Happenstance 2 (Happenstance #2)(9)
Author: Jamie McGuire

“Didn’t Barbara send him your way?” I asked. Barbara was in billing at Kay Electric, and Frankie made her laugh every time she came through the drive-through. The weekend before, Barbara came through on her way home and told Frankie all about Mark, the new lineman from Alabama. He was cute and sweet and single, and he loved to laugh. Barbara asked Frankie if she could give him her number, and to everyone’s surprise, Frankie wrote her number on a napkin and held it out the window.

Three phone calls later, Frankie agreed to a first date. She had been dropping and spilling things and messing up orders all evening. Even Weston noticed when he visited for a few minutes after practice.

She looked at her watch. “Welp. That’s closing time, kiddo. How do I look?” She was rocking her curves in a newer pair of capri jeans and a purple plaid button-up shirt.

“Covered in chocolate, which I bet he’ll like.”

She laughed and pulled off her apron. “Thanks, Erin. Have a good dinner with your…Sam.”

“I will. I’ll have a fantastic dinner with my Sam.” I smiled. I liked the sound of that.

I could hear Sam’s Range Rover idling on the other side of the back door before I opened it. He smiled bright when our eyes met, and I waved to Frankie before climbing into the passenger seat.

“I ran off and forgot my purse again,” he joked. “Mind if we stop by the house before we grab dinner? My phone’s in it.”

“Sure,” I said.

Sam pulled onto the road, and we drove south. The first minute or two was quiet, and then Sam cleared his throat. “You can change the station if you want.”

“This is fine.”

“How was work?”

“Uneventful for the most part. Weston stopped by. Frankie has a date tonight.”

“Julianne wanted to call during the storm. I assured her you wouldn’t be too scared.” He chortled to himself, but then looked to me when I didn’t respond. “I’m sorry. Were you? Should we have called?”

“No, I like storms.”

Sam nodded, relieved. “I do too. Julianne, not so much. We got a dog once so when I wasn’t home and it was storming, Julianne had a buddy, but it wasn’t meant to be. It aggravated Sonny’s asthma.”

“You mean Weston’s?”

Sam thought about that for a moment and then conceded. “You have a point. The dander would have triggered his asthma too. Back then, though, we saw Sonny nearly every day. For a long time, Weston only came over if Peter and Veronica forced him to play with the girls.”

“Sonny had asthma?”

“You didn’t know?” Sam asked.

I shook my head.

“I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me. She denied it as much as Weston does.”

“He doesn’t talk about it much.”

“He works pretty hard to impress you. I’ve never seen him act like this.” Sam said, lost in thought for a moment before snapping back to the present. “Anyway, since Sonny was over at the house so much, we decided to get rid of…huh. I can’t even remember its name.”

We pulled up to the curb, and I waited. It didn’t occur to me that Sam hadn’t pulled into the drive until I saw Julianne standing next to another vehicle. Not her white G-Wagon, but a red BMW. With a big, white bow on top.

Sam got out and walked around to my side of the Range Rover.

“This isn’t happening,” I whispered before he opened the door.

I stepped out. Sam and Julianne were both beaming.

“We’ve missed a few birthdays and Christmases,” Sam said.

“Graduation is coming up too,” Julianne said.

I pointed to the shiny red paint. “Is this for me?”

Sam held up a small, black remote with a few silver buttons. “It’s not the same as holding up keys, but this goes to your new car. We hope you like red.”

I choked on my own spit. “Do I like—? You’re joking.”

They both shook their heads, and I did the same.

Their smiles fell away, and Julianne held out her hands, walking toward me.

“Please let us do this. I’m not even sure who came up with the idea. Both of us, I think.”

Sam nodded in agreement.

Julianne continued, her voice shaking. “And you need a car, honey. You’re eighteen, and you work hard, and…you should have a vehicle.”

Their faces and then the car began to blur. Before I could stop the tears from pouring over and spilling out, my cheeks were already wet.

Julianne’s lips trembled, and she began to cry too, quickly covering her mouth.

Sam wrapped his arms around me. “Please let us do this for you.”

“I don’t know how to even accept something like this. This just gets crazier every day, but in the best possible way. Not because of the things. It’s not the things.” The words came out funny and muffled, and I wasn’t sure if they could even understand me.

Sam put the remote in my hand and then hugged me to his side. “It’s a year old, excellent condition, and it has a nine point one safety rating. The keys are inside that remote. It’s a push-button start. I filled up the tank and checked the fluids myself. Will you drive us to dinner? I can show you what all the buttons do.”

I shook my head again. “I don’t think I should. I don’t have a lot of experience driving, and—”

“You drive Weston’s truck sometimes, don’t you?” Julianne asked.

I nodded.

“I need a ride to dinner before I starve to death.” Sam was trying to tease me as gently as he could, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

I wiped my eyes and looked to Julianne. “Have you had dinner?”

She nodded. “Go spend some time with your…”

“My Sam,” I said.

Sam liked it too.

My face fell. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. This…Thank you. Thank you so much. This is amazing. It just feels too amazing. It’s kind of scaring me a little. I feel the better things get, the worse it’s going to feel when it all goes away. Not the things. I don’t mean the things.”

Julianne held my cheeks with both hands. “You’re our daughter, and we bought our daughter a car. That’s all. It’s not wrong. It’s not to set you up for disappointment. It’s just a car.”

“It’s not just a car.” I looked back at the candy-red BMW sitting in the drive and then down at the remote in my hand. I really had a car. I could drive myself to school. To work. To college. To the grocery store. To the Laundromat, if I still had to go there. I didn’t, but I could drive there if I did. “You don’t know what this means to me. I don’t think I could explain it to you.”