. “Your father was respected. As a kind and good man who worked hard and loved his family. As a man who loved this town and its people, and who was loved back.”

  The crushed-stone path took them through a tunnel lined by lilacs in full bloom. The individual scents peaked, blended and remixed, the olfactory equivalent of musical instruments in a symphony.

  “I wanted to have influence on a wider scale, a bigger stage.”

  “Influence? That sounds like a nice way of saying power.”

  “Fine, say power then. I wanted power.”

  The path opened to the Coronation Garden. A ring of lilacs backed a grassy area that formed an elevated platform. Terraced below the platform was a wide fountain, like the orchestra pit in a theater, and then a wide, grassed allée with beds of tulips and lilacs down either side that formed a natural spot for spectators.

  One more step, and they would be visible to participants gathering for the practice for tomorrow’s coronation. She didn’t take that step, though the voices of those already gathered were rising in contentious frustration.

  “And do you have it?” she asked Zeke. “Do you have the power to be happy? To live a good life?”

  “What about you, Darcie? Do you have the power to be happy?”

  “Darcie!” the director called, having spotted her. “Finally!”

  She didn’t look away from Zeke. “Of course. I am happy.”

  “Are you? Not pursuing your dreams. Staying in Drago because you think you have to for your mother. Pushing me away with an ultimatum because you liked kissing me a little too much. Are you really happy?”

  “Darcie, come,” the director ordered with more authority than she’d heard from him all month. He took her arm and tugged her toward whatever the current crisis was, while she looked back at Zeke, who watched her with intensity.

  “Brenda, I know you’re not there,” Zeke said briskly into the cell phone, glad to be doing something to keep his mind off the look of confusion he’d put in Darcie’s eyes.

  “But when you get back, first thing you do… No, second thing. First thing is give yourself two extra weeks of vacation.

  “Next, I want Development to figure out the best way for farmers around Drago to get their product to the top-selling markets—that’s getting it there fast, cheap and reliably. Then I want Programming to work up software to assess whether it’s better to limit supply and sell high or increase production and sell low. Send me somebody to start talking to local farmers, to get the real data. Oh, and talk to Legal and find out how we can give the program to family-owned farms when it’s completed. Don’t let them bully you about how we can’t give it away. What am I saying? Like you’d let them bully you.

  “There might be more later. I want it all humming when I come—” The word home would not come. “Back. When I get back.”

  He disconnected the call and automatically looked for Darcie.

  She and Jennifer were in a corner. Jennifer seemed both intent and amused. Darcie looked hunted.

  He stilled an urge to stop whatever was making her look that way. Darcie wouldn’t appreciate his butting in.

  Besides, he was better off keeping a distance. He wasn’t an idiot—not on this issue—Darcie had been angling to involve him in Drago all along. With Warren, she had a major success. Now, even though she didn’t know about it, he’d done more. Get too close, and she’d pull him in completely.

  Jennifer tsked. “I’m serious, Darcie. Zeke’s nuts about you.”

  “Then you’re seriously nuts. Zeke? The guy who could have won a Nobel Prize in high school if they’d had a category on Jennifer Truesdale?”

  Although the tone sounded like her usual self, somehow the words sounded threadbare to Darcie’s ears.

  Pushing me away with an ultimatum because you liked kissing me just a little too much.

  Had she done that? Was she doing that?

  “High school is long gone. And there has never been that special light in Zeke’s eyes when he looks at me that there is when he looks at you. Believe me, I know a little something about the light going out of a man
’s eyes.”

  Sometimes Darcie wished that rat bastard Eric had stayed in town long enough so that she could’ve gotten her hands on him.

  “Don’t Darcie,” Jennifer said. Her smile was firm, “Don’t let that soft heart of yours ache for me. I only brought it up to persuade you that I know what I’m talking about. You’re the woman who matters to Zeke. I’d say the guy’s head over heels in love with you.”

  In her deepest heart, it’s what Darcie had always wanted. So why was she scared to death?

  “’Morning.”

  “’Morning, Mr. Hooper.”

  The farmer huffed out an acknowledgement that Zeke had tracked down his name. Not that it had been a challenge. The name was painted on the mailbox. He’d made sure to go past it on his way to his usual spot this morning.

  “Call me Everett.”

  “Zeke,” Zeke replied, though he suspected Everett Hooper knew that.

  In comfortable silence, they watched the sun rise together again.

  “Well, that’s another day started,” the farmer said with satisfaction.

  “Yup.”

  A couple weeks ago Zeke would have ignored that this day would include the coronation of the Lilac Queen—with the judges’ meeting and vote along with all the other hoo-ha—or would have been doing his damnedest to think of a way to get out of it and stay in front of his computer. Now he could face the prospect with equanimity. And look forward to seeing Darcie.

  But he had a lot to do before tonight.

  “Everett, would you be willing to talk to somebody who works for me today?”

  “What about?”

  “Farming. And computers.”

  The man made a disparaging sound. “If I were half useful around this place I’d say no, but I suppose there’s not much else I can do.”

  They set a time for Zeke and his employee Larry to come to the farmhouse. Then they settled in for a few more minutes of watching the sun.

  “First time I rode out here,” Zeke found himself telling Everett, “it seemed like the biggest adventure I could possibly have. Seemed so far away when I was little, and not daylight yet and nobody around, but I needed to think and…”

  He’d been maybe twelve. Wrestling with the problem of being different from his classmates. He’d had a growth spurt that summer that had his mother despairing about keeping him in pants from one Sunday’s churchgoing to the next. The distance between his academic interests and the devotion of his one-time friends to sports had exploded. He’d felt lonely, but also defiant. Worst of all, he’d felt he couldn’t talk to his parents about it.

  Especially his father.

  Fathers were supposed to know about baseball and football and basketball. His didn’t. His father taught him about scientific method, about intellectual inquiry. How could he talk to his father about feeling different and isolated when his father was part of the cause?

  “And your dad used to bring you out here when you were a kid,” Everett concluded his long-dangling sentence.

  Zeke faced him. “How’d you know that?”

  “I got eyes. Besides, how’d you think Mischar knew to come out here?”

  “You knew my father? Oh. Right. From his shop. Got your shoes repaired there.”

  “Yeah, I did. Also played chess with him most Thursday nights. Seventeen years we did that.”

  Forgetting the sunrise, Zeke stared at the man.

  “What?” Everett demanded. “You don’t think a farmer can play chess?”

  “I—that isn’t…” He sorted through the jumble of thoughts racing through his head. “You talked? With my father?”

  “I can’t say we carried on like those people on Oprah or nothing, but seventeen years of sitting across a chess board, yeah, we talked. He was my friend.”

  Zeke jerked his head back around to face the sun, letting its brightness burn into his eyes.

  After an interesting morning spent with Warren and a thought-provoking meeting with Everett and Larry, Zeke’s day had shifted to Lilac Festival duties, and the pace picked up.

  The votes were cast and the queen decided. In a couple hours Drago would crown its Lilac Queen.

  “It’s been a pleasure, Zeke,” Mrs. Rivers said as he held the door for her at the library conference room where they’d met.

  “Thank you, ma’am. I’ve enjoyed serving as a judge with you, too.”

  Her smile brightened. He hoped she gave his mother a good report.

  He was more surprised when Warinke slowed, then stopped beside him.

  “You know, I wasn’t too sure about this whole deal with having you as Chief Judge, and all. When Darcie and Jennifer brought up the idea, I said right out that Zeke the Geek would think he was too big a deal for little ol’Drago these days. But it’s turned out okay. We did a good job. Got a good queen. Our town can be proud.”

  Zeke looked at the man, really looked at him, without the memory of Ted’s teenaged self superimposed for the first time.

  He had thinning hair and his belt rode low to accommodate a rounding belly. His face showed no great intelligence, but no meanness, either.

  In the nearly three weeks Zeke had been here, Ted had done nothing worse than shoot his mouth off and he’d actually had some sensible things to say, including in the just-concluded discussion among the judges before they voted for Lilac Queen.

  “I think so, too,” he said.

  Ted grinned and extended his hand. “You’re not such a geek after all.”

  “You’re wrong, Ted. I am entirely a geek.” Zeke shook the man’s hand briefly.

  The bands had played, the mayor had talked, the officials had taken a bow, the committees and judges had been thanked and the candidates had been presented. They were down to the climax of the coronation ceremony—announcing the queen.

  Zeke had done his best to get out of that duty, but it was part of the package as Chief Judge.

  Darcie wondered, as she watched his tall figure turn from the lectern to look at the five girls lined up, holding hands, if he realized he was smiling. She had to fight a grin herself. Zeke didn’t know it, but he’d grown fond of these girls—or at least most of them—over these weeks. The old softy.

  “The most important thing I can tell you about this Lilac Queen competition,” Zeke told the crowd, “is that all five girls receive scholarship money to help them pursue higher education, with the four princesses each receiving two thousand dollars and the Queen three thousand.

  “The second most important thing is who that Queen will be.”

  The crowd’s reaction was wildly mixed—some applause, some chuckles, some groans of impatience.

  “Okay, on to the second most important thing,” Zeke said with a grin.

  He held up the envelope, a bit of a flourish for someone who’d griped about the formality, since he (along with the other two judges) already knew the name of the queen. That rebellion had only been quelled when Darcie said, “Consider it a bit of theater and just do it, Zeke.”

  “And this year’s Lilac Festival Queen is—”

  Darcie saw Cristina’s smile broaden and she seemed to take a half step forward.

  “—Mandy Reynolds.”

  Nobody moved. Nobody said a word. But the mass intake of air should have stripped every petal off every lilac bush in the park.

  Becky, the princess standing between Cristina and Mandy, came to life first. “Oh, my God! It’s you, Mandy! It’s you!”

  She shoved the stunned queen forward, and Mandy stumbled. She might have pitched headlong into the fountain if Zeke hadn’t lunged forward and caught her arm, spinning her back to safety.

  That broke the freeze. Last year’s queen glided up with the crown and sash and began outfitting Mandy with her accoutrements, while the crowd went wild. Darcie had never heard such a reaction to a queen selection.

  The other princesses gathered around Mandy for hugs and tears. All except Cristina Wellton, who remained where she’d stood, smile still in place.

&n
bsp; Even after Mandy made a brief, excited yet articulate acceptance statement, even after the formality on the coronation platform gave way to newspaper photographers, family members and milling officials and dignitaries, Cristina didn’t move.

  Ashley, standing nearby and wringing her hands, gave her mother an anguished look. Jennifer looked to Darcie, who sighed, but moved forward to meet Jennifer in front of the frozen girl.

  “Cristina,” Jennifer said softly, “let’s go in the back now.”

  She took one arm and Darcie the other, and they guided Cristina off the platform and into a sort of anteroom created by a horseshoe of lilac bushes.

  There, to everyone’s dismay, Cristina Wellton’s numbness evaporated.

  All it took was seeing her mother.

  “Oh, baby,” Yolanda said.

  “You! This is all your fault. If I didn’t have to take care of you all the time, I could make something of myself. I could get out of this town. I could go after my dreams! I could be somebody!”

  “That’s not fair, Cristina,” Darcie heard herself saying.

  And she should know, she thought, because hadn’t she laid similar charges at her mother’s door? Never in public. Never even out loud. But just as unfair.

  “Fair? What do you know about it? What do you know about having to work in her stupid salon because she’s having one of her spells? What do you know about having to feed a stupid brother all the time because she just can’t? What do you know about your father walking out and ruining everything?”

  Darcie’s heart ached for the girl.

  And if Cristina had stopped there, she and the others might have been well disposed toward her.

  But Cristina quickly shifted into her more familiar mode, with a rant that she would have won if her mother had bought her the shoes she’d really wanted, that everybody was against her because she was so much more beautiful than anybody else and that not one of the other princesses had a clue of how to apply eyeliner, and didn’t anyone see that Mandy hadn’t had the sense to wear waterproof mascara?

  Ashley, apparently feeling she was in more familiar territory now, went to Cristina’s side and tried to calm her with sympathy and one hundred percent agreement.