“You’re telling me. I mean, sure it was fun to pet a baby elephant, but this … this is Huck Wiley, in our town, staying at Lexi’s place.”
“Guess what?” Before I can, she continues, “I left my sweater at Lexi’s house last night. Do you think there’s any chance you can go over there and pick it up for me?”
My heart rate increases like a flamenco dancer’s castanets. “You mean just stop by? With Huck Wiley there?”
“That would be the whole point,” Emmie says.
“Do you think I should go home and change first? Maybe put on some lipstick or something?”
She motions for me to follow her into the back of the store where she has a little sitting area set up. She opens her purse, hands me a compact and a tube of lipstick. “Just put this on and you’re good to go. Although …” she hurries to add, “why don’t you pick up some cookies at the coffee shop and take some of those with you.”
“Why?”
“So, you can show Mr. Wiley how hospitable we are in these parts, that’s why.”
“Am I supposed to give the cookies to him?” I ask, unsure of how she sees this going down.
“Give the cookies to Lexi, but should Mr. Wiley be there, it might be nice to offer him one.”
“I don’t know, Emmie. I’m afraid if I go over there my nerves might get the best of me. I might throw up.”
“Did you throw up on him at your shop?”
I shake my head. “No but I might have pinched him to make sure he was real.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to pinch yourself, but as long as you didn’t throw up on him, I’m guessing you’ll be just fine. Just be yourself. You’re positively enchanting when you’re being you.”
“What does that mean, ‘being me?’ You say that like I’m some kind of kooky character.”
“You’re the perfect kooky character,” she assures me. “Look at you. You look like you’re going to weave a daisy chain and dance through a meadow full of swans.” She notes the horrified look that I know I’m wearing and quickly adds, “Like a medieval princess.”
I look down at my off-the-shoulder renaissance-style blouse with the puffy sleeves tied at the elbows and my longish purple skirt with the high button Victorian-style boots beneath. The multi-colored wide cinch belt showcases my small waist. After some consideration I realize I do look good, albeit unique. “Can I borrow a hairbrush?”
Emmie hands one over, and I make quick work of tidying my hair. My previous tiredness, that had Mrs. P and my daddy commenting, has been replaced by a pink flush of excitement. Staring in the mirror hanging on the wall, I touch up my lipstick and ask, “What kind of cookies should I buy?”
“Chocolate chip espresso,” she answers immediately.
“Why those?”
“Because they’re the best cookies I’ve ever eaten. Plus, chocolate chip is a totally wholesome cookie, like you, but the espresso gives them that rock-n-roll edge like Huck. It’s the cookie version of the two of you together.”
I stare at her like she’s the slightly off-the-wall one in the family, not me. She hurries to add, “Zach and I are the oatmeal raisin.”
“How do you figure that?”
She smiles wistfully. “We’re sweet like raisins and spicy like the Ceylon cinnamon.” She closes her eyes and lets out a yummy sound as she adds, “And the glaze …”
It’s like my family is setting out to turn my stomach; first Beau and now this.
“Get going. I hope the coffee shop isn’t out of chocolate chip espresso cookies. If they are, your backup is spicy gingersnap. Whatever you do, don’t get the coconut macaroons. Not everyone likes coconut.”
I hand her lipstick back as butterflies storm my internal organs at the thought of seeing Huck again. “Do you want me to drop your sweater off at your house afterwards?”
“Just bring it to the club tonight.”
In all the excitement, I’d momentarily forgotten about family dinner.
“Okay, but I might be a few minutes late,” I tell her.
“You want me to go ahead and order for you?” she asks.
I nod my head. “Get me the beet salad to start, will ya?” She shoos me out of the door, and I hurry over to the coffee shop to buy cookies. They have a dozen chocolate chip espresso left, so I buy eleven. On my way over to Lexi’s, I turn on the music again and fast forward to “Where Did She Go?” I let the hauntingly gritty descant fill the air around me.
When I think of you, I have to cry.
Where did you go? Why?
Was it me or was it you?
Is there still chance or are we through?
Some woman really messed with Huck Wiley’s heart. In the Rolling Stone article, he said this was his most personal album yet. He must have written it for someone he loved or still loves deeply, and I feel a shot of pure jealousy rush through me.
I have no claim on Huck Wiley. I mean heck, I just met the man for a few short minutes, all the while doing my best to make a questionable impression. But if you’d asked me when I woke up this morning if I ever thought I’d be within spitting distance of him, I would have definitely said no.
After driving to Lexi’s, I park in front of the house and stare up at the impressive residence wondering which room Huck is in.
What a funny thing life is. Lexi didn’t know that her family was tied to mine—albeit a hundred and fifty years ago—when she and Emmie became friends, almost sisters, up in New York City. Emmie says it was like they’d known each other forever.
I wonder if predestination is a thing or if people are just drawn to those they’re supposed to know, like opposite sides of a magnet. There has to be something to it, because there’s no other way to explain Huck Wiley showing up in my hometown, intent on a staying for a while. Not unless he’s meant to be here. And if that’s so, then why?
Chapter 9
I get out of the car and hightail it up the stairs to Lexi’s before I lose my nerve.
Shortly after ringing her bell, the front door opens. I’m expecting it to be Lexi, but much to my surprise, it isn’t. It’s the rock star. “Miss Frothingham, what a surprise,” he says, looking a bit alarmed. “What are you doing here?” He looks behind me to see if I’m alone. Maybe’s he’s worried I’ve brought a bunch of adoring fans with me or something.
“I’m, um … I’m … what are you doing here?” I pretend to be surprised. Playing dumb seems like my best option.
“I’m staying here,” he says. “I thought maybe your brother told you.”
“My brother?” Crap, has he talked to Beau in the last ten minutes since I left the factory? If so, I’m sunk.
“How do you know Davis?” I deflect, knowing full well he probably doesn’t even realize I have another brother. I should take my dumb blonde act on the road. I’m that good.
“Davis, who? I was talking about Beau.”
“How do you know Beau?” I ask.
“He hooked me up with Lexi. Maggie and I are going to be staying here,” he repeats.
“I didn’t even know Lexi was taking in lodgers yet. I thought she was still knee-deep in renovations. Goes to show how in the loop I am.” I scoot past him into the entryway. “Is she around?”
Huck shakes his head. “She’s not. She went out to get some groceries for dinner.”
“Why does she need dinner? She and Beau are having dinner with us at the club tonight.”
He arches that eyebrow again and a crazy urge overcomes me to bite it. Not in a vicious sort of way, more like a nibble. He seems to realize I’m having questionable thoughts and takes a step backwards. “Because she needs food? I didn’t ask. But one presumes that’s why one goes grocery shopping,” he suggests.
“Hmm.” I don’t say anything else; I just stand there and stare. Huck Wiley is stealing the breath right out of my body. I could look at him for hours and hours and not get bored.
“I can tell her you stopped by if you want,” he says
while moving back toward the door as though encouraging me to leave.
“That won’t be necessary. I’m going to see her shortly anyway. I can tell her myself.”
“If you’re going to be seeing her, why are you here?” he wonders.
“I was, um … I was …” Pull yourself together, Amelia, or this man is going to think you’re deficient. “Emmie left her sweater here last night and she asked me to pick it up.”
“Who’s Emmie?” he asks.
“My cousin. Lexi’s best friend. Emmie owns a kitchenware shop downtown.” I hurry to add, “She and Lexi worked together in New York City. Lexi came here on vacation after Emmie moved back home. Emmie was up for an award and lost it and then wound up getting loaded on tequila which led to her getting pregnant with Armie Hammer’s baby, and then, well, you know, she came home to raise Faye.” Inside my head, I’m screaming at myself, “Stop! You’ve developed diarrhea of the mouth.”
The rock star looks like he’s about to bust out laughing. “Armie Hammer’s baby? That’s quite something.”
“It would be if it really was his, but it isn’t.” His expression has me explaining, “Zach, that’s her fiancé, he looks like Armie Hammer, or rather he did … to Emmie … because of well, the tequila. She was pretty drunk.”
“Uh-huh. Okay then.” He gestures vaguely toward the interior of the house. “I assume you know where the sweater is.”
“I actually don’t. Maybe you can ask Lexi to bring it with her tonight. She and Beau are meeting up with my family later.”
“You couldn’t have called her and asked her to bring it?”
Son of a dog, that would have made sense. “I didn’t think of it. I mean, I guess I should have, but to be honest, it didn’t occur to me.”
“I can see that,” he says.
He can? “Well, thank goodness. I was afraid I was coming off as a real fruit loop.” Why did I say that?
He smiles slightly, like he’s talking to a mentally unstable person and hasn’t decided whether or not I’m dangerous yet. It seems he deems me harmless, because he offers, “I like Fruit Loops. They’re delicious and sweet. The very thought of them on my tongue makes my mouth water.”
I grab hold of the back of the sofa before my knees give out at such a comparison. Is he flirting with me? Please let that be the case.
Completely unaware of my distress, he adds, “They were my favorite cereal as kid. I rarely got them though because they were so full of sugar.”
“Then how could they have been your favorite if you never had them?” I squeak with the image of his mouth on me still in the forefront of my mind.
“My friend, Billy Espinoza’s mom, bought them. I’d eat them over there at sleepovers or whenever we hung out at his house.”
“My mama never let me have caffeine in my soda pop. She was afraid it would make me anxious. So, Emmie used to smuggle me a bottle once and awhile.”
“And? Did it?”
“Did it what?” I ask.
“Make you anxious.”
I let out a loud sigh knowing full well I’ve gone and made myself sound like a total loon. Might as well keep on telling him the truth. “Life made me anxious. I don’t think it had anything to do with caffeine.”
“Really?” he sounds genuinely curious. “Were you ever able to control the anxiety?”
“I jumped rope and ran track to try to burn it off. When that didn’t work, I counted.” There’s not a fart’s chance in France Huck Wiley is ever going to see me as anything but really odd now. Why do I feel compelled to be so darn honest in front of him? You’d think I’d try to act calm, cool, and collected in order to make a good impression. I mean, how many times does a girl actually get to meet her celebrity crush? And here I am epically blowing my opportunity to appear normal.
“Count how? You mean to a hundred or something?”
“Never to a hundred,” I assure him. “If I had to count that high, I’d stop at ninety-nine or go on to a hundred and one.”
“Because …”
“I only count the odd numbers.” I look down at my feet because I can’t bear to see the look in his eyes.
“Does it work?” he asks.
I blurt out, “Usually.” I did not expect him to ask that.
“Why do you think that is?” He seems genuinely interested.
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess everybody finds different ways to cope.”
“But you have some idea why that worked for you, don’t you?” he pushes.
“Yes.” I really could just cry right now. Most everyone I know thinks I’m a perfectly sane, albeit eccentric, woman. Why couldn’t I have kept up the ruse with Huck? I inhale deeply and explain, “When you have anxiety, you don’t feel like a normal person. You feel like an oddball, like a freak. Like you’re the only one who isn’t right in the head.” He nods which spurs me on. “Take the number three, for instance. It looks like half of the number eight. Eight is perfect and round and complete; three looks like half of it, so the number three is a freak.”
“Go on,” he says.
“The number five is sort of a backward version of three, so it’s a backward freak, which is freakier than a freak.”
“What about the number seven?”
“Seven looks like an upside-down number one when it has a foot at the base. Upside down is as bad as backwards.”
“And the number nine?” he wants to know.
“Upside-down six.”
“Why can’t the number six be an upside-down nine?”
“Because six comes first, so nine has to be an upside-down six,” I explain.
“And you find comfort in these numbers because they’re imperfect?”
“I can relate to them.” Then I drop the bomb of my reasoning, “Odd numbers are just as important as even numbers, they just aren’t perfect.”
“Like odd people are just as important as perfect people, huh?”
“Just like that.”
“I’m mighty glad you stopped by, Amelia,” he says, sounding like he really means it.
“You are? Why?” I wonder if he wants to cancel his daughter’s beading lessons or something?
“I think Maggie is going to like you, a lot. I think you might just be the perfect friend for her.”
For the first time since meeting this man at my shop, I keep my mouth closed and don’t come right out and say what’s on my mind. Which is of course, is Huck Wiley being so sweet with me because his daughter suffers from anxiety, too? Dear God, let it be for another reason.
I off-handedly wave as I walk out of Lexi’s house, my mind suddenly occupied by the source of my own unease. When I get to my car, I sit and inhale slowly, trying to still my racing heart. Having survived what I suspect was an attempted kidnapping as a child, has irrevocably affected the choices I’ve made in my life by drastically narrowing the boundaries of my comfort zone.
Just thinking of Maggie Wiley under the spell of anxiety flashes me back to that time and I’m finding it very difficult to breathe. I thank God daily my mama saw that woman lure me out of that restaurant with the promise of a free kitten. No one screams like Lee Frothingham and my mama let loose with a holler I’m sure they heard fifty miles away.
When I finally pull out onto the road, I still feel the lingering effects of dread, but I force myself to think about going to the club that I grew up in, with the people I’ve known my whole life, and I’m finally able to get on top of the fear that was quickly escalating. Panic attacks like this are the reason I don’t leave town. Familiar surroundings are a big part of my ability to cope and I dare not be somewhere they aren’t.
Chapter 10
I wind up getting to the club on time for our dinner reservation. In fact, Mama and Daddy are the only ones there when I walk in. Daddy gets up to pull my chair out for me and says, “You look nice. Did you take a nap or somethin’?”
“I just put on a little lipstick,” I tell him.
“The most impo
rtant thing a woman can do is never leave the house without her lipstick on,” Mama interjects. As an afterthought she adds, “And to make sure to refresh it regularly.”
“That’s the most important thing?” I ask.
“That and don’t murder anyone.”
In Mama’s eyes, the sins are probably equal.
“Where is everyone?” I ask just as Emmie and Zach show up with their baby. There’s a flurry of activity as they get settled. I hold Faye while they take their coats off and set the highchair up. I sniff the top of her head like it’s a tonic.
My cousin plunks down next to me and whispers, “So, how did it go at Lexi’s? Did you see him?”
“I did,” I tell her.
“And?”
“And I don’t know what my problem is, but whenever I’m in that man’s presence I do my best to show myself off in the worst possible light.”
“What did you do?” she asks with a level of real concern.
“I didn’t bite his eyebrow if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I wasn’t,” she assures me. “Why would you want to bite his eyebrow?”
“There’s something about the shape of it that gets me.” I hurry to add, “I don’t want to draw blood or anything.”
“Uh-huh. That’s good, I guess. So, what did you talk about?” she asks.
“Mostly anxiety.”
“What? Why?”
I confess, “I told him all about my love of counting odd numbers. I even told him how you used to smuggle me soda pop.”
Emmie cocks her head to the side. “You still got that number thing going on? I thought that ended years ago.”
“I sort of rely on them when I get stressed. Otherwise I’m good.”
She confesses, “I still have all of my baby teeth. I used to put them in the vest pocket of my William Shakesbear teddy bear.”
“Didn’t the tooth fairy take them?”
“I used to write to her and ask her not to,” my cousin answers. “I explained that I had a hard time giving away parts of my body and said that if she didn’t want to leave money, she didn’t have to. But she always did.”
The Plan: A Sweet and Sexy Rock Star Romantic Comedy (The Creek Water Series Book 3) Page 4
