Past Forward Volume 1 (31 page)

“But if she doesn’t like surprises, is this
really a nice thing to do?”

Chad hadn’t counted on scruples. He had
carefully ensured that everything he said was absolute truth. He’d
just left out the part of whose party it really was and that Lily
knew all about it. Willow’s job was to get Lily to a surprise
party. He’d never said the party was for Lily, but he had asked
Lily to tell him not to do anything special for her birthday.

“Oh, Lily loves surprise parties. She just
asks us not to make a fuss over her. The family always does though,
and she always has a great time.”

Three o’clock dragged past, and Willow
continued to grate her zucchini. Three-thirty came… and went. At
four, she picked up another zucchini, and it took every ounce of
Chad’s self-control not to bean her with it.

“If you’re going to go into town, and we’re
going to be there by four-thirty, don’t you think maybe you should
get changed?”

“I have to change?”

“Well, it is a party after all. You’re
soaked with sweat, your clothes are splattered with zucchini— Don’t
you—”

“Party! You said my job was to get her
there! You didn’t say anything about
me
going to a
party!”

His mind whizzed through the conversations
about her role in the plan and realized that someone so unassuming
wouldn’t realize that she was also invited. He ducked his head.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you wouldn’t know that it included an
invitation.”

“I picked enough zucchini to shred tonight
when I got back. I don’t have a gift. I look awful!”

“Not quite,” he muttered under his
breath.

“What?”

He grinned mischievously. “I wouldn’t say
awful. You look like you’ve been working hard, but I’ve never seen
you look better. Go take a quick shower, and I’ll go pick a bunch
of your flowers for her.”

It worked. Willow raced inside with orders
for him to put the zucchini in the summer kitchen. He heard her up
in her room, growling at him while he cut enough flowers for a huge
bouquet. He couldn’t help chuckling over the incongruity of her
bringing herself flowers to her own birthday party.

She entered the kitchen just as he wrapped
the stems in a dampened tea towel. “No don’t. I have a vase in the
other room. I’ll give it to her, and she’ll have a gift that
doesn’t die in a week.”

When she returned with the mosaic vase that
he knew her mother had made, Chad protested, forgetting for a
moment that the gift would never be given. “No you can’t. I know
you love that vase. You can’t replace it! Your mother—”

“It isn’t a gift if it costs me
nothing.”

Curious, Chad glanced at her. “George
Washington?”

A snicker escaped, although she tried to
stifle it. “David. The shepherd.”

“I got the right gender anyway.”

They climbed into Chad’s truck and sped
toward the highway and into town. She left her vase of flowers with
Chad and exited the pickup truck nervously. “I’m going to blow
this, Chad. I don’t think I’m any good at subterfuge.”

Subterfuge. First afoot, now subterfuge.
“You’ll do fine.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve got to get
out of here before she sees these flowers. See you soon!”

Chad drove away as Willow climbed the steps
to the church. She entered the foyer and found Lily Allen waiting
for her. “Hi, Mrs. Allen. I’m so thankful you had time for me.”

Lily fanned herself with a leftover bulletin
from Sunday’s service. “I was just about to go outside and wait.
It’s stifling in here. Now I know what it’s like to live in Death
Valley.”

“Maybe we could find a place at the park?
Willow suggested tentatively.

To her astonishment, Lily agreed. “Let’s
go!” That couldn’t have been any easier.

As they rounded the hedge that blocked the
corner view of the town square park, Willow shouted with everyone,
“Surprise!”

The crowd rushed to welcome them, and Willow
stepped aside to make room for well-wishers, but everyone gathered
around her hugging her. She glanced around her, confused. “I
thought— How did you know?”

Lily made her way through the group and
hugged her, beaming. “It worked! Chad said it would, but I didn’t
believe him.”

“You were in on this?” Willow’s eyes filled
with tears. Overwhelmed by both the thought and the sheer number of
people, most of them virtual strangers, Willow tried to choke back
her emotions—and failed.

Through the tears, Willow saw something
large and white floating toward her. She rubbed her eyes, and the
white blob transformed into the most immense bouquet of daisies and
baby’s breath she could have imagined. A face behind it—she
blinked, but couldn’t tell whose. Smiling, Willow pushed the
daisies aside and squealed when she saw Bill.

“You’re here! I was just wishing you could
be here!” To everyone’s—well almost everyone’s—delight, Willow
threw her arms around him.

Engulfing her in a bear hug and daisies,
Bill wished her a happy birthday. “You look amazing.”

“Did you stay over?”

“Chad let me sleep at his place,” Bill
admitted.

Before they could talk any more, she found
herself flung into a whirlwind of celebration. To keep her daisies
hydrated, Chad cut off the top of an empty two-liter bottle of soda
and used it as an impromptu vase. At first, every new thing
overwhelmed her. As the center of attention in a group larger than
any group she’d interacted with in her life, she felt constricted
and smothered. Yet, at the same time, there was something
comforting in knowing that people who hardly knew her name cared
enough to celebrate her birthday with her.

A cake procession made its way across the
street to the square and took its place of honor in the center of
the gift table. Willow had deliberately avoided that table. The
idea of wrapped gifts from a group of relative strangers was more
than she could fathom. A triple tiered carrot cake with cream
cheese frosting and fresh daisies tucked in at the bottom—Bill
couldn’t have ordered a more perfect cake if he’d tried.

She blew out twenty-three candles as the
crowd sang Happy Birthday, and then beamed as he presented the top
tier to her. “Eat a piece now and take the rest home for Monday,”
Bill whispered to her as she wondered aloud how to eat so much
cake.

Chuck stood on the fringes of the group,
watching and looking a little out of place. A grin split his face
and proved he was much more handsome than anyone had ever noticed
when Willow caught his eye and beckoned him to join her. “Come on!
Have some cake!”

A photographer—a professional, if the
equipment he carried was any indication—hovered around the
periphery of the group. He’d been so unobtrusive that she hardly
noticed him until he pushed his way through the crowd saying, “I
want a picture of you with your men.”

She felt Chuck’s hands on her shoulders
before she could ask whom he meant. She smiled up at him, before
her eyes roamed the crowd, looking for Bill and Chad. Who else
would be “her men?” Bill and Chad, however, backed into the crowd,
protesting. Willow’s face registered disappointment, and with a
flick of his finger, the photographer had both men standing on each
side of her, grimacing.

“Look guys, you don’t have to look like it’s
torture to be with a pretty woman!” The man winked at Willow. “I’m
Wes Hartfield, by the way. I’m Alexa’s brother. Hope you’re having
the best birthday you could have hoped for.”

“How could I not?” Willow teased, glancing
up at the faces above her. “I always dreamed of being surrounded by
handsome men.”

Wes snapped a picture before she continued.
“Of course I always imagined them at around three feet tall in
overalls and with homemade slingshots in their pockets. Oh and
freckles. I wanted
lots
of freckles.”

A handsome man interrupted them abruptly as
a band started playing a popular country song. “I’m Joe Freidan. I
wondered if you might like to dance.”

“I’d love to, but I don’t know how. Maybe if
I watch for a while. Thank you, though.”

He gazed thoughtfully at her for a moment
and then held out his hand. “Then let me teach you. You’ll learn
faster actually doing it, and I’m a reasonably good
instructor.”

Though she wasn’t a natural dancer, by the
end of the song, Willow became comfortable with the Texas Two-Step.
Chad stepped in at the next song, sending Joe in search of another
partner. With someone she knew, and a familiarity with the steps,
Willow followed with a little more confidence.

“I never knew real dancing could be fun.
Mother and I used to make up steps, goofing off around the house
sometimes.” Her voice grew wistful. “And sometimes, when I’m out in
the meadow, just me and the Lord—” Her previous word slammed into
her heart, crushing it against her ribcage. She’d never dance
around the house with Mother again.

Chad seemed to sense the shift in her
emotions and murmured, “Think about that later. Tell me about what
kind of music you like.”

The diversion worked. Most of the music they
owned was from the late twenties through the mid-forties—the heyday
of the 78 record. “I like jazz and swing—some blues. We have one
Beatles record that Mother found in a thrift store in little India
on one of her trips to Rockland.”

“You have one Beatles record. Why only
one?”

“They didn’t make many on 78—the Victrola
only plays 78s.”

“But you mentioned a CD player—” Chad cut
himself off mid-sentence. “Wait, what? A Beatles record on 78? They
didn’t print them on 78s. They had 45s and 33s by then.”

“Mother said that they were printed in
India. Something about how fewer people in India had electricity,
so the company that made the records sent the equipment there.” She
shook her head at the look of disbelief in his eyes. “You’ll have
to listen to it sometime.”

“That has to be worth a fortune.”

This time, Willow shrugged. “I suppose. I
like it. I’ve always meant to find a CD catalog and order a few
more, but Mother said I might not like their later stuff. Then
again,” she laughed at the memory. “—then again, Mother said I
wouldn’t like country, and I always have.”

Chuck waited for the next dance, gyrating in
the strangest manner. It reminded her of Mother’s description of
Elvis.
Lord, is everything going to remind me of her tonight?
I’m going to lose it pretty soon if something doesn’t take my mind
off her.

As if an instant answer to prayer, the lead
singer called for a limbo contest—something Willow had only read
about. She didn’t last long, but she cheered the other contestants,
jumping up and down when the pole became impossibly low. Officer
Martinez eventually was the last man standing—until he attempted to
make one last winning pass… and landed on his backside.

As the evening wore on, the group became
thinner and thinner until only a dozen or so of the singles group
remained. Willow danced with almost all of the single men in the
church as well as one Officer Martinez. To her astonishment, he
turned out to be a surprisingly great dancer. Straight from their
dance, he strolled to the corner and began walking the beat that
Chad so despised.

The band announced their last song, “Can I
Have This Dance,” and Chuck stepped forward, but Willow caught
something in Bill’s expression. “You haven’t danced with me,
Bill.”

“There hasn’t been a song I know, but I know
this one.”

Willow floated beside him through turns and
whirls without ever learning the waltz. “You didn’t tell me you
were a great dancer.”

“I’m not. I just know how to waltz. My
grandmother insisted.”

“Well,” commented Willow calmly, “You
definitely perfected it. I could dance all night.”

Chuckling, Bill pulled her a little closer
and murmured softly, “No Willow, that’s another song, and it isn’t
a waltz.”

She allowed herself to follow the steps for
another quarter minute before she said, “Thank you, Bill.”

“What for?”

“For everything. I asked Chad who planned
it.”

Bill led her in a spin before he replied, “I
noticed your birthday; Chad did the work. Well, he and his sister
did.”

“I’ll thank her too when I can, but you
thought of it, and you bought me those beautiful daisies. It’s been
wonderful.”

The last strains of the song ended, but Bill
stood as though ready for the music to begin again. “I hate that
song.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” she countered.

“It’s unkind. She asks if she can dance for
the rest of her life but the dance always ends. If it’s for life,
it shouldn’t end.”

Willow smiled as she stepped away. “Perhaps
she isn’t talking about a single dance to a single song but a dance
like at a school or city dance where there are lots of songs and
just as many different steps. Life is the dance.”

“And he’s the partner she wants?”

Taking a glass of lemonade from Chuck, she
grinned at both of them. “It seems that way.”

“What?” Chuck was lost.

“I know how she feels,” Bill murmured to
himself.