Midsummer Madness. Christine Rimmer
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was happening with him? Why the big interest in a woman who’d been around since they were both in diapers?
Cody decided not to think about that. It was no big deal. He’d put thoughts of Julie—and thoughts about why he was thinking so much about Julie—right out of his mind.
That decided, he focused on the stage again—and saw Julie.
All at once, unable to sit still, he swung his boots up on the back of the chair in front of him, recalled Miss Oakleaf, and swung them back down again. They hit the old pine strip floor a mite too firmly, and Andrea Oakleaf turned briefly around to shoot one of her famous squinty-eyed looks toward the darkness where he sat. After that, Cody kept his feet on the floor and his mind, more or less, in control.
Up on the stage, Juliet finished her speech. She left the podium to the accompaniment of approving applause. She sat, feeling as if she floated there, on a folding chair to the left of the podium, while questions were asked of her. She had answers to all of them.
It was incredible.
Melda Cooks asked how Juliet would handle casting the play she’d written. Juliet remembered past years, when they’d had tryouts, and no one had shown up. Or when they’d cast by asking around, and some people had felt left out.
So Juliet said she’d combine the two methods: a day of tryouts, and then any uncast roles would be filled by appealing to the community consciousness of people who might fit the parts. Juliet raised her eyebrows just a fraction when she said “community consciousness,” and everyone chuckled a little. They all knew what she meant; they’d end up begging a few softhearted souls to get involved.
Babe Allen pointedly remarked that Juliet could hardly expect to be paid what they’d agreed to pay the expert from Hollywood. Juliet, prepared for that one, smiled sweetly and answered that she was willing to do the work as a community service—provided the merchants donated the full fee they would have paid to the new community park down at the foot of Commercial Street.
It was so…marvelously simple. And fun. She just used her head, and then explained what she’d figured out, and it made sense. People listened. Amazing. Wonderful.
After they took the vote and elected her, Juliet approached the podium again to murmur a brief thank-you and to ask her committee heads—whom she’d lined up just this afternoon—to confer with her briefly in the lobby after the meeting was over. Then she gathered up her materials and left the stage through the wings, floating out the stage door, and then circling around to wait for the others in the quiet lobby out front.
Within a half hour, all her people were assembled. Jake, who was not only a poet but also worked part-time on the Emerald Gap Bulletin, agreed to get right on the posters and newspaper notice for the revue tryouts, which would be held on Monday evening. Reva Reid, parade committee chairman, would make the rounds tomorrow to firm up the list of all the floats and themes. The frog jump and Race Day chairpeople respectively agreed that they’d have each event fully planned by Tuesday evening, when the pageant committee would meet once again. Andrea Oakleaf volunteered to check with the Pine Grove Park Commission about the permit for the big closing-day picnic. And Burt Pandley promised to find, by next Friday, at least twelve more participants for the Crafts and Industry Fair, which was slated to run upstairs in the town hall the whole ten days of the festival.
It was after nine when Juliet finally left the lobby of the old auditorium. Outside, the night was balmy and moonless, the air very still. She stood for a moment beyond the big entry doors, between a pair of Victorian gas street lamps, and shivered just a little with excitement and triumph. She drew a deep breath and thought she could smell the pines and firs that cloaked the surrounding foothills.
How beautiful Broad Street looked, clothed in night, with its brick-fronted buildings, and the old-fashioned gas lamps all along the street. On the corner diagonally across from her, she could see the lights in the window of Cody’s restaurant.
Now where, she wondered suddenly, had Cody disappeared to? He’d been waiting for her in the front row when she first entered the auditorium tonight. He’d wished her luck and then taken the podium for a moment to explain about the loss of the professional from Hollywood. He’d introduced her and left the stage.
And then she’d forgotten all about him in the excitement—and terror—of getting up and making herself heard.
Juliet grinned. Well, she’d see him soon enough. Between the work she did for him and the fact that she lived on his ranch, they ran into each other almost daily.
It was going to be fun, she decided, to tease him about not believing in her. He’d be a little embarrassed, she knew, and he’d smile that beautiful right-sided smile….
Juliet shivered a little, though the windless, warm night didn’t justify goose bumps. Odd, that she should think about teasing Cody. She wasn’t a teasing type of person, really.
Or she hadn’t been. But now, with what she’d accomplished tonight, Juliet was beginning to think that she could be just about any kind of person she wanted to be.
And if she wanted to tease a friend a little, why shouldn’t she? There was nothing wrong with that….
“Great job, Juliet.”
Juliet jumped, like someone caught thinking naughty thoughts. “Oh.” She gave a guilty giggle. “You surprised me, Jake.”
Flat-nosed Jake’s squashed face wrinkled with amusement. “You surprised all of us, gal. Damn good show.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Thank you,” Jake said. “We can use a real leader around here for once.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Nodding, Jake turned and strolled off down the street toward the ancient green pickup he’d been driving for as long as Juliet could remember.
Juliet stood for a moment more, savoring Jake’s praise, staring at a street she’d known all her life, but which tonight seemed the most beautiful place on earth. And then she turned and headed for McIntyre’s, because she’d parked her car just a few feet beyond the restaurant’s doors.
When she reached her car, Juliet paused once again, as she had outside the auditorium. She gazed fatuously at the automobile. It was a night to feel good about herself, and the car just added to the wonderfulness of it all.
Low, long, and sleek, it was the color of a scarlet flame. The salesman had told her it had eight cylinders, which he had implied was plenty, and which she suspected was probably immoral these days. She certainly felt immoral whenever she bought gas, which was often. It was not a practical car, nor was it precisely new—it had had one owner before her, who’d put quite a few miles on it, actually. But the salesman had assured her that the car was in tip-top condition. And she hadn’t bought it for practical reasons, anyway.
She’d seen it and wanted it, and now it was hers. For Juliet, the car was a symbol, a material representation of the way she was creating a whole new life for herself. So she looked at it awhile, on this special night-of-all-nights, and thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever laid eyes on in her life.
Still floating on air from her triumph with the merchants’ association, Juliet shrugged out of the gray jacket that went with her suit. She tossed the jacket and her pageant materials in back and slid beneath the wheel. The car was so low and streamlined that Juliet almost felt as if she were lying down when she settled into the driver’s seat. It was a glorious feeling.
Stretching out, sighing a little, she rolled down the window and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her white cotton blouse. The warm night air came in the window and kissed her throat.
Sensuous, Juliet thought. Downright sensuous, just sitting here.
And then she giggled. Sensuous. What a thought. Especially for plain-Jane Juliet Huddleston, who was getting real close to being considered a spinster by everyone in town.
The warm air played on blushing skin now, as Juliet rather primly