Page 1 of Daniel
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DANIEL
The steady hum of the jigsaw was comforting as I carved out train after train. My hands moved in a familiar, peaceful dance. It had been like this since my brothers and I discovered that my parents had thrown together a toy factory just before the holidays.
It was a tranquil task which sent me into an almost trance-like state. Woodworking was my form of meditation.
Most people wouldn’t be delighted to work through most of their three-week Christmas vacation. But I’d never been like most people. It made me happy to be working at the toy factory, since it gave me a way to be productive each morning.
Without work, I just wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I had been like that for years, until something snapped into place in the back of my mind during the flight home two weeks ago.
After putting in twelve-hour days for a few weeks to make sure that my team was prepared to run the Myrtleville showroom without me while I was back home for the holidays, I was utterly exhausted. Looking out the window over the landscape, I’d zoned out while admiring the view of tiny townsfar below. It was something to stare at that wasn’t yet another boring movie.
As I gazed down at the grassy field getting ready to sleep for the winter after the harvest, the word for it popped into my head.
Prairie.
Such a pretty, almost poetic word, though I’d never really thought about it before.
Then when I got home to Holly Valley, my friend Lila mentioned that her cousin Prairie was moving here over the holidays, and something just clicked in the back of my mind.
I’d never been one for superstitious bullcrap, but that had to mean something.
Watching first Jacob and then Andrew fall in love this season had made me even more prickly than usual. It wasn’t like when we were kids, when I felt that we should each get toys of the same caliber. It was bigger than that.
As the oldest, I knew I should be the most mature. Yet I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy as my brothers easily found what I’d been searching for.
Back in Myrtleville I had tried to date. That is to say, I tried to find a date. The women there didn’t catch my eye. They were each lovely in their own way. They just weren’t right for me.
It was like being faced with an amazing grilled cheese sandwich when what I was seriously craving was chocolate caramel. No matter how wonderful they were, they just weren’t what I desired.
Maybe it was simply that I longed for a Holly Valley girl. I was thrilled to be moving back here next year.
Mom’s voice rang through the factory, even over the buzz of the jigsaw, reminding everyone that we were closing in ten minutes.
The big Christmas Eve Eve Ball was tonight, and people needed time to get ready. I would rather have kept working foranother few hours to have something to distract me, but I didn’t want my family to know how strangely melancholy I’d been feeling.
It was that word, that was now also a person. Prairie.
She was coming to town any day now, and I just didn’t know what I was going to do.
After finishing one last train and cleaning down the machine, I met with the family out front. It was going to be exciting to see my parents dancing properly together at the ball tonight, now that Mom’s new knee let her move freely again.
I was probably going to be the only member of the family not dancing. Or rather, since I was a member of the most prominent family in town, I would be expected to dance with all of the older ladies. Over the years, I had learned some steps, until I was a reasonably decent dancer.
I was only half listening as the family was talking about finding a few more artistic painters for the spring toys, when I suddenly had a thought. “Call Janice at the craft store. She’d know folk art painters, and people who are into that sort of thing.”
“Great idea,” Mom said.
Before I could ask Andrew or Jacob if they needed a ride back to the house, I felt my phone vibrate in my jeans pocket. I whipped it out to check, as I’d been doing with increasing frequency.
Lila Mitchell had been a casual acquaintance for years. Whenever I came home for a visit, she’d fill me in on the latest gossip. Sometimes I’d run into her at the coffee shop. I’m not sure why she kept mentioning girls around town who were single, but maybe she was just chatty.
Honestly, I thought nothing of it until she mentioned her cousin. Lila had sworn to send me a text as soon as Prairie arrived home. I had managed to evade her constant questionsabout why I needed to know, and had been checking my phone so often that I barely flinched when it beeped.
It was likely yet another spam call, so I tried not to get my hopes up yet again.
Lila:Hey – you wanted to know when Prairie got to town. They just stopped by to say hello to my folks for a minute, and her dad is taking her home now. So I’m sure you’ll see her at the ball tonight.
