7 Clues to Winning You (32 page)

“I used all the letters! And the punctuation marks!”

“I know!” He mirrored my enthusiasm. “Yeah, so originally, I had planned to do all this yesterday, but … yesterday was kind of a disaster.”

I pinched an inch of air. “Just a little bit.”

“Today was much better.”

“Much, much,” I agreed.

“I’ll send you the real clue number seven for the Senior Scramble later.”

“Don’t bother,” I said.

“You’re not quitting now, are you?” he asked.

“First of all, Cy and Jenna are going to win. They’re tearing it up. Second, I don’t need that scavenger hunt because I just won my own.”

“Technically, it was more of a treasure hunt,” he said.

I nodded. “You’re absolutely right. It was definitely for treasure. And I found the treasure. I won the prize.”

He touched his forehead to mine. “Yes, you did,” he whispered.

I’d won the best prize of all.

I’d won Luke.

I lifted my face and kissed him again right there, center stage, in the silent theater, with no one but us and echoes of lines from Shakespeare. My phone rang in my pocket, but I ignored it. My hands were busy running through Luke’s hair as we kissed.

And kissed.

We finally pried ourselves apart after the third time my phone ding-donged to let me know there was a voice mail message. Luke laughed and said, “I know you want to get it. Just get it.”

I slid my phone out of my pocket as Luke nuzzled the nape of my neck. I selected the new message and held the phone to my ear. A cheerless nasal voice said:

Hello, I’m calling for Blythe McKenna. This is Nurse Darlene from Shady Acres Nursing Home. Blythe, Ms. Calhoun has requested that I call you and tell you that she needs you here as
soon as possible. Please return this call or come to Shady Acres
during visiting hours
.

My heart instantly shrank from a hot-air balloon to a nut. I was afraid that Darlene’s message meant only one thing: Ms. Eulalie was dead.

“Luke,” I heard myself barely whisper. “Can you come somewhere with me?”

Luke drove me to Shady Acres. When we got out of his pickup truck, the sun was bright and I could smell the early lilacs blooming in the garden. I closed my eyes and hoped with every cell in my body that this was a good sign and not a lesson from the universe about contradiction and irony.

Luke took my hand as we walked through the front doors. When I stopped to sign us in as visitors, the woman at the desk frowned at me and then became absorbed in her book. We turned the corner and passed Darlene’s desk. It was empty. I was glad. I didn’t want any delays on my way to see Ms. Franny. The quiet in the hallway was unsettling. I struggled to listen for any sound coming from the ladies’ room, laughter, arguing, anything. There was only silence.

I paused at the door to their room before Luke and I went inside. I closed my eyes and steeled myself for what I was surely about to learn: Ms. Eulalie was dead and Ms. Franny was in pieces.

I inhaled. I exhaled. I inhaled again.

Luke firmed his grip on my hand.

We went inside.

A tongue depressor flew past my face and clattered into a clean bedpan on the bureau.

“Bull’s-eye!” Ms. Franny threw her hands in the air.

“Whoo-hoo!” Ms. Eulalie yelled, clapping. “That’s five in a row for me!”

She was alive. Alive!

And apparently, a great shot with a tongue depressor.

“Hi, ladies,” I said timidly. Luke flashed a quick wave as well.

“Baby girl!” Ms. Eulalie cried. “Come on over here and give me some sugar. I missed you so.”

I ran and flung my arms around Ms. Eulalie’s soft round shoulders. She smelled like Jean Naté After Bath Splash, and it was even better than the lilacs to me. “I missed you too,” I said.

Ms. Franny pointed a tongue depressor at Luke. “So who’s the beanpole with the x-ray specs?”

Luke took half a step into the room. “My name’s Luke Pavel, ma’am.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Ms. Eulalie said extra loudly. She winked at me.

“Well, you’ve got yourself one long set of legs there, boy,” Ms. Franny said. “Use ’em to get in here.”

Luke blushed and smiled at the linoleum floor. He stepped over to Ms. Franny and extended his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Calhoun. Blythe has told me many complimentary things about you.”

“Ha!” Ms. Eulalie yelped. “Then baby girl lied to you, boy.” Ms. Franny tossed her tongue depressor at Ms. Eulalie
but missed, I’m pretty sure, on purpose. Ms. Eulalie gracefully held her hand out to Luke like she was royalty. Which, to me, she was. “Eulalie Cornelia Stallworth Jones. Stallworth was my maiden name. You can’t throw a five-pound rock in Alabama without hitting a Stallworth or their kin.”

Luke took her hand gently and shook it. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Jones.”

She waved her free hand at him. “Oh, you just go on and call me Ms. Eulalie. Everyone else does.” She narrowed her eyes at Ms. Franny. “Except one.”

“I’m so happy you’re okay, Ms. Eulalie,” I said. “I was really worried.”

“I knew,” Ms. Franny belted. “That’s why I had Nurse Ratched call you. I didn’t want you stewing for a week about whether or not Ukulele had croaked yet.”

I smiled at her. “I was worried about you too, Ms. Franny.”

She went,
“Psssh!
I was fine. No need to worry about me.”

I leaned close to Ms. Eulalie. “She was a basket case,” I whispered. “She’s a total mess without you.”

“I can hear you!” Ms. Franny cried. “I’m old, not deaf, and I was not a basket case or a mess. I was … I had a stomachache. I was medicated.”

I made the cuckoo sign with my finger circling beside my head. Ms. Eulalie giggled, and Ms. Franny flung another tongue depressor at us. I picked it up. “What are you doing with these?”

“Playing HORSE,” Ms. Franny said. “Ukulele’s whipping my butt, if you can believe it.”

“Believe it, ’cause it’s true!” Ms. Eulalie crowed. “That
is, when she don’t cheat by making noise when I throw.” Ms. Eulalie plucked the tongue depressor from my hand and flipped it across the room. It pegged Ms. Franny on the shoulder, and she pretended to fall over dead with her tongue hanging out.

Luke cracked up so loudly that one of the orderlies poked his head in. That might have been the moment the ladies decided that Luke was all right with them.

“You young folk should get out and take in the day the Lord has given you.” Ms. Eulalie held out her arms to me and I hugged her again for a long time.

“I can’t stay anyway,” I said. “I don’t know if Darlene told you, but I got fired from volunteering.”

“Mmm-hmm, she told us,” Ms. Eulalie said.

“Couldn’t wait to tell us, in fact,” Ms. Franny said. “But we let her know how we felt about the situation.”

“That we did!” Ms. Eulalie echoed, and they cackled together. Luke looked back and forth between them and wouldn’t stop grinning.

I went over and wrapped my arms around Ms. Franny too and promised both of them that I’d be back to visit soon. Luke promised to come with me.

As we left, Ms. Eulalie called, “Go make hay while the sun shines!”

Once we were out the door, we heard Ms. Franny say to Ms. Eulalie, “You do know that saying means to go fornicate while you’re still young, right?”

“Oh!” Ms. Eulalie gasped. “No, it don’t! It don’t mean that! Tell me it don’t mean that!”

“And I thought I was the one with the dirty mind.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, please forgive me.”

Luke hooked his arm around my waist and drew me against his body. “I see why they’re so special to you. They’re certainly more entertaining than Dumpster-diving.”

I nudged him sideways with my hips. “Only a little.”

Darlene was at her desk down at the end of the hallway.

I grabbed Luke’s arm. “I have to talk to that woman really quick, okay? You go on out. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“No prob,” he said.

“And Luke?” I said. “Thanks for coming with me.”

“Of course.” He landed a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll be outside.”

I walked to Darlene’s desk. She was peering intensely at a chart through reading glasses on a chain around her neck. She took off the glasses when I said hello. “You’re here,” she said flatly.

“Yes.”

She hitched her head toward the ladies’ room. “Seen ’em yet?”

“Yes. Thank you so much for calling me. I was really worried. I appreciate you doing that.”

She nodded once and put her glasses back on.

“Darlene?” I said.

She took the glasses off again and looked at me impatiently.

“I want to apologize for being rude to you yesterday,” I said. “I was having an exceptionally bad day. I took it out on you, and I’m sorry.”

Darlene’s mouth scrunched to the side. She let her glasses
hang down. “Are things better today?” she asked, almost sounding interested.

I laughed and glanced toward where Luke had gone. “Some stuff, yes. Some’s still a total mess.” Darlene raised her eyebrows and half-smiled. I said, “That’s why I was so happy to see Ms. Eulalie back. It meant a lot to me. So thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Darlene slid her glasses back on and went back to her chart. “And Blythe?” she said without looking up. “You may return to your position next week.”

“But I thought …”

“Those two griping grannies threatened to forget their adult diapers if I didn’t let you volunteer again,” she said. She smiled at the chart, but I saw it. “Anyone who can keep those battle-axes happy and off my back for a few hours is fine by me.”

I suddenly sensed what Darlene had to go through with her job. How she had to work long hours with failing bodies and fading minds. How she had to keep staff in line and still not melt down herself. How she had to play the bad guy and put up with residents disliking her because unpleasant things had to be done and Darlene was the one who did them.

“Thanks, Darlene,” I said. “Let me know if I can do anything else to help out.”

“Will do,” she said. She flipped the page and went on reading.

I left to find Luke.

He was in the garden, bent over one of the lilac bushes with his nose buried deep in a clump of purple blossoms. I
walked to him so quietly that I was nearly beside him and he still hadn’t seen me. I watched him silently as he smelled cluster after cluster of flowers. Around us, the garden was in its first breath of fullness. Leaves had unfurled, colors peeked out, and each plant was plump and glossy and ready to erupt into the abundance of spring. The garden was on the very cusp of beginning. It was poised to flourish.

Just like Luke and me.

Why had I ever cared about happy endings?

Happy beginnings were so much better.