The Princess and the Pauper Read online

  Which was why April’s comments had been doubly unfair.

  “Jesse isn’t here,” his mother said warily. “He’s… at work.”

  “But he’s not at the mill,” April protested. “I’ve tried to find him there.”

  “Miss Hollis, he’s left Rock Springs for another job.”

  “What job? Where?”

  “I don’t know.” The door began to close.

  “No, wait. Please.” April thrust her hand against the paint-chipped panels of the door. “You must know. I need to find him.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.” She pushed the door shut, softly and firmly.

  April stood, staring in disbelief. He doesn’t want to see me, she realized. He told his mother about me! He told her he doesn’t want to see me!

  She drove aimlessly, tears filling her throat. Where was Jesse? He’d certainly quit his job in an awful hurry. Because of me? she asked herself, consumed with remorse. Would Jesse have made such a drastic move just because they’d had a fight?

  Deep down April was afraid their altercation was more than a simple fight. She’d wounded him where it hurt the most. She’d made him feel inferior. She was afraid he might never forgive her.

  Carrie stopped by after dinner; it was the first time she’d visited in weeks. April was so glad to see her that she felt like crying, which was absurd. “Phillip and I are leaving the end of next week,” Carrie said happily, once they were ensconced in April’s bedroom. “We’re both going to U of O.”

  “That’s great.” University of Oregon was only two hours away from Rock Springs.

  “What about… Lance?” Carrie asked cautiously.

  “I don’t know. I think he’s going there, too.”

  “And you’re still headed for UCLA?”

  April lay down on her bed, curling up in a ball. Her head ached and she felt strange. “I guess.”

  “You can always change and come with us,” Carrie said hopefully. “Come on, April. Think how much fun we would have.”

  April didn’t answer. All she wanted to do these days would lie around and cry. As if her miserable thoughts couldn’t be contained any longer, her eyes started burning and two tears squeezed out between the lids.

  “April, what’s wrong?” Carrie asked, shocked.

  “I don’t know. I feel awful.” She swiped at the tears and turned away. “I hurt Jesse’s feelings and now he’s gone. Disappeared.”

  A telling silence followed. April had confided she cared about Jesse, but Carrie’s sheer horror had made further confidence impossible.

  “Have you tried emailing him? Or texting him?”

  “I’ve tried everything, but he’s like a black hole.”

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” Carrie said lightly. “I mean, April, he’s not your type.”

  He’s not your type. She was tired of people telling her Jesse was not her type. Or that he wasn’t good enough. Or motivated enough. Or rich enough.

  She was tired of everything.

  After Carrie left, April went straight to bed. When she woke up the next morning, she took three steps across the floor, then ran for the bathroom, where she heaved and heaved until she was exhausted. I’m sick, she thought with relief. That’s what’s wrong.

  “Hey!” Nicole called, banging on the bathroom door. “What’s wrong with you? Open up. I need to take a shower.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Sure,” Nicole muttered, stomping off.

  April washed out her mouth and brushed her teeth. She splashed cold water on her cheeks, glad to see the return of color. Staring at her reflection, she ruefully noted the fatigue that made her eyes seem dull. She wrinkled her nose. If only she could find Jesse and –

  Her heart jolted. Pregnant?

  April emitted a small cry of fear, clapping her hand over her mouth a second later. Her whole body shook.

  I can’t be pregnant, she thought wildly. And then, on the heels of that thought, Oh, yes, I can! And on the heels of that thought, a recognition: That’s what Jesse was asking the first time we made love.

  She shook her head in disbelief, her knuckles pressed to her quivering lips. She just hadn’t cared. She’d wanted him so much. She just hadn’t cared.

  She nearly ran over Nicole as she stormed out of the bathroom. “What’s with you?” Nicole demanded huffily.

  April shut and locked her bedroom door, her heart was slamming into her ribs. She had to find Jesse. She had to. She couldn’t face this alone.

  Calm down, she told herself. Wait. Think.

  Jordan.

  April threw on a pair of jeans and a white tank top. Her sandals slapped down the tile stairs. “I need the car, Mom,” she said at the arched entrance to the kitchen. Her mother was seated at the table, cradling a cup of coffee in her hands. Her father sat beside her. They both stared at April.

  “So early?” Madeline asked.

  April nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “Where are you going?” her father demanded.

  “Out.”

  “Out where?”

  April glared at him coldly. To her way of thinking, he was partially responsible for this mess. He’d hurt Jesse, then she’d hurt him some more. And now she needed Jesse desperately!

  “Go ahead, honey,” her mother said, trying to cool April’s boiling resentment.

  April left without another word. Her stomach quivered alarmingly as she drove toward town. Jordan had a summer job at one of the grocery stores. She hoped he was working.

  Luck was finally with her. As she parked the Volvo wagon, she saw Jordan opening the yellow plastic shades covering the store’s front windows in preparation for the day. After drawing several calming breaths through her teeth, then exhaling, April walked through the front door.

  “Jordan,” she said, the smile she gave him shaking uncontrollably.

  Jordan jumped down from the step stool, grinning. “You still in town? Here I thought you’d be long gone.”

  So Jesse hadn’t told him about them. April wasn’t sure how to go on.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, peering at her closely.

  “No. Yes.” Her nose burned. Her eyes watered.

  “What is it?” he demanded. “Hey, are you okay?”

  “Could I have a glass of water?” she asked, choking on the words.

  “Sure.” Jordan hurried off.

  April felt the store’s customers staring at her, but it was all in her imagination.

  Jordan returned and thrust a paper cup in her hands. Then he steered her toward the door, walking with her to the sunbaked alley between the grocery store and the office complex next door. “Okay, what the hell’s going on?”

  April sighed, tried to laugh and failed miserably. Several times she started to tell him about Jesse, but the words just wouldn’t come.

  Jordan put two and two together. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Jesse, does it?”

  She nodded, turning the cup around and around in her palms.

  “I told you how he felt about Windsor Estates girls. He must’ve told you himself. Forget him. It won’t work.”

  “You don’t understand. I love him.”

  Jordan looked as if he wanted to clap his hand to his head. “I don’t know what went on between you two. I don’t want to know. But April, Jesse’s not for you!”

  “I need to see him.”

  “He’s gone,” Jordan said, his voice tinged with pity.

  “What do you mean ‘gone’? Gone to another town to get a job?”

  “Gone to the military,” Jordan confessed. “He just up and joined the Army. He’s already left.”

  “That fast?”

  “I don’t know when he starts, but he’s gone. He just took off.”

  April felt the blood drain from her face. She thought she might faint. “He can’t have!”

  “We were all kind of surprised. It’s not his type of thing, if you know what I mean. But I guess he was s
ick of all the problems at home.” Jordan shrugged. “Too much responsibility.”

  April vision was blurred by tears of cold fear. She stumbled away from Jordan, shaking her head to all his apologies. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t even Jesse’s. It was her own.

  She asked Jordan where Jesse would be stationed, but he didn’t know. “What good will it do you, if you find out?” he asked. “He’s not coming back.”

  His words burned into April’s brain. This was too much truth to deny. But still, she went to the local recruiter, who was helpful until April admitted she wasn’t a member of the family. “I’m sorry, Miss Hollis. We can’t give out that information. You’ll have to find out Mr. Cawthorne’s whereabouts from his family.”

  April drove to a nearby town where no one knew her, bought a home pregnancy test and smuggled it up to her room. It tested positive.

  The next few days were the most difficult of April’s life. She had no one to turn to, no options. She was depressed and miserable. It seemed incomprehensible to her that scant months before, she’d thought her world was coming to an end because she wasn’t chosen Pink Carnation Ball Queen. What a laugh! She’d found out what the real world was like – the hard way.

  The night before she was to leave for school, April walked out to the gazebo, sat down on the wrought iron bench and drew her knees up to her chin. Her heart weighted her down. She was pregnant, and she lacked the courage to tell her family. Just thinking about her father’s reaction was enough to make her shiver uncontrollably.

  But choices were going to have to be made. Soon. Tonight. She pressed her fingers to her lips and shook her head, her lungs bursting with sorrow.

  “April?”

  She nearly jumped from her skin at her father’s voice. Feeling guilty, she scrambled to her feet.

  “What are you doing out here? Your mother’s made a special dinner to send you off to school. Nicole’s even managed to give up her date to stay home and be part of the celebration.”

  The smile in his voice broke April’s heart. “Dad?”

  “What, honey?”

  “I’ve got something to tell you.” She started shaking.

  “Okay,” he said slowly, obviously sensing her charged emotional state.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  In the awful moments that followed, April suffered two painful realizations: one, that she had indeed lived in the safe, insulated world Jesse had accused her of; and two, that it was time to make some life-affecting choices.

  “I see.” Peter Hollis sank onto the bench. “Is it too late to have an abortion?”

  Abortion? Jesse’s child? April was shocked out of her whimpering apathy. “Too late for me,” she stated emphatically.

  “Then you can stay with your aunt in Portland and give it up for adoption.” Her father got to his feet.

  “Adoption… Dad… ”

  “That’s the end of it, April,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  But April plowed on. “What if I want to keep it?” she asked in a tremulous voice.

  “Then you’re on your own.”

  April stared after him as he walked slowly up the brick pathway to the back door. She was numb. Her father had faults, but she’d never believed he could be so heartless.

  Anger swelled inside her. She straightened her shoulders. He couldn’t intimidate her. She wouldn’t let him. Somehow she was going to make it. All on her own.

  Chapter Six

  PART II: EVER AFTER

  April walked quickly through the employee entrance of Hollis’s in downtown Portland. Stairs led downward to the small vending room-cum-lunchroom, but April hurried toward the double doors to her right.

  “Good morning, Ms. Hollis,” Chris Daley greeted her differentially, holding the door for her.

  “Hi, Chris.” She made a face. “I’m late.”

  “They’re up in Women’s Shoes.”

  “Thanks. I know.” It was one of the few places with an abundance of chairs. Tossing Chris a bright smile, she walked rapidly across the main floor of the fifteen story building toward the escalator. Her steps were quick, determined, energetic.

  She hit the escalator, almost running, and halfway up to the second floor she heard the sales manager’s voice, extolling, “And our sales have picked up four percent this quarter. We’re way ahead of the San Francisco store!”

  It was a familiar voice. Shockingly so, she supposed. After all, who could have predicted that Jordan Taylor, Rock Springs High’s class clown – and Jesse’s brother, for God’s sake – would become so invaluable to April and her father?

  Cheers and applause broke out among the staff. April couldn’t help but smile. It was a major victory. Hollis’s in San Francisco consistently beat Hollis’s in Portland; this was the first time since she’d taken over as store manager that they’d come out on top.

  Jordan stood in front of the hundred-plus staff, holding out his hand for silence as April approached. “Store’s open in fifteen minutes!” he announced loudly. “See you all back at work.”

  The employees dispersed and drifted in groups past April. She waited, watching Roger Norville, the sales manager whom Jordan had displaced, walk up to Jordan for some advice. Jordan bent his head and listened, reminding April so much of Jesse in that moment that her breath caught, and she had to glance away to pull herself together.

  Fate certainly had a strange sense of humor, she reflected ruefully. She had barely been reconciled with her father and taken over the position of store manager when Jordan had come to her, asking for job.

  “I know it’s hard to believe,” he told her with disarming self-deprecation, “but I now possess an MBA in business administration. I’ve been involved in retail sales in San Francisco. I even thought about applying for a job at your store there, but then I decided to move back to Oregon.”

  To say she’d been surprised would have been an incredible understatement. She’d had no intention of hiring him. He was Jesse’s half-brother, and April’s relationship with her father was still too uneasy to take the chance that he might find out the two men were related. Peter Hollis would not understand.

  But April had been unwilling to let Jordan just walk out of her life altogether. He was her one and only link to Jesse. Though she hadn’t seen or heard from Jesse since that night on River Road, – was it really ten years ago? – that didn’t mean she’d forgotten him. How could she, when every time she looked at Eden, she saw the stamp of his good looks and personality. Never mind that Jesse’s willful daughter thought her father had died young. April knew the truth. And it gnawed at her soul.

  So April had hired Jordan, and business-wise, she hadn’t been sorry. He was excellent: quick; savvy; aware of marketing trends before they even materialized. But Jordan knew little more about his older brother than April did herself. Jesse lived in Portland, but Jordan rarely saw him.

  “It’s as if he doesn’t want to see me,” Jordan had complained once, during an unusually reflective moment when April had actually broached the subject. “Bettina’s in contact with him, I think, but she’s so closemouthed, it’s impossible to talk to her.”

  So the topic of Jesse was permanently shelved. April had removed Eden’s picture from her office as soon as Jordan was hired, feeling certain he would immediately recognize her resemblance to Jesse. She was unwilling to admit that Jesse was even Eden’s father. She suffered a bad moment when Jordan met Eden unexpectedly one day in the store, but either the resemblance wasn’t as great as April thought – undoubtedly a product of an uneasy conscience – or Jordan was as unaware of April’s past association with his brother as he appeared to be. As far as Jordan was concerned, April and Jesse had suffered a forgettable teenage romance. It was all past history now. Over. Unimportant.

  April wasn’t about to tell him the truth.

  “I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Jordan said to Roger, and the older man drifted away. Glancing up, he spied April and said, “Well, hello, there.” />
  “Sorry I’m late,” April apologized. “I’ll try to be prompt next time. My excuse is it’s Eden’s birthday. I was crazed this morning.”

  His grin was lazy. “Who’s the boss here? You, or me?”

  “Me.” She blushed a bit. Sometimes she felt like a usurper. She half-expected the employees who’d been with the store awhile to point their fingers at her and accuse her father of nepotism… which it was.

  She and Jordan walked toward the bronze and glass elevator lobby. It was decorated by thousands of twinkling kelly-green lights in honor of St. Patrick’s Day – the same day as Eden’s birthday.

  “Did you hear the report?” Jordan asked.

  “Four percent.” She nodded. “Not bad for a slow economy. Maybe we can try for five or six next quarter. What do you think?”

  “Slave driver. I swear, you’re worse than your father!”

  She laughed. “What did Roger want?”

  “Well, it’s no secret the men’s department is still losing money. I’m going to have to have another talk with Roger. I’m afraid we might have to move him again.”

  April grimaced. This is a tricky area. Her father really liked Roger, and though she and Jordan felt he wasn’t capable of running an entire department, they had to proceed with caution. “Good luck,” she said fervently, stepping inside the elevator.

  “Thanks.” His voice was dry. “I’ll need it.”

  The doors whispered shut as Jordan strode off in the other direction. April drew a breath stared impassively through the beveled glass panels, watching the floors slip away beneath her. At the tenth floor the elevator doors opened with a soft ding. Striding quickly down the carpeted hallway, she waved to the office personnel behind the counter. Turning a corner, she glanced over the mezzanine into the ninth floor – Private Collections, the most exclusive department in the store – then unlocked the solid mahogany door to her office.

  Her office.

  April exhaled heavily, resisting the urge to pinch herself, just as she did every day. It had been nearly ten years since her father had cut her off from her family – ten painful years – in which April had worked two jobs completed college courses at a southern Oregon community college – ten years, in which she’d struggled to make a life for herself and Eden.