A Little Bit Engaged

Pure fun had never been Kate’s forte, but maybe Allie could teach her.

Once the girl arrived.

Kate stood at the meeting spot—next to the ice cream stand in the midst of Magnolia Falls Park—at precisely five-thirty and fought the urge to pace.

The only young female she saw was…well, frightening was the first word that came to mind.

Nothing impish or cute about this girl.

She might be thirteen and she might be twenty. It was impossible to tell. She wore a little ribbed tank top that clung to her uncharacteristically pale skin. A disreputable-looking black leather jacket and oversize black cargo pants with a huge black belt and what looked like army boots.

So…she definitely wasn’t a shoe person.

She’d probably done that really bad dye job on her hair herself—inky black, of course—and had pierced her ears too many times to count, plus her eyebrows. She’d painted her fingernails black and managed to find purplish-black lipstick somewhere.

She pursed those wicked-colored lips and took a slow, deep drag off her cigarette, staring belligerently back at Kate and arching a blackened brow as if to say, What is your problem?

Kate nearly laughed at that. This girl was the one with problems.

She dismissed Kate with another smirk and started to blow smoke rings into the air, much to the annoyance of the ice cream man, who was trying to wave it away with his hands.

“It’s not Halloween yet, is it, Kate?” Bernie, the ice cream man, asked.

The girl looked bored, as she took another puff on the cigarette, her gaze remaining dismissively on Kate.

“Not for another few days, Bernie,” Kate said.

“Can I get you something, Kate?”

Nerves getting the best of her, she said, “Sure, I’ll have a fudge bar.”

He dug it out of his cart and Katie took it, handing him a dollar bill and thanking him.

No one else had shown up. This was the only ice cream cart in the park. It was in the same place every day. Everyone in town knew where it was.

Waiting impatiently, Kate wondered how much of her own life story she should share with Allie. Kate’s own father died at the hands of a convenience-store robber when she was only eight. And of course, her mother died of cancer six months ago, when Kate was twenty-seven. Life had not been easy for her, and yet she thought she and her siblings had turned out okay, her current situation with Joe and that odd thing with the priest notwithstanding. There wasn’t a wild, rebellious, indignant or irresponsible bone in Kate Cassidy’s body.

Which made her think of the girl beside her. If Katie had to guess, she’d say the girl was at least wild and rebellious, and she seemed to have a good head start on indignant, just looking at Katie, in her favorite black suit and her pretty black pumps. How could anyone object to a classic black suit?

She glanced at her watch. Five thirty-four.

She ate her fudge bar. Ghoul Girl, as Katie had come to think of her, finished her cigarette and threw what was left of it down onto the ground.

“Hey,” Bernie warned her. “That’s not where it goes, and believe me, you don’t want to find out what the fine for littering in this park is.”

That earned him a glare, too, but the girl picked up the cigarette butt and threw it into the trash. Katie finished her fudge bar and threw it away.

Five thirty-seven.

She had hoped to make the 6:15 advanced-cardio-burn class at the gym, but time would soon become an issue. Katie pulled out her cell phone and paged through the numbers programmed in the phone, for Charlotte Sims’s number. Charlotte, cheery as always, answered.

“Hi. This is Kate Cassidy. I was supposed to meet my little sister seven minutes ago, but she’s not here. I was wondering if she’d called to cancel?”

“Katie. Hi,” Charlotte said. “She’s not there? I hope nothing happened. I’ve got her cell phone number right here. Let me try her and see. Can you hang on?”

“Sure.” Thank goodness for cell phones. She tried to never be without hers. Although, a six-year-old having a cell phone…? That sounded a bit odd.

Charlotte put Katie on hold, and, oddly enough, someone else’s phone rang. Ghoul Girl’s. Even her phone was all black.

“Yes,” the girl said into the phone. “Yes, I’m here. I was even early.”

Oh, no.

“Sure,” the girl said. “I can hang on.”

“Darling?” Charlotte came back on the line with Kate. “She says she’s right there. I don’t know how you two could be missing each other.”

Kate gaped at the girl, looking back at Kate with what she imagined was equal parts horror and disgust. Turning to put her back to the girl, Katie whispered into the phone, “I thought I was getting Allie. Remember?” Impish. Pigtails.

“I know. I’m sorry. I thought Melanie called you. We really needed someone for Shannon. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to get through to her, and when I spoke to Charlie about it, he said you were the one for the job. In fact, he said you can handle anything,” Charlotte said, sealing Katie’s fate then and there.

She couldn’t have Charlie Sims thinking she couldn’t handle one rebellious, frighteningly dressed, nicotine-addicted teenage girl.

“Oh,” Kate heard herself say. “Okay. Whatever you need.”

“Great. Her name is Shannon Donnelly. Don’t let the look fool you. She’s only fifteen and very, very intelligent.”

Intelligent? No way, Katie thought, glancing at Shannon, who looked bored once again and was reaching for another cigarette.

“Call me later and let me know how everything goes,” Charlotte said.

“Sure.” Kate closed the phone and faced Miss Shannon Donnelly.

Shannon lit another cigarette, took a big puff and said, “Hey, sis.”

Kate nearly choked. Surely this was her punishment for coming into this program for all the wrong motives and maybe for flirting with the priest and not facing up to her problems with Joe.

“What’s the matter?” Ghoul Girl asked. “Scared?”

“Of you? Amused is more like it.”

It wasn’t a promising start, considering she was supposed to help this girl, but what could she do? Politeness wouldn’t get her anywhere, Kate thought, and neither would kindness right away. She couldn’t afford to let the girl think she was intimidated, either.

Time for some tough love.

Or…tough affection, maybe.

Tough help.

“You really do look like you dressed up for Halloween today,” Kate said, testing her theory.

“And you look like an uptight old woman,” the girl returned.

Okay. The girl respected toughness and bluntness. They could communicate on that level and work toward something more civil at a later date.

“Guess we won’t be swapping fashion tips,” Kate said.

“Guess not,” the girl said, then hitched her chin up a notch and flung back, “So, you’re just doing this to impress the director’s old man?”

Oh, great.

The girl grinned. “I heard enough that I guessed that’s what you might be doing. I mean, you don’t seem like the do-gooder type.”

“That’s what got me started,” Kate admitted. “Who twisted your arm to get you here? Because I can’t imagine you coming here willingly, either.”

The girl’s composure slipped for just a moment, and she looked half human. Okay. They were getting somewhere. Kate wondered who had enough influence over the girl to make her do anything—and why that person hadn’t forced her to do something about that awful hair.

“What if I didn’t?” The girl shrugged.

“So, we’ve both got our reasons for being here, and neither one of us can back out. So…we might as well make the best of it? Getting together a few times should be enough to keep everybody happy, right?”

“Yeah,” the girl agreed. “That’ll work.”

If anyone overheard the deal Kate just made, they’d think she was a really lousy person and still trying to impress Charlie, which she was.

But now that she’d met the girl…

She obviously needed help, and she looked like a real challenge.

Kate loved a challenge.

Besides, she liked fixing people. She happened to think she was great at it, although her siblings were starting to complain, something about her advice sounding more like meddling, that her need to have things in perfect order was starting to bug them. Kate was trying to cut back on her advice, but it was a tough habit to break. Maybe she could make this girl her project, instead.

“Why don’t we start over? I’m Kate Cassidy.” She held out her hand, which the girl pointedly ignored. Were they supposed to smack their hands together or something?

“Shannon Donnelly.”

“Want to sit down?” Kate invited.

She got that I-couldn’t-care-less shrug again, but the girl sat on the bench.

Kate sat beside her. “So, anything going on that I could help you with?”

“I don’t think so.” Shannon laughed again. “Anything I can do for you, Kate?”

“I doubt it.” Kate sat there, racking her brain for something else to say. “I was pretty good in school, in case you need any help there.”

“Like I’d care about school? Please.” Shannon rolled her eyes dramatically. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“And everything’s startin’ to go, huh? The body? The face?”

“Hey?” Kate frowned. “I thought we were going to make this as painless as possible for each other? Could I get a little cooperation, please?”

“Look, I don’t need anything from you,” Shannon said, looking like a little girl for maybe a split second, if that was possible under her disguise. “I don’t need anybody. So, what do we have to do? Look at each other once a week or something? Is that it?”

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