Impossible Dreams, page 1
Impossible Dreams
By
Betty Jo Schuler
ISBN: 978-1-926965-86-4
PUBLISHED BY:
Books We Love Publishing
(BWLPP)
192 Lakeside Greens Drive
Chestermere, Alberta, T1X 1C2
Canada
Copyright © 2011 Betty Jo Schuler
Cover Art Copyright © 2011 Michelle Lee
Dedication
''For my husband Paul, and Bob, Karen, Robin, and Brett, with love''
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Chapter 1
Lori Hayes ripped the Fed Ex letter from the delivery woman’s hands and tore it open. Her keys slipped from her hand and clattered to the threshold of her patio door as she clutched the handle for support. She read the words aloud to make sure she was reading them right.
“Congratulations. You are a finalist in our Dream Date Contest, with a chance to win your Dream Destiny.” The Fed Ex woman heaved a sigh. “Lucky you.”
“Lucky is right. Lucky to win a contest I never entered.”
This had to be some kind of scam or publicity hype, but Lori couldn’t stop reading.
On Saturday, June twenty-fourth, you and five other beautiful people will receive a complete makeover and be outfitted by a top designer before meeting—your Dream Date. Two of the lucky couples matched on our TV show will be treated to a lavish dinner date at the Crystal Chandelier, with its breathtaking view of the Mississippi River. The luckiest pair, chosen as Infinite Dreams’ Dream Couple, will be whisked to a surprise locale for an unbelievable, never-to-be-forgotten Dream Date. This same couple will have an opportunity to win— a Dream House built anywhere in the continental United States.
“They’ve got to be kidding.” The afternoon heat bore down on Lori’s postage stamp patio, plastering her gauze blouse to her aching shoulders. Because it was a slow business day, she’d chosen to clean the back room of My Friend’s Closet, her vintage clothing store, and her muscles were protesting. A massage...strong fingers working magic between her shoulder blades, turning her spine to warm jelly...was a recurring fantasy of hers, but she’d settle for a bathtub big enough to stretch out in. Soothing jets would be nice.
“Dream, dream, dream.” Lori fanned herself with the letter. She’d just arrived home at Will o’ wisp Apartments, sweating the necessity to buy a car—any car that ran so long as it was cheap. Steeling herself to search the classified ads, she’d been about to pick up the evening paper when bang; she was hit with this new dilemma.
Dreams were a luxury she couldn’t afford.
Picking up the paper and her keys, Lori stepped inside Apartment Four and dropped both on a table. She wiped beads of perspiration from her nose and shucked off her blouse to stand in front of the living room fan. Her apartment lacked certain amenities, but it was her very own space. Freeing her skirt, she watched it slide to the hardwood floor in a shimmering pool of lavender and gold that caught the sun’s bright rays.
The oscillating fan fluttered the newspaper and, faced with reality, she sighed. Her dad said when you bought a used vehicle, you bought someone else’s trouble. She’d sold her paid-for car to help cover initial business expenses and six months wasn’t enough time to recoup. She didn’t mind the occasional snow that powdered southeastern Missouri in late winter, and she loved walking the azalea-lined streets of suburban Eastview in early spring. But with late June temperatures soaring into the nineties, heat rose off the sidewalks in waves, and it was making her cranky. Trekking twelve blocks morning and evening had become a royal pain. And now, this.
Lori picked up the letter and slapped it down again. She hadn’t entered a contest and didn’t need a new problem. The letter was a humongous error, but since... She checked the return address. W.L. Graham at Infinite Dreams laid out cash to send her the news Federal Express; she’d call and set him straight. Her parents taught her to be honest and considerate.
The receptionist put Lori through to W.L., who laughed heartily. “If you think our contest seems too good to be true now, wait until you spend a weekend in an exotic location with the dream man we pick for you.”
Weekend? That was some date. An exotic location sounded like it might require flying. She hated heights. “You have the wrong woman,” she told him for the second time. Even if he didn’t, she wouldn’t want this oily-sounding man picking her date.
“Do you have red hair? And green eyes?”
“Yes, but...”
“And an outstanding figure?”
She gulped. The old lecher. “I beg your—”
“Born in Whiteland, Indiana, and twenty-six years old, right? No mistake, little lady. I’m holding your entry form. You’ve stepped into a world of fantasy where you’re about to become someone’s Dream Date, and if you’re lucky, reach your Dream Destiny.” W.L. chuckled again.
“You’re in denial, but reality will set in soon, Ms. Hayes.”
* * * *
In denial? In up to her ears in a mess she hadn’t asked for. W.L. didn’t want to admit to his superiors that this was a mistake, so he’d closed the conversation by saying he’d see her a week from Saturday at the TV station. Like she’d really have the nerve to show. All those Dreams in the letter sounded too good to be true.
So much for honesty and consideration. She’d gotten out on her own just in time to save herself from any more of her parents’ adages. W.L. hadn’t stayed with his parents long enough to learn common courtesy.
Standing in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom in a rib-skimming undershirt and bikinis of pink spun cotton, Lori smiled. The undershirt, instead of an underwire, was solid proof she was no femme fatale. W.L. Graham was the one in denial.
Her sister Lynne had breasts big enough to call a bosom, while Lori got by without a bra. Small meant perky and free. Smiling, she pulled a tee shirt over her head. She didn’t look half-bad in a bikini. Maybe she should read that letter from Dreams more carefully.
A door banged across the courtyard. She grabbed her short bib overalls and was fastening the straps when she met her neighbor Kait Milligan at the patio door.
“Want to go for Ben and Jerry’s?” Kait asked.
“After I walked home in this heat? You’re kidding, right? I have lemonade, but my ice maker’s on the fritz.” “You sound stuffed up. Allergies again?”
Lori nodded. Kait, a registered nurse, had recommended an over-the-counter remedy that made Lori feel better but the stuffiness in her head came and went.
“I’ll be right back.” Kait dodged across the grassy area that separated their buildings and disappeared inside her apartment. The complex was shaped like the letter “U”, with an attractively landscaped courtyard that opened onto the street. Will o’ wisp didn’t have a parking lot, so most downstairs tenants parked out front and used their patios like porches.
Redwood privacy fences separated Lori’s patio from her neighbors’ on either side, offering shade that hugged the house in late afternoon. A tiny round table and two webbed chairs sat in the bright sunlight, and after tucking them into a shady corner of her eight-foot square, Lori sauntered inside for the lemonade. Selecting two cartoon character glasses, McDonald’s giveaways, and a passionate purple plastic pitcher, she went outside to sit in one of the chairs and wait. She’d furnished her first apartment with things that made her smile.
The fences made it impossible to see your neighbors, but the woman on one side sneezed so much, Lori thought she must have allergies worse than hers. The neighbor on Lori’s other side was male. Kait, from her vantage point across the court, said she’d seen him walk around in his Calvin Kleins, and he was something to see, almost nude. He’d only lived there a few weeks and Lori hadn’t seen him dressed, or in his Underoos. But she often heard his motivational tapes and CD’s, much to her annoyance.
Kait banged her sliding door and returned in her typical hell-bent-for-somewhere fashion, an ice tray in one hand and a bag of nachos in the other. Dumping the ice in the pitcher, she ripped the nachos open, and dipping a hand inside her shorts’ pocket, pulled out a carton of dip.
All without shedding a drop of sweat. Lori wiped the perspiration from her own forehead with the back of her arm before pouring the lemonade. Kait extracted napkins from her other pocket. “So,” she blurted. “What was Fed Ex doing here?”
Lori, who’d almost pushed the delivery to the back of her mind, frowned. She hoped she didn’t throw the whole Dream Date thing off when she didn’t show. Maybe she should have told W.L. to select someone else; she’d hate for some poor male contestant to be left in the lurch. “The letter’s lying by my phone. You’ll have to read it to believe it.”
The words were scarcely spoken when Kait dashed inside and returned squealing. “I saw the promotion on TV and was dying to enter but didn’t think Rich would understand.”
Kait was cute as a bug’s tush and had a steady boyfriend.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you entered.”
“I didn’t enter.”
“Then, how could you be chosen?”
“How could I be chosen if I did? I’m no beauty queen.”
“Lynne and I keep te lling you—you are pretty. Why you think you’re the ugly duckling in your family is beyond me. False modesty is not becoming.” Kait shook a nacho at her.
“It isn’t modesty. It’s realism. Look at Lynne. She’s the swan. I know I’m not ugly, and I’m smart and ambitious, but so is she.”
Kate scooped a chip through the dip and rolled her eyes. “Lynne is flashier, but you could pass for twins if you’d...if you wanted to.”
“If I’d fix up,” Lori said flatly. Kait and Lynne were always after her to make the most of her physical assets. As far as she could see, she had none, except the color of her hair and an ability to eat a lot and not gain weight.
Lynne’s hair was fiery red, and Lori, who didn’t like drawing attention, was glad hers was a russet color. Staying slender without trying made Lynne, who had to watch what she ate, envious. A definite plus. The truth was Lori didn’t want to be a swan, or a beauty queen. She just wanted the freedom to be whomever she wanted.
“You dress down. Lynne dresses up. I like you the way you are, and obviously, Infinite Dreams does too. Thousands of people must have entered and you’re a finalist.”
Kait held her lemonade glass in front of her mouth like a microphone. “Take a chance on destiny. Win your Dream Date and dream about the date you win.” She resumed her own slightly high-pitched tone. “The commercial was on every night.”
Lori didn’t take chances dating men she didn’t know. “I never saw it. I called W.L. Graham, the contest coordinator, and told him he’d made a mistake, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“You had to write an essay telling why you should be chosen, so why would he?”
A patio door opened and closed next door, and Lori leaned closer to Kait. “That proves it! I would never, could never, write fifty words on why I should be chosen. I am not a beautiful person.”
“Ahem.” A man cleared his throat on the other side of the redwood privacy fence.
“Did you say something?” Lori demanded, knocking on the redwood. She was getting in deeper and deeper with Infinite Dreams and hotter and hotter under the collar.
“I was just clearing my throat.”
The voice was male, and Lori and Kait smiled at one another. “Calvin.” Lori formed the word with her lips and Kait clapped her hand over her mouth. The door on the other patio slammed shut.
“Did you enter me in the contest, Kait?” Lori demanded.
“You’d hate me for life, and I like sitting on your patio. Mine’s only shady in the morning. Besides, I’d never do that to you.”
Kait was her one true friend these days, and Lori believed her. Lynne would never enter Lori because she’d expect her to lose. Whoever did the dirty deed, Lori would deal with them later. The important thing, now, was getting out of this stupid contest. “What am I going to do?”
“Grab opportunity with both hands. So, you didn’t enter? This may be destiny knocking. You may meet the man you ’re meant to meet.”
Lori cracked a smile. “You sound like a love song. But what if this dream guy finds me out? One look at my shape, and he’ll know I’m a mistake. If I even get past W.L.”
Kait pushed out her chest. “Ever hear of a push-up bra?” Lori groaned and ran her hand down the bib of her overalls. “You have to have something to push up.” “We can take care of that.”
“I am not wearing falsies.” Lori sagged in her chair and buried her face in her hands.
“A small price to pay for a Dream House.”
“I have a decent apartment, and that’s good enough for me.”
“A decent apartment is nothing like a Dream House. It says anywhere in the continental U.S., but I wonder if you get to pick the plans and lot.”
Life was simple living in an apartment. A house would bring countless commitments and decisions. Lynne said their mother must have been reading Thoreau when she was expecting Lori. “If I was saddled with a house, I’d want it close to my shop, so I wouldn’t have so far to walk.”
“Don’t you ever dream? If you won a house, you could live anywhere. California, for instance.”
Lori shook her head. “Earthquakes.”
“Florida then.”
“Hurricanes.”
“Wait a minute. Did you see this?” Kait shrieked so loudly, Lori heard the patio door of the next apartment slide open, fast.
“Everything okay over there?”
“Wonderful,” Kait called, and Calvin slammed his patio door shut.
“What’s gotten into you?” Lori asked.
“It’s what you’re getting into.” Kait waved the letter. “Did you read about the alternate choice for first prize?”
Lori grabbed the paper and gasped. “Alternate first prize is not one, but two, Chevrolet Corvettes.” Her one and only dream was a Corvette.
* * * *
Chance Dawson frowned at his bedroom wall. “What’s your problem?” he demanded of the person on the other side. “Would you please turn your stereo down?”
It was the same woman who’d knocked on his redwood privacy fence. “Don’t you like ‘Dream the Impossible Dream’?”
“It’s overly dramatic.”
“It’s motivational. Don’t you ever dream imposs—” “Please. I don’t care to discuss this through the wall.” “You want to come over here and talk about it? Or I could come over there.” Chance grinned, thinking of her shocked expression when he showed up in his skivvies. “Absolutely not.”
The St. Louis real estate agent, who sent him ten miles outside the city to the small town of Eastview, said the neighbors were friendly in this apartment house. The one next door must be having a bad day. Chance was having such a great day, his heart went out to her. Turning down the stereo a notch with one hand, he knocked on the wall with the other. “Have a nice night.”
He swore he could hear her sigh through the wall. Grinning, he pinned the Federal Express notice, saying he’d been chosen for a Dream Date, next to the picture of his dream house, on the bulletin board by his phone. Tonight was his last time to moonlight, delivering pizzas. Tomorrow, he’d have only his day job, as director of sales at Winifred Heights’ division of Consolidated Containers.
