Catching His Eye

They thought they could make her over. Transform her like Cinderella the night of the ball. But she knew better. She didn’t have what it took to be beautiful. Even if she lost all the weight and got new makeup and clothes, she’d still be plain old Emily Proctor. And Emily Proctor didn’t get to have Scott Dillon.

So why bother?

She held her breath for a moment, steadied herself with a hand on the cold wall. For the first time ever, she actually realized what she’d just said.

Why bother? If she couldn’t have Scott Dillon, why bother? Oh, God. She was the one who was insane, not her friends. What kind of a life choice was that? Wasn’t she worth bothering for? Just for being here? For being her?

No. The answer to that had been no her whole life. Because she couldn’t be as pretty as Julia, or as stylish and witty as Hope or as classy as Sam or as brilliant as Zoey, or as brave as Lily, she’d thrown in the towel on her own life.

Coward! That’s what she was. A big, yellow coward. Hiding out in the only place she’d ever lived, sneaking pieces of chocolate instead of feasting at the banquet of life.

She’d lost the game before it had begun.

So what if she’d never get Scott Dillon. If she didn’t do something about her life, she’d never be Emily Proctor. Not the Emily Proctor she was supposed to be.

At twenty-six, she had no idea who that was supposed to be. High school teacher? Yes, but that shouldn’t be all of who she was. Drama teacher? Again, that wasn’t enough. Friend. Yes. Yes, that one was very important. Daughter? Of course. But every definition she came up with was about something outside of herself.

Who was she? Right now, standing naked in the shower at the Sheridan Holiday Inn?

Tears welled only to be washed away, leaving no trace. Her fate would too, if she didn’t do something about it.

And the something closest at hand was as Hope put it, the Scott Dillon Diet, Exercise and Beauty Regimen. With emotional, physical and spiritual help from The Girlfriends.

It would mean no more French fries in the car. No more ice cream in the middle of the night. It would mean exercising, and sticking to it even when it was uncomfortable. She’d actually have to acknowledge her body, her lifestyle, her loneliness.

Something funny happened in her stomach. Fear, but not just fear. Excitement. That was it. She actually felt excited.

Maybe she couldn’t have Scott, but she could have a life. And maybe, if she learned to respect and love herself, she’d be ready to have someone else love her, too.

She turned off the shower and grabbed a towel from the rack. This was it. Her last chance to change her mind. If she told the gang she was in, they’d never let her alone about it. They were nothing if not persistent.

Stepping out onto the bath mat, she looked at the mirror, but all she saw was fog. Moving closer, she rubbed out a large clear circle. It was time to say goodbye. To all the old comforts. To the familiar pain.

She waved, and then the fog crept back and she wasn’t there anymore.

Chapter Two

The lunch bell rang, and twenty-one copies of Romeo and Juliet slammed shut at the same time. It was no use going on. Her fourth-period senior English class had already gone to lunch, even though they waited, albeit impatiently, for her to give the homework assignment and excuse them.

“Read pages eighteen through thirty, and write two pages about the relationship between the Montegues and the Capulets.”

A collective groan almost obscured the scraping of chairs as her students rushed to escape. But today Emily didn’t care. She had her own agenda.

Day four of the regimen had started out badly. Because she was a fool, she’d started her exercise program with far too much vigor, and her muscles, particularly her leg muscles, were proving her folly.

She winced as she erased the blackboard, cursing her own stupidity. Why had she ever agreed to this cockamamy scheme? It was dumb, it hurt, and she didn’t want to play anymore.

She wouldn’t tell the others, though. Not yet. There was plenty of time to disappoint her friends.

And herself.

Damn. There went a perfectly good opportunity to quit. Now she’d have to eat her salad with balsamic vinegar dressing, no oil. She’d have to drink her eight ounces of water. She’d have to keep her word.

But she didn’t have to like it.

It took her ten minutes to gather her things and straighten up the classroom. Unfortunately, she had papers, lots of them, to correct. But after lunch, she had drama, and she didn’t want to lug her things around. Since the auditorium was right there at the parking lot she’d put her stuff in the car, and after sixth period, she’d be out of here.

By the time she’d picked up everything she needed, her arms were full and her muscles protested in a most vivid way. But she went into the hall, lined with lockers and kids and banners announcing the upcoming football game. She put all her things down so she could lock the door, then picked them up again. She headed toward the door, the parking lot, wondering if she was too young to use Ben-Gay.

She heard the accident seconds before it even happened. Tennis shoes slapped the linoleum. Rushed at her like a freight train. But it was too late to get out of the way and she squeezed her eyes shut as she was hit broadside.

Her book bag flew out of her hands. She struggled to keep her balance, but there was no way. She fell hard, landing on her right hip.

The kid, someone she didn’t recognize, didn’t even stop to say he was sorry. He just ran like hell to the end of the hall, and exited, stage right.

Gretchen Foley stared at her from in front of her locker. “Are you all right, Ms. Proctor?”

“Yes, Gretchen. I’m fine.”

“Should I go get the nurse or something?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Gretchen nodded and headed toward the cafeteria. She didn’t even bother to pick up a single piece of paper. What was it with kids today? Had they all been raised by wolves?

Just then, a masculine hand came out of nowhere, extended in front of her. She sighed, glad that at least one student on campus had some manners.

She looked up at her Lochinvar, and her heart froze. Scott Dillon. Oh, God! Anyone but him! She’d gone out of her way to avoid him. She didn’t want him to see her like this. Especially not like this!

He frowned, making his perfect dark brows come close together. “Are you really all right?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

He glanced at his hand, and she took hold of him, praying she wouldn’t give him a hernia as he helped her up. To her utter relief, he didn’t strain himself at all.

“Hey!” he said. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“It’s me.”

“Well, how do you like that. What are you doing here?”

“I work here.”

“Right. That’s right. I remember.” He shook his head and she wasn’t sure if it was because she was still living in Sheridan, or because she had come to teach at their alma mater. But he didn’t stay perplexed for long. Instead, he started picking up her books and papers.

“It’s great to see you. How you doing, Emily?”

“I’m fine, Scott,” she said, lying through her teeth. “You’re looking well.” And he was. Oh, mama. He was more beautiful than ever. He towered over her at well over six feet. His dark, wavy hair was slightly unkempt, and he looked devilishly handsome. Dark chocolate eyes sparkled behind sinfully long lashes. And that smile. She’d been a sucker for that smile since day one.

He waved away her compliment, handed her the last of her papers, then glanced down the hall. “I’m supposed to meet Coach for lunch. I’m late.”

“Go. Go on.”

“But you need help with your books.”

“I can handle it. Honestly. Now go. I know Coach hates it when anyone’s late. It was good to see you again.”

“Yeah. We’ll have to get together for coffee or something.”

She nodded, but he didn’t see. He’d already started down the hall. Down the very same hall where she’d watched him, five days a week, and loved him from afar. Where he’d kissed Cathy Turner, blissfully unaware that he’d broken her heart.

Her smile died. She had to congratulate herself. She’d sounded perfectly normal. Perfectly calm. Despite the turmoil swirling inside. He’d seen her at her worst. Splayed on the floor like some giant amoeba, arms and legs akimbo, hair a horror, and she’d even managed to lose one shoe.

Perfect. A fairy-tale reunion if she’d ever seen one. She’d managed to blow it before it had even begun—

Wait.

This wasn’t about Scott, right? The sudden urge for fast food might be about him, but her determination not to give in was hers and hers alone.

So he’d seen her. So what? It was bound to happen. So it wasn’t in the most flattering light. Big deal. The truth was, they’d been friends, once. Good friends. They’d talked about their dreams for a shining future. Shared their fears and laughter as they sat in the last row of the auditorium waiting for their turn on the stage. Despite her crush, she’d liked Scott. She’d never understood what he saw in Cathy, but hey, who knows? Maybe Cathy had hidden depth. Really well-hidden. But that was neither here nor there. What was relevant now was Emily’s desire to go the distance. To be the best she could be.

It was time to eat her salad. With balsamic vinegar, no oil.

SCOTT HURRIED DOWN the familiar halls, wishing he’d come earlier so that he could have lingered, savored his memories. But as Emily said, Coach hated to be kept waiting.

Emily Proctor.

He hadn’t expected to see her again. It surprised him that she’d stayed in Sheridan. She was so bright, he imagined her in New York or something, writing books or in politics. She’d be a good teacher, though. Her students were lucky.

He’d thought about her from time to time. About their talks, mostly. About how he’d looked forward to his classes with her. He’d taken out his yearbook once and seeing her picture was like a dose of medicine. She’d been a better friend in high school than he’d understood at the time. He regretted not keeping in touch with her.

As he passed the lockers, the pep-rally posters and the students with their backpacks and cell phones, the smell of the place brought him back to his own days here. Funny about that smell. He hadn’t noticed it back then, but when he’d walked through the front doors a few minutes ago, it had hit him hard. The combination of young, sweaty bodies, perfume, old gym socks, books, chalk…It was the smell of his youth, of his heyday. A damn fine smell.

And then to bump into Emily? That really took him back. She’d been so easy to talk to. So funny. She’d had those long bangs. He remembered wondering how she saw with all that hair in her eyes. And she was always hanging out with her girlfriends. Giggling, passing notes, getting into the kind of trouble that got stern looks from teachers. Nothing more. Innocent. But then, hadn’t they all been innocent back then?

Yeah. Emily Proctor. She’d been great. A good friend. Maybe she could be his friend, again. It didn’t look like he was leaving anytime soon. The store was a mess and needed someone in charge. There wasn’t anyone standing in the wings. The job was his whether he wanted it or not.

He pushed open the door to the quad and set out for the gym. The trees seemed bigger, the grass scragglier, but the biggest change he noticed was the students. They looked so young! At twenty-six he’d never thought much about his age, but now the truth hit him that he wasn’t the hotshot he used to be. That star had tarnished with the snap of his right ankle. Every year, new and better players made first string, and the one thing that would have made Scott special, the chance to be ESPN’s youngest sports commentator ever, had slipped through his fingers like so much sand.

His gait slowed as he passed the science building. He wished he could just go. Cut out with no regrets, go to Bristol and take that interview. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did.

So the next best thing was to get the hell over it. Get on with the life he had, instead of dreaming about the life he was supposed to have.

A dose of Coach was exactly what he needed.

THE GRASS WAS STILL WET, which added insult to injury. No one should be up at this hour, let alone doing sit-ups in the grassy middle of the high school track field.

Only three more to go.

Emily glared at Hope, which was pretty easy to do considering Hope was currently sitting on Emily’s feet while she did her sit-ups. What Hope didn’t know was that her life was spared only by the fact that Emily wasn’t strong enough to knock her down.

“Come on, Emily. You can do it.”

“Go—” Emily forced her aching abs to lift her to a sitting position. “To—” She touched her elbows to her knees, and started a slow ascent back to position one. But instead of keeping her head an inch from the floor, she collapsed. “Hell,” she said breathlessly, but proud she’d made the effort.

“Come on, you wussie girl. You weak-assed lazy bones. Two more!”

She tried. And failed. Her groan echoed off the empty bleachers. “I’ll give you a hundred dollars to go away.”

Hope laughed. “Your money’s no good here, missy. I want to see another sit-up and I want to see it now!”

“Then go rent An Officer and a Gentleman. But first, get off me.”

Hope sighed heavily as she moved over. “Pitiful.”

“Let’s see you do twenty sit-ups.”

“If I had time, I’d do exactly that.”

“You lie like a rug,” Emily said, rubbing her stomach and feeling quite sorry for herself.

“Hey! I do ten pull-ups and twenty push-ups every day.”

“You do not.”

“I could do them. If I woke up in time.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, if I had a brother, he’d like cheese.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just help me up.”

Hope jumped up sprightly, then held her hand out. Emily grabbed it, much as she had grabbed Scott’s hand two days ago.

“I saw him, you know,” Emily said.

“Pardon?”

“I said, I saw him.”

“Him who?”

Emily sighed. “Scott Dillon. Remember him? The point of all this torture?”

“Oh, him. You’re kidding. How? Where? What did he say?”

“I have to go shower.”

“Oh, no. You’re not leaving. You’re coming with me. We’re doing two laps around the track before we finish.”

“What do you mean, we? I’m not doing any such thing.”

Hope grabbed her by the T-shirt and pulled her toward the high school track. There were quite a few people jogging already, even though it was only just past six in the morning, on a Saturday no less. Some teachers, but mostly students circled the infield, almost every one of them looking tan and fit and wonderful in their little teeny shorts. Not her. No one laid eyes on her thighs. Ever.

She started jogging, if you could call it that. It was more a lumbering walk, actually. But Hope let go of her shirt, so that was something.

“So, tell me. Damn, girl, you sure do know how to build the suspense.”

“It wasn’t pretty, Hope.”

“Huh?”

“I was flat on my butt in the middle of the hallway outside my classroom.”

Hope stopped. Emily jogged past her. Slowly.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Why were you on the floor?”

“Doing yoga.” She was too tired for sarcasm. After gulping a few breaths, she slowed her pace a wee bit. “Some kid, and I think it might have been Tommy Wells, crashed into me, and I fell.”

“And?”

“And Scott helped me up.”

“Was it incredible? Did your eyes meet and—”

“It was humiliating. I looked like death warmed over and he didn’t blink an eye.”

“He didn’t remember you?”

“Yes, he did. But it was nothing. A big fat zero.”

“Are you sure?”

“I was there.”

“Oh.”

They jogged in silence for a while. Emily might have said more, but her lungs were preoccupied with trying to save her life.

“I bet there was more. You probably just didn’t see it.”

“There was no more.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Emily didn’t argue with her. But she did move to the right as she heard an approaching runner. She also wiped the sweat from her eyes and pulled up her sagging sweats.

“Hey!” the runner said as he got to her side.

Oh, God.

“Emily! I didn’t know you ran.”

She smiled at Scott, who looked like he should have been on a box of Wheaties with his perfect chest and windswept hair. She thought about her own hair, elegantly swathed in a decrepit sweatband, with just a few insouciant tendrils plastered against her cheek. About the shirt she had so carefully chosen this morning, emblazoned with Bart Simpson shouting “Don’t Have a Cow!”

“Hey, Scott,” Hope said, looking far too pretty.

“Hope? Oh, man, this is old home week. You’re still here, too?”

“I ask myself why every morning, but yes, I’m still here.

He laughed as he slowed down to meet Emily’s pace, and try as she might she couldn’t improve it. It was probably better to go slow than to actually have a heart attack at the next quarter-mile. On the other hand…

“So what about that cup of coffee we talked about the other day?” he asked.

She nodded, not sure if she could continue to jog and speak at the same time.

“Great. How about tomorrow. You don’t work on Sunday, do you?”

She shook her head this time.

“I’ll have to,” he said, “but I can take a break around four if that works for you.”

Again she nodded. This time throwing in a smile.

“Great. I’ll call you. You’re in the book?”

More nodding.

“Okay, then.” He turned to Hope. “Great seeing you again.”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice as even as his. “Nice to have you back.”

“Have a good run,” he said, then he put on some speed, leaving her and Hope in the dust.

At least he gave Emily something terrific to look at as he raced away. She kept moving her legs, swinging her arms, all the while looking for an escape plan. At the next curve in the track, she headed for the girls’ locker room, and she didn’t stop until she was safely inside.

She made her way to a bench and collapsed, her lungs burning like fire, her legs like Jell-O, her face so hot she could fry an egg on her forehead.

The door slammed and Hope found her still gasping for breath.

“Oh, my God!” she said. “What are the odds? But hey, he asked you out. That’s something. That’s incredible.”

Emily looked up into Hope’s beautiful, sweatfree face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Tomorrow. I heard him ask you. And you said yes.”

“For the record, I said nothing. There’s no way I’m going to coffee with him tomorrow.”

Hope sat down on the other side of the bench. “Emily—”

“Don’t start. Don’t quibble. Just know that I quit. Right here, right now. It was a stupid idea.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do. But what I don’t understand is why you want to quit.”

“You were right there!”

“Where?”

“Don’t be dense, Hope. He thinks I’m his buddy from English lit. He’ll never see me any other way.”

“You don’t know that.”

Emily gave her a look, but she didn’t argue. In fact, all her arguments ended right then. Except…

“It’s completely unacceptable. You’re going to see him if I have to drag you to the coffee shop by your hair.”

“You and what army?”

“Lily, Sam, Zoey, Julia—”

“Sam and Zoey aren’t even in town.”

“They’ll fly in for the occasion.”

Emily let go a troubled sigh. She’d had such dreams about meeting Scott. How she’d look, her hair, her nails. How cool she’d be, sophisticated enough to sit next to Dorothy at the Algonquin. She’d imagined his reaction dozens of times. His eyes widening, his jaw slackening. His inability to string three words together. It was supposed to have been heaven. A meeting so gorgeous songs would be written about it.

Instead, she’d sweated and gasped, panted like a dog. She could have gotten over the incident in the school hallway. But now she was two strikes down. She wasn’t anxious to go up to bat again.

“Are you listening to me?” Hope asked.

Not only had Emily not been listening, she hadn’t even seen Hope get up and take her shirt off. Her dark hair was a mess, but it still managed to look sexy and sleek. Hope, who considered her looks average, who thought that she was too short and her nose too big, wasn’t any of those things. She was beautiful. Everyone saw it but her.

“Why do we do this to ourselves?” Emily asked, surprised that she’d said it aloud.

“What?”

“Think of ourselves in the worst possible light.” Hope grabbed her T-shirt and pulled it on, then came back to the bench. “I don’t know. We do, though, don’t we?”

“All the time. It’s never about how happy we are with our eyes, but how miserable we are with our nose.”

Hope nodded. “Men don’t do that.”

“I’ll say. They think if they can stand upright they’re hot stuff.”

“So go see him, Em. Why not?”

Emily met her gaze. “I don’t know.”

“I do. Go. Go with no expectations except to see an old friend. Go without making yourself nuts, just like you were meeting one of us. Go and talk to him, and let him see who you are now. The very worst that’s going to happen is you’ll have a new friend.”

She nodded. “Okay. Why not? I’ll go, and I’ll talk and I’ll leave my expectations at home.”

Chapter Three

Scott handed Mrs. Newberry her package of green beans then forced a smile. The immediate reward of a return smile did little to elevate his mood. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plane tickets sitting in his suitcase. First class, round trip from Los Angeles to Bristol, Connecticut. The plane would be in the air right now, with some other passenger in his seat.

“Are the tomatoes ripe?” a strident voice said from behind him.

He turned to find Dora Weeks, one of his mother’s closest friends. She was his mother’s age, but right now, she looked years younger. She was a tiny thing, not even five feet tall, with completely white close-cropped hair. The biggest thing about her were her glasses, which were so thick they made her eyes look twice their size.

“Yes, Mrs. Weeks, they’re ripe.”

“Not too ripe.”

“No. In fact, if you’d like I can help you pick one out.”

She nodded. “Your father always picked out my tomatoes.”

“He was good at that,” Scott said, an unexpected twinge hitting his heart.

“That’s right.” Mrs. Weeks followed him toward the produce department, forcing him to slow his walk to a crawl. “He knew his vegetables.”

“He also taught me, Mrs. Weeks.” They passed the bread aisle, and Scott noticed the stock was low. Of course that meant he had to fix it, because there was no stock boy anymore. Not for a month. His mother hadn’t even tried to hire a new one.

He finally reached the tomatoes, and he looked for a beauty. All the produce was good, that hadn’t changed, but there were tomatoes and there were tomatoes.

He sniffed a contender, searching for a distinct aroma he knew intimately but couldn’t describe. Years of working part-time and summers in the store under his father’s watchful gaze had made Scott a grocer, whether he liked it or not.

“Your mother must be so proud.”

“Thank you. I had a good run, before the old ankle blew.”

Mrs. Weeks looked up at him, her huge Mr. Magoo eyes confused. “A good run? I meant she must be so proud that you came home. That you’re here when she needs you. She’s not well, you know. She tries to hide it, but I can tell.”

Plane tickets flashed in his mind for a second, but he chased them away. If he started down that path, he’d never find his way back. “I know, Mrs. Weeks, and I’m very grateful you watch out for her.”