Who Made You a Princess? (2 page)

So I like the music part. Always have. And I’m beginning to see the light on the God part, after what happened last spring. But seeing a glimmer and knowing what to do about it are two different things.

“Of course not.” I gave Carly a look. “We all go together. And we walk, in case no one told you, so plan your shoes carefully.”

“Oh, I will.” She sat back on her hands, an “I
so
see right through you” smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “And it’s all about the worship, I know.” That smile told me she knew exactly what my motivation was. Part of it, at least. Hey, can you blame me?

The music changed and Danyel’s voice lifted into a lonely blues melody, pouring over Carly’s words like cream. I just melted right there on the spot. Man, could that boy sing.

Blue water, blue sky

Blue day, girl, do you think that I

Don’t see you, yeah I do.

Long sunset, long road,

Long life, girl, but I think you know

What I need, yeah, you do.

I do a little singing my own self, so I know talent when I hear it. And I’d have bet you that month’s allowance that Danyel had composed that one. He segued into the chorus and then the bridge, its rhythms straight out of Mississippi but the tune something new, something that fit the sadness and the hope of the words.

Wait a minute.

Blue day? Long sunset? Long road? As in, a long road to San Francisco?

Whoa. Could Danyel be trying to tell someone something? “You think that I don’t see you”? Well, if that didn’t describe
me
, I didn’t know what would. Ohmigosh.

Could he be trying to tell me his feelings with a song? Musicians were like that. They couldn’t tell a person something to her face, or they were too shy, or it was just too hard to get out, so they poured it into their music. For them, maybe it was easier to perform something than to get personal with it.

Be cool, girl. Let him finish. Then find a way to tell him you understand—and you want it, too.

The last of the notes blew away on the breeze, and a big comber smashed itself on the sand, making a sound like a kettle-drum to finish off the song. I clapped, and the others joined in.

“Did you write that yourself?” Lissa removed a marshmallow from her stick and passed it to him. “It was great.”

Danyel shrugged one shoulder. “Tune’s been bugging me for a while and the words just came to me. You know, like an IM or something.”

Carly laughed, and Kaz’s forehead wrinkled for a second in a frown before he did, too.

I love modesty in a man. With that kind of talent, you couldn’t blame Danyel for thinking he was all that.

Should I say something? The breath backed up in my chest.
Say it. You’ll lose the moment
. “So who’s it about?” I blurted, then felt myself blush.

“Can’t tell.” His head was bent as he picked a handful of notes and turned them into a little melody. “Some girl, probably.”

“Some girl who’s leaving?” I said, trying for a teasing tone. “Is that a good-bye?”

“Could be.”

I wished I had the guts to come out and ask if he’d written the song for me—for us—but I just couldn’t. Not with everyone sitting there. With one look at Carly, whose eyes held a distinct “What’s up with you?” expression, I lost my nerve and shut up. Which, as any of the girls could tell you, doesn’t happen very often.

Danyel launched into another song—some praise thing that everyone knew but me. And then another, and then a cheesy old John Denver number that at least I knew the words to, and then a bunch of goofy songs half of us had learned at camp when we were kids. And then it was nearly midnight, and Kaz got up and stretched.

He’s a tall guy. He stretches a long way. “I’m running the mixer for the early service to-morrow, so I’ve got to go.”

Danyel got up, and I just stopped my silly self from saying, “No, not yet.” Instead, I watched him sling the guitar over one shoulder and yank his board out of the sand. “Are you going to early service, too?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding a little surprised. “I’m in the band, remember?”

Argh! As if I didn’t know. As if I hadn’t sat there three Sundays in a row, watching his hands move on the frets and the light make shadows under his cheekbones.

“I just meant—I see you at the late one when we go. I didn’t know you went to both.” Stutter, bumble.
Oh, just stop talking, girl. You’ve been perfectly comfortable talking to him so far. What’s the matter?

“I don’t, usually. But tomorrow they’re doing full band at early service, too. Last one before all the
turistas
go home. Next week we’ll be back to normal.” He smiled at me. “See you then.”

Was he looking forward to seeing me, or was he just being nice? “I hope so,” I managed.

“Kaz, you coming?”

Kaz bent to the fire and ran a stick through the coals, separating them. “Just let me put this out. Lissa, where’s the bucket?”

“Here.” While I’d been obsessing over Danyel, Lissa had run down to the waterline and filled a gallon pail. You could tell they’d done this about a million times. She poured the water on the fire and it blew a cloud of steam into the air. The orange coals gave it up with a hiss.

I looked up to say something to Danyel about it and saw that he was already fifty feet away, board under his arm like it weighed nothing, heading down the beach to the public lot where he usually parked his Jeep.

I stared down into the coals, wet and dying.

I couldn’t let the night go out like this.

“Danyel, wait!” The sand polished the soles of my bare feet better than the pumice bar at the salon as I ran to catch up with him. A fast glance behind me told me Lissa had stepped up and begun talking to Kaz, giving me a few seconds alone.

I owed her, big time.

“What’s up, ma?” He planted the board and set the guitar case down. “Forget something?”

“Yes,” I blurted. “I forgot to tell you that I think you’re amazing.”

He blinked. “Whoa.” The barest hint of a smile tickled the corners of his lips.

I might not get another chance as good as this one. I rushed on, the words crowding my mouth in their hurry to get out. “I know there’s something going on here and we’re all leaving on Tuesday and I need to know if you—if you feel the same way.”

“About…?”

“About me. As I feel about you.”

He put both hands on his hips and gazed down at the sand. “Oh.”

Cold engulfed me, as if I’d just plunged face-first into the dark waves twenty feet away. “Oh,” I echoed. “Never mind. I guess I got it wrong.” I stepped back. “Forget about it. No harm done.”

“No, Shani, wait—”

But I didn’t want to hear the “we can still be friends” speech. I didn’t want to hear anything except the wind in my ears as I ran back to the safety of my friends.

KazG
   It didn’t work.

Dijon
   Yo, Cyrano. You don’t know that.

KazG
   I know her. And it went right over her head. I can’t believe you told everyone I IM’d the lyrics to you.

Dijon
   They thought I was kidding, man.

KazG
   Shani knows something. Check out all those questions.

Dijon
   She was just making conversation.

KazG
   What do I do now?

Dijon
   I dunno. But your stand-in is off duty as of now. I’m sending Lissa a video to share with them. Want to go in on it with me?

KazG
   Nah, I’ve gotta regroup. But Lissa will freak when she sees it.

Dijon
   She’s funny when she freaks. In a good way.

N
O WAY WAS
I going by my single self to the early service at Lissa’s church. One, I’d never hear the end of it, and two, I wasn’t about
to sit all by my little lonesome among the old folks, gawking hopelessly at Danyel and forgetting to sing.

So, I went with my girls at eleven and gawked and forgot to sing.

Honestly, who can sing when a man so fine is up there on that stage, his hair tied back so it makes a puff at the nape of
his neck, wearing a white shirt that totally pops against his mocha skin? And don’t get me started on his hands, moving on
the neck of the guitar, pulling praise out of the strings with those long fingers.

Did I happen to mention that I go to church ninety percent to make my friends happy and ten percent for me? Maybe I’m hoping
to get answers, even though I don’t even know how to ask the questions. And maybe I like looking at the scenery. But before
you go all squinty-eyed and write me off as a bobblehead, I know how to show respect. But it’s hard to get into it the way
Lissa and Gillian do, when the Lord hasn’t paid much attention to me for the last, oh, seventeen years. I guess I go with
them to see if He’ll talk to me the way He seems to do for them.

Anyway, the sermon gave me some time to think. Specifically, about last night. No, not the Danyel part. The part that came
later, when we girls were getting ready for bed.

After Carly and I had said good night to Lissa and her dad, and Carly had made her nightly call to her boyfriend, Brett—during
which I sat out of earshot on the patio and admired the moonlight reflected in the swimming pool—she’d joined me.

“I miss him so much,” she said as she slid into the lounge chair next to mine.

“I don’t know how. You talk, like, five times a day, and send pictures and texts. It’s the next best thing to being there.”

“I’m not there, though.” She sighed. “And it’s hard to send a hug over e-mail.”

“Cheer up. Only two more days and you’re back in paradise.”

“Easy for you,
chiquita
.” She glanced sideways at me. “You’re in paradise right now.”

“You got that right.” I slid down further on the lounger. “I’m seriously thinking of sleeping out here.”

“There are bugs,” she reminded me. “And you know that isn’t what I meant.”

“Yeah?”

“I know you’re crushing on Danyel.”

I scrambled up to a sitting position so I could stare at her. “How do you know that? Who told you? Did he say something?”

She shook her head at me, grinning. “Somebody goose you?”

“Don’t mess me around, Carly. He didn’t tell you that, did he?”

“Relax.” She waved a lazy hand at me and I settled down. A little. “I was just watching you, is all. You think you’re such
a poker face and you’re totally not. Every time I turn around, you’re talking to him.”

“Fat lot of good it does me.” I slid down low on my spine. “He just wants to be friends. Him and Kaz, they’re probably laughing
at me right now.”

“Why would they laugh?” Lissa padded up behind us, pulled the hems of her cotton pj bottoms over her knees, and sat on the
edge of the pool to dunk her feet in the water. “They’re our friends. Nobody’s laughing.”

“How do you know?” I demanded. “I made a big old fool of myself tonight.”