Part Two of "Look Higher" Short Story by Lyn Cote

Part Two- Look Higher by Lyn Cote

“Ellie Smith? We’re from the Mack and Middy Show--On the Road! You’ve been selected as this afternoon’s beauty makeover!”
“What?”
“Madge sent us a letter, submitting your name. Are you ready?”
Too stunned to speak, Ellie gawked, open mouthed.
“Turn off your computer! Let’s go!”
The next hours flew by. Ellie was shampooed, styled, manicured, made up and dressed.
Finally, center stage, she heard her name announced to a cheering audience. Mack and Middy showed the video taken at her office, then skillfully drew out facts about her. “Now,” Middy, a perky redhead, asked, “Do you have a special man in your life? What’ll he say when he sees the new you?”
Ellie moistened her lips and smiled shyly. “I doubt Ned’ll notice. He’s the absent-minded genius-type.”
“Oh, I think he’ll notice,” Mack chortled. The show swirled to its close.
Ellie thanked Mack and Middy. Then she was back in a white limo which dropped her off at the front of the plant once more.
When she stepped into the office, it was empty except for Madge who was waiting for her. “You look wonderful—“
“Why did you send in my name, Madge?”
“I wanted you to feel as beautiful outside as you are inside.”
“I’m numb, like a tornado has just blown me over.”
Madge did a little jig. “You’ll certainly make a splash at the party tonight!”
Bemused, Ellie didn't know what to think about the party.
After Madge left, Ellie retrieved her purse from her locked file cabinet. The warehouse door opened. Ellie stepped out into the aisle and nearly ran into Ned, a tall and thin engineer.
Ned’s eyes behind slightly cocked glasses opened wide. “Ellie?”
“What do you think?” Smiling, beginning to believe maybe she really looked a little beautiful, she twirled once like a little girl in a new dress.
“I…I…I….” Ned’s eyes glazed over, his mouth hung open. He looked like a dead mackerel. “You’re beautiful.” He sounded dumbfounded.
A thrill of pleasure zipped through her. “Thank you, Ned. It couldn’t come at a better time with the company party tonight. What do you think this new dress?” Ellie held out her flared black skirt.
Ned cleared his throat. “I’m not going with you tonight.”
“Not going? Why not?”
“I can’t go with you looking like that!”
Ellie frowned. “Like what?”
“Like a movie star!” “A what?” “Everyone will want to talk to you, not me. I really need to network tonight. I want that senior engineer position too much.”
“Ned, I can’t believe--”
Ned edged away. “This has thrown me off completely. I had everything planned.” He hurried to the door. It shut behind him with a swoosh.
He’s standing me up! Anger flared in her. Ellie stomped out and sped off in her car. She reached the hotel where the affair was being held and marched in.
Just inside the door of the banquet room, her anger deserted her. She couldn’t take another step. What if everyone thought her makeover ridiculous? She could already feel the humiliation.
“Ellie, you’re here.” Beaming down at her, Hugh took both her hands in his. “Mr. Hensley was just talking about that brilliant, money-saving proposal you sent him.” Smoothly, Hugh guided her to a knot of people she had worked with for years.
She received warm compliments on her appearance and her luck at winning a makeover. Ned came late, but amid all the people Hugh drew around her, Ned was easy to ignore.
Later when Hugh and she stood next to her car in the moonlight, she let her gaze linger on his kind face. “I don’t know when I’ve had a better time.”
“I enjoyed being with you. You look especially lovely tonight.” Her chin dipped. She thought of Madge’s words. Just because of Hugh’s handsome exterior, she had thought he couldn’t be interested in her and Hugh had asked her out even before her makeover.
“Ellie, I’ve always thought you were a diamond in the rough, but tonight you really shine.” Leaning down, he brushed her lips with his.

*** From their perch on the top of the hotel, two angels smiled down at the couple. “You did it, Magdelana.” Madge, really Magdelana, smiled. “Hugh deserved someone special. He’s been through so much.”
“Ellie’s perfect for him.” The other angel shook her head. “What did she ever see in Ned? What a lowlife.”
"That was the problem all right." Madge grinned beatifically. “Ellie wasn't looking high enough.”

So what do you think? Did I surprise you at the end? Do you look higher?

Part One of "Look Higher," a Free Short Story

Look Higher by Lyn Cote, Part One

At mid-morning break, Ellie walked over to the desk nearest the door and cleared her throat politely.
“Taking up another collection, Ellie?” Madge, the plump, gray-haired temp secretary, teased cheerfully.
“The custodian’s wife had heart surgery. I thought a card and a check would help.”
Madge signed the brightly colored card and handed Ellie a five-dollar bill. “You’re a beautiful person, Ellie. You think of everyone.”
With an apologetic grin, Ellie shook her head. “This is the third time I’ve come around since you started two months ago. You’re probably hoping to get transferred.”
Madge didn't reply to this. Instead, she asked, “Is Ned taking you to lunch today?” Ellie nodded.
“Someplace special?”
Ellie shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Why not? You and Ned haven’t been dating for too long. He takes you for granted.” “We suit each other.”
“Don’t just settle for Ned. Don’t let him treat you like a pair of broken-in shoes—“ The ringing of Madge’s telephone interrupted.
Ellie waved good by and walked to her own desk. Mulling over Madge’s kind words. But ever since seventh grade when Ellie had beat the handsomest boy in the math class contest, she had accepted that she was bright, not pretty. Madge was sweet to call her a beautiful person. But in romance, a vast difference separated a beautiful “person” from a beautiful “woman."
With a sigh, she flipped on her computer. As the head of the parts department, she had another inventory to check. Time crawled by. The clock on the computer screen read 12:15. Ned should have come by now. Shaking her head at his absent-mindedness, she dialed his office number. No answer. She hung up and waited. Resting her chin on her hand, Ellie fought against the thoughts that Madge’s recent words had stirred up. Ned wasn’t anyone’s dream date, but people with his kind of brains often forgot things like lunch dates. She turned back to her computer. Might as well work till Ned appeared.
“Ned hasn’t shown. I thought as much,” Madge said. “I brought lunch for two.” “Really, Madge, Ned still might--”
“Then he should have to hunt for you.” Madge waved a lunch cooler in front of Ellie’s eyes. “Tuna on rye and homemade potato salad.”
“It’s my favorite lunch! How did you know?” Within moments, Ellie found herself out in summer warmth.
Madge chose a picnic table under the shade of a full, green maple. Lifting two sandwiches encased in neon pink plastic rectangles from her lunch-sized cooler, she handed one to Ellie, who sat across from her. “I also made angel food cake and strawberries last night.”
Momentarily, Ellie considered warning Madge she had no say about filling permanent positions. But with the sweet dessert awaiting her and the sparkling sunshine glinting on the windows nearby, Ellie found it impossible to talk business.
“Now we were discussing your fatal fascination with Ned—“
“Madge, please!” Ellie chuckled in spite of herself.
“Mind if I join you ladies?”
Recognizing the deep, liquid-honey voice, Ellie glanced up at Hugh Garner, the company's most successful salesman. Tall, dark and handsome didn’t come close to describing him, delicious him.
“A man at this table is just what we need,” Madge said.
Hugh slid his lithe frame onto the picnic table bench and opened a cooler similar to Madge’s.
“You packed a lunch?” Madge teased. “I thought you only did power lunches.”
So close to Hugh, Ellie forced herself to take a small bite of her tuna. Being around Hugh always made her nervous. Even when his wife died of leukemia last year, she hadn’t attended the funeral. What could she say to someone facing such a heart-breaking loss? Instead, she had ordered flowers and engineered the collection for the designated memorial fund.
“Power lunches are over-rated. A lunch outdoors on a beautiful day with two charming ladies, now that’s a lunch.” He smiled at Ellie, not just any smile.
She felt all the way to her toes. “You always seem so confident.” Ellie’s gaze drifted to his Kirk-Douglas chin.
“Salesmanship 101—always appear confident.”
Madge slid a piece of cake toward him. “Scuttlebutt says you’re about to bring in a nice, juicy contract.”
Ellie put down her sandwich. “Madge, how do you know so much?”
Madge forked up a bite of cake. “Am I right, Mr. Garner?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Today I met with the president over bidding strategy.”
“That sounds so important,” Ellie said.
“Salesmanship is a complex science,” Madge added.
Hugh chuckled. “Thank you both, but it’s not a done deal yet—“ Hugh’s cell phone ran and he slipped it out of his suit jacket pocket. “That’s it for my picnic. I have a client to meet.” He quickly re-filled his cooler, stood up and smiled down at Ellie. “Maybe you’d have dinner with me sometime, Ellie?”
Ellie couldn't say a word in reply.
As he hurried off, he looked back and smiled at Ellie. His parting words had taken her breath away.
Madge said, “Hugh could be an interesting date.”
“He was just being polite.” Ellie toyed with her plastic fork.
“He didn’t have to ask you. I think he likes you.”
“I’m just an average small-town girl. Hugh's late wife was beautiful.”
“You’re missing what’s important.”
Ellie looked to Madge. “What’s that?”
“Every man has his own idea of what beauty is.”
Wryly, Ellie shook her head.

Back at her desk, the figures on the spreadsheet squiggled under Ellie’s gaze. She slipped off her glasses and rubbed her tired eyes. She dialed Ned’s number. “Hi, did you forget lunch?”
“I had lunch with the vice president,” Ned explained.
“I thought we were going out to lunch today!”
Ned snapped, “This lunch was important.”
“You could have called—“
“Ellie, one of the things I like about you is that you don’t go in for any of that feminine stuff. You take me like I am. Don't change that.”
Feeling hurt, she wanted to say men called other men when they break appointments, but that would be petty. Ned didn’t like pettiness either. “Ned, when will you pick me up tonight?”
“Yeah, the company thing. Right.” He hung up.
Ellie bit her lower lip.
A sudden flurry around the door made her stand up. Catching sight of a man wearing a cowboy hat over a ponytail and another with a large video camera threw her.
Madge leaped up and began waving at them. “She’s right back here.”
Ellie stared in dismay as the men headed for her.--

The conclusion on Thursday!

A Summer Gift to My Readers-A Short Story by Lyn Cote-Part 2

Watermelon Cowboy by Lyn Cote-Part 2

The first part of this story was posted on Friday July 2nd-

"The county's Sweet Corn Festival was the last big summer celebration. Sarah just wasn't in the mood for festivities, but Grandma wouldn't dream of missing the fair. In the evening breeze, Sarah walked slowly beside her grandmother who leaned on her cane. Grandma struggled over the uneven grass to the shady area where the older generation sat on lawn chairs and fanned themselves. Grandmother was greeted cheerfully. With Danny beside her, Sarah snapped open a lawn chair and helped her grandmother settle into it.

"Mom! It's the Watermelon Cowboy!" Danny waved. "Hi!"

"Hello." Tate greeted Danny, then the assembled grandparents.

Sarah noted their warm response to Tate. Obviously, he was a favorite with them.

"Thanks for helping my granddaughter pick out that corn and those melons." Martha held onto his hand. "Nobody can out-do Quint melons."

"They were great!" Danny bounced up and down.

Tate offered Danny his hand. Danny took it, but didn't let go. Tate grinned down at the boy. "In the mood to eat some more?"

"No, I want cotton candy!"

Tate chuckled along with the grandparents. "Well, Sarah Jane, I guess we better get this boy some cotton candy."

"That's all right," Sarah stammered. "You don't need to bother."

"No, bother." He began walking away. Since Danny still happily gripped Tate's big hand, Sarah hurried to keep up.

Soon Danny was pulling at a pink wand of cotton candy. Tate lounged beside her. Sarah decided to speak to Tate now. Danny, busy watching the nearby musical merry-go-round, wouldn't overhear them.

She might make a fool of herself, but she didn't want to mislead Tate. She'd been burned too bad.... "Tate, this has nothing to do with you, but I'm not looking for…." She couldn't think of how to say she wasn't interested in romance or more importantly, didn't want people to presume she might be interested in Tate.

"I heard," Tate said softly, "that your marriage didn't turn out the way you wanted."

She frowned. "I'd hoped to avoid small-town gossip."

"This isn't gossip, just sharing."

Feeling hurt, she folded her arms in front of her. "How would you like it if people were talking about you?"

"If the people talking are just concerned, what's wrong with that?"

She looked up into his eyes.

Tate gazed at her searchingly. "Why did you come to my stand to buy your corn and melons?"

"What?"

"You came to my produce stand because everyone knows Quints only sell the best. If people didn't talk to each other, how would everyone know that?"

She shrugged. "I suppose they just have to find out for themselves."

He smiled sadly. "Finding things out by yourself can be the hardest way to learn something ."

The truth of what he said made her wince. She'd found out the hard way about her husband. Maybe if she'd met him here, where people had shared about him, she might have saved herself all the pain. Embarrassed, she avoided Tate's gaze.

Danny took Tate's hand and looked up. "They're dancing! My mom likes to dance!"

"Does she?"

Before she could protest, she found herself in Tate's arms dancing to the "Tennessee Waltz" on the fair's nearby open-air, dance floor. She felt breathless, held so close against him. Finally she murmured, "So the Quints have the best melons? What would people share about the Quints themselves?"

"I think you already know the answer to that."

Sarah didn't know how to reply. "Oh?" was all she could manage.

"Quints aren't afraid to 'plug' our melons. We are honest...." Tate's face crinkled into a killer smile. "About melons and everything else."

The way he said the words made her blush like a teen-aged girl.

They danced over to where Danny watched. "A bunch of us always go to the fall rodeo up in Fort Madison. Maybe Danny and you would like to go along?" She read honest interest in Tate's eyes.

Something hard and hurting deep inside Sarah suddenly relaxed. She was among friends now.

"A rodeo!" Danny whooped, "Wow!"

Sarah gazed into Tate's clear, direct eyes. "Is it a genuine rodeo?"

He brushed back her bangs. "Why, ma'am, even a Watermelon Cowboy knows the real thing when he sees it."

Hope you all enjoyed this summer read. Invite your friends to drop by and read it. Can anyone guess what my favorite food is? GRIN

2010 Copyright Lyn Cote

A Summer Gift to My Readers-A Short Story by Lyn Cote-Part 1

WATERMELON COWBOY

Short Story by Lyn Cote

(Copyright 2010 Lyn Cote)

"Hi, are you a cowboy?" Danny asked.

Sarah stood behind her freckled, about-to-enter-kindergarten son. Affectionately she finger-combed his red curls. On the way home from her new job and Danny's new daycare, they'd stopped at the roadside produce stand.

"Well…" The tall, good-looking man in denim eased out of his lawn chair, then stood up by the weather-beaten stand. "Do you think a watermelon needs roping?"

"But you got on a cowboy hat." Danny pointed to the battered straw hat shaped like a Stetson the man wore.

"No, this is my melon hat. Always wear it when I work the melon patch and this stand."

"Oh." Danny's voice showed his disappointment.

Sarah sighed inwardly. She knew all about the kind of disappointment that comes when appearances were deceiving. Her six-year marriage to Danny's father had been an unfolding story of disillusionment. The only things genuine she'd gotten out of the marriage were debt and Danny.

"What can I get for you, ma'am?" the Watermelon Cowboy asked.

As Sarah read aloud her grandmother's shopping list, perspiration trickled down her back from the late summer heat. How did the cowboy look so cool?

He slapped open a paper bag. "Why don't you pick out the ears of corn you want?"

"Right." She'd lived so long on generic macaroni and cheese she'd forgotten what it was like to pick out fresh produce. She walked to the table heaped with sweet corn. A sign over it said, "Fresh picked today." Promises, promises, she said to herself.

She stripped down a piece of green husk from a plump ear of corn. Performing the test for freshness she'd learned years ago during summer visits at her grandmother's, she pressed her thumbnail into one pearl-sized, pale yellow kernel. Creamy corn juice spurted out. "Fresh," she murmured in approval.

"That's what the sign says." The cowboy grinned.

Assessing him, she dropped it in the bag he held.

"Can I do that?" Danny asked.

"Sure can." The man swung Danny up to sit on the edge of the table and showed him how to test the corn. "You're Sarah Jane, Martha McDowell's family, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am." Sarah sighed. Small town gossip. She'd been afraid people here might talk behind her back. She watched her son test each ear and drop it into the bag.

The man leaned against the table and gave her a slow smile. "I'm Tate, Jessie Quint's grandson."

Sarah smiled back. She'd met Tate's grandmother again just the other day.

"This is fun!" Danny squirted the last ear of corn. "What's next, Mom?"

"A muskmelon."

Danny grimaced. "A mush melon. That don't sound good!"

Tate chuckled. "They're kind of ugly on the outside, but they sure taste good." He bent down and opened a cooler. "Want a sample?" He held out two orangy chunks on toothpicks to them.

He went on, "I heard you came to live with Martha and help her out. We're glad. She didn't want to leave her home yet."

She nodded, then swallowed the sweet melon. "It's my grandmother who's doing me a favor." She couldn't hold back the regret in her voice. Living with her grandmother would give her a chance to pay off debts her ex had left behind in both their names.

Danny warily licked his melon chunk, then shoved it into his mouth. "Yummy!"

Tate showed Danny how to shake a ripe muskmelon to hear the seeds

rattle. "That's how you know it's a good one, ready to chill and eat."

"Right!" Danny formed his fingers into the "OK" sign.

"Next?" Tate asked.

"Watermelon," Sarah said, glancing away, too aware of the man's easy charm.

Tate escorted them over to the shaded pile of watermelons.

"Why don't you just pick one out for me?" Sarah said.

"No, you pick out one out and I'll 'plug' it for you." Tate grinned down at Danny who had perched on the largest melon.

"No one 'plugs' watermelons any more," she objected warily. Was he trying to impress her?

He crossed his arms casually over his chest. "I do. Only sure way to know."

She pointed at a green and yellow-striped melon. He pulled out a knife, cut a triangle-shaped plug and handed it to her. She bit into the sweet red melon, then caught the sugary juice as it trickled down her chin. She couldn't help it; she giggled.

"I want some!" Danny declared.

Tate cut and handed him a second plug.

"We'll take that one." Sarah smiled shyly, her eyes lowered.

"Just a few days to the Sweet Corn Festival. You planning on going?" Tate asked as he carried the melon to her car's trunk.

It was a simple question, but Sarah wondered if a possible invitation was close behind it. She'd warmed to this friendly Watermelon Cowboy, but she hoped he hadn't mistaken her smiles as flirtatious. Romance was the last thing on her mind. "Maybe." With a polite wave, she drove away."

Drop by Tuesday July 6th to read the romantic ending!