“And thanks to your nomination, you might have gotten me a scholarship. That’s very thoughtful of you,” she added.
“Well, you know. Us Scavenger Hunt winners have to stick together.”
“So, Roger, I hear there’s a talent show coming up. How about getting the team back together?” she asked.
He squirmed slightly. “I’m sorry, Candace. That would be fun, but I’m trying to get a job at the Muffin Mansion. If I get it, I’ll be on their team.”
“Becca told me they almost never have openings.”
“One of the ladies, Sally Lunn, is retiring.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yeah. She’s seventy. So that means there’s going to be an opening, and I want to be the one to get it.”
“So you can spend more time with Becca?”
He nodded.
“Good for you! I hope they pick you.”
“Me too,” he said.
Muffin Mansion referees did all the park activities together. It was a very close-knit group. They were fiercely competitive and completely loyal to each other.
“Hey, stranger,” Sue said.
“Hey!” Candace said, giving Sue a quick hug.
The other girl worked in janitorial, and they’d been friends since the beginning of summer. At Christmas, Candace had discovered that a family tragedy had left Sue to raise her two younger siblings, and Candace and some of the others had done their best to help the family out.
“How are things going?” Candace asked.
“Really great,” Sue said with a smile. “Remind me to thank you.”
Candace waved her hand. “Thank you for coming to this.”
“Hey, any chance at free cake and I’m there,” Sue joked.
“And, seriously, thanks for nominating me, I really appreciate it.”
Sue shrugged. “I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.”
“I’ve been meaning to hunt you down. I’m having a slumber party for my birthday next Friday night. Do you think there’s any way you could come?”
It was a long shot, given Sue’s brother and sister, but it never hurt to ask.
“I’ll see what I can do. A couple parents owe me some sleep over favors.”
“That would so rock!”
“So, has anyone told you about Talent Show yet?” Sue asked.
“Just found out about it,” Candace admitted. “Have you got a team yet?”
“Yeah, Pete, Traci, Corinne from food ser vices, and I signed up last week.”
“Oh,” Candace said, unable to hide her dismay.
Sue smiled. “We put your name down too, just in case.”
“Really?”
Sue nodded.
“You guys are the best,” Candace said, hugging her again.
“Pete had a sneaking suspicion you’d be back. I knew if you were, you’d be the last to hear about Talent Show.”
“Well, you were both right,” Candace said. “So, what’s our talent?”
“We have a meeting planned to discuss it. I’ll email you the details.”
“Cool, thanks.”
Sue moved away to talk to someone else, and Candace continued to move through the store, hugging and thanking people. Finally, in a far corner, she found Kurt.
“Happy birthday,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“Well, almost,” she said. “It’s not for a few more days.”
“Oh. We’ll have to do something to celebrate,” he said.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
For a brief moment she considered asking him why he hadn’t nominated her, but it didn’t seem like the time or place to start that conversation.
After two hours, Martha declared the party officially over. Candace’s first official job as a Candy Counter referee was cleaning up from her own party. It was funny, but she was glad to do it. By the time the place was spotless, her shift was over.
“Traci and Candace, you two can take off,” the supervisor said.
Candace and Traci walked outside and ran straight into Lisa.
“Well, if it isn’t the park princess,” Lisa sneered.
Lisa was Kurt’s ex-girlfriend. She’d had it in for Candace since the day they met. She had even tried to get Candace fired over the summer. They occasionally shared an uneasy truce, but this was clearly not going to be one of those days.
“Lisa, I’m not in the mood,” Candace said, surprising herself by saying it out loud.
“Oh, forgive me, Princess. As a mere commoner, I’ll get out of your way.”
“Lisa, don’t be like that,” Candace started to say, but the other girl stalked off.
“Wow, she really doesn’t like you,” Traci noted.
“She thinks if I weren’t around, she and Kurt would get back together,” Candace explained.
“Somehow I don’t think all of this is about a guy,” Traci replied.
“Really?”
Traci nodded.
It was a strange thought. Could there actually be some other reason why Lisa didn’t like her? Candace shoved the thought aside impatiently. She didn’t want to think about Lisa.
When she reached the Locker Room and got her things out of her locker, she saw that she had a message from Tamara on her phone.
“Candace, I need you to come over after work. It’s a total crisis,” Tamara wailed.
Candace tried calling her back, but it went straight to voicemail. Candace left a brief message before heading for the parking lot. Ten minutes later she parked in front of Tamara’s house.
“So, what’s the crisis?” Candace asked as Tamara opened the door.
Tamara didn’t say anything, but grabbed her by the hand and led her upstairs. A dozen dresses were draped across her bed and what had to be thirty pairs of shoes littered the floor.
“Did a bomb go off?” Candace joked.
Tamara sat down on the floor with a frustrated sigh, shoving shoes to the side.
The room had been in similar condition a couple of weeks earlier when Candace helped Tamara pick out what she was wearing for her Valentine’s Day date with James. Kurt had been working that day, so Candace had all the time in the world to help Tamara out. She still wished she and Kurt could have done something fun and romantic, though.
“Seriously, what gives? I don’t think I’m missing a holiday,” Candace said.
“Today is our two-month anniversary of dating,” Tamara explained.
“Ah. So where is James taking you?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me,” Tamara admitted.
“Did he give you an idea of what to wear?”
“No!”
“I see the problem. Give me one minute,” Candace said. She stepped into the hall and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. A moment later she heard Josh’s voice.
“Candace?”
“Hey, yeah, it’s me.”
“How are you?”
“Good, but we need some wardrobe guidance over here.”
“He hasn’t told me where they’re going.”
“Can you find out?”
“Not likely.”
Candace sighed. “Well, can you at least find out what’s he’s wearing?”
“Hold on.”
A minute later Josh was back. “Tux.”
“Thanks, Josh.”
“Don’t thank me quite yet. James has a way of being unpredictable. He could just as easily change into jeans halfway through the date.”
“Okay, how on earth do we plan for that one?”
“Unfortunately, you don’t. Not really. Trust me, if it had been crucial that she wear something specific, he would have given her fair warning.”
“Good to know,” Candace said. “I gotta go.”
“Later.”
Candace walked back into Tamara’s room. “He’s wearing a tux.”
Tamara’s face lit up. “That will be so much easier,” she said.
“Let’s hope so,” Candace muttered under her breath.
An hour later Tamara looked stunning in one of her favorite purple formals and matching pumps. Candace had helped her put her hair up.
“You know, this guy has really done something for you,” Candace commented.
“How do you mean?”
“Somehow you’re even more beautiful. Your eyes are always shining.”
“It’s called love,” Tamara said with a contented sigh. “I highly recommend it.”
Candace smiled. As much as she liked Kurt, she had never been sure she could actually say she was in love. Watching Tamara with James, she was becoming more and more sure that she wasn’t. She was also questioning her hypothesis that she and Kurt might be in love someday.
“What’s wrong?” Tamara asked.
“Nothing,” Candace said. There was no need to bring Tamara down with her love problems. At least not right before James arrived.
As if on cue, the doorbell downstairs rang.
“Can you get it?” Tamara begged.
“Want to make a grand entrance?”
“You know it.”
Candace hurried downstairs and opened the front door. James was standing there in a tuxedo holding a bouquet of flowers. She was relieved to see that Josh’s intel had been right on the money.
“Come in,” Candace said.
“Thanks.”
James stepped in the house, and Candace had to admit that he looked just as good in a tuxedo as Josh did. Where Josh brought a look of casual elegance, James brought an air of excitement and mystery.
“Can I get you a martini, Mr. Bond?” she teased.
“Shaken, not stirred,” he said with a grin.
Tamara appeared at the top of the stairs, and Candace heard him suck in his breath sharply.
They did make a gorgeous couple. Candace was pretty sure that two months was a dating record for Tamara. Her friend had always had a string of guys dangling after her, but since she had met James, she seemed to have eyes only for him. Candace stepped into the living room for a moment to give them some space.
Her phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Kurt. Do you want to grab some dinner?”
“Sure, where?”
“IHOP.”
“So breakfast it is,” she quipped.
“Meet me there in thirty.”
“Okay.”
She hung up the phone and moved back into the foyer.
Tamara had already managed to put her flowers in water and was ready to go. Candace wondered wistfully where James was taking her. Knowing him, it could be somewhere really nice or somewhere really fun.
“So, where are you guys going?” she asked.
James smiled. “Can’t ruin the surprise.”
Candace nodded. Wherever it was, she bet it wasn’t IHOP.
“My sister is getting married,” Kurt said by way of greeting.
“Congratulations,” Candace said as she slid into the booth across from him.
Candace couldn’t remember him ever talking about a sister. Then again, Kurt didn’t spend much time talking about his family at all.
“When?” she asked, after a long pause in which he didn’t seem ready to say anything else.
“Easter weekend.”
“Interesting choice.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know the guy very well?”
“They’ve been dating for a while,” Kurt said with a shrug.
“How old is your sister now?”
“Twenty-one.”
Only about three years older than Candace. She shivered for a moment. She couldn’t imagine being ready to marry anybody in three years’ time. Then again, if I met Mr. Right, maybe that would change.
For a moment, she sat very still as the impact of that thought came home to her. Kurt’s not Mr. Right.
She had always known that, or at least, always suspected. She felt very, very sad, but also somehow relieved. She shook her head and returned her attention to Kurt. Fortunately, he seemed too lost in his own thoughts to notice that she had been lost in hers.
What should I do? she wondered. Kurt was her first boyfriend, and she still hadn’t really gotten good at being a girlfriend. How on earth was she supposed to break up with him? Tamara would know. She thought about running to the bathroom and calling her, but remembered Tamara was on her date with James.
Tamara and James. In a way, watching the two of them had really helped Candace see that she and Kurt just didn’t seem to fit together.
“What are you going to eat?” Kurt asked loudly enough to startle her.
“Ummm . . . I don’t know,” Candace said, flipping open the menu and trying to scan it with eyes that weren’t even registering the words.
When the waitress came, Candace ordered pancakes with strawberries, not because she wanted it, but because it was the only thing she could remember having had there before.
“Are you okay?” Candace asked Kurt after the waitress had left. She was busy with her own freak-out, but at least she could tell that something was troubling him.
“Yeah. It’s just hard to think of my sister as being old enough to get married.”
“I get that,” Candace said. “My mom was my age when my parents got married. Can you imagine?”
She was babbling, and she knew it. She screeched to a halt, hoping he wouldn’t have any response.
“Yeah,” he said instead.
She panicked. She and Kurt were discussing marriage. Well, not marriage between them, but marriage in general and it was scaring her. What if he thought everything was fine with them? What if he really loved her and was thinking their relationship was long-term?
Candace stood up suddenly.
“What is it?” he asked.
For one dizzying moment she thought about telling him the truth. He deserved better than to be dumped in the middle of an IHOP, though. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said and then rushed off.
In the restroom, she splashed some cold water on her face with hands that shook. What on earth was she doing? She wanted nothing more than to be home in bed curled up with Mr. Huggles, her stuffed bear. Instead she was in a coffee-shop restroom, her heart was pounding, and she felt like she was going to be sick.
Date or no date, she needed to talk to Tamara. She pulled out her cell phone and called, but it went straight to voicemail. “What am I going to do?” she asked her reflection.
She called Josh.
“Hey, Candy, what’s up?”
“Josh, I’m in the bathroom at IHOP. Kurt’s at the table, and I don’t want to go out there because I think I need to break up with him, and I don’t know what to do and I’m freaking out.”
“Whoa, slow down. First off, are you okay?”
“Except for the freaked-out part, yeah.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. His sister’s getting married, and I don’t want to marry him and I wish that we were like James and Tamara, but we’re just not, you know?”
“Hold on. Did he ask you to marry him?” Josh asked, his usual mellow voice sounding shocked.