Yankee Doodle Dixie Read Online Free Page B

and raked snow off my roof with some Yankee contraption called a roof rake, but tended to his own proprietorship, Jeb’s Computer World. His pink Mary Kay car was a hand-me-down from his mother. They continued to split it for advertising, though, Mary Kay on the driver’s side and JCW on the other.
    “Oh yeah,” I say. “Well anyway, my tank was full, and as I was pulling away from the pump I saw this person walking straight up to my car. At first I wasn’t sure who it was because his cap was pulled way down over his head and it was snowing like crazy but the closer he got I knew it was—”
    “Peter.” Alice purses her lips together and nods her head.
    Just that second, Johnson walks up to the table with a pad in his hand, ready to take our order. “Good afternoon, ladies.” His voice is extra cheery.
    “Not now, Johnson,” Alice says, and shoos him away. “We’re all dying here.”
    He holds up both hands, palms out. “No problem, I’ll come back,” he says, with an amused grin.
    “Oh Johnson,” Mary Jule calls after him. “Please don’t mind us. Leelee had a Casablanca moment and she’s giving us the blow-by-blow.” Alice can be embarrassing sometimes but she never really means to be short. Johnson’s already moved on to the next table and seems unaffected.
    “Keep goin’,” Alice says impatiently, and sweeps her hand in my direction.
    “Where was I?”
    “The Yankee Doodle is walking toward you at George Clark’s with his hat pulled way down.” Virginia loves all the little details.
    “Oh yeah. So, he came up to my car and I jumped out. We stood there not knowing what in the world to say to each other. I mean it was so awkward. And then, out of nowhere, he asks me what CD is in my player. I tell him I don’t think there is one. Then he sits down on my front seat, says hi to Sarah and Issie, and finds Van Morrison’s Moondance in my CD case. He slips it into the player and skips through until he lands on ‘Into the Mystic.’”
    “That’s the song y’all started to dance to the night you got the call with an offer on the inn!” Mary Jule’s eyes twinkle. She, like me, absolutely loves a romantic cliffhanger.
    “Yes! And remember we never finished the dance?” I say, recalling the night my relationship with Peter went from not-so-platonic to nothing-really-happened-but-we-are-definitely-not-platonic.
    “Because you didn’t just let the stupid phone ring and once he learned it was an offer he got so upset about the sale that he left the inn right then and there,” Alice says, finishing the story I’d told them fifty times by now.
    “Well, we finished the dance right there in front of God and everybody at George Clark’s gas station. Underneath the falling snow. With a nor’easter headed our way.”
    “You did not!” Mary Jule nearly screams.
    “Shhhh,” we all say, looking around the room to see who’s peering in our direction.
    “Yes, we did,” I tell her.
    “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” Mary Jule says decisively, plopping her glass of ice tea on the red linen as if rendering a verdict.
    “Did he kiss you?” Alice asks with raised eyebrows. Although she tries to appear calm by sipping her Coke, she can hardly contain herself, either.
    I nod my head and visualize it for the fiftieth time since driving over state lines. “It was … incredible.”
    “It should be a movie, Leelee, I swear to God. It should be a movie.” Virginia sits back in her chair and rakes her hands through her hair. “Who should play you?”
    Alice turns to Virginia and waves her hand. “Hang on a second.” Then she turns back to me. “And then what happened?”
    “We said good-bye and … I drove off.” I close my eyes and feel the sadness returning.
    “WHAT?” Alice practically yells. “You didn’t stay with him?”
    I gape at her. There are no words. I don’t know how to explain to them what I was feeling in that moment. That as hard at is