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“Try calling us real,” Alex said, one hand on her hip.
“But real is impossible. It defies all the currently known scientific laws. What if everyone could see you, not just me, as I just naturally assumed so far?”
Alex sat on the arm of the couch, near JJ. “I’m still confused. I don’t get what the big deal is.”
Blake paced the room, his head down, hands behind his back. “Aside from your conversation with JJ’s sister, love, we haven’t had an occasion to have contact with anyone.”
“Right,” JJ agreed. “I assumed you couldn’t interact with others. Now, I wonder if others could see you, too.” She rubbed the back of her neck.
Blake rose and padded to the front door. Alex watched as he unlocked and opened the door. Then he turned. “Alex, let’s test out my theory.”
“Me? What are we going to do?”
“You’ll see.”
Alex shot a quick glance at JJ, who only looked amused by her perplexity. She figured she had little choice and met Blake at the door. He took her hand and they stepped on onto the small porch. She scanned the neighborhood. Everyone had at least a little patch of yard.
One house sported the stereotypical white picket fence. The house directly to the right wore a shiny metal flowerpot of purple petunias, yellow and purple pansies, and a few tall dark pink snapdragons. A few houses down she saw that one house had a wraparound porch with baskets of red geraniums adorning it.
Finally, she saw an older gentleman who lived directly across the street. He was out with his golden Labrador retriever.
“Good afternoon,” Blake called out to him, waving as if he were the proverbial friendly neighbor.
“I’m Bob Higley, and this is Moses.” The man gave the dog a good rub.
“I’m Blake Teesdale and my fiancé, Alex Zurich. She’s JJ’s cousin from Kansas and we’re here on vacation.” Alex smiled meekly and gave the man a tentative finger wave. She was amazed at his ability to create an entire backstory on the spot.
Mr. Higley took off his baseball cap and scratched his head. “You don’t sound like you’re from Kansas.”
“No, no sir. You are right. Mine is definitely not a Midwest accent. British.”
“I’ve always loved England.”
“Thanks, I love your country too.” And then Blake gave Mr. Higley a friendly good-bye wave and he and Alex went back into the house.
Once inside, he rolled on the balls of his feet, a small, smug smile slowly forming on his lips, hands in his pockets.
“We just passed the can-they-see-you test with flying colors. And yes, they can see you—I mean, us.”
“Yes, you two did and I’m amazed.”
Alex looked at the living room clock. “JJ, I don’t mean to bring up a sore subject, but it is getting closer to the time.”
“Yes, it is now, isn’t it?” She glowered again at Alex. “We’re not completely done with this topic. You and I are going to sit down and talk, soon.”
Chapter 14
JJ marched out of the living room. Despite the remarkable experiment of Blake’s, she was still peeved at the fact that she had to go to this dinner party. As she got into the shower, she tried to put the events of the last several days out of her mind.
She allowed the hot water to beat down on her, to run down her back, to massage her tired, sore shoulders, to gently lift the stresses of the day from them. Having visitors took its toll on her.
Well, that wasn’t quite right. Not knowing how they got there or if she was just going crazy was the real stressor. The next thing she knew she had tears running down her face.
Tears. Yes, she was tired of dealing with just about everything. The unplanned visit of Alex and Blake shook her to her core. She didn’t want to go to her sister’s and play social butterfly.
As much as she loved Nan, she would have preferred to spend the Saturday evening at home alone—okay, almost alone. But definitely on her own couch, in her own cocoon of her home, curled up with some book that took her thoughts off of what her life was like right now.
The tears that fell freely in the shower had more to do with her frustration at being in a place in her life she really didn’t want and hadn’t planned on—at least not at such a young age. “My friends still have their parents around,” she thought, “and here at twenty-eight, not only are my parents gone, I don’t even have my husband.”
