Keeping this in mind, Kayley restrained herself, took only the single pint to the checkout counter and then hurried out of the store before she weakened and went back for another one.
With the supermarket doors closing behind her, she stepped off the curb—and saw yet another penny.
“Nice try, Mom,” she said with a touch of sarcasm. “But I’m not buying it.”
Kayley walked right by the lone penny and was halfway to her car when her desire to think the best of every situation got the better of her. She stopped, turned around and retraced her steps until she was looking down at the penny again.
Picking the coin up, she found that unlike the shiny one she’d found earlier in front of the medical building, this one was old, worn and sticky. Apparently, some sort of gummy substance had been spilled on it.
Still, now that she’d picked it up, she couldn’t just toss it aside. Holding on to the coin, she headed back to where she had parked her car.
“Okay, so sue me. I’m an idiot and I have to believe in something,” she muttered as she opened her car. “I have to believe it’s going to be all right.”
Leaning over in her seat, she put the pint of ice cream on the passenger-side floor. Then she buckled up and drove home planning her evening: consuming a pint of rum raisin ice cream and watching an old movie on one of the classic-movie channels.
* * *
Her landline was ringing when she walked in.
Hoping against hope, Kayley dropped her purse on the floor next to the door and, still carrying the bag of ice cream, she quickly made her way over to the phone that was sitting on one of the two side tables bracketing the sofa.
Kayley grabbed the receiver and uttered a breathless “Hello?”
“How did it go?” the cheerful, maternal voice on the other end of the line asked.
Kayley suppressed the sigh that rose to her lips. It was her fairy godmother, calling to check on her. She should have guessed.
“I don’t know yet,” she told Maizie, temporarily sinking down on the sofa. She tried not to sound as dejected as she felt when she added, “Dr. Dolan said they’d be in touch.”
“Yes, but how did it go?” Maizie repeated with a touch of eagerness in her voice. “You must have some sort of impression about the way the interview with Dr. Dolan went.”
“As a matter of fact, yes, I do,” Kayley answered. “It went fast.”
There was a pause on Maizie’s end. “I’m not sure I understand,” she said.
“The doctor squeezed my interview between seeing two patients. That didn’t exactly give him much time to talk to me,” Kayley explained. Then, because Maizie had gone out of her way to arrange this interview for her, Kayley decided that it was only right to give her godmother a few more details. “He came in, looked over the copy of my résumé that he’d printed out and asked a couple of questions.”
“What kind of questions?” Maizie asked.
She told her godmother the first thing that she remembered. “Dr. Dolan wanted to know why I left San Francisco.”
It was obvious by the tone of Maizie’s response that the woman thought this was a good thing. There was almost excitement in the older woman’s voice as she asked, “And did you tell him that it was to nurse your poor sick mother?”
“Yes, I did, Aunt Maizie,” Kayley replied dutifully, smiling at the question.
There was a time when she would have resented being treated like a child, but now that her mother was gone, she had to admit she rather liked it. It took her back to when she was younger and was still someone’s little girl. Something that she was never going to be again, she thought sadly.
“And what did he say?”
“Something strange, actually,” Kayley answered. “I’m paraphrasing but he said that at least I was lucky enough to be able to be there to share some time with my mother before she died.”
“That’s because he was serving overseas when his wife was killed,” Maizie told her.
Kayley was surprised that Maizie knew that. But then again, Maizie always seemed to know everything.
“The physician’s assistant he’s sharing with another doctor told me something about that,” Kayley admitted.
Maizie’s tone brightened a little as she asked, “And then what did he say?”
“He didn’t,” Kayley told her. “He became very quiet and just stared at my résumé. Then the physician’s assistant stuck her head in to tell him that his next patient was becoming restless. That’s when Dr. Dolan thanked me for coming in and told me that he would be in touch.” Kayley sighed deeply. She was feeling rather dejected. This was the first interview she’d landed since her mother had died and it hadn’t gone very well. “Doesn’t sound very hopeful, does it, Aunt Maizie?” she asked.
“Oh, on the contrary, dear. It sounds very hopeful,” Maizie assured her. “Just remember, not everyone jumps into things the way you and I do,” she told her goddaughter. “Some people are quite slow and deliberate. They need to think things over before they make a decision.”
Kayley really wanted to believe that, but she didn’t quite see it that way. “The other physician’s assistant told me that Dr. Dolan had already interviewed five other candidates for the position and he’d turned each one of them down.”
“Did she happen to tell you why?” Maizie asked.
Kayley sighed again, feeling more and more certain that she was never going to hear from the doctor again—or if she did, it was going to be because he was turning her down and he didn’t like leaving any loose ends.
“No, she hadn’t a clue.”
As was her custom—because she had always been such an optimist—Maizie took the information in stride. “Well, you’ll get the job, dear. He rejected the first five applicants. Six is your lucky number.”
Kayley couldn’t help but laugh at Maizie’s unorthodox reasoning. “Since when?”
“Why, since right now, of course, dear. I’m sure of it. I can feel it in my bones.”
“Well, if your bones feel it, then it’s bound to happen,” Kayley said, humoring the woman although she was definitely not optimistic about the outcome. Still, she loved Maizie for trying to bolster her self-confidence this way.
“Listen, Kayley, I have to show a house to a client in half an hour, but I’m free afterward. Why don’t you come over for dinner, say at about six thirty? I could use the company.”
Kayley knew that her godmother was constantly on the go. She had a busy social life as well as a family consisting of her daughter, her son-in-law and a number of grandchildren she was quite proud of. Aunt Maizie didn’t need company. If anything, she needed an occasional moment of solitude. She was proposing the get-together for her sake.
“Thank you, Aunt Maizie, but I’m fine, really,” Kayley told her, begging off. “I’ve got some correspondence to catch up on and there’s a pint of ice cream that’s been calling my name since I walked in the door.”
Maizie wasn’t one to force her will on someone else, even when she meant well. “Well, if you’re sure,” she said, her voice trailing off.
“I’m sure,” Kayley assured her. Then, for good measure, because she could almost hear the hesitance in her godmother’s voice, she added what she hoped was an emphatic “Really.”
She heard the small resigned sigh that escaped from her godmother before Aunt Maizie said, “Call me the minute you get the job.”
Thanks for the positive pep talk,