If the Shoe Fits

by Sandra D. Bricker

  “So do you think if he goes over to the house and makes a heartfelt plea for Emily’s forgiveness … do you think that will put this to rest?” Will asked her.

  “I think that would be up to Emily.”

  “But it certainly couldn’t hurt,” Pastor Dean added.

  Will and Julianne decided to walk the few blocks from the office to Taqueria Mercado, and Julianne slipped her arm through Will’s as they trekked up Walnut and crossed Seventh.

  “Are you ready for your big date tomorrow?” Will asked, and her heart fluttered like the wings of a dozen butterflies trapped in her chest.

  “So ready. Although the reality of it started to close in on me around three o’clock this morning.”

  “What reality is that? The one where you’ve accepted a date with a perfect stranger based on a toolbox and a work boot sitting in the road? Or the one where you notice that the chasm between your Once Upon a Time and your Happily Ever After is murky and gray?”

  “Yes,” she stated. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she let out a burst of tension by way of a snort and a laugh.

  “I have a date of my own tomorrow night. Maybe we should make it a double.”

  Julianne’s fluttering heart went eerily still. She stopped in her tracks, yanking Will by the arm as she did.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Foot cramp again? I don’t know why you insist on wearing those heels, Jules. They can’t be good for—”

  “No,” she replied, shaking her head. “You have a date?”

  He grinned at her and tipped his head to the side as he admitted, “Yeah. I have a date. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”

  “Do tell.”

  “Alison Reece. Beth Rudd’s sister.”

  Her conversation with Beth in the ladies’ room at Vandella’s skittered across Julianne’s memory.

  “I was thinking of setting up Will and my younger sister, Alison. You remember, you met her at the Christmas pageant?”

  She’d asked Julianne if she minded. What else could Julianne have said? She had no claim on Will, then or now, or ever. It did cross her mind now though whether it might be too late to file an appeal.

  “The schoolteacher,” she muttered. Tightening the loop of their arms, she squeezed and forced a smile. “That’s so great.”

  Pulling him along, she continued the stroll up Walnut.

  “Really?” he said. “You think it’s great?”

  “Of course,” she replied without looking away from the crosswalk ahead of them. “Don’t you?”

  “Well, let’s face it. I haven’t had a date in a pretty long time. And it’s not like I know much of anything about this girl. We might be pathetically ill-suited to one another.”

  She mustered up the encouragement she knew Will sought. “Or you might be soul mates. You never know until you spend a couple of hours getting to know each other.”

  “Soul mates,” Will muttered, shaking his head. “Is that what you think the ditch digger is? Your soul mate?”

  “He is not a ditch digger,” she said, smacking his arm. “He’s a carpenter. Like Jesus.”

  “Really?” he challenged. “You really want to go there and compare him to Jesus, Jules?”

  “Yeah.” She tilted her head upward and apologized. “Sorry, Lord.” Her eyes darting back to Will, she added, “I just meant—”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “And by the way,” she continued. “He could be my soul mate.” When Will didn’t reply, she repeated, “He could be.”

  Will’s silence closed the gap between the corner of Eighth Street and the front entrance of Taqueria Mercado. “Here we are.”

  She spotted Rand Winters at a small table. “Over there.”

  Will placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her toward him. “Rand,” he said as they reached the table, “thanks for coming.”

  “I ordered a round,” Rand told them, “and a little something to nosh on.”

  “A round of what?” Julianne asked him.

  “Yes, Julianne,” he mocked, “I remembered that you don’t drink alcoholic beverages. They’re bringing a pitcher of virgin sangria for the two of you. A beer and a shot for me. Now tell me what you found out about this pig nightmare.”

  Oh, he is just so unlikable! she thought, taking a deep and bracing breath before answering.

  The waiter set a platter of quesadillas next to the chips and salsa already there. He carefully unloaded drinks from the tray and asked, “Anything else right now?”

  “No,” Will replied. “Thanks very much.”

  Rand grabbed the shot glass and raised it in a toast. “To good news, if you don’t mind,” and he downed the tequila in two gulps.

  “We talked to Pastor Dean, the girl’s grandfather,” Julianne began.

  “Did you get anywhere?”

  “That all depends on your perception, I guess,” Will told him as Rand sucked on a wedge of lime. “How do you feel about apologizing to an eleven-year-old?”

  “Apologizing.” Rand spoke the word as if it had been dipped in spoiled milk before crossing his lips.

  “Yes, Rand. Apologize,” Julianne said. “It’s the act of saying you’re sorry for picking up a gun, cocking it, and sending her little pig instantly to its grave.”

  “That pig was not little.”

  “It might be your only hope of settling things with her,” Will added.

  Rand took several swigs from his beer and smacked the glass on the table. “So if I hold my hat in my hands and say I’m sorry, the little terror will stop with the flyers?”

  “We can’t guarantee that. But it’s a good start.”

  He stuffed a quesadilla wedge into his mouth and spoke while he chewed it. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” He stood up, downing the rest of his beer. “I’ll go across the lawn in the morning and give it a shot.”

  “Try to express some kindness,” Julianne suggested. On second thought, she added, “You do have some of that, don’t you?”

  Rand contorted his face into a balled fist.

  “I just mean … don’t railroad her. Kids are very perceptive.”

  He plunked the glass to the table with a shrug. “Whatever. I’ll call you when it’s done, and we’ll see where we are.”

  Julianne’s eyes met Will’s and locked there as Rand left the restaurant.

  “He’s a piece of work,” Will declared.

  “Credit where credit’s due,” she replied. “He’s a piece and a half, at the very least.”

  “He is that.”

  “He’s just so hard to … like!”

  “But if the Rands of the world didn’t cross our paths,” he began, and Julianne grinned.

  “How would we learn to love the unlovable!” she finished for him.

  “Dinner while we’re here?” he asked her.

  “Oh, yeah,” she answered with a chuckle.

  Once they’d both ordered and the meals had been served, Julianne leaned back against the chair, both hands wrapped around her chilled glass, and grinned at Will.

  “So tell me more about your date with Alison. Where are you taking her?”

  “Riding, up at Alec’s place.”

  “She rides?”

  “Since she was a kid. She actually used to compete.”

  “Compete. Really.”

  Julianne started to wonder if the fruit in the sangria hadn’t agreed with her, and she pressed her hand to the top of her burning stomach.

  “You okay?” Will asked.

  “Too many taquitos,” she teased. With an added chuckle, she admitted, “I actually think it’s the sangria. It’s very fruity.”

  “Order an iced tea.”

  “I think I will.” She shook her head and gulped. “So … horseback riding. Then what? Out to dinner?”

  “Sunset picnic on the ridge, I think.”

  “Nice,” she said, nodding.

  “What about you? Where’s the ditch di—” He stopped himself. “The carpente
r. Where’s he taking you?”

  “He didn’t say. We’re meeting first … at The Blind Lemon.”

  “In Mt. Adams?”

  “Yes. And I guess we’ll decide from there.”

  “You’re meeting him? Why isn’t he picking you up?”

  “He’s working in Clifton for the day, so it just seemed easier for me to meet him.”

  Will shook his head. “No horse-drawn carriage. A shame.”

  “The horses and glass carriage come later, smarty pants,” she informed him. “Right before the Happily Ever After.”

  “Ah.” Will grinned as he stabbed a couple of rogue onions and green pepper strips from his plate and poked them into his mouth. “Thanks for the lesson.”

  “William? Is that you?”

  Julianne looked up and spotted Lacey and her thousand-dollar dazzling-white smile heading straight for them.

  “Here comes my pesky wicked stepsister now,” she mumbled.

  “I can’t believe it’s you,” she drawled in her questionable Southern drawl. “I’ve never even been to this place before, and I decide to stop in for some dinner, and here you are!”

  “Here we are,” Julianne corrected. “I’m here, too.”

  Her eyes grazed over Julianne without comment before she leaned down and smacked a kiss on Will’s cheek, leaving its bright red form behind.

  Like a lipstick chalk drawing around a corpse.

  “Can I join you?” she asked Will, grabbing a napkin and wiping the lipstick from his face.

  “Well, we’re just finishing up,” he told her. “But we can sit with you while you have something.”

  “Delightful,” she sang, and Julianne watched her slither down into the chair beside him. “You know, Julie, there’s no reason for you to stay. If you want to be on your way, William and I can just—”

  “Oh, no!” she interrupted. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving. Besides, we haven’t ordered dessert.”

  “Ooh, dessert.” Turning toward Will, Lacey asked, “What’s delicious here for a sweet tooth?”

  Julianne raised one eyebrow, glanced at Will, and slid a menu across the table toward Lacey. “Here. Have a look.”

  Love the unlovable, she reminded herself. Love the unlovable. Love the unlovable.

  “Mother says there will be no recreation until your chores are complete,” her stepsister insisted. “And when you’re finished in here, the stables need your attention.” The girl wiped the perspiration from her brow and gazed up at her stepsister. “What have I ever done to you to warrant your repugnance? Why do you make it your life’s work to oppress me so?” Narrowing her flame-filled eyes, her mother’s other daughter glared at her. “Why?” she repeated with a sniff. “Because I can, that’s why.”

  “Lacey, why did you call?” Julianne grumbled into her cell phone as she stroked Gus, Suzanne’s precious blue parakeet, as he sat perched on her shoulder. “Is there something I can actually do for you?”

  “I just found it ironic, that’s all,” she cooed. “You and I, up for the same award … both of us women in William’s life …” Julianne’s tongue nearly slipped right off its roller “… each of us attorneys in the Greater Cincinnati area.”

  “I’m sorry,” she finally managed. “Both of us, what?”

  “Attorneys.”

  “No. Before that.”

  “Oh, well,” Lacey said on a bouncy little giggle. “We play very different roles, of course. I know you’re territorial and all—and I do hope you’re not thinking of marking him like Daddy’s hunting pup, Julie—but I think we need to face facts. I mean, we are both women in his life, aren’t we?”

  So many replies came to mind that they logjammed Julianne’s entrance into the conversation. She just sat there, gripping the arm of Suzanne’s pretty floral chair, her eyes bulging so wide that they ached, the flow of oxygen blocked at the base of her throat by a wall of indignation.

  “Fine, fine,” Lacey continued. “I can see that I was wrong. I thought I’d just reach out to you, extend an olive branch.”

  Oh, an olive branch! Maybe that’s what I’m choking on.

  There was a salty taste at the back of her throat, after all.

  “I thought we might make a day of it together. Get mani-pedis, have our hair done. No matter which one of us wins the award, Julie, there’s no sense in looking like a loser, is there? Especially when you have a new man in your life at the moment.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “William told me about the new man in your life, and I thought maybe I could do my part to help you keep this one. My hairdresser can do wonders with that hair of yours if—”

  “I …” There it was! Her voice had returned at last! “… don’t think so.”

  “All right then,” Lacey said with a sigh. “You’ll call me if you change your mind?”

  “I won’t,” she replied, her voice going raspy as she did. “And Lacey? My name is not Julie. My name is Julianne!”

  And with that, she disconnected the call.

  “What on earth was that all about?” Suzanne asked as she emerged from the closet with several hangers of clothes over her arm.

  “Lacey James.”

  “Your arch-nemesis,” she growled playfully. “Why do you let her get under your skin like that?”

  “Oh, she’s just so infuriating! Now, she has somehow mistaken William for her boyfriend, and me for her high school BFF.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I wish.”

  Julianne’s real BFF dropped to the bed with the pile of clothes and grinned, her hazel eyes glimmering with amusement as she raked her auburn hair away from her pretty face.

  “Okay now, focus,” she said, snapping two pink-tipped fingers that Gus mistook for an invitation, and the bird flew from Julianne’s shoulder and landed on Suzanne’s outstretched finger. “You meet him in three hours. The Blind Lemon is very casual. You don’t want to overdress. Try this. It’s Stella McCartney.”

  Suzanne thrust a creamy white blouse at her, still on the hanger.

  “Stella McCartney, Suz? What if I spill on it?”

  “You won’t. It works great over jeans, and it’s still dressy enough to leave room for a knockout pair of shoes.”

  “Jeans?” she asked her friend. “Really?”

  “What did I tell you?”

  “I don’t want to overdress.”

  “Right. You’ll wear those distressed skinny jeans you bought at Nordstrom’s. Here. Try it on while I put Gus into his cage. I don’t want him lighting on silk charmeuse.”

  Julianne slipped into the blouse and fastened the buttons hidden behind a seamed panel. Standing in front of the mirror, she examined the long, fluid sleeves and starched cuffs as Suzanne reappeared and, reaching from behind her, adjusted the flowing tie around Julianne’s collar and arranged it into a perfect knot.

  “Stupendous,” she said with a grin to Julianne’s reflection. “And you’ll wear my blue waistcoat over it.”

  “I’m not wearing your Stella McCartney blouse and your coat. Besides, it’s still too warm for a coat yet.”

  “It’s not that heavy, and you’ll take it off once you’re inside. You know how that navy blue brings out the color of your eyes. I’d kill for those crystal clear blue eyes of yours.”

  Before she knew it, Suzanne had guided her arms into the sleeves and slipped the jacket up and over her shoulders. The waistcoat fit her like a glove all the way to the waist, where tarnished silver metal clips held it shut before the silhouette flared over her hips.

  “It’s very military steampunk,” her friend observed. “And just perfect for your figure. You should wear those navy platforms of yours—the ones with the cool straps. Do you have a bag?”

  “Stop, Suz. You’re wearing me out. I want him to like me … not just what I’m wearing.”

  “I just want to make sure you’re ready. I have a great bag that—”

  “I have a purse. Stop.”

  Juliann
e slipped out of the coat and folded it over the corner of the bed before slipping down into the floral chair again. As she unbuttoned the blouse, Suzanne dropped to the bed and grinned at her.

  “What else?”

  Suzanne Nichols excelled at cutting straight through to the heart of a matter. In the ten years they’d known each other, she always had.

  “Will has a date tonight, too.”

  “Does he? Good for Willie. Who’s it with?”

  She slipped out of the blouse and handed it to Suzanne. “Someone from our church set him up. Alison Something. She’s a teacher.”

  “And this bothers you, why?” she asked, folding the blouse and placing it atop the waistcoat.

  “It doesn’t,” she replied immediately, but Suzanne’s grimace reflected even Julianne’s own disbelief. “Well, it shouldn’t.” She shrugged and sank deeply into the chair. “But for some odd reason, it does.”

  “Maybe you’re afraid he’ll move on and forget you?”

  “No,” she snapped. As she thought better of it, she sighed. “Will would never forget me, exactly. But I guess … I don’t know.”

  “You guess,” Suzanne finished for her, “he might not make you A-number-one-top-priority anymore? And that makes you feel a little bit abandoned?” Julianne’s eyes locked into her friend’s as Suzanne wrinkled her nose and held up her hand, showing only the slightest bit of room between her index finger and thumb. “Little bit?”

  She managed a tired smile of surrender. “Maybe a little. Yeah.”

  Suzanne glanced over her shoulder as Gus’s metal cage rattled from the other room and the bird tweeted out a stern objection to his sudden incarceration. Returning to their conversation, Suzanne dropped both hands to her lap and said, “Or else it’s that other thing.”

  “What other thing?”

  “The thing where you and Will are made for each other, and you’re both too ignorant to see it.”

  “Oh, that thing.”

  “Yeah. That one.”

  “No. It’s the other thing. The one where I’m afraid of being left in the dust while he rides off into the sunset with Alison the schoolteacher.”

  Suzanne nodded.

  “That’s actually what they’re doing, you know.”