The Pretty Lady and the Cowboy (Songs from the Heart) (3 page)

Plus, even though I had in fact nothing to do tonight but sleep, I found it more than a little irritating that a complete stranger would assume I had nothing else to do tonight. Did I have “hopeless case” written on my forehead or something?

Of course, Jess had been watching me the whole time, casting curious glances my way while waiting on a regular customer who needed some new race walking shoes. As soon as she was free, she came flying over to me. Her questions tumbled out in a rush.

“Who was that man in the limo? What did he want? What was in the envelope?”

“It was just a publicity stunt,” I told her. “Some guy was trying to pad the audience for his concert at the casino tonight.”

But that didn’t satisfy her curiosity. She grabbed the envelope from the recycling bin and gasped, “
Orchestra tickets
for a concert that sold out in
twenty minutes
? Kitty, aren’t you even the
tiniest
bit
curious
?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but she didn’t wait for an answer.

“Well, curious or not, you are
going
to this concert.”

I tried protesting that I needed to get some sleep. I was reluctant to admit even to Jess just how embarrassed I felt at the thought that I might run into Levi again.

She ignored my excuse. “And you are
definitely
taking me! You owe me big time for thinking I’d send you an unannounced blind date.”

I instantly felt guilty that I’d misjudged her. I sighed.

“Okay, Jess,” I said. “Just do me a favor and keep me from getting anywhere near Levi McCrory.”

“Are you kidding me? With all the girls who’ll be swooning over him at this concert, your face will be lost in the crowd.”

“And that,” I said, “is the way I plan to keep it.”

# # # # #

The rest of the afternoon Dan and I spent in the stockroom doing inventory while Jess handled the store. A new shipment had just come in from one of our major distributors. I needed his help with some of the heavy lifting, but part of me wished I could have handled things alone.

“Want to go for a run later?” he asked me as we unpacked boxes and collapsed corrugated packing crates for recycling. I knew he wanted our relationship to be more than just professional.

“Not today,” I said. “Jess and I are going to a Levi McCrory concert tonight. I have to get gussied up.”

Dan and I had been on a couple of dates and I’d even given him a peck on the cheek one night, but I just knew that on my end at least, there was no hint of romance there and no chance that there would be. Still, he didn’t stop trying. Not that he was ever pushy about it—just persistent in a way that often left me feeling guilty.

“Wow! He’s a pretty big star. How’d you get tickets?” he asked.

I avoided the question. “Jess apparently has a crush on him.” I rolled my eyes and said, “I’m bringing my Kindle along.” Fortunately, he hadn’t seen the cowboy who had hand-delivered the tickets.

Dan snorted. We had similar tastes in music and swapped iPods sometimes when we were running. His collection mixed contemporary jazz with a lot of classic rock, while mine was mostly jazz piano. Neither of us had any country western on our playlists.

“Well, be careful,” he said. “Those country singers pretend to be all home, mother, and apple pie. But I’ve read that the concert venues keep ambulances lined up outside because of all the heavy drinking that goes on.”

“You know me, the heaviest juice drinker on the block.” I didn’t want to talk about the concert or Levi McCrory anymore. I was doing this for Jess and that was all.

And I really didn’t feel like talking about heavy drinking. My sister Ally, six years my junior, was in college now and I was finding it impossible to keep her safe and sober even though the small campus she’d chosen was only about ten miles from my store.

Another worry. I pushed it as far back in my mind as I could.

“Just take care of yourself,” Dan said.

“That’s one of the things I do best,” I said. I smiled to reassure him I’d be okay.

We continued working steadily until closing time. At five, Jess balanced the day’s receipts, told me she’d drop the deposit in the after-hours drawer at the bank, and then left, saying, “I’ll pick you up promptly at 6:30. Be sure to wear something sexy.”

Dan raised his eyebrows at that and I shrugged. There was no way I could explain to him that the awful embarrassment I’d been feeling all day was somehow being replaced by a tingly feeling of excitement and anticipation. How could I explain that to Dan when I couldn’t explain it to myself?

# # # # #

After Dan left, I shimmied out of my jeans and into some running shorts in the store’s tiny dressing room. I’d said no to a run with him mostly because I needed the mental space that my daily run gives me. It was my time to relax, to let my mind drift. I made sure the front and back doors were locked and then took off.

My usual route home meandered along one of the most beautiful coastal roads in Connecticut. There were other streets that would have made the trip shorter, but none was as beautiful. I tried to clear my mind and just stay in the moment of this gorgeous run, tried not to think of Levi.

I didn’t really succeed. What would tonight be like? I knew that every concert held back a few complimentary tickets for newspaper reviewers, local DJs, people who might have done a favor for the star or a member of his band. Would he even know whether I was in the audience or not? I blushed and told myself that I certainly hoped he would not.

I’m not a super fast runner, but I must have picked up the pace as my thoughts drifted. I made it home, a distance of a little less than five miles, in just a little over 40 minutes. Not bad. I gave myself a mental pat on the back.

Home for me was the third floor of a gorgeous hundred-year-old Tudor style house on one of New Chester’s quiet back streets. An empty-nester couple and their two dogs occupied the first two floors and were thrilled to have a renter who was a local merchant. It worked great for me, too. They made me feel like family, and that had helped take the edge off the grief I felt when my dad died.

I showered quickly, towel-dried my hair, and thought about what I should wear. I don’t fuss a lot with my hair or make-up. My hair is blonde, wavy, and about shoulder length. Most of the time I pull it back in a ponytail. Tonight I added a wide black ribbon around the ponytail. I figured that was plenty good enough.

I dug through my closet for the little black silk dress I had worn to the last concert I’d attended at Lincoln Center. I’d made the trip into New York City to see Wynton Marsalis and a jazz septet as a special treat to celebrate my first six months at The Finish Line. Honestly, I didn’t own a lot of dresses, so this was going to have to do.

I pulled it on over my head and felt the silk slide over my body. It came as a shock to realize that I was remembering Levi tucking my hand in the crook of his arm, and imagining what it might be like to feel a man’s hands—Levi’s hands?—caressing me. I felt myself blushing even though I was all alone. Maybe Jess was right. Maybe it had been way too long since I’d been on a real date.

Just then I heard the first few notes of the theme from
Rocky,
my ring tone. I know it’s a little corny, but hearing it gives me a lift. I mean, who doesn’t want to feel like a champion? I recognized the number immediately; it was my sister. Boy, did I have something to tell her for a change! She’s such a pop-culture maven; I knew she would have heard of someone like Levi. I couldn’t wait to tell her where I was going tonight.

But it didn’t take more than hearing Ally say, “Hi, Kit,” for me to come to the realization that I always dreaded, that she had had more than a few drinks. Inevitably, this conversation would be argumentative on her end and futile on mine. By tomorrow she will have forgotten what was said, but I won’t be that lucky. “Why can’t I get my own apartment?” was a recurring theme whenever we spoke lately.

I tried to keep our talk from heating up, but she ignored my efforts and insisted, in a voice slurred by alcohol, that she was “too old to be locked up in a dorm.” I had no answer that would penetrate the alcohol haze. My dad had made me her guardian until she reached the age of 21 and that was a good eighteen months away. I would do what I could to protect her until then, but she wasn’t making it easy.

I had to get her off the phone. I pretended to hear someone at the door, told Ally I loved her, and then quickly dialed Ava, a friend of Ally’s who sometimes looked in on her for me. Fortunately, Ava was available and sober (not always the case—how do these undergrads do it?) and said she’d do her best to keep Ally from getting into trouble. That would have to do for now.

Seconds later the doorbell rang. Jess was, as always, right on time. She was dressed in jeans, a rhinestone-covered tee-shirt, and cowboy boots. Right. I definitely should have Googled “What do you wear to a country concert?” It was pretty obvious that I could have used some advice.

Jess looked me up and down and didn’t even bother making a sarcastic comment about my “concert attire.” She headed straight for my closet, rooted around for a while, and finally pulled out the low-cut, skinny jeans I had bought on a whim last year. Bending over in them revealed more of my backside than I wanted, and I had hidden them behind my winter clothes.

“Jess, no!” The last time I’d actually been able to get them on my body, I had just finished training for a marathon and was a good ten pounds lighter. I had no intention of wearing those.

She ignored me and continued searching for something for me to wear on top. She didn’t have a lot of choices. About half of my tee-shirts are given to me by my running shoe vendors; the other half come from the various fun runs and races I enter.

“Kit, don’t you have anything without a running shoe logo on it?” she asked. She continued rooting through my stuff. I was a little embarrassed, but hey, I’m a running store owner, not the proprietor of some ritzy-schnitzy boutique. Finally, she pulled out a white shirt—clean, pressed, and still in the dry cleaner’s plastic. She eyed it critically.

“This might do,” she said. She ignored my protests that the shirt had been my father’s and was sure to swim on me, directing me to get my buns into the jeans and to hurry up about it. She wanted to be in plenty of time for the opening act.

I shimmied out of the dress and started to tug on the jeans. Uh-oh. I wasn’t going to get these zipped.

“Jess, really, this just isn’t going to happen,” I said. But she pointed to the bed and I knew what she wanted me to do. I lay on my back, sucked in my breath, and slowly managed to inch the zipper up. “Seriously, I can hardly breathe,” I said.

“Not important just now,” she said. “Think of the bigger picture.”

“Right. A picture that doesn’t include inhaling and exhaling? And that would be what exactly?”

“How you
look,
of course,” Jess said.

I avoided the mirror as she handed me the shirt. “I guess you know what you’re doing,” I said as I buttoned it up over the white lace cami I had grabbed from a drawer.

“Of
course
I do,” she said, proceeding to undo the top three and then the bottom two buttons. She tied the bottom front tails in a double knot so that the shirt barely came to my navel. I was still avoiding the rear view.

Jess stepped back and gave me an appraising look. “Okay, a little less Alice in Wonderland would be good. Get rid of the ribbon, put on some mascara and some lip gloss, and I’ll pronounce you good to go.”

I did as I was told, and as my loosened hair fell around my shoulders, I finally did risk a look in the mirror.

“Jess,” I said, turning my head over one shoulder to get the view from behind, “these jeans are too tight!”

“They sure are, honey! They’re
way
too tight in
all
the right places,” she said, looking pretty pleased with her handiwork. “You’ve got a slender, curvy figure to die for, and with those big blue eyes of yours and that soft, blonde hair, you could be gorgeous 24/7.” She gave me an evil grin. “On the other hand, if you just keep burying your boobs under those baggy tee-shirts the way you do, I’ll stand a better chance of scoring when the handsome guys come into the store.”

I looked one more time at the girl in the mirror, hardly recognizing the shapely, sexy image that I saw.

The stage set took up the entire front of the casino’s concert venue, floor to ceiling. It was like nothing I had ever seen.

At the Wynton Marsalis concert, the only things on the stage were chairs and music stands. Add the musicians and, hey presto, the scene was complete and the concert was ready to begin.

Now I was looking at a main stage that had been decorated like a carnival midway with the silhouettes of a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, games, and even a small roller coaster. Brightly colored lights flashed everywhere. Just walking in made you feel cheery. To complete the carnival mood, vendors selling hot dogs and cotton candy roamed the aisles. I inhaled the cotton candy scent and instantly felt like a happy teen out for a fun time.

The crowd was mostly female, though I could see that many of the women had brought boyfriends along. I was secretly grateful that Jess had insisted I change clothes because the dress code here seemed to call for “sexy casual” with a heavy emphasis on the “sexy.” I saw tattoos in places that I wouldn’t be caught dead revealing: butterflies at the base of the spine, “Levi” in a heart placed low on a breast. This didn’t look like home, mother, and apple pie to me!

The usher gave us programs and led us down to our seats. What would these tickets have cost if we’d been lucky enough to buy them before they sold out? I tried to shout the question in Jess’s ear, but the crowd was so loud she couldn’t hear me.

We were barely seated when the opening act, a small band called Mississippi, ran onstage. I was in a state of complete sensory overload just people-watching. Almost everyone was standing up, many people waved tiny flashlights or cell phones in the air, and some couples were dancing in the aisles. Jess was singing along, as were many in the crowd, so clearly this was a band that people knew. Well, most of the people, anyway—everything was new to me.