Page 13 of The Heartstrings of Harry
“Do what?”
“Oh, now you’re just toying with me.”
She laughed. “Maybe a little. But you have to admit, it’s very sweet of him to do that.”
“To try and set us up?”
“No, I mean, to look out for his best friend like that. He obviously just wants you to be happy.”
“I am happy. He doesn’t have to try and set me up on a date with a beautiful woman to make me happy.”
Without even looking at her I could hear the smile in her voice. “You think I’m a beautiful woman?”
“Well… yes. But…”
“But not in a ‘please come give my mattress a workout’ kinda way.”
“Oh God, can we please stop talking about mattresses.”
She laughed again. That melodious, infectious laugh of hers. “What have you got against mattresses? Don’t you like your mattress? Is it too flabby, is that why it needs a workout?”
“Stop,” I grinned.
“Maybe it’s too squeaky. Like every time you sit on it all you hear iseeky-eeky-eek.”
“Stop!” I laughed too now.
She stopped walking. She stopped laughing. “Or maybe it’s too empty. Maybe it’s too big for one. Perhaps that’s the problem.”
Maybe she was right.
I stopped walking too.
I didn’t say anything.
She pointed to the house we’d arrived at, a small cottage with a light on in the window, illuminating a row of flowerpots sitting on the windowsill. “This is me. I’d invite you in for a drink, but I think cleaning up at the poker table and being called a ‘beautiful woman’ is enough of a win for one night… especially coming from an ‘adorable fuzzy bear’ like you.”
She pulled out her keys and walked to her door, unlocking it and calling back over her shoulder, “It was nice to meet you, Harry Dalton. I’ll see you around.”
She closed the door behind her and the light in the window went out.
* * *
As soon as I got home, I switched on the light above the dining table and wrote inside the card, the one with the illustration of a guitar on the front of it. I tucked the card into the bouquet of flowers sitting in the vase, then went to the closet under the stairs.
I opened the closet door, reached inside, and pulled out my hidden treasure—
An old second-hand guitar I picked up at a yard sale in Eau Claire just after Dean left town.
In the time he’d been gone, I’d taught myself to play, googling lessons online and watching tutorials on YouTube.
I learned songs.
I learnedhissongs.
I printed the sheet music off the internet.
I played them to myself some nights, although I wasn’t very good at it. I never reallyintendedto be good at it, nor did I want anybody in Mulligan’s Mill knowing that I could play. I didn’t teach myself the guitar so I could pull it out at parties or entertain friends around a campfire. I had no intention of ever playing to a crowd. That wasn’t the reason I’d bought the guitar in the first place.
