Chapter 63
Right away, McKenna knew there’d been a mistake.
“Good evening,” a weathered-faced man with shockingly white hair and a matching goatee said upon entering. His friendly smile looked as broken in as the cowboy boots, blue jeans, and long-sleeved denim shirt he was wearing. “Pleasure to meet you all. I’m Harry.”
This man wasn’t Harry.
“Oh, the pleasure is all ours, Harry,” said Georgie as she stepped forward to grasp his hand. “We are so happy to have you here. Just so, so happy. Thank you for coming. Truly. This is such an honor for us.”
McKenna stole a peek at the others, who all remained in ramrod position, grinning at Harry. Why were they grinning at Harry? This man wasn’t Harry.
“Oh, trust me,” said Harry, who wasn’t Harry. “The pleasure and honor is all mine. I’ve been counting down the days for this event. Saturday can’t get here fast enough as far as I’m concerned. I can’t even begin to tell you how thrilled I was to receive your email.”
“Well,” Georgie said with a girlish laugh McKenna had never heard from her before. “Trust me, Harry. As thrilled as you may have been, I guarantee you we were even more thrilled to get your email saying that you were coming.”
Before this got any weirder, McKenna stepped forward and grabbed Georgie’s hand.
“Excuse us. I know you just got here and we’re only getting started on the introductions, but I need to borrow Georgie for a few minutes.
We’ve got ourselves a bit of a pickle-salad crisis in the kitchen. You know how that is.”
“Of course,” he said as if pickle-salad crises were an everyday occurrence. “I’ll just go ahead and grab the rest of my things if that’s okay.”
“Need a hand carrying anything in?” said Gus.
“Oh, I’m sure Harry can manage,” said McKenna, grabbing Gus by the bow tie and motioning with her head for Barb to follow them into the kitchen. “You know what they say. Pickle salad can be a fickle beast. If we don’t get on top of this now . . .”
“Completely understand,” said Harry. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere,” he added with a good-natured laugh.
Soon as the front door closed behind him, McKenna shoved everyone into the kitchen, then pointed toward the front of the house. “Who in the world is that?”
“Harry,” Georgie said with a What do you mean who in the world is that? look on her face.
“Harry? Harry Who? Because I assure you that man is not Harry Connick Junior.” McKenna reached for her phone, then remembered this dress didn’t have pockets. Her phone wasn’t on her.
“Of course he is,” said Barb.
“Why else would he be here?” said Gus.
“Because Georgie emailed him, apparently,” said McKenna.
“Exactly,” said Georgie.
“But you didn’t email Harry Connick Junior. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Then why would Harry Connick Junior be here if I didn’t email him?” said Georgie.
McKenna wanted to shake Georgie by the shoulders of her polka-dot green shirt. “Don’t you know what Harry Connick Junior looks like?”
Georgie folded her arms. “People look different in person than they do in pictures.”
“But they don’t look like completely different people.”
“This conversation is getting more knotted than my bow tie,” Gus mumbled.
“Give me your phone,” McKenna said to Georgie. Why she didn’t do this much sooner she’d never know. Maybe because, just once, she’d wanted to hope that something good could land on her doorstep without her having to work so dang hard to get it.
But obviously that wasn’t the case. McKenna turned the phone screen around so everyone could see what she had just seen. “Harry Connick Junior is on tour right now in Australia. He has a concert tomorrow night in Sydney.”
Barb covered her mouth. “Then what’s he doing here?”
“He’s not here,” McKenna whisper-shouted. “This is Harry Connick Junior,” she said, pointing at the screen. “That—” she pointed to the front of the house—“is not this.”
“Then who is that?” said Gus.
“Some other Harry that you somehow emailed,” said McKenna.
Georgie stared at the phone screen, the color in her face draining. “So what is this Harry going to do on Saturday night?”
“I don’t know,” said McKenna. “What did you ask this Harry to do Saturday night in your email?”
“Pretty sure I just asked him to do his thing.”
“Oh good gravy,” Gus muttered. “That could be anything.”
“But it might be a good thing,” said Barb, ever the optimist. “Maybe he’s even more talented than Harry Connick Junior.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing,” said Georgie with a whimper.
“So what do we do?” said Barb. “Do I still give him my tomatoes?”
“Save them. We may need to throw them at him if his ‘thing’ isn’t any good Saturday,” said Gus.
“What am I going to tell Oliver?” said McKenna. Never mind her portfolio.
“What am I going to tell Lottie?” said Georgie.
“Nothing yet,” said Barb. “Let’s not panic. Not until we know all the facts. We still don’t know what this guy does. Or even who he is. Maybe the wrong Harry will turn out to be the right Harry. There’s still hope. Besides, we can’t just hide in the kitchen all day.”
“Why not? Pretty sure Evie’s never leaving the bathroom,” said Gus.
The front door opened, and Harry’s voice carried from the entryway. Along with another voice. “Nate,” whispered McKenna.
“Quick,” said Georgie. “We need to warn him about the wrong Harry before he says something about the right Harry, and Wrong Harry realizes he’s not Right Harry and then we’re stuck with no Harry at all.”
“Huh?” said Gus.
“I changed my mind,” said Barb. “I want to hide in the kitchen all day.”
McKenna didn’t blame her. “Nate,” McKenna said, rushing to greet him with Georgie nipping at her heels. “You’re back. I’m so glad you’re back. Are you hungry? Come get—”
“I see you’ve met Harry,” Georgie said.
McKenna spun and frowned at Georgie. What was she doing? The whole idea here was to get Nate away from Wrong Harry, not point him out.
“Yeah,” said Nate, his warm appreciative gaze focused on McKenna and her new dress. Until he must’ve registered Georgie’s words. “Wait, no. You’re Harry?”
Nate stepped back to give Harry a more thorough examination. “The Harry?” he said after his examination clearly left the need for more clarification.
“I’m the Harry,” Harry said, grinning like he’d never been called the anything before, but he liked the sounds of it.
“The Harry that got the invitation to come perform a concert in the backyard?” Nate said, obviously still needing more clarification.
Harry’s smile dimmed for the first time.
“Yep, Nate,” McKenna said, swooping in and wrapping an arm around Nate with the type of grip that hopefully conveyed how she would explain things later. “This is the Harry Georgie invited. And we are so . . . so amazed that he’s here. Aren’t we, Georgie?”
“So amazed.” Georgie waved a hand to Nate. “You should tell Nate here what it is you do, Harry. I think he’d love to hear that. Go ahead and tell him about your thing.”
“Oh. Well.” Harry batted a palm in the air. “Not sure you’d really call it my thing, but . . . well, yeah. I guess in a way you could call it my thing. It is the thing I’m pretty much known for even though it’s not really the type of thing—”
“Just tell him the thing,” blurted Georgie. “When you’re ready,” she added with a pained smile.
“Bass. Double bass,” Harry said with a nod.
“Double bass,” McKenna echoed back with a few nods of her own. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember, but is that the name of your band or . . . ?”
“It’s the instrument I play.” He motioned playing one of those big stand-up basses.
“Although I was in a band at one time. Maybe you’re thinking of that.
For a while we were really playing the circuit out in Elko, Nevada.
Hitting up all the casinos. Thought maybe someday we’d make it to Las Vegas, but you know how it is with bands.
Sometimes you get a little too caught up with the fame.
The girls. Or in our case, the nap times and arthritis.
Want a little advice? Never start up a band with guys in their seventies. It can only last so long.”
“So playing bass by yourself? That’s your thing, is it?” McKenna clutched on to Nate for support. He patted her back, obviously putting the pieces together that some Harry nobody’s ever heard of slapping his bass for a few hours was not the perfect proposal experience they’d been aiming for.
“How about I show you up to your room, Harry?” Nate led him up the stairs.
Soon as they disappeared out of sight, McKenna spun toward Georgie ready to give her an earful, only to have Gus step out of the kitchen and say, “You’re not going to believe this, but another Harry just wandered into the kitchen, claiming he got an email from your granddaughter to put on a show this Saturday. Says he’s a podcast host.”
That’s when the front door opened, and another man, this one tall and lanky despite a stooped back, stepped inside. “Howdy, folks. I’m Harry. Hope I’m at the right place.”
“Lord, save us,” muttered Gus. “We’re getting plagued by Harrys.”