Page 21 of Not Exactly a Small-Town Romance

KELSEY, 25, strolls along the sidewalk with innocent interest. The skirt of her pale-blue dress swishes near her knees. She wears sensible shoes with a modest chunky heel and sassy ankle strap. Her blond hair flows to her shoulders, held back with a silver headband.

HERO, 28, exits the barbershop. He spots Kelsey and tips his hat.

I pause. Hmmm. There’s nobody on the street. Nobody exiting any of the stores.

Nobody at all, actually.

I arrive at the beauty parlor window adorned with cartoon scissors and a comb. It’s mostly empty inside, but two women talking by the hair dryers definitely notice me. They fall silent, their gaze following as I pass by.

Should I acknowledge them? My movie scene falters as their stiff postures and narrowed eyes don’t fit my perfect imagining.

I opt to speed up, wondering if there’s something wrong with my dress or shoes. Is my hair flying every direction?

When I’m beyond their windows, I turn to see my filmy reflection against the hardware store display. Everything seems all right with my appearance.

Near the door to the hardware shop, a woman about to walk out stops to watch me. My anxiety grows. Maybe I’m not in a Hallmark movie at all, butChildren of the Corn.

I’m getting horror vibes.

Maybe I should go back to the car.

But doing that would mean passing by all those people a second time, so I gamely head for the door to Good Brew.

Obviously, this is such a tight-knit community that they recognize when a stranger arrives. Probably they’re already gossiping about me. Perhaps they’ll run me out of town with pitchforks if they pick up on my LA vibes.

I might not blame them.

No, that’s my big-city pessimism taking hold.

I reframe. Maybe they are little-old-lady matchmakers, and their curiosity is all about figuring out which single man would be exactly right for me.

Maybe they’re planning a meet-cute of their own.

I open the door to the coffee shop.

A young woman in a black apron leans on the counter, looking bored out of her mind. Her gaze flicks up to me from her phone, disinterested.

Only one table is taken. Two elderly men sit at it, both looking frustrated. One says, “Turn up your damn hearing aid. I’m tired of repeating myself.”

The other one shouts, “You ain’t got a damn thing to say that’s worth listening to!”

This is good. Grumpy old men are a staple in a good rom-com. They’ll advise the potential guy not to miss his chance, and that if they were forty years younger, they’d give him a run for his money.

That’s better.

I don’t bother to look at the handwritten chalk menu. “Can I get a tall iced espresso with almond milk and a drizzle of caramel, shaken rather than stirred?”

A midfifties woman walks up behind the younger one. Their resemblance tells me this is a mother-daughter pair. “What do you think this is, Beverly Hills Starbucks?” She turns to the younger woman. “Get her a drip with half a packet of white hot chocolate and dump it over ice.”

That sounds disgusting. I open my mouth to protest, but then close it. They seem to be expecting me to go on a rampage. Even the old men have fallen silent.

I think ofLegally Blonde, when Reese Witherspoon’s character, Elle Woods, realizes her handwritten notes with a fuzzy pen don’t match the other students’.

WhatwouldReese do?

She’d smile. Big. And hold it.

So, I do, even as I get charged seven dollars for a cup of something incredibly undrinkable, served to me with a grimace only Oscar the Grouch could love.

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