Crazy Sweet Love: Contemporary Romance Novella, Clean Interracial Romantic Comedy (Flower Shop Romance Book 3) (6 page)

“You know what time it is,” he said.

“Yay!” I said with exaggerated enthusiasm. “My favorite part of working in a museum. Cleaning up after little kids.”

“Oh, come on,” John said, taking off his cowboy hat and bandana as we headed for the cafeteria. “Isn't this what you were hoping for when you got your art degree?”

I laughed and shook my head. John and I both had our master's degrees. I'd actually been a triple-major for undergrad: art, history, and the German language. I'd gotten an internship at the railroad museum my senior year, and had turned it into a full-time job. My main work was as assistant curator, organizing the displays and helping with new acquisitions. No one had told me when I was hired that I'd also be serving as tour guide.

And maid. John and I joined the cafeteria crew and started sweeping up the mess the kids had left. The museum was understaffed, with only one full-time janitor on the payroll. He usually had his hands full with the bigger tasks, like polishing the brass fixtures on the displays, waxing the floors, and cleaning the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the length of the lobby and several other rooms. Until the museum could afford to hire an assistant janitor, little tasks like sweeping the cafeteria and cleaning the bathrooms fell on John and me.

I set about the mundane task, thinking to myself that this was what a master's degree in art got you, and wondering how little TJ was doing. I found myself looking forward to seeing him and his dad this weekend. Though I still had to wonder just what had happened on the train ride that had upset him so much.

Chapter 2

I was pretty worn out by the time I got back to my apartment that night. It was a small place, filled mostly with the same furniture I'd had in my college apartment over a decade ago. I still had the bunk bed my old roommate and I had shared, though these days the top bunk was mostly a repository for laundry I hadn't gotten around to folding yet. The walls were decorated with my own paintings, works I'd done over the course of many years, from my earliest abstract pieces that had mostly been experiments in color balance, to the tigers and panthers I'd painted when I was going through my “wild animals” phase, to depictions of mechanical contraptions covered in brass and gears. These last pieces were part of the steampunk phase I'd been in for the last few years. I had even sold a few at some steampunk conventions, though my favorite pieces I kept for my personal collection at home.

I changed out of my professional work clothes and into pink polka dot pajama pants and a tank top. Also known to my ex-boyfriend as “clothes a heavy girl can't pull off.” I'd stayed with him far longer than I should have before I woke up and realized how toxic he'd been for me. Some of the things he'd said still stuck with me.

When I logged onto my computer to check my email, I found a Google Hangouts message waiting from my mom. I sighed and checked the message to find out, surprise surprise, she wanted to chat. Ever since my mother had discovered video chat a few years ago, it was her preferred way of keeping in touch with me. Especially when she was babysitting my niece and nephew.

I was still pulling my hair up into a scrunchie when Mom called. As usual, the video took a few moments to connect, though I could hear the sounds of Mom moving things around on her desk. When the video feed finally connected, I saw Mom had company. My little niece Gracie was sitting on her lap.

“Hi, Amy,” Mom said.

“Hiiii!” Gracie said, waving enthusiastically.

“Hey, guys.” I waved, missing the days when video calls were a thing seen only on the Jetsons and Star Trek. Then I wouldn't have felt so self-conscious about my appearance.

“Gracie and Travis are spending the night with me,” Mom said. “And they were so eager to talk to their Aunt Amy!”

“Aww, that's so sweet,” I said. I forced a fake smile. I knew how this video call had really come about. Mom had no doubt asked the kids if they'd be excited to chat with me, and of course she had gotten them all worked up about it. She couldn't just call me because she wanted to. No, she had to show off my sister's kids. It was the modern grandmother's way of hinting that it was past due time for me to give her some grandchildren as well.

“How are you, Gracie?” I asked. As much as I could resent my mom for using the kids as a way of guilt-tripping me, I did miss my niece and nephew. My family lived in Eastern Pennsylvania, a good two-hour drive from where I now lived and worked. I usually didn't get the chance to see them except for on the holidays. Video chat helped us close that gap.

“I have a girlfriend,” Gracie said.

“Oh?” My eyebrows went up. I was as liberal as they come, though when my niece was only six years old, I had to wonder whether she even knew what the word “lesbian” meant.

“Oh,” my mom waved a hand dismissively, “her and this little girl in her kindergarten play at being girlfriends. Annabelle gave Gracie some flowers, and Gracie gave Annabelle a...what was it?”

“A Shopkin,” Gracie said with pride. “I gave her my favorite one.”

“Shopkins, that's it,” Mom said. “You know those little things she loves so much.”

“I remember,” I said. “But wait, what happened to that boy you were telling me about a few weeks ago? Jeremy?”

“
I don't like him anymore,” Gracie said. “I only liked him because I thought girls
had
to like boys, so I picked him cause he has a bicycle. But then Mom told me about Ellen, and said that she had a girlfriend, so then I thought it would be okay if I did too.”

“Ellen from TV?” I asked.

“Uh-huh! I like her. She dances a lot.”

I laughed. I only caught Ellen's show every now and then, but I did remember the dancing.

Gracie soon got bored with the video chat and climbed down off Mom's lap. When she was away from the camera, I asked, “Does she know that Kimmy is gay?”

“No, I don't think so,” Mom said. “Well, it didn't come up. But at least now we know the conversation will be easy when she asks about it.”

“Easier than it is with Grandpa,” I said. “Or Uncle Joe. Or Uncle Phil.” A lot of my extended family didn't know my cousin Kimmy was a lesbian. Though I think a lot of them knew, and just kept themselves in denial. Kimmy kept up a certain image with my mom's side of the family, bringing male “dates” to family gatherings every now and then, just to keep our more conservative family members from harassing her. Dad's side of the family accepted her just the way she was, and so did I.

Mom and I talked for a little while about work, and how Gracie and Travis were doing, and that sort of thing. Though it didn't take long before she finally got around to what I was sure was the real reason she'd called.

“So,” she said, “Easter is coming up.”

“Yup,” I said, holding back a scream of frustration. “Just like it does every year.”

“We're having the picnic at the same place as always. You know the one.”

“Yeah, Mom,” I said. I sighed. “We've been going to Cardell Park since I was Gracie's age, I know.”

Sometimes I wished Mom would just come right out and say what was on her mind, instead of dancing around the subject like this.

“Well, your Aunt Teresa wants a head count. I told her I was definitely coming, and I know Dana is coming with the kids. And Peter, obviously. And Edward's even flying in this year.”

Here it came. I could almost taste it. “That's great, Mom. I'm sure everyone will be happy to see Edward.” My brother lived out in Seattle now, working for a big computer software firm. He came back to see the family even less often than I did.

“And the thing is, Edward sent me an email the other day. He said he's bringing a girl.”

Bingo. There it was.

“That's great,” I said. “Is it something serious?” I clenched my teeth, but forced a smile onto my face. Mom bringing up my brother's new girlfriend could only mean one thing.

“I think so. Well, I'm not sure. He didn't really say. But how long has it been since he brought someone to Easter? Anyway,” she waved a hand, “that makes eight from our clan, counting you. Unless you're bringing someone, too?”

I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, trying to hold in my frustration. I hadn't really dated in almost two years, since I broke up with my ex. My mom kept asking me when I was going to find someone new. I kept telling her it wasn't that simple, but she wouldn't listen.

“I haven't met anyone, Mom.”

“Have you tried looking online?” she asked. “You should go on Match.com. My friend Regina met a guy on there last year, and they're so happy together.”

“
I'm not really interested in doing any more online dating.” I'd done the e-dating thing before. I usually ended up finding someone who lived 700 miles away, which was a recipe for heartbreak. I'd actually tried a long distance thing for almost two years, just after college. It had ended when he wanted me to move to Georgia to be with him, and I wasn't willing to leave my life and my career behind to do it. And of course, he'd been shocked at the very suggestion that
he
might be the one to move up here for
me.

“Well, I'm just saying—”

“I really need to get going, Mom,” I said. “I've got a lot of work to do tonight. The Steampunk World's Fair is coming up in a few months.”

“Oh, it's good that you're still doing your art. You were always so talented.”

“Doing my art” was what Mom had started calling my painting when I'd told her to stop calling it a “hobby.” Even though I sold several paintings each year, it didn't count for her unless I could make my living off it.

“Good night, Mom,” I said. I didn't have the patience to get into another debate about my art with her so soon after getting into another debate about my love life.

“Good night, dear. Oh, and don't forget about the banner!”

“I won't, Mom. I promise.”

I ended the call before she could fit in another word. I made dinner, then settled into the cramped corner of my apartment that I called my “art studio.” It was really just a desk, a bookshelf filled with art supplies, an easel, and an old, rickety stool. But it was where I worked my magic.

I still had to get started on the banner for this year's Easter picnic. It was my contribution to the gathering every year. Sometimes I wished I'd never volunteered to do it that first time when I was eight years old; once the family had seen how artistic I was, it had become my burden at every Easter since. And not just Easter, but Christmas and the Fourth of July, too. Each year's banner had a different theme and style, though I was about tapped out on ideas. There were only so many years in a row I could paint eggs, bunnies, and a cartoon Jesus before it got stale, so for years now I'd been trying out different ideas to keep things fresh. Last year's Steampunk Jesus and his Brass-Goggle Bunnies had been a hit with the younger kids in the family, though Mom had simply called it “an interesting choice.”

I decided to put off work on the banner for now and start a new painting instead. I started with pencils, sketching out the framework for the scene I pictured in my head. Then I used my black paints to add in some shading, giving the designs depth and shape. Slowly, the image of a little clockwork doll formed on the canvas. She had stringy red hair like a rag doll, and her chest was ripped open, but instead of stuffing, she was filled with bent and broken gears, cogs, and springs. She sat slumped in a corner, lost and forgotten, a child's toy waiting to be loved again.

I went to bed with the painting still incomplete, which made my little clockwork doll look all the more sad and lonely. She'd have to wait for another day before I could bring her to life.

Chapter 3

I was organizing a tour group Saturday morning when I saw Tom and TJ enter the museum. I waved them over with a big smile on my face. “Hey, guys,” I said. “How've you been doing?”

“We're good,” Tom said. “Right, Teej?” He tousled the boy's hair.

“Yeah.” TJ brushed his dad's hand away and looked up at me bashfully.

“We're just about to get started,” I said. I turned to the rest of the tour group and spoke up so the people in the back could hear me. “Okay, everyone, let's get started. Our tour will begin in the Dawn of Locomotives.”

I led the group through the museum, stopping first at an exhibit on the very first steam locomotive built by Richard Trevithick, then continuing through the expansion of rail throughout the United States and other countries. The tour group was mostly small families with kids, so I made sure to spend a lot of time at the kid-friendly exhibits. It made me smile when I saw TJ joining some of the other kids as they climbed over one of the larger model trains and explored the various cars.

“He seems to be getting along better with other kids today,” I said to Tom as we watched the kids play. “I'm glad his experience the other day didn't spoil him on the whole museum.”

“He's a resilient kid,” Tom said. “He's had it rough, but we make it work.”

“How long ago did you and your wife get divorced?” I asked, hoping I wasn't prying too much into his personal business.

“The divorce isn't final yet,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “It's...complicated. We split up two years ago, but the legal aspects have been a hassle.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He looked genuinely concerned for his son's well-being. It was a shame when kids had to go through such trials.

At lunch time I led the tour group to the cafeteria. I usually took my meals in the employee break room, but on days when I was running tours it was easier to stay with the group so we could pick up where we'd left off after lunch was finished. As soon as I sat down with my lunch, a ham and cheese hoagie and chips, TJ and his dad came over to sit with me.

“Mind if we join you?” Tom asked. “TJ said he wanted to ask you something.”

TJ kept his head down while he talked. I got the impression that he wasn't very comfortable expressing himself. “I got confused in that book you gave me when it said something about 'ghost trains.' Like, I thought it was talking about real ghosts, or at least, what people
think
is maybe real ghosts if they're dumb and believe in them.” He shrugged, still keeping his head down. “But then it started talking about trains that just run without people in them, and I didn't get it.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Well, there's no real ghosts on those trains,” I said, thinking briefly of the “Phantom Train” from one of the old
Final Fantasy
games. “Not that I know of anyway. No, it's kind of a legal loophole thing.”

“Legal loophole?” Tom asked. “Are there some kind of weird train laws I don't know about?”

“Oh, you'd be surprised,” I said. “This is a British thing. The way I understand it, they've got something like fifty or more train lines that only run for the sake of appearances. Some of them only run a few times per week, they don't advertise them, and even the people who sell tickets at the train stations don't know these are lines that actually exist. No one rides them.”

“Why?” TJ asked. He was looking up now, no doubt curious about the “ghost trains.” I know I was the first time I learned about them.

“Apparently, they have to go through this whole big hassle when they want to shut down a line. There's appraisals of how it will affect passengers and the economy, a report has to be published to the press so the people know what's going on, then they need to wait months and months through consultations, hearings, and so on. It takes so much time and costs so much money to go through the red tape that they decided to just keep some of these trains running with no passengers. It's apparently cheaper to keep them running than to shut them down.”

“Wow,” Tom said, snorting and shaking his head. “And I thought our government was bad. It's ridiculous the kinds of things that happen because of dumb laws.”

I laughed. “Tell me about it. Though at least it makes for good stories. I read online that there's 'ghost train hunters' who go exploring sometimes, trying to find where these trains run so they can catch a ride. They don't advertise the schedules for them anymore, so it's apparently quite the challenge.”

“Well,” Tom said, “I guess I never knew trains could be so interesting.”

He smiled at me and caught my eye. I smiled back, looking into his eyes for a moment. They were a soft, deep blue. He wasn't what I would have called ruggedly handsome or anything, but he was cute, and his eyes certainly were nice.

After lunch, we finished the tour, then the families broke off to explore the rest of the museum on their own. TJ and his dad lingered in the lobby, looking over the map of the building to see if there was anything left to check out. I watched them for a moment, chewing on my lip. I still felt like I needed to do something more to make the little boy's experience more magical. I'd had a lot of bad school field trips as a kid, I knew what it was like to have divorced parents, and I guess some part of me felt like I owed it to my childhood self to make sure TJ had the best experience I could offer him.

I walked over to them with my hands in my pockets, looking around to make sure none of my coworkers overheard me. It wasn't like what I was planning was against the rules, really, but it would certainly be frowned upon. “Hey, guys.” They both turned and looked at me. “Want to see something no one else gets to see?”

“Yeah!” TJ said. He bounced on his toes a bit.

“Something secret?” Tom asked.

“More like...something we've been keeping tucked away.” I winked at them. “Come on. Special treat, once in a lifetime opportunity.”

I led them across the lobby to a set of stairs with a chain strung across the front. A sign hanging from the chain read “Employees Only—No Entry!” I unhooked the chain, let TJ and Tom head up the stairs, then hooked the chain back up behind us.

“Why is this off limits?” TJ asked. He stalked up the stairs like we were on a ghost hunt. “Is it condemned or something?”

“No,” I said. “Nothing dangerous. Just some stuff that needs some maintenance and repair work. We've been keeping it for storage for years, because the museum can't afford to get it fixed.”

The stairs curved as they climbed higher into the building. I stopped us at one of the windows on the east side and pointed outside. “See that clock tower? Notice anything funny about it?”

TJ climbed up on the broad window ledge to peer out the window. He cupped his hands on either side of his eyes and pressed up close against the glass. “The hands aren't moving,” he said.

“The hands are painted on,” I said. He turned to me with a confused frown. I smiled and pushed my glasses back up my nose with one finger. “A little bit of history most people don't know. This building wasn't always a museum. It used to be city hall.”

We started up the stairs again. TJ looked up at me with rapt attention. Even his dad hung on my every word. “This building was built back in the 1800s,” I said, slipping into my “lecture voice” without realizing it. Being a history major had always meant I was really immersed in this sort of thing, and I loved the chance to show off my knowledge. “It was originally the Jordonville City Hall. That was when there were three small towns in this area, Jordonville, Sanderson, and Brandenburg. They voted in 1896 to merge all three towns into one.”

“Why would they do that?” TJ asked, his face scrunched up in thought.

We stopped before a pair of old oak doors at the top of the stairs. “To save money. Merging the towns made sense with all the growth in the area, and it meant they could all share one post office, one police station, that sort of thing. And they decided to build a new city hall, since they were going to need more space to run the bigger town. This building was shut down for about forty years, before it was reopened and renovated as an art museum. There were expansions over the years, new wings added on, giving us more room. Then there was a fire in 1967, forcing the art museum to shut down. It stayed that way until 1980, until funding was raised to repair the damage and reopen the building. But by then, the art museum had been at a new location for years, so this building was changed into the Brandenburg Railroad Museum.”

I opened both of the oak doors at once, swinging them inward to reveal a wide, high-ceilinged room flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows on the east side. Boxes, old furniture, and various oddities filled the room, many of them covered in white cloths. “When the building was shut down, from 1896 to 1942, it suffered some damage from weather. The worst damage was when strong winds hit the clock tower and blew the clock face right out. There was a big gaping hole there when the building was renovated into the art museum.”

I led TJ and his dad through the haphazard aisles of storage. TJ stopped here and there to check out the various things we had stowed away here. There was a huge, dusty engine from an old locomotive, a line of mannequins dressed in outfits from the 1890s, and a table covered in a scale model of Brandenburg circa 1980, when the museum reopened. A lot of the stuff up here had been part of old displays that had been taken down to make room for new exhibits. Some of it was stuff we just didn't have any other place to store, like the two dozen boxes of informational pamphlets about the museum's history. I pulled one of the pamphlets out and opened it, then handed it to TJ.

“See where the clock is missing?” I asked, pointing at one of the pictures. It showed the museum in an old, black-and-white photo from the 1930s. You could just make out a bird's nest in the hole where the clock once was.

“So they replaced the old clock with a painted clock?” TJ asked, studying the photo.

“Well, that's one part of the tale,” I said. I continued my way through the stacks of boxes, leading the boys further back. “When this place was opened as an art museum, they didn't have the budget to replace the clock. So, being an art museum, they decided a painted clock face was a good choice. It stayed that way for years, until the art museum shut down. Then when the building was changed into the railroad museum in 1980, the Historical Restoration Society that provided most of the funding decided they wanted a real clock again.”

We rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a giant, disassembled clock. The face was as tall as TJ, and the minute hand was longer than his arm.

“Wow!” TJ shouted. He ran over to the clock and started examining it from every angle. He ran his fingers along the clock's hands, feeling the ridges. Behind the clock face was a large mechanical engine, almost as big as a car. It was a haphazard array of gears, chains, and brass fixtures.

“Holy crap,” Tom said. “Is that the original clock?”

“It's the replacement the museum bought in the 80s,” I said. Tom and I circled around the massive clock, studying it. “They couldn't find the same model as the original clock, but they found this one for sale at a specialty shop in Vermont. It's from 1885. They figured that was close enough for 'historical accuracy,' compared to the original clock. The problem is, it's too big.”

“I'll say,” Tom said, snorting. “Look at the size of this thing! You sure this is a clock and not a time machine?”

I laughed and shook my head. “This is how they came back then. But it was too big to fit into the clock tower.” I gestured through the tall windows at the clock tower outside. “They made some modifications. See these parts here?”

I gestured to a long series of chains and pulleys that stretched out in a tangled mess past one side of the clock's engine.

“The clock face fit into the tower just fine. But the engine wouldn't fit. It was just too big. So they had to install it down here, and run a network of pulleys through here.” I opened a broad hatch set into the wall behind the clock. It led to the stairs up into the clock tower. Inside, dangling down the center of the tower in between the spiraling staircase, hung more of the clock's guts.

“And it worked like this?” Tom asked. He walked in and peered up the central shaft of the tower. The chains jostled when he brushed against them, sending down a cascade of dust that made him cough.

“It didn't work very well,” I said. “The engine is supposed to fit inside the tower, right behind the clock face. Adding all of the extensions to make it reach so far added too much strain, and the engine kept breaking down because of it. We had to pull the plug back in 1997. Though that was before I got here.”

I looked down at the clock with my hands on my hips. “I started here in the early 2000s. This poor baby was already broken down and pulled apart by then.”

I crouched down next to the engine, running my hand over one of the larger gears. This clock had been what first got me interested in steampunk. It was such a beautiful device, made of masterfully crafted brass, with interconnected parts that had once performed a magical dance, all for the sake of keeping the time. Now it looked like a pile of junk, though I could still see the majesty of what it had once been.

“Why don't they fix it?” TJ asked. He picked up a gear the size of his head, turning it over in his hands.

“Not enough money,” I said, sighing. “The museum struggles just to get by. We don't make much money off admissions fees. We make a bit more from the cafeteria sales and the gift shop, but even then, we're very dependent on donations to keep this place running. And unfortunately, trains don't hold the magic for some people that they once did.”