Practice Makes Perfect: A Novel

After leaving the restaurant, I go straight to Amelia and Noah’s house for an Audrey Hepburn movie night with the girls. Before going in, however, I change out of Emily’s dress and back into my usual overalls and T-shirt in my truck, and then shove the dress into my purse. It’s fine—it’s dark. No one saw anything.

My sisters and I have adopted Amelia’s practice that if anything goes wrong, hurts, or makes you feel cloudy, you turn on an Audrey film and inject her smile into your heart until it heals. Or you know, just generally have a girls’ night and gossip and eat popcorn.

That’s what’s happening tonight, while we’re all four curled up in various parts of Noah’s living room (or I guess I should think of it as Amelia’s living room now) watching Funny Face. When Amelia first came to town a little over a year ago, we had never seen an Audrey movie. Amelia, however, is capital O obsessed with her. And after watching her movies, my sisters and I are too.

“Nope,” Amelia says abruptly over the sound of the movie as she points to the hallway off the living room. “I saw you. Go back into your room.”

My brother Noah emerges from the hallway wearing a sulky face. “Come on. Just let me watch this one with you guys. You can’t keep me from my own damn living room.”

Amelia has been very firm in protecting our early tradition of girls’ night, and her engagement to Noah hasn’t changed it. The funny thing is, I don’t think he actually wants to watch the movie. He just loves to push Amelia’s buttons, and she loves to have them pushed. Match made in heaven.

“Excuse me—it’s my living room, too, now. And this is girls’ night. No boys allowed.”

Noah rolls his eyes. “Fine. I’m going to James’s house.” James is Noah’s best friend and like our second brother. He owns Huxley Farm next door (next door meaning several acres over).

“I’ll send a courier pigeon when we’re done,” says Amelia.

Noah slaps a ball cap on. “Just call.”

“We’ll flash the lights twenty times when it’s safe to come back and get frisky, Lover Boy,” says Maddie with a devious smile. Noah hates the nickname we gave him when he was first falling for Amelia. We’ll never let it go.

Noah frowns. “Call me when it’s over so I can come to bed. Some of us are not teachers on summer break and have actual jobs in the morning.”

Emily cups her hands around her mouth to get a good projection going. “I’ll turn on the hose and shoot a stream of water at James’s window when we’re on our way out, so you know the coast is clear to come home and make sweet, sweet love to Amelia!”

Noah tries his very best not to smile, but we can all see it there, lurking. He looks at me next. “Nothing from you?”

I shrug. “Tell James I said hi.”

My sisters and Amelia all boo, and Noah just grins at me. “I like you the best.”

He turns and leaves, but no sooner has the front door shut behind him than it opens again. Noah storms back inside. He walks around the back of the couch where Amelia is sitting, puts his hands on her jaw, and tilts her face up so he can kiss her goodbye.

When I first saw Noah and Amelia together as a couple, I was shocked. Well, we all were. The affection between those two was so easy and freely given. I’ve never seen Noah like that with anyone else. It’s inspiring watching the way they have managed their long-distance relationship all while dating within the limitations of Amelia’s fame.

“Ew,” says Madison with a disgusted laugh. “You’re going to kiss her Spider-Man style? It wasn’t a good look for Tobey, and it’s not a good look for you either.”

Emily throws a pillow at Maddie, and she deflects it with a karate chop.

“I love you,” Noah says in a whisper to Amelia after the kiss, but I’m sitting close enough to hear it.

I smile down at my lap because I adore Amelia and Noah’s relationship. I think it must be similar to what my parents had. Sturdy, deep, and dependable. And they sure look at each other with hearts in their eyes just like I’ve seen in all the photos of my parents. It’s the kind of love that just works and makes everyone around them envious. It’s what I want. The superglue-sticky, not-going-anywhere, till-death-do-us-part relationship. Someone to step up beside me and lend me his hand where we’ll walk happily together through life.

Noah eventually leaves, and Amelia’s cheeks are completely pink as we watch my personal favorite out of all of Audrey Hepburn’s films, Funny Face. I deeply relate to Jo—the character Audrey plays. Jo works in a bookstore (which would be my dream job if I didn’t already have a dream job owning my own flower shop), and she is considered quiet and introspective, maybe even a little plain.

But in the movie, Dick Avery (who is played by Fred Astaire), a famous fashion magazine photographer, spots Jo and sees something in her that isn’t plain or quiet at all. Together, he and Maggie Prescott, the editor of Quality magazine, sweep Jo off to Paris, where they pull her out of her shell, turning her into a model and teaching her how to dress and pose and carry herself like a woman of Quality. Of course, in the end, Jo and Dick fall madly in love and live happily ever after—ending like every good story should.

“See,” I say with a big sigh as I point to the TV after the final scene of Audrey and Fred dancing to the song “ ’S Wonderful.” “That’s what I need.”

Maddie and Emily are in the kitchen and out of earshot.

“An old man to fall in love with you?” asks Amelia with a chuckle.

I gasp. “Don’t you dare slander the great Fred Astaire and the hero of my favorite movie.”

Amelia grimaces and leans forward to grab another handful of popcorn from the coffee table. “Normally, I wouldn’t say a word against an Audrey movie. But even I have to admit the pairing is odd here. Audrey was in her twenties and Fred was definitely in his fifties.”

“Oh. Deflating,” I say staring at the screen again.

“So anyway, why do you want a major age-gap love affair, Anna-banana?”

I pull my legs up onto the couch and wrap my arms around them. “I don’t want an age-gap love affair. I just want a love affair in general. So I’m saying I wish I could have someone like Dick Avery or Maggie Prescott swoop in and teach me how to be the Quality woman everyone wants to date. Or at least I want my dates to not say I’m boring and then have their friends call and make up excuses to leave.”

“What?!” says Amelia a little too loudly.

“Shh!” I hiss, looking over my shoulder to where my sisters are busy cooking something in the kitchen. Actually, Madison is cooking, and Emily is hovering around her and badgering her with itinerary questions for their upcoming trip to Mexico for a vacation with a few of their other teacher friends. They’ve been saving for a year to afford it.

“Is that what happened tonight?” Amelia asks me in a whisper this time.

“Yes.” I rub my hands up and down my shins. “But don’t blame him—”

“I do.”

“I was a terrible date. I barely talked and then when I did, I sprung marriage on the poor guy. And then even after all of that, Will made him pay for the drinks even though I dumped John’s in his lap. It was a disaster.”

Amelia sits forward abruptly. “Wait, wait, wait. Go back. Did you say Will?”

I nod. “Yeah, Will. You know? Will Griffin.”

“Will Griffin, as in my bodyguard Will Griffin? He was on your date?”

“No.” I pause. “I mean, yes. Your bodyguard was at the restaurant where I was having the worst date of my life, but he appeared to be on a very successful date of his own.”

“But he hung out with you?”

I raise a shoulder. “Well, sort of. He came over and said hi, but that was right in the thick of John getting the heck out of Dodge, so then Will walked me out to the truck and we talked.”

“You talked. To Will?”

“Why do you keep repeating my statements and forming them as a question?”

“I’m just trying to picture it.” She circles her hands in the air like she’s trying to conjure up an instant replay. “He’s always so businessy with me. I practically have to pry friendship from him, and here he is just strolling right up to you and chatting.”

I frown and take another bite of popcorn. “It was only for like five minutes tops. Not a big deal,” I say, completely disregarding the slightly too alert look in Amelia’s eyes. Maybe she thinks I have a thing for Will and is worried I’m going to try to date him? Ha! A hilarious thought. “Anyway, he went back into the restaurant pretty quickly and said he’s staying the night with the woman he was on a date with and that he’ll be in Rome tomorrow.” I nudge her knee. “I didn’t know you had hired him to come back, by the way. Are you having safety issues?”

“Not really. A few paparazzi have been getting too close lately, but I haven’t felt worried. They’re just hungry for wedding details. Keysha is the one who thought it was time to call in a mobile guard until things settle down again after the wedding.”

Keysha is Amelia’s manager. She hired her a year ago after finding out her old manager had been doing some shady business behind her back. I think Keysha has been really good for Amelia—as is Claire, the personal assistant Amelia hired to help her life run a little smoother.

“But you’re wrong,” says Amelia abruptly. “Will isn’t coming tomorrow. He’s here now.”

Wait, what? I try not to look too excited at that prospect and mentally intimidate my cheeks into not blushing at just the mention of his name. “But he told me he was staying with Gretchen tonight.”

Amelia looks like she’s studying me for answers before a big test—expecting to find them written all over my skin in red ink. “Interesting. All I know is about thirty minutes ago, Harold, the night shift guard, texted me and said that Will had arrived at the surveillance trailer and got his emergency satellite phone”—which they keep on hand because service is spotty around here—“and then went on to Mabel’s Inn for the night and would be ready to start at eight a.m. tomorrow. So he must have decided to cut his date short.”

Amelia is in the process of having an actual guard shack built on their premises, but it won’t be ready for at least another month or two. Until then, her security team always stays down the road at Mabel’s Inn.

Also, I will choose to not read anything into the fact that Will didn’t stay the night at Gretchen’s place.

I. Will. Not!

Do you hear that, you romantic schmuck of a heart? There’s absolutely no way Will coming to Rome a night early has anything to do with me and our meetup earlier tonight. For all I know, they hooked up super fast and he left. End of story.

“What are y’all talking about?” Maddie asks, popping her head over the back of the couch.

Without looking the slightest bit suspicious, Amelia says, “My bodyguard—Will Griffin. I was just telling Annie that he’s going to be back in town and sticking with me until after the wedding.”

Maddie’s eyes light up and, for some reason, it makes my fingers twitchy.

Emily rounds the corner and sits back down in the armchair. “Wait, who?”

“The hottest bodyguard in the country,” says Maddie, also coming to take a seat in the living room.

“Oooh, Will Griffin?”

Again, I don’t love that she immediately knew who Maddie was talking about. But I’m not sure why I care. It’s not like I have hopes where he’s involved. And, honestly, my outgoing, gorgeous sisters have way more of a chance with him than I do. Oh, and you know, the most important part: I want a stable relationship. Will in no way equals stable.

Propping her face mischievously on her fists, Maddie aims a look at Amelia. “Okay—be honest with us, did you and Will ever hook up?”

“Gross, no!” Amelia says with a genuinely disgusted look. “First of all, Will is like my brother at this point, and the thought of that literally makes me gag. Second of all, I’ve just never been attracted to him.”

“Never?” asks Emily with a studying expression. “You’re telling me that even when he started working for you, you never once found that beautiful muscular man attractive?”

Amelia shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you. He just never did it for me. I think he’s a great guy, but he’s not my type. Noah on the other hand…”

We all three groan.

“We’re going to kick you out of our group if you continue to act lovesick over our brother,” says Maddie.

“I am lovesick over your brother. Hence the upcoming wedding!” She pretends to flick Maddie in the skull.

“But that’s no excuse to act like it on girls’ night. I mean, dammit, Amelia, at least do the polite thing and pretend you’re sick of him for our sakes,” says Maddie before wincing.

Emily is already handing me a pen as I flip open my spiral pocket notebook and add a tally next to her name.

“How many more do I have until I have to pay up?” Maddie asks.

“Three.” I close the No Swear Notebook and wish I could throw it off a cliff. What started off as an attempt at humor on my end has turned into a full-fledged part of my character that my siblings won’t let me escape. Everyone gets a tally mark when they say a curse word and then has to pay twenty bucks when they hit their twenty swears in a month. It hasn’t made anyone swear less, to be honest. Instead, it’s made us regular contributors to various nonprofit organizations around the town because that’s where I donate our spoils each month after everyone pays up. Just call us a bunch of philanthropists.

“Back to Will, do you think he likes slightly bossy women with blonde hair?” Emily asks, obviously kidding but still kicking up an urge inside me to jump to my feet and yell No! You can’t have him!

I stay quiet.

Maddie apparently has the same thought as me. “No way! If anyone gets to date Will, it’s me. Obviously, he’s the bad boy type and needs someone like me to complement him.” She bats her eyelashes playfully. I love her dearly, but I’m dreaming of plucking out each one of those lashes in this moment.

Amelia—bless her—then looks at me. “You know, I think he’d do better with someone like Annie.”

Madison barks a laugh at this. Emily chuckles too. “Anna-banana and Will Griffin? No. Absolutely not,” says Maddie, chuckling the whole time.

I smile softly and try very hard not to show that my stomach is twisting up in a tight knot.

“I think I have to agree with Maddie on this one,” says Emily. “Annie is so soft and sweet and virginal. Can you imagine her with someone like Will? He’d eat her alive.”

I think Emily meant for that to sound upsetting, but for some reason, it’s not sounding all that unappealing to me. Something I would never admit to my sisters, because, yes, they unfortunately know I’m a virgin and remind me every day of my life.

“Hmm,” says Amelia, with narrowed eyes and a soft smile in my direction. “What do you think, Annie? Would you and Will be good together?”

Immediately my cheeks go hot. If I say yes, my sisters will laugh and continue to point out all the obvious reasons we’re not right for each other. I already know all the reasons (I’m a homebody—he’s adventurous. He has dated countless women—I can’t even get a guy to finish a date with me), so I decide to skip the embarrassment. “All I want is a nice guy who is going to be there for me every day.”

“See,” says Madison with a playful scoff. “Definitely not Will—BuzzFeed’s sexiest bodyguard and serial dater. And because Annie will wait until she gets married to have sex, and Emily is too bossy for Will, I think I should be the one to bring Will home for a night.”

Emily hits her with a pillow. “How about none of us bring Will home, and we all remain friends?”

“Deal,” I agree a little too quickly.

“Fine. Damn party poopers,” says Madison before going to get the brownies she was baking from the oven. In the presence of chocolate, all men are forgotten.

The next hour is spent talking about the wedding and going over final details we’ve been meaning to plan with Amelia. I’ll be providing the flowers, and I couldn’t be more excited. Well, I could be more excited if I also had a date to take to the wedding, but I guess that’s beside the point.

Later, after we’re all heading out for the night, Amelia stops me at the door once Emily and Maddie are walking to their trucks. “Okay, so I’ve been thinking about your dating predicament and what you said after the movie.”

“Do you think I should visit a senior citizen center to find an old man to marry?”

Amelia frowns. “I’m disturbed by how quickly you said that. Makes me think you’ve been contemplating that idea all along.”

“Continue with your thoughts.”

Amelia smiles. “I’m still putting all the pieces together in my head right now, but if I had a way to help you get better at dating, would you want to do it?”

“Sure,” I say easily, because honestly, I trust Amelia with my life. I’d do anything she asked of me. In some ways, I feel closer to her than I do my sisters. I don’t know how it happened, but when Amelia came into my life, our bond felt like one that had been forming since childhood. “All I want is to marry someone as perfect for me as Noah is for you and my dad was for my mom. If you can help me make that happen, I’ll do anything you say.”

Amelia gives me a wide (slightly devious?) smile. “Perfect. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”