The girls had been asked to take seats that were arranged in a semi-circle in front of the judges’ table. Elaine sat in the middle, with Mayor Morgan on the left and Kade on the right. London chose a seat on the left, as far away from Kade as she could get. She noticed him pull out his phone, and a second later, she received a text. Good choice. I’m not supposed to talk to you until after the pageant.
That didn’t surprise her at all. Bummer, she replied, then made a show of tucking her phone back in her pocket. Not a good idea to be texting each other right now, and she hoped he understood that.
“Contestants, thank you all for being here so promptly,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said. “We also welcome your parents, who have joined us for this announcement.” She nodded to the back of the room, where additional chairs were set up in straight lines. London glanced over her shoulder. Good—her mother had made it.
“Tonight is a rather big deal for all of you, and it’s certainly exciting for me,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick continued. “I’ll turn the time over to our three judges so they can announce their selections.”
“Those three judges?”
London looked to see Taffy Johnson standing up at the back of the room, indignation written all over her face.
“Yes, these are the three judges who chose tonight’s finalists. I looked over their choices and found them to be quite satisfactory.”
“But I thought something was being done about this,” Mrs. Johnson continued. “You promised—”
“Mrs. Johnson, I’m waiting for a return call at this very moment, and then I’ll be able to tell you all about a slight change to our program tomorrow night. For just now, you’ll need to trust me.”
Mrs. Johnson didn’t look very trusting, but she sat down, and London turned her attention back to Mrs. Fitzpatrick. She had no idea what was going on, but if it involved the Johnsons, it was sure to be a doozy.
“Now then, I’ll turn the time over to our panel of judges for the announcement.” Mrs. Fitzpatrick stepped off to the side, and Mayor Morgan came to his feet.
“Well, it was a hard decision, boiling you all down to just twelve,” he began. “But the three of us talked, and we came to a unanimous decision. Our first finalist is Chelsea Baker.”
London clapped hard as Chelsea stood up and waved.
“Then we have Lacey Johnson.”
London only pretended to clap to be polite.
The mayor read off several more names, and London grew anxious. It wasn’t hard to guess that Mrs. Johnson had stirred up some trouble where the judging was concerned—how was this going to affect London’s standing? She had been a finalist in every pageant she’d ever entered. Maybe it was time for that streak to come to an end. Not everyone could be that lucky, could they?
“Next is London Russell.”
Oh, thank goodness. She stood and waved, noticing that her mother and Chelsea were the only ones clapping. Lovely. Darling little Lacey had spread her poison generously, it would appear.
“And last is Sydney Newton.”
London sat down and let Sydney have her moment. Mrs. Fitzpatrick stood and invited everyone to have the refreshments that were set up at the back of the room, but first, she had an announcement to make.
“We’ve had a slight change to our judging lineup,” she said. “Kade Smith will still be joining us as a consultant, but he will not be scoring the competition.”
London almost gasped out loud. What was going on?
“Instead, we’ve brought in a very special judge. We know her now as the wife of our governor, but we met her first as Miss Georgia a few years back—Allison Black Wrigley. She’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning to meet everyone. We’re honored to have her join us. Now please, do help yourself to the buffet, and we’ll see you all tomorrow.”
As soon as the crowd disbursed, London made a beeline for her mother.
“They didn’t call your name forever. I was getting a little nervous there,” Evelyn said, gathering London up into a hug.
“Me too, Mom.”
Evelyn patted her back, then stepped away and looked into her eyes. “Now, what’s going on? People have been smirking at me ever since I walked in here, and one of them asked me if I was addicted to scandals.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean for you to get dragged into this. Let’s go upstairs and talk, okay?” London took a step toward the door, but she was stopped by a photographer.
“Excuse me, but all the finalists are supposed to gather for a group photo.”
London gave her mother a grimace. “I’ll see you up there in a little bit, okay?”
“Okay.” Evelyn patted her daughter’s arm and disappeared into the crowd.
London took her place with all the other girls, pretended to smile, ignored their sharp comments, and headed for the elevator as fast as she could. If she stuck around, it would just be more of the same, and she was done with all that.
As soon as she stepped off the elevator, her phone vibrated with another text. She’d gotten so many, it was like having her own personal earthquake in her pocket. She’d have to go through and clean them all out, but she could do that later. This one was from Kade, though, so she read it.
Can I call you? Need to talk.
There was a small sitting area off to the side of the elevators on London’s floor, and she headed there before replying, Yes. It was somewhat private, and she didn’t want her mother overhearing snippets of their conversation before she knew the whole story of what was going on.
London’s phone vibrated with a call almost instantly, and she answered.
“I have two problems,” Kade said without waiting for her to speak. “First is that I’m no longer a real judge, but you knew that. I’ve made a huge mess of things by embarrassing the pageant, and I’m probably going to be making up for it for years to come. I’ve already ordered tulips for Mrs. Fitzpatrick—I hear she likes them.”
“And what’s the other problem?” London asked, as if that wasn’t enough.
“The other problem is that I can’t stop thinking about you.”
London grinned. She couldn’t help how that made her feel. She was still a little bit mad, but that was fading fast. He’d said he was sorry and that he wanted a fresh start—that was something she was pretty sure she could give him. “You can’t?”
“Nope. You looked great tonight, by the way.”
“I did, huh?”
“Yeah. But you always look great.”
“I don’t know about that. You haven’t seen my gray sweats.”
“I have a feeling you look great even in your gray sweats.”
“Why, thank you. You’re too kind.” She paused and went back to the first thing he’d said. “So, you’ve embarrassed the pageant, huh?”
“Well, that’s not what Mrs. Fitzpatrick said exactly, but it was strongly implied.”
“And let me guess. Mrs. Johnson had something to do with it.”
“Yeah, she did. But I can’t blame her for everything. I did kiss you, after all.”
London played with the corner of the throw pillow on the couch. “So, are you having regrets?”
“Not at all,” he said. “Want to take a cab back to that spot on the sidewalk and do it again?”
“I’d love to, but I thought you weren’t supposed to talk to me until after the pageant.”
“Who said anything about talking? I thought we’d be kissing.”
She laughed. “So, what do we do now? I mean, that kiss was amazing, but what does it mean?”
He didn’t answer for a minute, and she wanted to kick herself. Why was she forcing a define-the-relationship talk? It wasn’t anywhere near time for that yet, even if she did want it defined.
“I think it means that we get to know each other for the people we are now,” he said slowly. “We put aside all our preconceived ideas and approach this like we’re total strangers meeting for the first time.”
“Except that total strangers generally haven’t kissed each other,” she pointed out.
“This is true. So we’re total strangers with a little advantage over all the others.” He paused. “Hey, listen, London. I’m going out to dinner with the other two judges, and they just knocked. Can I call you again later? Like, right before bed?”
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
“Okay. See you—er, talk to you then.”
She hung up the phone with a smile on her face. She felt terrible that he’d gotten in trouble, but that kiss . . . that kiss was kind of worth it.
***
When London walked into her hotel room, she saw that her mother had changed out of her dress and was now wearing a peachskin pantsuit. “We’re going out to dinner to celebrate,” she said. “I’m so proud of you, London.”
“Thanks, Mom.” London grabbed a pair of slacks from the closet and started to change as well.
“Now, you were going to tell me what’s going on around here.”
London finished putting on her shirt, brought up the internet, and handed her mother the phone, the infamous picture on display on the first page of one of the local online newspapers.
“You kissed Kade Smith?” Evelyn sat down on the edge of the bed like all the wind had gotten knocked out of her. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I don’t. I mean, actually, I think I do. A lot.”
Evelyn shook her head. “You aren’t doing one of those Jane Austen things where you hate each other and then suddenly fall in love, are you? Because you can’t live your life like it’s a book.”
“No, Mom. That’s not what this is.”
“And you’re not doing a Beauty and the Beast thing, because this isn’t a movie either.”
London laughed. “No, I’m not. I’m not actually sure what this is. He and I . . . well, we’ve agreed to start from scratch and get to know each other as we are now.”
“And you sealed that bargain with this very . . . um . . . public and kissy kiss?”
“Yes. It was a very kissy kiss.” London sat down to put on her shoes, then looked up at her mother. “When I look beyond everything that happened in the past and just concentrate on the present, he’s an amazing guy, Mom. We went to the Wren’s Nest this morning, and he told me how much he loves that place. He’s into history and culture and family—he kept cracking me up with stories about his dad. And everywhere we went, he treated the employees so well—not like that jerk Brad I used to date.”
“Hmm. You sound just a little bit smitten.”
London blushed. “Well, I don’t know about smitten, but I’m definitely interested. And the fact that he fell in love with me in high school even when I was being prickly—I think that says a lot.”
“I beg your pardon? In love with you? Did I miss something?”
“Oops. Um, yeah, you’ve missed a lot.” London shook her head. She had lost track of who she’d told what. “I’ll tell you about it while we head down to dinner, all right?”