Child of Her Dreams

At noon, she dragged herself out of bed, dressed in a simple linen sheath and dabbed on perfume from a crystal bottle. Then she wandered down to the kitchen, wondering what she was going to do with herself for the next few months. Picking an apple out of the fruit bowl, she put her nose to the rosy skin and inhaled the sweet-tart scent. Reluctantly, she put the fruit in the bowl. She was hungry, but then, she was always hungry. Denying herself food had become a habit.

Steps sounded on the back porch, and Gran came in, breathing heavily and wiping perspiration from her brow. “Man, is it hot out there. But I had a heck of a workout,” she panted. “I met Marvin Taylor outside the Knit ’n Kneedles and we racewalked all the way up Linden Street.”

“Are you sure you’re not overdoing it, Gran?” Geena asked, noting the damp patches on her grandmother’s sweatshirt. Since recovering from her minor heart attack a year ago, Gran was taking her exercise very seriously.

“I’m in training for the seniors’ fun run,” Gran said. “Of course, at my age, run is a misnomer, and it stops being fun after the first mile. But we’re raising money for a new maternity wing on the Hainesville Hospital. Greta Vogler just won’t let that project go. The woman’s like a bull terrier.”

Greta Vogler. The woman who had branded her father a drunk driver, tarnishing his memory and Geena and her sisters’ lives growing up. Geena went to the fridge for a bottle of mineral water. “Does Miss Vogler still teach at the high school?”

Gran balanced a hand on the kitchen countertop and stretched her quads. “She’s vice principal now. Which reminds me—Linda Thirsk called. She wants to know if you’ve decided about your high school reunion.”

Geena shrugged and sipped her water. “I can’t believe she married Tubby O’Conner.”

Gran moved on to her hamstrings. “Linda’s phone number is on the pad on the counter. She’s probably home now. Why not give her a call?” When Geena made no move to pick up the phone, Gran stopped stretching. “You are going, aren’t you?”

Geena drained her bottle and put it beside the sink. The high school reunion, Ben… Everything conspired to remind her of her deficiencies.

“How can I?” she said, and was dismayed to hear her voice waver. “I never graduated.”

“Does it matter? You’ve become such a big success.” Behind her large-framed plastic glasses, Gran’s eyes showed regret, sympathy and a trace of guilt, none of which eased Geena’s self-doubt.

“Such a success I nearly killed myself. I’m going for a walk,” she said. “I’ll see you later.” With no idea where she was headed, she took off down the hall and out the front door.

“Geena,” Gran called after her. “Will you be back for lunch?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Geena’s restless footsteps carried her into town on sidewalks shimmering with the late-summer heat. Past Blackwell’s Drugstore, past the bank where Erin had been assistant manager until she had the baby, past Orville’s Barber Shop…

She hadn’t spoken to Orville since she’d been back and she knew he’d like her to drop in. A close friend of her father’s, he’d been like a favorite uncle while she’d been growing up. She peered in the barbershop window. Orville had his back to her, busy cutting someone’s hair.

The bell above the door sounded as she pushed through to the cool interior that held the familiar mingled scents of Old Spice and hair products. “Hi, Orville.”

Orville, a dapper man in his fifties, was dressed as always in neatly pressed slacks and a cashmere sweater. At the sound of her voice he turned with a wide smile and came forward to greet her. “Geena! How’s my best girl?”

“If I’m your best girl, who do you take out on Saturday night?” she teased. Geena had always thought it a waste that Orville, who had been widowed young, had never remarried. “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Same as usual,” he said good-naturedly. “One step behind the tax man, one step ahead of the Grim Reaper.”

Then he moved to one side, and through the mirror Geena glimpsed the face of the man in the chair. Ben. Surprise and pleasure tinged with embarrassment flowed through her. Embarrassment because it wasn’t every day a man turned her down—for any reason.

Orville returned to his work with a flourish of comb and scissors. Geena sauntered to the counter and perched on the edge, facing Ben. The only way to get over embarrassment was to meet it head-on. “Hi, there.”

“Hi, yourself.” His warm gaze traveled over her. “All of Hainesville is wilting in the heat, and yet you manage to look like the proverbial cucumber.”

“It’s an illusion, cultivated by years spent in front of klieg lights,” Geena said lightly. She turned to the barber. “So, Orville, what hair magic are you working on the doctor? A quiff? A coif?”

“Just a trim,” Orville said, snipping carefully around Ben’s ears. “Right, Doc?”

Ben nodded. Geena wriggled farther onto the counter. “Orville used to cut my hair, too.”

“Until at the very grown-up age of six you decided you required a stylist and made your grandmother take you to the beauty salon in Simcoe,” Orville elaborated.

“That was before Wendy opened up shop here.” Geena eyed Ben, her head tilted to one side. “With that goatee and mustache, and draped in that black hairdresser’s cape, you look a little like Zorro.”

Ben’s right eyebrow rose, giving him a wicked, humorous expression. “You like, señorita?”

“It’s rather nineties,” she teased, meaning the goatee. “But I guess you can get away with it in Hainesville.”

“Are you suggesting this isn’t the fashion capital of the Pacific northwest?” Orville demanded, reaching for hair gel. “That everything’s not up-to-date in Kansas City?”

“Hainesville isn’t on the fashion map,” Ben replied for her. “I daresay it’s not even on the same planet as Paris or Milan.” He held up a copy of the magazine in his lap, which, to Geena’s surprise, turned out to be Vogue—with her photo on the cover. “As you can see, I’m studying up on the matter.”

Geena glanced down—and saw a two-page spread of herself at a New York fashion show three seasons ago. “Ugh. I was so fat back then. Orville, what are you doing with Vogue in your waiting room? You used to have nothing but Rod and Gun and Readers’ Digest.”

“Kelly dropped them off—she said she was distributing her old copies around town rather than throwing them away. You’d be surprised how many men pick them up.”

The bell over the door sounded, and a man Geena didn’t know came in. Orville excused himself and went to the desk to make the newcomer an appointment.

Ben continued to peruse the photos of Geena. “The extra weight looked good on you.”

“I was hideous. Flip the page.” She began arranging Orville’s brushes and combs, spreading them out in a fan on the counter. She didn’t know what was worse—Ben seeing her that way or Ben admiring her that way.

Ben’s voice was quiet but penetrating. “You’re beautiful, Geena. Why you don’t like yourself?”

A jolt ran through her. Her gaze jerked up to meet his in the mirror. “What are you talking about? Of course I like myself.” Then she realized she was being too intense and shrugged, adding lightly, “After that show some young thang from Georgia took over top billing. I had to do something to get my mojo back.”

Ben said nothing, just slowly shook his head. The silence worked on her, conjuring conflicting voices.

People told her she was beautiful all the time. It meant nothing.

He wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it.

Ben was a doctor, concerned about the health effects of low body weight.