“I don’t have any money,” Jake said.
“Well, I do,” Kate said. “Lots of it.”
“How much?” Jake said. “I may make you start paying for the beer.”
“Not unless I get to drink some of it,” Kate said. “Did you really think I’d jump you for your money?”
“I have it on good authority that you’re up here looking for a rich businessman,” Jake said. “That ain’t me.”
“What good authority?” Kate said, startled.
“Valerie told Will.”
“Oh, hell,” Kate said.
Jake shook his head. “Women.”
“Well, that was the idea I was talking about,” Kate said. “The one that seemed great in the city and stupid here.”
“Stay out of cities,” Jake advised. “They have a worse effect on your brain than they do on mine.”
“Well, it wasn’t completely stupid,” Kate said. “I’m thirty-five. I want to get married, and that stuff they kept telling me about the right man suddenly appearing before me just wasn’t happening. So I decided to get serious about it.”
“And you came down here to get engaged to a suit,” Jake said.
“No, I’ve been engaged to suits. Three of them. I came down here to find someone I could seriously consider marrying.” Kate looked at him with narrowed eyes. “You are not him. Relax and drink your beer.”
“You were engaged three times?” Jake started to laugh. “What made them leave?”
“They didn’t. I did.” Kate tried to look detached and failed miserably. “I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it.”
“I still don’t get why you came down here. Why didn’t you just go down to a nice big investment-banking firm and hang around the men’s room until somebody who looked good came out?”
“Fine, laugh at me,” Kate said. “At least I’m doing something about my empty life instead of mowing lawns and hiding out on lakes.”
“I don’t mow the lawns,” Jake said. “I supervise other people mowing lawns. It’s a management-level position. Also I own half of the resort, but the investment isn’t liquid so you’re not interested.”
“I don’t care if it’s vapor. I’ll never be interested.” Kate glared at him. “I can’t believe I’m listening to this.”
“Also, don’t look now, but you’re hiding out on this lake, too, kiddo. We are both, so to speak, in the same boat.”
“Yes, but this afternoon, I will be pursuing my plan while you go rot in the azaleas.”
“We don’t have azaleas,” Jake said. “What are you doing this afternoon?”
“Shopping in town with Donald Prescott, who is a stockbroker and possibly the man of my dreams,” Kate said.
“No, he’s not,” Jake said.
“Excuse me,” Kate said, “but I will determine my own dreams. You, by the way, are not in them.”
“He’s not a stockbroker,” Jake said. “You really can pick them.”
“He says he’s a stockbroker,” Kate said.
Jake looked at her sadly. “Do not believe everything men tell you, dummy,” he said. “He’s a scout for Eastern Hotels. He’s here to hire Valerie away from Will.”
Kate blinked. “What’s Will doing about it?”
“Praying that he hurries up,” Jake said.
“Aren’t they engaged?”
Jake snorted. “Who told you that fairy tale?”
“Valerie.”
Jake closed his eyes. “Well, I warned him.”
“What?”
“Forget Will and Valerie. Explain to me this plan of yours so I can avoid it.”
“You’re not even in the running,” Kate said. “I’m looking for someone tall, successful and distinguished.”
“I’m tall,” Jake said.
“You slump,” Kate said. “Forget it.”
“So tell me again why you came here of all places?”
“My best friend sent me. She thought it was a great idea. She, of course, is not here and has never been here, so she didn’t realize I’d end up on a lake with a bozo like you.”
“And this friend is an expert on men?”
“Jessie? Good heavens, no. She dates even bigger losers than I do.” Kate surveyed him critically. “She’d like you.”
“On that note,” Jake said, “I am going to sleep. Wake me up when it’s time for your date with Donald.”
“I certainly will,” Kate said. “It’s going to be wonderful, and I don’t want to miss a moment.”
At two, Kate met Donald and Penny and a new friend of Penny’s named Brian, and they all drove into town together.
The town was wonderful.
Donald was awful.
He was tall, looming over her in his designer suit. He was distinguished, his cologne discreetly exclusive, his hair cut strand by strand by a trendy stylist. He was successful, everything about him shrieking designer labels and money. He was detached, reserved and worldly. And he was, above all, what Kate would once have called discerning.
By the end of the afternoon, she had acquired a different, unprintable adjective for him.
They went first into a store called The Toby’s Corners Shop. It was crammed floor to ceiling with gifts and souvenirs in colors Mother Nature never made, and Kate drew back, her good taste offended by the cheapness of it all. Penny picked out a pink stuffed dog with a tag around his neck that said “Toby,” and Brian bought it for her. She hugged him to thank him, and he closed his eyes in ecstasy and hugged back.
Donald was patient while they looked through the store, although he told them firmly in a voice that carried from one end of the place to the other that the store was just an overpriced tourist trap. The little old man who ran it looked wounded, so Kate bought Jessie a neon-purple T-shirt that said “Somebody Went To Toby’s Corners And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt,” and an ashtray for her father that looked like a dog leaning against a tree.
“I really love your shop,” she told the old man to make up for Donald, and he smiled at her and thanked her and told her about how he and his wife had been running it for almost two years now, to help with their retirement.
Donald waited with ill-disguised patience by the door.
Then they went into The Corners Art Gallery and looked at walls hung with garish landscapes. Kate tried hard to think about all the work that had gone into the paintings instead of about how bad they were. Donald examined the paintings closely. “Amateur brushwork,” he announced. “Paint By Numbers stuff.” The young man behind the counter looked ready to defend his art with his fists, so Kate asked if he had any pictures of the lake and bought one that featured the willow in soft shades of green.
“This is beautiful,” she told the young man. “I love this part of the lake, and now I’ll always have it with me.”
“My mom painted that,” he said. “I’ll tell her what you said. She’ll be real happy.”
Donald snorted.
They went into Mother’s Sewing Basket and looked at locally made quilts and coverlets. Penny found a crazy quilt in shades of yellow. “This would look great on my bed,” she said. Brian grew pale at the thought and moved closer to her. “Cheap fabric,” Donald said. “They’re using polyester instead of cotton.” The little old woman stitching by the window looked ready to cry, so Kate bought a peach-and-blue comforter for her apartment.
“I’ve never had a real patchwork quilt before,” she told the old woman. “This will keep me warm all winter.”
“It will that,” the old woman said, and patted her hand.
Donald sneered.
They went into Cline’s Dry Goods and found rows of cotton and flannel shirts in bright plaids, stacks of dark blue jeans, and piles of socks, white T-shirts, and underwear that Donald snickered at. They also found, to Penny’s delight, a rack of cowboy hats.
Mrs. Cline came out from behind the counter to help her.
“You’re so pretty, you’ll look a treat in any of them, honey,” she told Penny. “It’s a real pleasure to see you try them on.”
Penny beamed at her and tried on a blue one with golden feathers around the crown.
“All right,” Brian said.
“It’s you,” Kate said, laughing. “You have to have it.”
“You, too.” Penny pulled her over to the rack. “You get one, too.”
Mrs. Cline picked up a red hat with white beads. “Try this one,” she urged Kate. “You’d be a picture in a red dress and this one.”