insley pulled behind a teal Volvo and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. Her stomach did a 360, her adrenal glands on full alert in anticipation of the hidden battle she soon might face. Barbs hurled beneath plastic smiles as her parents fought for answers to the winning question: Which parent did she love most? And manning the outer ring came Aunt Shelby and Great-Aunt Fiona with their forced reconciliation and “can’t we all just get along” mentality. News flash: No, they couldn’t, and her parents had court papers to prove it. At least Thanksgiving only came once a year . . . followed by Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July. Ugh! Almost made Ainsley want to join a commune.
A tap on her window made her jump. She turned, her forced smile already cemented in place. Brooks, a lanky sixth-grader, and Chaz, his seventh-grade mirror image in nearly every way, huddled near her door. Their eyes shone bright beneath matching skater haircuts.
They moved aside to let her out then stiffened beneath her embrace. “My two favorite second cousins.” She ruffled their hair and stepped back to scan their fluorescent skinny jeans topped with graphic tees. “Aren’t you guys freezing? Where are your jackets?”
“Uh-uh. It’s like forty-some degrees, you know.”
“Yeah, regular beach weather.” She rounded her car and pulled bags of chips and sodas from her trunk. The boys scurried to her side. “So, you gonna hop in the lake after dinner?” She handed them each a bag then retrieved the remaining two.
Chaz and Brooks exchanged looks, an ear-to-ear grin widening their faces.
“That’d be sick!” Brooks raised his hand, and Chaz slammed him with a high five. “Wanna? Polar diving, bro.”
“Polar diving.” Chaz wrinkled his brow and nodded his head slowly in a John Travolta meets Justin Bieber simulation.
A door slammed and they peered down the car-lined street. Ainsley’s father escorted a bleached-blonde woman in a crisp, knee-length skirt.
Ainsley spun back around and offered the boys a shaky smile. “Mind if I join you?”
Their mouths slackened. Chaz shifted. “I . . .” He looked at Brooks whose face wrinkled.
Ainsley giggled and gave them a sideways squeeze. “Just kidding.” A woman can only handle so much torture in one day, although which scenario—diving into icy water or sitting in an equally iced living room—proved most torturous remained to be seen. “But how about you wait until after I leave to turn hypothermic? I’d hate to have your parents ban me from these fun family get-togethers.” On second thought . . . Ainsley smiled.
The boys’ faces relaxed into smiles once again and Brooks flung his chin-length bangs out of his eyes. “OK. See ya.’” And off they went, bouncing and bobbing like a pair of hyperalert squirrels scampering through a golf course.
“Hey there.”
Ainsley tensed at her father’s used car salesman’s voice. Ready or not, it’s diplomat time. Maybe she’d find a use for all that pharmaceutical rep training after all.
“Ainsley, dear, you look beautiful as ever.” He wrapped her in a hug, smooshing her face into his heavily cologned chest. “You remember Iona?”
Ainsley stifled a frown as Barbie extended a ring-filled hand, dime-sized costume jewels glittering in the sun. Did Save-Mart have a sale? “No, Dad, I don’t believe we’ve met.” Not surprising, considering she and her father rarely spoke. “Good to meet you, Iona.”
“So you’re the brilliant pharmaceutical rep your father always talks about?”
“Not anymore. I was fired.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Her dad’s eyebrows shot up for about half a second before smoothing back to his easy smile. “So, where’s Richard?”
“Don’t know. We broke up.” She regripped her grocery bag, her sweaty palms working against her. “Guess we better get in before Aunt Shelby sends a search party.”
She turned around. With long strides, she crossed the street and hurried up the walk, leaving a minimum of three feet between her and the glitter and glam duo. Unfortunately, they caught up with her at the front door.
She suppressed a groan when Iona cooed over everything from the rocks lining the walkway to the type of grass in the yard. Yes, they were lovely. Gray, red, and, yeah, black river rocks. Just wait until she saw the tan carpet and linoleum flooring inside.
Lord, I really need some Spirit saturation here, before I pop a vein. Love, joy, peace. Love, joy, peace. Although she’d settle for peace.
The door creaked open and Ainsley’s mother met them with a much-too-wide smile and slightly pinkish hair. Apparently, she went the do-it-yourself route again.
“Chuck, how nice to see you.” She examined Iona, face bunched in what almost resembled a smile, her right cheek twitching. She turned to Ainsley. “You didn’t tell me you brought a friend. Is this one of the young ladies you mentor, dear?”
Ainsley rolled her eyes and pushed past her. “I’ll leave you all to get acquainted.” She maneuvered down the hall, past the crowded living room, and into a tiny kitchen crammed elbow to elbow with women.
Pamela, her second cousin twice removed, met her at the island dressed in a cream sweater embossed with a squash-filled cornucopia. “What have we here?”
Ainsley set her bag on the counter and the two of them began unloading and lining the contents across the counter. “Snacky-type stuff. To help with that weight loss goal of yours.” Ainsley shot her a wink and held up a bag of deep-fried veggie sticks.
“That’ll go great with my high-calorie, saturated, chemical-infused dip.”
“Perfect.”
Perhaps if Ainsley stayed in the kitchen with Pamela and the veggie sticks, she could avoid the high school drama circulating at the other end of the house.
Unfortunately, her mom and Iona appeared a moment later, faces donned with identical beauty pageant smiles, shattering Ainsley’s hopes of temporary reprieve. Her dad and her mom’s slug, Stephen, followed a moment later, beer bottles in hand and chests puffed out so far you’d think they inhaled helium.
Love, joy, peace. Love, joy, peace.
Why did she allow her parents to get her so worked up? Did it really matter how they acted, what they thought, or how many mannequins they draped on their arms?
“So, Stephen, where do you work?” Ainsley’s dad dipped a celery stalk into a container of ranch then popped it in his mouth.
“I fix trains.” He raised his arms slightly in a Popeye stance and lifted his chin, his ear-to-ear comb-over shifting like a flap of fabric.
Ainsley’s dad countered with a few hidden barbs, but Ainsley ignored them and dashed out of the room before her parents found a way to drag her into the conversation.
In the living room, Aunt Shelby fluttered around the room, food tray in hand, while the men huddled around the television set. Ainsley found an empty seat next to her cousin Shannon and her pudgy-faced, blue-eyed baby girl. Shannon’s toddler, Davey, lay on the carpet a few feet away, his wispy blond hair charged with static electricity. Skye, his father, a long-haired man with soft blue eyes, lay across from him, propped on his elbows.
“Ainsley, how are you?” Shannon shifted her daughter to her other knee, her leg bouncing.
“I’m good. And you look excellent. Don’t tell me this precious bundle of joy is letting you sleep already.” She reached out a finger and the baby latched onto it, sparking a sudden longing deep within her heart. She blinked, turning her thoughts off pattering of feet that would never fill her home and onto her cousin.
“Thanks to Skye.” Shannon glanced at her husband, the skin around her eyes crinkling. “He takes the kids from seven on, and I hit the pillows. About ten, he wakes me up for Ayana’s nightly feeding. I put her to bed shortly after, and sleep for another three to four hours.”
“Wow, what a saint.”
“Absolutely. I keep telling him God’s got a whole slew of rewards waiting for him when he gets to heaven.”
“I knew dirty-diaper patrol earned me something.” Skye winked then poked Davey in the ribs, evoking a squeal.
“Would you like to hold her?” Shannon held the baby out to Ainsley.
She wrapped her arms around the infant’s soft back and kissed the top of her head, inhaling the sweet scent of baby oil. The baby reached up and brushed her chin with chubby, featherlight fingers.
“So what about you and Richard? You two started talking family yet?”
“We broke up.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
Ainsley shrugged and cradled the baby to her chest. “It was for the best. Richard’s a great guy, just not for me.”
Shannon nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. Before I met Skye, I thought for sure I’d never get married—had the whole all-guys-are-jerks mentality going on. Then we met, and I knew God brought us together, like Skye dropped straight from heaven, a perfect gift designed just for me.”
“Thanks to all that love potion I fed you during our first date.” Skye chuckled then turned his attention back to his son.
Ainsley laid the infant in the crook of her arm. The song she and Shannon used to sing as they sat on her parents’ fence railing on hot summer nights mocked her. First comes love, second comes marriage, then comes a baby . . .
For some, the rare fairy-tale few like Shannon and Skye. Apparently Ainsley had failed the Cinderella Meets Prince Charming training session.