Chapter One
Surprise!
Liz’s shriek came through the phone, loud as the sudden squeal of a new-branded calf. Startled students looked up from their books.
“Annie! Omigod, Annie! You won it! You won it! They picked you!”
“Stop yelling at me, Liz.” Annie spoke sharply into her phone. “This is a library, you know.” She pointed at the “Quiet, Please” sign on her desk, as though her sister, ten miles away, could see it. “What are you talking about?”
“The contest!” Liz’s voice remained at top volume, her excitement spilling out uncontrollably. “Don’t you remember?”
“Liz, please. People can hear you.” Annie covered the phone with her hand and dropped her voice to a whisper, as though that would tone Liz down a few decibels. “No, I don’t remember. What are you talking about? What contest?”
“That new department store! In New York City! Galliard’s! Remember?”
“In some magazine, wasn’t it?” Annie said. Slowly, it was coming back to her. “Way back in February?”
“Yes! Yes! In Lady Fair!”
Dimly, Annie recalled a night many weeks ago. The winds had been blowing hard across the valley, pushing the snow up in big drifts around the house. The dinner dishes had been cleared away, the kids had been put down for the night, and Liz’s husband, Craig, had gone out to check on a sick calf. She’d been busy filling out registrations for the ranch’s new quarter horses, and Liz, killing a few idle minutes by leafing through Lady Fair, had found the announcement of the contest. Just for fun, they’d each filled out an entry.
Now, digging through all the masses of data in her memory bank, what Annie really remembered about that night was not the essay she’d written or the prize that was offered. What she remembered was her fantasy of a glitzy, nighttime New York City transplanted out onto Wyoming’s open spaces—the bright, edgy, big-city lights sparkling like fireworks up against the silent, star-filled sky that arched above the family’s ranch. And a fancy French department store set incongruously on their wind-swept, mountain-rimmed, high plateau country. It had been an amusing fantasy.
That’s the part she remembered.
“Galliard’s?” she repeated, trying to focus her attention. “Was that the name of the store?”
“That’s the one! That’s the one!” Liz was still screeching, and the annoyed students were shifting in their seats, registering their irritation. “Listen. I’ll read it to you.” She took a deep breath and, as calmly as she could, read into the phone:
Dear Ms. Cornell,
On behalf of Lady Fair and the Sweeps-Spree Selection Committee of Galliard International, I am pleased to inform you that your entry has been selected as the first-place winner in Galliard’s Jubilee Contest celebrating the grand opening of an exciting new store on New York’s fabulous Fifth Avenue.
Liz paused. She was fanning herself with the letter. “Omigod, Annie. I can’t believe this. Listen to what you get.” She went on, reading out bits of the letter:
“‘. . . a fifty-thousand dollar shopping spree . . . five days . . . all expenses paid... for two. . . .’ For two, Annie!” she interrupted herself. “And there’s more—‘red carpet press coverage . . . national celebrities and local dignitaries . . . the mayor of the City of New York—’”
She broke off her reading.
“Five days, all expenses paid! For two! For two, Annie! That means I get to go, too, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t dare take anyone else, would you? Omigod, fifty thousand dollars! Oh, say I can go with you. Aunt Velma will take care of the kids, I know she will. And Craig won’t mind. He wouldn’t dare mind. He can do without me for a few days. Oh, just think, Annie. Bags. And shoes. And Hermès scarves. I’ve never been to New York. You’ve never been to New York. It’s like a dream.”
Liz’s chatter bubbled past Annie who by now had collapsed dumbly into the chair at her desk. All thoughts of student research papers, grant proposals, and new library acquisitions vanished from her thoughts.
Bags? Shoes? Scarves? And New York City?
Her large hazel eyes stared blankly out through the big library windows, over the bent heads of the students working at the library tables, past the trees that were in their full springtime bloom all over the campus, and beyond to the mountains, their peaks draped with the shining remains of winter’s snow. In times of confusion, she always looked to the quiet majesty of those mountains to anchor her.
“Oh, yes, Liz. Wonderful clothes. I can’t even imagine—”
New York City. Fifty thousand dollars. Celebrities. At last. An adventure!
“Annie? Are you there?”
New York City!
Annie breathed the magic words to herself.
Since I was a kid, wishing for a real adventure. Something I could tell my children about.
“Annie? Annie? Are you there?
Liz—always at me to settle down, pick someone, for goodness’ sake, have kids, make a home.
But I want to have an adventure first—with maybe just a little danger mixed in—she smiled to herself as she added a romantic twist to her fantasy—and maybe there’ll be someone tall and cute who’ll ride to my rescue—and he’ll sweep me off my feet—and—and then—
She brought herself quickly back to the real world.
“Oh, yes, Liz. I’m here. And yes, we really are going to New York. You and me.”