• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 638 0

She’d learned the downside of brains long ago, as a child. If you were stupid, no one blamed you. But people were suspicious of intelligence, as if you had done something wrong just by virtue of being smart. That reaction from others had bred shyness in Amy, a trait that had surely contributed to her blunder with Ryan. She didn’t especially like that about herself, which was precisely the reason she could recall the very day she had begun her transformation from an outspoken little girl to a kid who was beyond humble, almost embarrassed by her own extraordinary abilities. A couple of years before her mother’s death, she had tagged along to the doctor’s office for her mom’s annual checkup. Her mom sat on the table, so pretty, looking much like the woman Amy would become. Amy watched intently as the nurse rolled up her mother’s sleeve and checked her blood pressure.

“Very good,” said the nurse, reading from the gauge. “One-twenty over eighty.”

“One and a half,” Amy volunteered.

“One and a half what?” her mother asked.

“One-twenty over eighty. That equals one and a half.”

The nurse looked up from her chart, almost dropped her pen. “How old is that child?”

“Six,” said her mother. “Well, almost six.”

More than twenty years later, the look on that old nurse’s face was still unforgettable. Over and over, throughout her childhood, Amy would see that same spooked expression. Hearing the amazing things that came out of her mouth, people would think she was just small for her age. Then they’d find out how young she really was and look at her like some kind of walking gray-matter freak.

“You’re special,” her mother would tell her, and she had always made Amy feel that way. Until she was gone, and then things really got difficult. Amy learned to be tough, both physically and emotionally. Especially with boys. In elementary school, they would pick fights with her on the playground, just to show her the limits of being so smart. As pretty as she was, she had plenty of dates in high school, but not many second dates. Brains were a scary thing to some people, from that nurse in the doctor’s office, to the boys on the playground, to her jerk of an ex-husband.

Somehow, it didn’t seem like that would ever be an issue for a guy like Ryan Duffy.

Admittedly, the meeting with Ryan wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. Even her own mother would have told her that, had she been alive. Yet dismissing the whole thing as stupid rang hollow in her heart. She had a good feeling about Ryan. He’d made her smile, put her at ease in a situation that could have been far from easy. To her surprise, she found herself wishing they had met under different circumstances, another time in their lives. She wasn’t sure what was percolating inside of her, but ever since she’d left the restaurant, she’d thought more about him than the money.

If that was what it felt like to finally feel stupid, stupid wasn’t such a horrible thing.

What was really stupid was her remark right before she’d left, when he’d asked to see her again. You never know. Three little words that, to any reasonable human being, translated roughly to “In your dreams, buddy.”

Enough self-flagellation. She had his phone number. And she did have to call him. She at least had to tell him the truth. This wasn’t just a matter of a thousand dollars, as she had led him to believe. She had ignored the very pep talk she had given herself outside the Green Parrot, when she’d promised herself to use “the direct approach.” It was time to practice what she preached.

And then just see where things led from there.

She picked up the phone, took a deep breath, and dialed the number.

The phone rang, piercing the silence. Ryan stopped in the hall. He had checked the entire house. He was definitely alone. Whoever had been there had left some time ago. Still, he had a strange sensation that somebody was watching the house—that whoever had broken in was on the phone, calling him, taunting him. He went to the kitchen and answered in a harsh tone.

“What do you want?”

“Ryan, hi. It’s Amy. Did I catch