A vehement shake of Naomi’s head.
“Nomi—”
Naomi stretched her lips with effort. “Me...” She stopped and drew in a deep breath. “P-planning would be a little much...”
A little? Denial is a warm bedfellow on a cold night of reality.
Naomi nodded. “Someone else...plan it.”
Emma’s spirits soared. Here was a breakthrough. If Nomi was going to be reasonable about this, why not the rehab?
“Someone will turn up,” Emma enthused. A girl had to move on. Right on to England, Lady Emma. “The Jamboree has always been and always will be around, so there’s no need to worry. Now, let’s get you ready for transport to the facility, Nomi. I’ll have the nurse bring the transfer forms.”
Her grandmother rose up on her good elbow like Napoleon on his deathbed. “Emma,” her imperial tone commanded. With eyes boring into Emma’s, the left one slightly unfocused, she said, “You must p-plan the J-jamboree.”
SHE KNEW SHE sounded juvenile, but it wasn’t fair. Dashing away the wetness on her cheeks, Emma half ran, half walked out of the hospital.
Every time she reached for something, her grandmother would snatch it out of her hand: sleepovers rejected for civic service, particular friends deemed unsuitable. The list ran on and on.
Emma crossed the parking lot, the asphalt so heated it felt squishy under her sneakered feet. A tall woman dodged out of Emma’s way and then grabbed her by the arms.
“Zoo!” Emma exclaimed.
“Hey, Emms.” Zoo hugged her. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with the bulls at Jem Silver’s ranch. Sorry I didn’t text as soon as I heard you were in town. I’ve been swamped.”
Zoo would be a voice of reason in this mess. They’d been friends forever, as different as two people could be. Zoo, thin, with black hair and pale blue eyes, attracted boys like flies on manure, as Emma was fond of saying. Zoo spoke her mind and got away with it. Zoo had sweated away on ranches and farms since she was old enough to ride her bike from town.
This work ethic of Zoo’s had earned her Nomi’s seal of approval. Zoo was everything her grandmother wanted, and Emma never heard the end of it. Fortunately, Zoo was also fun and kind.
Emma steered her friend toward the Omni. “Do you know what she did to me this time?”
Zoo grinned. “Haven’t heard that in a while. What’s the tyrant up to now?” She had, on more than one occasion, stood up to Naomi, inspiring awe in Emma.
Emma rationalized that it was easier to butt heads with Naomi when you weren’t related. Chet did it all the time, and he lived. Then again, it could be Zoo and Chet were vertebrates, unlike herself.
“She told—no, ordered—me to plan the Jamboree. Never mentioned my trip to Europe once.” New situation, old anger, she acknowledged, but it seemed fresh each time it happened.
A flood of words gushed forth as Emma unlocked the door to her car. Heat poured out. “My only family member, and she pulls rank like when she got me a teaching job at the high school without asking me—and I went along with it. Like when Nomi overrode Grumpa on...on just about everything.” She moved around the outside of the car, opening doors and windows. “Darn it, I hate feeling like I have no backbone.”
“Lighten up, Emma. Tell your grandmother you won’t do it. But don’t hate her for asking—um, assuming.”
Emma hid a grudging smile. “How can I love someone so much and still want to put massive distance between us?”
“You don’t want Nomi out of your life, just out of the way of your life.”
“You ruined a perfectly good temper tantrum, you know?”
Her friend smiled. “My day, I guess.” She laughed as she said, “Just told Jem Silver his sperm count’s too low to breed. That ruined his day, too.” She laughed some more at Emma’s open mouth. “For his bull to breed.”
Emma imagined the scene with the handsome rancher and a giggle slipped out. She slid into the sizzling seat. “Yow. Hot. Okay. I’ll go back to town, drum up a replacement—before I hit Nomi with my decision.” She turned the key and squinted up at her friend, standing next to the car. “Thanks, Zoo.”
“Any time, you reactionary, you. Hey, what’s this I hear about the summer stud tackling you in front of the entire student body? That where your face got messed up?”
* * *
AS EMMA ENTERED TOWN, loneliness wormed its way around her heart. Sparks’s offer of food to make up for driving her into the dirt came to mind. If she hadn’t imposed a man moratorium, she’d go out with him.
He’d be fun. She wanted fun. She wanted—oh, blast—she wanted to stuff her face at the Dairy Delite. Emma punched the brakes and careened into the hamburger stand’s parking lot. The squeal drew the looks of those lined up by the order window, including a blond man towering above the others.
With his head thrown back, Sparks was laughing at something someone in the group had said. By the time she cooled her face enough to get out of the car and walk to the window, the others had drifted away, leaving Sparks to watch her approach.
“Hi,” he said.
Zoo’s teasing zipped through her head, and she blushed. Their complexions matched, red for red. On the heels of that was Zoo’s suggestion she find a replacement to plan the Jamboree.
Emma needed someone who got along well with everyone, although why that would be a requirement since her grandmother didn’t, Emma wasn’t sure, but it seemed a good thing. And the best person would be one who didn’t know how...how her grandmother could be. That left no one who lived in Heaven and the surrounding area. “Hi, yourself,” she replied.
Those fabulous blues scanned her face, and then his gaze flickered away.
“You ran away from my grandmother.” Really, she didn’t blame him.
The redness of his face deepened as he glanced down at his foot and scraped some gravel.
She continued in a brisk tone, “Can you believe my grandmother ordered me to plan the Jamboree? I’m about to go to England.” She’d leave out the part about being dumped by Brad. About how “baby, I’ll always be there for you” was merely a fairy tale.
Today she was especially looking for someone to lift her spirits.
“Imagine that,” he muttered, and stared at the ground, watching an ant struggle with a crumb of bun. “She say anything else?”
“No.” Somebody ought to tell Mr. Gorgeous about SPF 45. If he kept burning his face like that, he’d be getting bumps frozen off with liquid nitrogen by age forty.
“Nothing else?” He seemed somewhat disappointed; no, bitterly disappointed.
Obviously, she didn’t know him well—but still, she expected excitement, interest. Instead, he seemed as stimulated by her pronouncement as an eighth grader assigned to plot a time line for the Revolutionary War.
Starla Fleming slid the window open with a bang. Sparks startled.
“Are you gonna order something, Emma? If you’re not, I’m gonna sit in the back and watch my soaps,” Starla rasped, then peered at Emma’s scraped face.
Emma