I looked at Tess a little wildly. I could face the most dangerous of enemies without flinching, but nothing in my life had prepared me for this courageous, fragile, proud little girl. Tess smiled at me but said nothing, clearly leaving it up to me.
I swallowed past the enormous lump in my throat and put an arm around Shelley's thin shoulders, drawing her to me for a hug. "I'd be honored to go, honey. When is it?"
Shelley beamed at me with her entire face, and her smile lit up the world and cracked my heart wide open.
"It's after New Year when we get back from winter break! YAY! I have to text all my friends!" She pulled out her phone, fingers flying. "This is SO AWESOME!"
As Tess liked to put it, Shelley was at the stage where she said most things in capital letters. Not quite a shout, but definitely … enthusiastic.
After that, thankfully, the conversation turned to less emotionally fraught subjects. Lots of people stopped by to see what Tess and I thought about the UltraShopMart, to chat about the dueling Santas, or just to say hello, while we ate our lunch. Tess knew everybody, of course, but it surprised me to realize I knew most of them, too. The year in Dead End had turned me into something I'd never been since I was a kid: a member of a community.
I liked it. Shocked the heck out of me, but I really liked it.
I glanced at Tess, whose beautiful blue eyes sparkled as she talked to Sherlock Ermintrude, who was alone for a change, without any of the animals he frequently rescued. Her salad sat, mostly untouched, because she'd been too busy talking to eat.
Shelley finished her second piece of pie and stealthily reached for one of mine.
I narrowed my eyes and pointed at her. "Busted!"
She grinned. "I might be a tiger, too, Aunt Ruby says, because I eat so much."
"You'd be the cutest tiger cub, ever," I told her, nudging the pie toward her. "Just don't get sick. Remember the funnel cake."
She rolled her eyes at me. "Jack. That was because of the ride, not the funnel cake."
When she turned her focus to the pie, I listened in on conversations all over the restaurant while pretending to look out the window. Most of the sentiment seemed to lean toward "no way" on the UltraShopMart issue, but a few people were talking about the jobs and the influx of money to the town from the corporate taxes.
There were also pockets of chat about a lot of petty crime like the graffiti at the vet's, which surprised me. Dead End wasn't a hotbed of crime—various murders in the past year aside—and usually people pretty quickly caught any kids acting out.
I paid for lunch, Tess insisted on leaving the tip, and then we slowly made our way back out, stopping to say hi to anybody we hadn't talked to yet.
"I need to get to the shop," Tess said as we climbed into the truck. "Shelley, want to come hang out with me?"
"Nope. I have to go to Zane's. We're going to work on our film."
"Your film?" I glanced at her. "Let me guess: horror?"
She shuddered. "No way. We're doing a documentary about the history of Dead End. Grandpa Jed said he'd help."
"You're doing a documentary?" I didn't try to hide my admiration. "At your age, I think I was still eating paste."
Shelley turned a puzzled face to me. "What's paste?"
Tess and I both started laughing, and then I explained paste to a girl who'd grown up with glue sticks. By the time we arrived at Dave and his son Zane's house, Shelley was "totally disgusted."
I climbed out of the truck to walk her to the porch, but before Shelley followed me, she leaned toward me and kissed my cheek.
"Thank you, Jack," she whispered.
I hugged her, feeling a strange pang in my chest. "You're welcome, sweetheart. And don't forget, we have to find you the fanciest dress in Florida for that dance."
"Really?" Her eyes lit up. "I LOVE sparkles!"
"All the sparkles."
"What will you wear?"
I tilted my head. "I can't wear a sparkly dress, too?"
