Time to start the show.

“Imagine, if you will, the most perfect summer day. The blue sky with fluffy, white clouds overhead, green grass under your bare feet.  Pammy, do you have a special someone?”

The girl shook her head with a slight frown.

She had to give her points for honesty. “How about a secret crush?”

The hand went back over the mouth, covering a giggle. “There’s this band. They’re not real popular yet. Poison.”

Her grandmother put her hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder and gave her an indulgent smile. “Peculiar name, but they all have such great hair.”

Pammy continued. “The lead singer is named Brett. I’d like it if you’d use his name. I know it’s silly, but well…” She paused and wringed her hands as if embarrassed.

“No problem. Can do. Imagine you’re walking hand in hand with Brett. You’re deeply in love. He’s pledged his heart to you. You gaze into his clear-water blue eyes resembling still lagoon waters surrounding a tropical island.”

Lola saw the image in her mind, but instead of green grass, the warm sand shifted under her bare feet. Her hand rested in another Brett’s larger one. She wore a flowered sarong tied on one shoulder with her long auburn hair falling in rivulets down her back. A shirtless Brett strolled beside her in a pair of white pants rolled up for wading. A seagull squawked overhead sounding a bit like Pammy.

“I’m not sure what color Brett’s eyes are.”

Mercy. What happened? Instead of spinning Pammy’s fantasy, she’d taken a side trip into forbidden territory. “Um,” she cleared her throat, tamping down her wayward thoughts. “It doesn’t matter what color they are. You know. They are nice eyes…sincere ones…you could lose yourself in, especially when he teases you.”

Pammy held her hands in a prayer position, her eyes large with awe. “You know Brett Michaels?”

Well, talk about things going south in a hurry. “No, I, ah, have a good imagination.” The same imagination must be on auto drive, spinning dreams she dare not dream. After all, she came from a long line of practical women. Translation: women who fell in love with a man who left them to deal with the hardships of life alone. Never mind that the war took her great-uncle, her grandfather had succumbed to cancer, and a bull gored Cousin Willard. In the end, the men left the women of her family.

Today's prompt is push. We left off with Lola wondering if she should still go on her sales call after her close call on the highway and meeting Brett. Unfortunately, the sales call is still a go.

A lopsided number made locating the house difficult. An overweight teen clad in an apparent handmade dress of stiff printed cloth and an aged woman, similarly dressed, stood on the stone porch staring in her direction.

Oh great, Lola would be the evening entertainment. No wonder they wouldn’t cancel. Time to shift into the dream spinner mode. Tom called her the best he’d ever seen, creating a dream world the customers couldn’t wait to join. Also, she kept pace with the hottest males, without any sex appeal on her side. The female hires tended to be ordinary in looks. Tom discovered girls most likely to have hope chest dreams seldom bought from beautiful women. Gorgeous women also got much better-paying jobs at the local watering holes. Her lack of a sizable rack kept her from qualifying as a sports bar server.

 The heavy display kit took both hands to carry. While it didn’t contain everything in the line, it included a sampling of the wares. Be the dream spinner; give the people a good show for their time. The job paid a modest stipend, and mileage, but the real money came from sales. At the end of her presentations, almost everyone wanted to buy even when her conscience was against it. She even tried to tone down the rhetoric when she noticed threadbare furniture and cars dotted with primer sitting in the driveway.

Part of the dream scenario starts with the client. Most, raised in impoverished settings, see a wedding as the stepping stone into a new life: a wedding they fantasized about fueled by television shows, bridal magazines, and relatives marrying. All Lola did was bring the elements into play. People like Lola didn’t believe in fairytale weddings and happily ever after scenarios.  Her mother’s constant litany, how men only let you down, settled deep in her bones, causing her to end any relationship before it ever became serious.  

The older woman stepped forward to meet her, holding out a thin, veiny hand. “Welcome. Glad you could make it. Sorry to hear about your car trouble. Pammy here has been looking forward to your visit for days.”
Her hand enveloped the older woman’s hand gently. She knew enough from interaction with her own grandmother that the elderly would not appreciate a hearty hand pump. It’s hard on the arthritis. “Glad to be here.” Not really, she mentally corrected herself. Still, the people merited her best manners.

Pammy stepped forward with a smile. “I made some snickerdoodle cookies. Granny bought some cheese puffs and Coke. It will be a party with us girls.”  Her hand went up, covering her mouth as she giggled.

Odd gesture. Habitual. Probably hiding bad teeth. She should probably soft pedal the wares. They were already out some money for refreshments. Her stomach gave a rumble, demonstrating its empty state and appreciation of a supper composed of cheese puffs and homemade cookies. The television set flickered in the corner, running an old black and white rerun. An older man sat in a vinyl recliner, dull with age and patched with duct tape. Her entrance caused him to sit upright, pulling the chair into an erect position.

“This is my cue to vanish into my workshop.” The man smiled briefly at the three of them before reaching for his cane.
“You don’t have to go, sir. You’re welcome to stay.”

He pushed up his slipping glasses. “Ah, thanks. Got work to do. A broken stool to fix.”

Regret crowded her mind as he tottered away. No doubt he wouldn’t enjoy the presentation. Might even see through all the smoke and mirrors. A person with no investment in having a hope chest would realize what a ridiculous ritual it was. The others were her customers. The ones who placed their secret wishes and desires into a physical object.

Pammy cleared off the dining room table, pulling off a hobnail glass bowl filled with wax fruit, followed by folding up the lace tablecloth. A predesigned layout dictated where she placed everything. Each item she would pick up, ask for names, scenarios, dream honeymoon location to insert into each fantasy she wove. Then she passed the product as if it were magical. In some ways, it was.

A glass emblazoned with Flintstone characters and chocked full of ice and soda appeared at her elbow along with a plate piled with cheese puffs and cookies. Decent people.  They deserved much more than an easy payment plan for overpriced cookware and bottom of the line china. No way for Pammy to understand, though. She would change her mind a hundred times on her favorite pattern before she ever married. The overhead light shined through the translucent blue crystal goblet as Lola held it up.

Brett’s face formed on the glass surface. She never allowed herself to daydream. Her mother referred to them as practical people. She considered herself a woman of sense, not a dreamer. As for her mother, the woman felt wronged that her husband had the bad form to die in a car accident before Lola’s seventh birthday, causing her mother to mistake bitterness for practicality. Where was her highway hero? Probably on his way, wherever that was.

Time to start the show.

​

Brett twisted off the ignition and opened the car door. “I made the mistake of complaining how boring the run was,” he said then swatted the hanging compass. He grabbed it, looked at it then looked at her. An odd expression danced across his features, transforming them briefly, but not long enough for her to identify the emotion displayed in the depths of his clear-water blue eyes.

“It’s a compass. A friend gave it to me because I have no sense of direction.”

He cradled the compass in his large hand, staring at it. “Your friend cared about you, but’s it not doing you any good swinging wildly. It needs a base to anchor it and be able to direct you.”

Brett had no clue how right his words were.  A missing base could be the solution to more than the compass. “I’ll have to get a base. I could glue it to the dashboard. Is there anything I can do to thank you?” An earlier search in her purse, before she decided to go on a sales call revealed four dollars and seventy-five cents, a full pack of Certs breath mints, and her half pack of cigarettes. Not exactly a treasure to offer the man who didn’t kill her.

His long legs had already swung out of the car with his scuffed cowboy boots resting on the pavement. He turned at the waist resting one arm on her bucket seat. “Mmm, a thank you for my superior handling of the big rig and not crunching your import like a beetle. Let me see.” His eyes rolled up as he pretended to ponder the situation.

Lola didn’t expect him to ask for anything. He would probably put two fingers to his head in a salute and say, “All in day’s work, ma’am.”

The corner of his lips twitched up as he held up one finger. “I do have one request if you don’t mind.”

If you don’t mind? Would she be able to say no, seeing as he hadn’t run her over? He had to be a good driver since he hadn’t hit her or any other cars and didn’t roll the truck. “Tell me.”

“Okay.” He lifted his eyebrows. “I want a kiss.”

“Is that all?” She didn’t expect something so simple and readily given. She leaned toward him with her cheek prominently displayed expecting a quick peck and he’d be off, leaving her with a romantic tale.

No kiss. She drew back disappointed only to find Brett’s mouth twisted to the side as he tried not to laugh. Her temper flared. Men. They made no sense at all. She poked her pink frosted index finger nail into his KISS t-shirt and hard muscular chest underneath. “You ask for a kiss. Then you don’t take it. No wonder women don’t understand men.”

Brett’s laughter surprised her as much as his entangling his fingers with hers sending some of his personal energy into her body. His laughter died down as he released her hand. “I’m sorry, Lola.”  His fingers touched her furrowed brow bestowing more of his grade-A alpha energy. “The way you presented your cheek to me as if we were both in second grade and out on the playground. You might as well have said, ‘Yes, Brett Mayers, you can kiss my cheek now.’”

It sounded bad the way he described it. Made her sound like some spoiled princess doing a commoner a favor. “Okay. Help me out here. Make me understand.”

He pulled his legs back into the car. A promising sign as he took her hand in both of his. “Lola, sweetheart, I know you don’t know me from Adam. No real reason for you to trust me, or anything. All I wanted was to feel like I mattered to someone. Being a truck driver is a lonely life. I guess I wanted you to kiss me. To make me feel like I mattered to someone even if it was pretend. Stupid, I know. I’ll go.” He was at the edge of the parking lot before she sprang into action.

“Wait, Brett. Stop.” She ran as fast as her stacked heel slides would carry her. Brett spun around and opened his arms. She flew into them without thought. His arms wrapped around her, lifting her off the ground.

Their lips touched gently at first. His moved and she mirrored the motion, deepening and prolonging the kiss, easing into a familiarity she never dreamed possible. Her fingers drifted to his head feeling a slight bristle under her fingertips.
Before she could investigate further, her heels touched the ground.

“Very nice. You did make me feel special. Important. You have a way of making dreams come true.”

“Yeah.” She agreed, rather breathlessly. What a kiss! Um, yeah. Say something else. Be cool. “Just call me dream spinner. “

“All right, dream spinner.” He looked back at the highway. “I need to get back to my truck.”

She nodded, not sure what to say after such an encounter. “Drive safe.” Her comment made him grin as he jogged toward the exit ramp.

For Pete’s sake, she sounded like her grandmother. Why not, see you later, sexy?  

Once inside the car, she grabbed her keys and purse, clutching them to her chest. Safe. Everything secure, she peered through the window for any sign of Brett. Nothing. No doubt, he’d already reached the highway with those long legs of his. Her shoulders drooped as she slumped back into the driver seat. Strange day, near death experience, a romantic interlude, but over now. Several heartbeats thudded as she replayed the last minutes of her life.  Thank goodness, the police didn’t make her stay since she still had a sales appointment.

Had it been twenty minutes? In some ways, it felt like a lifetime full of lights and colors she’d never experienced before.  Then in another way, it felt more like a blink, a hiccup in her ordinary life. Something unusual never to happen again. Who was Brett Mayers? Did it matter since she’d never see him again?

A cigarette later, she decided to call into work using the payphone outside of the drugstore to give them the details of the incident then call her appointment.  With any luck, they’d cancel.