The Pretty Lady and the Cowboy (Songs from the Heart) (5 page)

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said. I tried to tell her not to go anywhere, to make sure she kept Ally right where she was until I could get there, but the phone went dead.

Jess understood immediately what was going on. She pulled off onto the shoulder of the highway and punched the address I had repeated into her GPS.

“Jess, this is my fault,” I said. “Ally called me a few minutes before you got to my apartment tonight. I could tell she’d been drinking. I should have gone to her.”

“Hold on a second,” Jess said. “Ally gets herself so drunk she passes out at a party, and this is your fault how, exactly?”

“It’s my job to keep her safe, whatever that takes,” I said.

“Kitty, think about this,” Jess said. “Ally is, what, nearly twenty years old? That’s past the age of reason, wouldn’t you say? I think she needs to take some responsibility for her own actions.”

There was some wisdom in what Jess was saying, but I was too upset to see it. Even though she was driving as fast as she could, I felt like we were crawling along. I imagined the worst—her being loaded into an ambulance, taken to some hospital, before I could even get to her. My mind raced.
It was my fault.

“But, Jess, I promised my dad I’d take care of her.” I was breathing deeply, trying not to cry.

“Sometimes taking care of people means that you have to let them suffer the consequences for their own mistakes,” Jess said gently.

It took all my concentration just to hold myself together.

# # # # #

Thank heaven Jess was there. The address Ava had given me turned out to be a fraternity house a few blocks off campus. The music coming from inside was so loud we could hear it before we got out of the car. There were people everywhere, most of them holding mugs of beer or martini glasses, and I saw kegs of beer on the front lawn. As we passed through the front door, we saw a bar in the foyer serving hard liquor. How did they get away with this? Where was the house mother or house father?

We stopped several people and asked about Ally, but no one seemed to know her. Or if they did know her, they had no idea where she’d wandered off to. It was hard to make myself heard above the music and the noise of the crowd and even harder to make intoxicated people focus on what I was asking. Clearly having a co-ed pass out here wasn’t a big deal. Several people gestured to the stairs and I surmised that couples often wandered up to the bedrooms on the second floor.

I mentally added “date rape” to my list of worries. I hadn’t thought about that until now.

It was quieter upstairs and we made our way from room to room, trying our best to look for Ally but at the same time trying not to see too much. At last we located Ava standing outside a bathroom door. I said, “Ally?” and she pointed toward the door. From what we could hear, Ally’s body was working hard on getting rid of whatever was in her stomach. We heard her coughing, gagging, retching.

I rapped on the door. “Ally?” I said. “Ally, it’s me, Kitty.”

“Just… go… away…” She sounded awful, as if she could barely get the words out.

“Not happening,” I said. “I’m taking you back to your dorm.”

Jess put her hand on my arm. “Kitty, maybe you should let her sort this out for herself.”

I turned to her. “Also not happening. I need to make sure she gets out of here safely.”

We heard more noises of Ally being sick and then, after a while, the sound of running water.

“Ugh—family,” Ally said, as she opened the door. “Can’t you let me have some fun once in a while?”

“What I heard you doing in there didn’t sound like much fun,” I said. It was a shock to my system to realize that I was sounding like a parent. But there was no point in arguing just now. She sat down on a bench in the hall and put her head in her hands. Her chestnut brown hair had been pushed back from her face and was damp in front, as if she had splashed water on her face after barfing her head off. Her lipstick was smeared and the pallor of her skin made the smudges of mascara under her brown eyes look even darker. I asked Ava to please find their purses so Jess and I could give them a ride back to the dorm. Ava put down the bottle of light beer she’d been holding. I guess I should have been thankful that one of them had kept her drinking light, but I wasn’t feeling all that thankful. Ally kept her head between her knees while we waited. I don’t think she wanted to look me in the eye.

When we got to the car, Jess unlocked it so that Ava could help Ally get into the back seat. Ava buckled Ally’s seatbelt while Ally put her head back helplessly and closed her eyes. Then Ava settled herself next to Ally. Meanwhile, Jess rooted around in the glove compartment and found some recyclable plastic bags that she handed back to Ally.

“Nobody throws up in my car and lives to tell about it,” she told her. “Use these or die.” Jess treated her sage green convertible VW Bug like a baby. It was pretty clear she wasn’t thrilled about giving my drunk sister a ride in it.

Ally nodded weakly.

“Thanks, Jess,” I said as I got in the front seat. “I owe you.”

“Big time,” was all she said.

Fortunately, it took us only a couple of minutes to reach the dorm and even more fortunately Ally didn’t have to use the bags. I wanted to help Ava get Ally up to their room, but Ally had gone from drunk and sick to drunk and belligerent. She roughly pushed me away. “Let me live my own life, for gosh sakes. I had a couple drinks too many. It’s no big deal,” she said, and she staggered up the steps, holding onto Ava.

As I watched her go, guilt overwhelmed me again, but I felt completely helpless. Jess and I were both quiet as she drove me to my apartment.

“Kitty, you’re one of the strongest people I know,” Jess said as she dropped me off, “and you probably won’t want to hear this.” She paused, as if trying to find just the right words. “Ally may need more help than you can give her.”

It had been a long evening. I knew she was trying to be helpful, but really, this was not anyone’s problem but mine. “Jess, you’ve been a brick tonight and I can’t thank you enough. But I can handle this myself.” I glanced at my watch. “Geez, it’s almost three in the morning. Why don’t you sleep in and take tomorrow morning off?”

“What, and miss the fun of watching you stumble around the store on only three hours’ sleep? Not a chance,” she said.

“Thanks, Jess,” I said. “Really. From the heart.” I gave her a hug before I got out of the car and headed up to catch what sleep I could.

But even though I was dead tired, thoughts of Ally kept me awake for a long time. We had always been so close—best friends, really—before I went away to college. Then when I was away, she gradually stopped confiding in me. Dad often told me stories about her behavior. I heard about the crazy boyfriends on motorcycles, the ladybug tattoo she managed to get inked without dad’s approval, the drinking, the parties. But Dad always told me the stories with a smile. He didn’t seem troubled, so why should I worry?

Now I was worried. I needed to take the time to get to know her again. She was my
sister
. Of course she would listen. Of course we could be best friends again.

The previous night I’d been overcome with guilt, but when I my alarm clock jolted me awake the next morning, I was determined as well. Ally needed some tough love from me. Maybe I had made a bad choice last night when I farmed out my concern to her friend. On the other hand, Jess had a point. Ally was old enough to take responsibility for her own actions.

I pulled a clean tee-shirt from the stack in my closet, along with a pair of Vibrams, a hair tie, and an almost clean pair of jeans. As long as the jeans had no revealing rips I wasn’t going to be fussy. I showered quickly and ran a comb through my hair. I needed some fresh air, so I walked to town and then got some orange juice and oatmeal to go from the coffee shop next door. I took it back with me to my office and put my feet up as I ate.

My thoughts drifted to Levi. He had been right here yesterday, smiling, tipping his hat, even kissing my hand. I told myself to get over it. Giving way to fantasies at the concert was one thing. Remembering the reality of yesterday’s nonstop series of embarrassing moments was quite another. I had to admit, though, that maybe it was time for me to give in and at least let Jess introduce me to her friend. And I promise you I was going to insist that Jess be there in person to perform the introduction.

The last serious relationship I’d been in had fizzled after less than a month. I don’t know exactly what happened. Our passion had ignited the first night Patrick and I met, and within a couple of weeks I thought I was in love with him. But when I finally got the courage to say the words, I heard Patrick tell me that he was feeling crowded, that he thought we should start dating other people. It took me a while to realize that I was more annoyed than hurt, more embarrassed than upset. And had I really been in love? Or had I just been longing for someone—anyone—to say those three little words to me?

Since then, I’d poured my energy into the store. It was the love of my life. I told myself that was okay for now. I was only twenty-five. I had all the time in the world to find someone.

But I didn’t have much more time this morning before the weekend customers would start to arrive. I opened the cash register, straightened the shoes on the rack, and checked the inventory of the most popular energy gels and drinks. I was grateful when I saw Jess arrive. On-time as usual, she looked tired, but determined.

“Any word from Ally?” she asked.

“She’s probably still sleeping it off. Lucky her! I’ll have a few choice words to say to her later.”

“At least I hope you’ve stopped blaming yourself.” She flipped on the store radio and punched in the call numbers of the local country station. For once, I didn’t protest.

“My main goal is to help Ally. I’ll do a better job of that if I don’t assign guilt to one or the other of us.” Now if I could just get myself to believe that.

“Amen,” Jess said.

# # # # #

When the first customer walked through the door at just a few seconds after 10:30, I was more than a little mystified by her appearance. She was dressed in some kind of kimono-like garment with hat to match; the top of the hat was decorated with an animated scene in which three characters seemed to chase each other ’round and ’round. The little girl holding her hand—a granddaughter, maybe?—was wearing a green leafy Peter-Pan-like costume.

A few minutes later, a young couple, both wearing fuzzy, kit-fox-shaped ears and long furry tails, strolled in holding hands. They were followed by a guy in a top hat, goggles, and a full-length leather coat.

“Jess, I’m going to have to get to bed earlier tonight,” I said, when we met back in the stock room. “I’ve spent the morning so far waiting on imaginary characters.”

“You need to keep up with local news,” she said. “There’s a comic con at a local hotel.”

“That explains a lot!” At least I wasn’t hallucinating. “As long as their money is real, they can be whatever they want in whatever world they want,” I said.

It was nearly 1:00 before there was any sort of break in the crowd. By then, I’d outfitted all sorts of strange creatures with running shoes. One woman who was dressed like a princess in a long, flowing pink dress and a silver tiara, was fascinated by the shoes I was wearing, my Vibrams. Vibram FiveFingers are those foot-shaped shoes with toes—kind of like gloves for the feet—worn by runners who want to get the feeling of running barefoot. After she managed to get each toe into the right place, she hiked up her skirt a bit and handed me her tiara so she could try them out on the treadmill. She was so delighted with the way they felt that she decided to buy them and wear them right away. She paid me in quarters since she had converted all her cash to change so she could play in the video game room at the convention. Ah, well, money is money.

As she walked out wearing her new shoes, Jess nudged me and whispered, “If the princess had married the frog and had a baby, I’m pretty sure that’s what the offspring would look like.”

What a morning!

“I’m going in back for a break,” I finally yelled to Dan. I grabbed a yogurt and a carrot from the refrigerator and headed to my desk. There were no messages on my cell phone, and I took that to be a good sign.

I flipped open my iPad, glanced at my email (mostly spam), and then typed Levi McCrory’s name into the search bar. His website came up at the top of the list. A couple of swipes of my finger later, I was listening to his song, “A Girl Like You.” I closed my eyes as I imagined that I was someone’s girl. I remembered the feeling of his lips on the back of my hand, but then that image was replaced by the puzzled look he had given me as I grabbed for his shirt in my unsuccessful attempt to stay upright at his reception.

Dan’s voice over the intercom mercifully kept me from reliving my humiliation for the umpteenth time that morning. “Kitty, what’s the best cross trainer for a tall guy who wants to supplement his running with P90X?”

I sighed. “I’ll be right there,” I said.

As I left my desk, I glanced one last time at my iPhone. A text had apparently come in about an hour ago: “OFF TO GYM TO SWEAT OFF LAST NIGHT.”

I tapped the talk bar of the intercom again. “Just give me one more minute, Dan. Meanwhile, take a look at the Avia’s. They’re great stability shoes.” I could recommend shoe types in my sleep.

I quickly dialed Ally’s number but all I got was her voicemail: “I’m not here, but you know what to do. Catch you later—bye!”

After the tone, I said, “It’s me, Ally. Love you. Call me.” I could only hope that she’d call.

# # # # #

The day dragged on in an endless stream of recommendations, laces, bare feet, knee braces, arch supports, and countless boxes, boxes, and more boxes of shoes. Even the part of the business I loved most, talking about running with runners of all sorts, got harder as I grew more tired. The science fiction conventioneers in their costumes stopped being diverting. I couldn’t stop worrying about Ally.

I thought closing time would never come, but finally the last customer had taken her Finish Line recyclable shopping bag and walked out the door with her two different kinds of shoes, one for running days, one for Zumba. Jess let out a “Yahoo!” and did a cheerleading jump in the middle of the floor. Ten minutes to five.