3

Kelly Bradley pulled into the parking lot of her condo complex and shut off her car. Grabbing three bags of groceries from the trunk, she headed for the stairs but went right at the top instead of toward her own condo on the left. She raised her fist and pounded. Hard.

“Mr. Anders! Mr. Anders!” Kelly called loudly through the door. “It’s Kelly.

From next door.”

Kelly stopped and waited. And waited. She knew it would take Mr. Anders a little while to work his way to the door. His car was in the parking lot and he wasn’t much of a walker, so chances were, he was home.

While she waited, Kelly propped her grocery bags against the wall next to her doorway and pulled out the cookies she’d bought for her neighbor. The door behind her opened. She turned to find the slender white haired man smiling at her with a mouth that was now fairly devoid of teeth.

“Hello, dear!” The old man bellowed, but it came out more like “hewwo deah” due to the lack of teeth.

His hearing had gone long before his teeth had. They compensated by hollering at one another most of the time.

Whenever it snowed, Mr. Anders always managed to beat Kelly downstairs to the parking lot. He’d clean off his car and then do hers. He would have scraped the ice from the windows before she even made it out of bed. Since he wouldn’t stop doing it even though she insisted he didn’t need to, Kelly had taken to bringing him occasional treats as a way of saying thank you. It was summer now, but she kept the treats up year round.

“Hi, Mr. Anders!” Kelly shouted back as she handed him the box of cookies. “I got you cookies since I was at the store.”

“You got me cookies from a whore?” He yelled back with a puzzled look on his face. Kelly felt her cheeks burn red and she sputtered, trying to figure out what to say.

Within seconds, her neighbor cracked a grin. “Gotcha,” he said and slapped his leg as he laughed. “Can you come in for a cookie?”

Kelly laughed but the red spots stayed high on her cheeks as she shook her head at the incorrigible man. “Sorry, Mr. Anders. I’m meeting a friend for lunch so I’ve got to run. I’ll stop by soon, though.”

He was still laughing when he shut his door. Kelly whipped into her place, unpacked the refrigerated and frozen items in her grocery bags, and grabbed her

purse. She wanted to run to the mailbox before heading to lunch. With any luck, she’d get the final few envelopes she’d been waiting for today.

Kelly crossed the lawn to the large bank of mailboxes that served the entire complex. The letters arriving today would make or break Kelly’s dream.

 

*

Kelly sat at the café table waiting for her friend Jennie to arrive. She usually loved lunches with Jennie – she always had great gossip and funny stories. Kelly could never get over how gutsy Jennie was. She was the queen of espionage when it came to getting the scoop on things. Kelly was never sure why her friend wasn’t in journalism. But Kelly couldn’t get in the mood for lunch and gossip today. With no real job prospects in sight, it was beginning to look as if her bachelor’s degree in political science was every bit as useless as people said bachelor’s degrees were nowadays. To top it off, she’d finally received the last of the results of her scholarship applications for law school.

It was hard to believe she had fulfilled her dream of being accepted into Yale Law School. But, it didn’t matter in the end because she didn’t have the money.

Kelly looked up to see Jennie coming toward the table and pasted a smile on her face for her friend. She didn’t want her bad mood to ruin their lunch and she didn’t want Jennie to feel sorry for her.

“I have juicy gossip today! You won’t believe what I overheard,” Jennie started off but slowed when she saw the look on Kelly’s face. “What’s wrong? You don’t look like…well, like you.” Jennie frowned at her friend.

“I got my acceptance letter to Yale. I got in,” Kelly said, quietly.

“What? That’s fantastic! Kelly, that’s great. Wait, I don’t get it. Why aren’t you happy about this?” Jennie asked.

“I didn’t get enough scholarship money to cover half the tuition there. I thought I had a shot at more grants but they’re getting really tight nowadays. And if I take out that much money in loans, I’ll be paying for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, Kelly, I’m so sorry. It must feel good to know you got in, though, huh? Ugh. That’s sounds so ‘hey it’s an honor just to be nominated,’ doesn’t it? I’m sorry, Kel.”

“I know,” Kelly shrugged and tried to smile but she knew it probably came off somewhat sad.

“How much money do you need?” Jennie asked hesitantly.

“Well, it costs $52,000 per year for three years. I managed to get about

$22,000 per year in grants and scholarship so when I say I’m short, I mean I’m

really short. Even if I defer for a year and work the whole time I’m in school, there’s no way I’ll have enough,” Kelly explained.

Jennie frowned at her friend. “I’m so sorry. I know you had your heart set on Yale, but maybe you can apply to other places? Maybe the state law school?”

Kelly raised her chin. “You’re right. I’ll apply at University of Connecticut next year and save my money until then. UConn is a really good law school, too. Top fifty. It was really stupid of me not to apply there as a backup school this year, but I’ll apply next year. It’ll be fine… So now, distract me.” Kelly pasted another bright smile on her face for Jennie. “Tell me your latest tidbit. What have your secret spy skills found today?”

In hushed tones, so no one around could hear, Jennie launched into the story of the infamous Jack Sutton’s desperate need for a wife. As Kelly listened to Jennie talk she wished she could sometimes be as brash and brave as Jennie. I mean, really, who had the guts to listen in on their boss’s conversations like that? Sounded like her boss would have to find someone. Fast. In fact, she was surprised Jennie hadn’t marched into the room and proposed to Jack right then and there – just for the fun of it.

Propose to Jennie’s boss, Jack…? What if I propose to Jack? What? Whoa!

Where did that thought come from?

Sure it was a crazy idea, but why not? If she married Jack Sutton for one year, he’d get his shares, his job and his company would be secure. She’d get the money to go to Yale for three years. She and Jack would go their separate ways at the end of the year. Voila!

Oh. My. God. I can’t believe I’m actually sitting here thinking about this. Kelly shook herself and tried to get rid of that crazy idea. But the more she thought about it, the more it sounded like a good one. A reasonable idea. The kind of idea she could pull off if she took a page out of Jennie’s playbook for once.

“Is Jack nice?” Kelly suddenly interrupted Jennie.

“What?” Jennie asked. “Oh, well, yeah, I guess he’s a nice boss. Scares the hell out of most of the people he does business with. If you cross him or try to cheat him in a deal, you better look out. But, he’s actually really good to the people that work for him. It surprised me at first. I always thought he would be a real ball breaker.” Jennie leaned forward in a conspiratorial whisper.

“He has a whole division that he calls his security division and they do some security but they’re really mostly there to investigate any companies he’s going to invest in or anyone he’s negotiating with. They say he never goes into a deal blind. If you enter a deal with Jack Sutton or walk up to the negotiating table against him, he’ll already know what color underwear you have on that day.”

Jennie prattled on, not understanding where Kelly was headed.

“Well…but I mean, is he a nice guy? Like, would you date him or would he be a total jerk?” Kelly clarified.

“Noooo, he’s not bad. He’s a really good guy,” Jennie said slowly, looking at Kelly as if she were trying to figure out what Kelly was thinking. “I’d date him… Oh my God! What are you thinking? Oh my God! Don’t answer that. I know what you’re thinking.” Jennie dropped her voice down to a stage whisper. “You’re thinking you’ll marry him!”

“It could work.” Kelly blushed. “I go in there and ask for my tuition in exchange for a year of marriage. We head to the courthouse, then a neat and easy divorce a year from now.” Kelly had always thought she would marry for love. That when it happened to her, it would be forever. But, she supposed a fake marriage would be okay as long as it had an expiration date and it was to a man she could trust, a good man. It wouldn’t stop her from finding the real thing someday and it meant that she’d be able to get her law degree.

“Besides,” Kelly said, as she continued to justify her plan, “I might as well. It’s not like I’m going to miss out on falling in love with someone else because I tie myself up with Jack Sutton for a year.”

“Kelly, don’t be silly. Of course you’ll fall in love some day. You just haven’t met the right guy yet.”

“Maybe someday, but I’ve dated some really great guys. I mean really, really great. But I’ve never felt more than ‘like’ for any of them – even when they said they were in love with me. I really don’t think love is in the cards for me and even if it is, what are the chances that during the year I take off from dating for a fake marriage, I’ll miss out on the one guy that I’m destined to fall in love with? I think the chance of that is slim. And, if it’s true love that’s meant to be, wouldn’t it somehow work out after my fake marriage?” Kelly knew how to push Jennie’s helplessly romantic buttons to win the argument.

Jennie stared at Kelly, shaking her head. Kelly could imagine what her friend was thinking. Jennie was supposed to be the daredevil. Jennie was the one who took risks. She did stupid things. Kelly was the levelheaded, kind, sweet, calm, orderly one. The kind of person who most certainly would never do this.

Jennie appeared to be speechless as she stared at her friend. And if Jennie were speechless, things could not be headed in a good direction.