Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

not. But the kiss on the cheek and the hand in the crook of the elbow seemed so out of character for a man like him. It seemed so…sweet. So gentlemanly. Probably, he’d only done it because she must have looked as nervous as she felt, and he’d thought it would put her at ease. But instead of calming her nerves, the innocent gestures had ratcheted them up even higher. And then, when they’d entered the room and she’d seen all these people…

Inevitably, her gaze was drawn to the ocean of partygoers again. The seemingly limitless sea of people. The Crystal Ballroom hadn’t been named that for nothing, and a dozen massive chandeliers cast sumptuous light down upon the crowd. Buffet tables draped in white linen and bedecked with silver serving pieces only made the scene that much more shimmery—and that much more intimidating. As Lulu looked at the crowd, it seemed to swell in size. The conversation seemed to move faster and the laughter seemed to be louder, and suddenly, it felt like everyone was looking at—and talking at and laughing at—her.

Oh, God. It was even worse than being on the news. She’d only had to talk to one person then, and there had been only one bright light—the one on the mobile camera. Even at that, she’d completely choked. Then she’d panicked. Then she’d become Pufferfish Girl.

How on earth could she have thought she could pull this off? Cole Early lived in the limelight. But when Lulu was pushed into the limelight, she spontaneously combusted.

“And this is my, ah…” She heard Cole’s verbal stumble from her right and turned to try and smile at whoever he was introducing her to. She was grateful for the distraction and used it to remind herself that she needed to pay closer attention to what was going on in her immediate vicinity and not get so overwhelmed by the crowd. The large crowd. The immense crowd. The crowd that seemed to go on forever. The crowd that, at times, she felt closing in on her like a massive, writhing tentacle attached to an enormous, bloodsucking, brain-eating, liver-loving—

“I’m Lulu,” she said to the silver-haired man on Cole’s other side, pushing thoughts of neurosis-induced killer octopi to the very back of her brain. When the man, his apparent wife, and Cole all looked back at her with expressions of concern, she realized her voice had succumbed to the jumble of nerves tumbling through her stomach by replicating the sound of a cat hacking up a hairball. Delicately, she cleared her throat, closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see the crowd, and tried again. “I’m Lulu,” she repeated with a bit more control this time. “Lulu Flannery.” She opened her eyes and held up her champagne glass, then touched her free hand to her throat in the hope that the other couple would form some nebulous idea that the champagne had gone down wrong or didn’t agree with her. “Nice to meet you,” she added, even though she hadn’t heard a word of Cole’s introduction so, technically, she had never met these people in her life.

When she looked at Cole, he seemed to be silently asking for her help in identifying exactly what she was to him, since she hadn’t exactly finished his unfinished statement for him. So she added carefully, “I’m Cole’s…ah…best friend here in Louisville.”

She could tell by his expression that that hadn’t been the relationship he was looking for, but it seemed to satisfy the other couple just fine.

“So you’re from around here?” the woman asked.

“Born and bred,” Lulu told her.

“It’s so unusual to meet natives at these gatherings,” her husband remarked. “Except for the Festival officials and some local politicians, I don’t think I’ve met anyone tonight who was actually born in Louisville.”

“Where are you all from?” Lulu asked.

“New York.”

“Ah.”

“It’s our first time in town,” the woman added. “Our first Derby.”

Lulu nodded. She couldn’t imagine anyone being around Derby for the first time. It was a part of her heritage, a fact of her life. Every spring, her hometown went a little wacky for Thoroughbred racing. People who didn’t give a thought to horses the rest of the year suddenly bought racing forms, chose favorites, and could quote statistics and identify trainers and owners. The whole city changed in the two weeks leading up to Derby. It was more festive, more playful, more energetic. Boutiques filled with flirty, track-appropriate dresses and department stores filled with exuberant hats. White stretch limousines suddenly appeared on winding, tree-lined country roads where there would normally be tractors or pickup trucks. Lamborghinis and Ferraris belonging to wealthy out-of-towners suddenly appeared on the highways with all the mom-driven minivans and teenagers in Toyotas. Standiford Airport became a parking lot for private jets. Restaurants and bars were more crowded, downtown streets swelled with people, the nightly news carried images of parties and celebrities instead of fires and crime, and the newspaper was filled with stories about pulled-up-by-their-bootstraps, rags-to-riches, larger-than-life personalities.

Every April, Lulu saw her hometown come to life for two weeks in a way it didn’t the rest of the year, almost as if it were throwing open its doors for a big, brassy party and wanted to be at its best. Which, she supposed, was exactly what was going on. As much as she loved being able to say she was a native Louisvillian, she liked it even better this time of year. It was like being part of something special that no one outside the community could call their own. The Derby belonged to everyone, for sure, but people who’d grown up here could embrace it in a way that was theirs alone.

But since Lulu couldn’t think of any way to tell that to the couple with Cole, she only said, “I hope you have a good time while you’re here.”

Cole chatted with them for a few minutes more in a way that let her know he’d met them somewhere before tonight, and she wondered if