4. Chapter 4

You can come on over now. He won't be back anytime soon, even if she tells him where to go with that muddy truck of his." The old man that I'd come to love as if he were my own grandfather chuckled at his own assessment of his clueless grandson.

I made my way over to him, noting that there seemed to be a little more silver in his hair than there was just a few months before. His wife died when I was 12 and ever since then, my mom started sending me across the street with baked goods at least once a week. It quickly became our thing to have pastries together and talk about everything and anything. I wasn't stupid. My mother hadn't done it to be nice. She'd done it to get rid of me.

Mr. Carter, Jack as he told me to call him all the time, was a wealth of wisdom, even if his grandson was too stupid to take a hint. I loved sitting on his porch and listening to the stories he told about how he met his wife, the way they loved one another so fiercely, right until the end. Some days, he'd lament the fact that she was gone, and we would just sit in peaceful quiet.

My father was gone as well. He was killed in a farming accident only two short months before Jack's wife died. So, in those quiet moments, on the darker days, we sat in silence and shared our grief before saying our farewells and going about our days.

"Do you really think he'll still go to the prom, even if she refuses to get into that truck?" I asked as I climbed up the porch steps and took the rocking chair beside Jack's. It used to be the one his wife occupied when they sat on the porch together. At first, I wouldn't go near it because I felt like it held her ghost, but eventually Jack convinced me his Shelly would have wanted me to sit there and keep him company.

"Knowin' my grandson, I'd expect no less."

I rolled my eyes in response, which made Jack laugh. "Why aren't you all dressed up with your dancing shoes on?"

"I'm only a sophomore and I wasn't invited by anyone."

"I forget there's two school years between you and Max, not the one. When you're sixteen and he's still seventeen, it feels like you should just be one grade apart."

"I only turned sixteen two months ago. Max turns eighteen soon, so there's the difference. For most of the year, we're two years apart in age."

Jack glanced over at me with a thoughtful expression on his face. "That he does." After taking a sip of the lemonade I'd made him earlier he turned his storm-gray eyes on me. "What do you have planned for the summer this year?"

It was sweet of him to ask, like I could enjoy the summer as a normal teenager. That wasn't in the cards for me. My mom started a bakery in town after my father passed. She didn't know a thing about farming, but she knew plenty about baking. So, she hired out a farm manager and some hands to take care of things, but it became obvious rather quickly that paying someone to do the jobs my father used to do took a huge bite out of the profits we used to have. Her bakery was our salvation, especially in the summertime when tourists came to spend time on the lake.

I suppose my silence spoke for itself as Jack finally asked, "Bakery again?"

"Yep. I'll be going from four in the morning to mid-afternoon most days. This year, Mom said she's going to pay me a real wage for my time, so I can put it aside for college."

"That's good to hear. I know you don't mind helping your mom out to keep things afloat, but you both need to be preparing for your future. It's coming faster than I think she realizes."

I nodded my head. "I worry about what will happen to her. You know… If I leave for college."

"I don't want to hear no ‘if I leave' business, Miss Posie. You are going to leave and get a good darn education while you're out there. Your momma will be just fine, I'll see to it."

There was no doubt in my mind that Jack would keep his word. He was one of the last good men, in my eyes. My father had been a lot like him. Those men cherished family above all else, even the land they both tended came in second place. My dad never missed a meal with us, even if that meant having to go back out to the fields after supper for a little while. He was always there to tuck me into bed at night too. When I was younger, he would even take me out to the field and sit me on the tractor with him as he worked.

I still miss being able to sit with him while he worked. It always made me feel special, like I was too important for him to leave behind. I stared out across the street to the land our family owned – I owned. My father left it all to me, which was probably why Mom was so angry all the time.

She couldn't sell the place without my permission, and I wouldn't give it. Pops had reminded her a time or two that my permission couldn't be given until I was eighteen anyway. When I'd asked how he knew that, Jack told me that my dad put some things in order for me long before he passed, to make sure I was always protected and had a home. I guessed he never trusted my mother.

"I miss him, but I worry my mom is wasting away just missing him instead of finding someone else to be happy with."

Jack seemed startled by my revelation. "You want your mom to date again?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't exactly look forward to having a man come in and try to take over our lives, but I've seen the way Andy looks at her when he doesn't think anyone is paying attention." Andy was the man running the show on our land already. I had a suspicion that he came around to see my mom during those times she sent me to spend time with Jack, but I couldn't be sure.

Jack chuckled before taking another swig of his lemonade. "Matchmaking is sticky business, little Petal. Don't go pushing for what your momma isn't."

I grinned at Jack's nickname for me, but that didn't stop my scheming mind from finding ways to get my mom to notice Andy, or to make her notice of him a public thing. He had done a great job managing the farm for us, and I knew in my heart, he would be good for her. At the very least, it would keep her focus off me.

"What about you?" He asked after we were quiet for a spell. I took my eyes off the stars that appeared brighter now that the sun had gone all the way down.

"What about me?"

"Is there anyone special that's taken notice of you the way you think Andy sees your mom?"

"No, I'm mostly invisible."

"I thought we talked about this before. You aren't invisible, Petal. You just don't put yourself out there. You won't ever get much back if you don't try."

I bounced my shoulders to my ears and back. "No one really notices me, Jack. The girls don't hang out with me much because I'm not into dresses, makeup, and shopping the way most of them are. Plus, even the ones on the Volleyball team with me keep their distance. I hear them mumbling sometimes about our family being crazy in the head. I guess being quiet means I'm mental to them. Then there are the boys who don't notice me because I look more like one of them than I do a girl."

Jack choked on his lemonade. "Christ, are the boys your age blind nowadays?" He commented before his cheeks turned red with embarrassment. "Sorry, that was inappropriate, and I didn't mean it…"

I waved him off. "I'll take the compliment, even if it was from an old guy."

He laughed at me, knowing I was teasing him. Also, it was a little true. Jack made me feel like I was a pretty girl when no one else even looked at me twice.

"My grandson is an idiot," he mumbled.

"I thought we established that when he took a muddy truck to pick up his princess of a prom date?" I asked good naturedly.

"Yeah, but here you are," he pointed down to my boots, "wearing shoes that match his own. Let me give you some man advice, sweetheart."

"Okay, shoot."

"My grandson, along with all the idiots you go to school with, they're not men yet. They think they are, but they're just fools playing a game they still don't understand. Don't you worry none about those jackasses not noticing you just yet. When they do, they'll be kicking their own butts for not snatching you up sooner. Then, it will be you who will have the pick of the litter, so to speak."

"That's sort of what my mom told me." She had been a bit blunter, telling me I was probably a late bloomer since I was still only rocking an A-cup bra and had no other curves to speak of. She said once I blossomed, boys would take notice, and I'd know exactly which ones to steer clear of because they will have already shown their true colors in how they treated other girls in school and around town.

If I went by my mother's standards, my heart wouldn't yearn for a certain cowboy-boot-wearing, muddy-truck-riding Carter boy who was not long for our town, according to his grandfather. Some days, I wished I could get over the crush that plagued my heart for Max. It was painful seeing him all dressed up and looking so handsome earlier, knowing he was going to pick up a date who wouldn't appreciate any of his quirks the way I did.

Then again, I'd been living across the street from his grandfather my whole life and he'd never even said so much as "hello" to me. If that wasn't bad enough, the first time he ever really noticed me, I was hiding out in his grandfather's barn, just a few feet away from him, as he made out with his girlfriend. So, he noticed me at the exact moment where I would come off as some sort of pervert or creeper. The weird thing was, while I'd been all but invisible to him before, each of his other brothers at least acknowledged that I was a living person from time-to-time.

I sighed deeply as those thoughts drifted here and away again as time shuffled on. Jack sighed too while his eyes remained trained on the stars in the sky.

"Posie!" Mom called from our house across the street. She stood there on our weather-beaten porch with a hand on her hip, but a smile on her face. It was a forced smile. I called it her ‘public face'. When she had that on while home, it was only because she knew Jack would see her. It also didn't bode well for the kind of mood she was in. I never told Jack the real reason I wanted Andy's interest to flare for my mom and for her to reciprocate. If she had someone else to focus on, things wouldn't be so bad for me.

"Evenin', Susan," Jack called out.

"Jack," she responded. "Come on, Posie. You need to help at the bakery early tomorrow."

It was the weekend, and no one had asked me to prom, so I had to take the shifts the normal weekend high school crew held at my mom's bakery. Just another day in the life of a small-town invisible girl.

"See ya, Mr. Carter."

"Jack," he corrected.

"No, you're Jack, I'm Posie," I teased in our usual goodbye.

"Okay, little Petal, go get some rest."

When I went to sleep that night, I dreamed that Max had asked me to the prom and we'd worn our matching boots and he took me in his truck, mud and all. In my dreams, it was the best night of my life. Since reality sucked for my sixteen-year-old self, I'd have to cling to the dreams until I blossomed into whatever the adults thought would make me less invisible to the opposite sex.