Epilogue
“How many different shades of pink paint does one person need?” In the Home Depot parking lot, Harlan stares into the back of his Jeep, his daughter on his hip.
Alex holds out her silver wand with silver and pink streamers coming out the top of a plastic star. She pops each of the paint cans with her wand as she counts. “One. Two. Free. Four!”
He looks at me. “I thought we were getting paint for the set of our backyard play. Apparently I shouldn’t have left you in the paint section unsupervised for”—he uses air quotes—“‘one more thing.’”
“We did get paint for the play. Those are the fifth and sixth cans. The pink cans accumulate to be the”—I use my own air quotes—“‘one more thing.’”
“Uh-huh. And why do we need all the pink?”
“We’re painting my room!” Alex booms before she pushes up and gives her daddy a loud, demonstrative kiss on his cheek.
He leans in and stage-whispers to me, “I thought we painted her room pink last week—”
“We did—”
“Pepto-Bismol pink.”
I grin. “Yes.”
He scratches his chin. “Then why do we need four more cans of pink paint?” He looks at Alex, horrified. “Are we painting the entire house pink?”
She lets out a beautiful giggle. “No, Daddy. We need an ashent wall.”
He looks to me, confused.
I close the back of the Jeep. “While I love the thought of a house full of pink rooms on a ranch, what I think Alex is referring to is an accent wall.”
“Hold that thought and stay there,” he says to me.
He helps Alex clip into her car seat and closes the back door.
Then he stalks my direction, a mischievous look on his face.
When he gets to me, he pulls me in and kisses me.
Not too much for public, but something almost too much for public.
With his hands around my back, he asks, “What in the world, Meredith? An accent wall?”
I rest my hands on his shoulders and get mock serious with him. “Harlan, I tried.”
“Clearly”—he nods to the trunk and says in an amused voice—“you did not try.”
“You weren’t there,” I say, shaking my head. “You didn’t see how she was looking at me.”
“Oh, I can imagine.”
“I did try. She got ahold of the paint samples and found the pink family and started naming off which color everyone’s room was going to be.
She had your nephews in hot pink and bubblegum rooms. I thought my idea to take the paint chips and create a piece of art to hang in her room was a brilliant idea. ”
“That is brilliant.”
“Right? But then she took it and ran with it, wanting each of her walls and ceiling to be different shades of pink. You should be glad I got her talked down to an accent wall.”
His lips twitch. “But there are four shades of pink in my car.”
I let my forehead fall to his chest and finally admit the one area of defeat. “Stripes.”
His chest moves with his chuckles. “Did you say ‘stripes’?”
I nod against his chest. It’s not a bad place to be. “Pinkalicious, Bashful, Pink Pizzazz, and Pretty-in-Pink will join Bubblicious on the wall in different widths of stripes.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
He lifts my chin so I have to look him in the eyes. “You’re amazing.”
“She’s amazing,” I whisper.
The last three weeks have included more and more time with Alex.
On special days, we have tea parties and movies.
On normal days, we have rides from preschool with singalongs and, at night, discussions about dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.
I like the normal days the best. They’re a picture of our lives to come, and they settled in Alex the same way they settled in me once I said yes to Harlan. Peacefully.
Harlan squeezes me. “I’ve gotta get my girls home. We have one week before we need the set finished for the one and only showing of our backyard play. And apparently we now have an accent wall to paint.”
My girls. I hope I never get used to that.
“One more thing,” I add, pulling away strategically before I land the punch line.
“Yeah?” he asks in a skeptical tone, squinting one eye. I deserve this reaction. I’ve been the queen of “one more thing” over the past several weeks.
“There’s been a costume change for you in our play.”
“I already have a prince outfit.”
We had discussed his Hollywood ties and his options for the perfect Alex-requested prince costume. Instead, Harlan bought a T-shirt that said, “Isn’t it obvious? I’m the prince.”
Alex was not pleased. Which is why, my guess is, she came up with this idea. Give a girl some room to be creative and she comes up with a genius idea.
“You are still the handsome prince. You just have a different costume,” I say, walking around the edge of the car. I peek back and add, “It’s more organic to the original roots of the play.”
“Meredith,” Harlan says, stone-faced with a playful warning tone.
“It was her idea to do the play to announce to everyone that we’re engaged.” I shrug as if to say what can we do? “I think we have to go with it.”
Grinning, I get into the car and buckle my seat belt. Harlan does the same, then looks to me, then to Alex, then back to me.
Shaking his head, he puts the car in reverse and backs out of the space. “I don’t think you two should shop alone anymore. You seem to get into a lot of trouble. And I don’t even know what you guys have planned yet.”
I glance back to Alex, we lock eyes, and we both laugh.
Harlan once told me he loved the sound of my laughter. But I like Alex’s better.
With my stomach in knots and our audience in place, it seems we’re ready for our Twelve Bluebells Ranch production of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.”
Prissy and Harlan’s family sit on the front row of folding chairs that face the back porch of the ranch house. The second row holds my parents, Molly, and her family. Sally insisted she and her kids sit in the back row because Toby and Layla like to work the crowd.
The good news is that our stage debut coincided with Easter weekend, so my family can be in the audience.
The bad news is that I’m missing Claire, who stayed home to be with her parents, but she has known I’m engaged since the day Harlan put a ring on my finger because that’s what happens with best friends.
I smile at Claire over FaceTime. “He’s going to kill me,” I say through a giggle.
“Please tell me that whatever he’s wearing, you’re going to post this on social media so the world can see,” she says from her parents’ backyard swing.
“Not on your life. He wants no part of publicity.”
Her face softens. “I kind of love that for you. You don’t have the pressure of the spotlight.”
No one wants my story plastered for the public.
But it’s more. He told me he wants to focus on our life here and let his mentoring take root.
He’ll still be connected to the industry, so I still need to work on being around famous people.
But for the most part, for us, we’ll just be a normal family here at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
“Are you wearing your cowboy boots?” she asks.
I move the camera down to show the Texas flags on my boots. “Only because a small pink fairy named Alex told me I could.”
“Maybe she’ll be a costume designer someday.”
“Just wait until you see Harlan. Okay, I’m handing you off to Penelope, who is going to keep FaceTime going during the show. Love you.”
The chiffon layers of my long, pink princess gown flow against my legs as I step to Penelope and hand her my phone.
She nods, gives Claire a quick hello, and says to me, “Showtime. Everyone is in their place.”
“Even Harlan?”
Penelope can’t keep a straight face. It’s subtle, but her lips twitch with a small smile. “He refused to go on stage and told me to call his agent.”
I cover my hand with my mouth and laugh. “What did you do?”
“I sicced Alex on him. It worked. He’s in place.”
Penelope. Beautiful, kind, and the most brilliant, efficient, and productive person I know.
I step to take my place at the side of the porch, knowing Harlan is behind the door to the house so he can make a grand entrance at the end of the play.
Harlan cracks the door open. I can’t see much, but he is for sure glaring at me. “I cannot believe you did this to me.”
I purse my lips, trying not to laugh. “It was Alex’s idea. She’s the writer and director of this production.”
“I feel sure you could have told her that this particular getup wasn’t available.”
“You want me to lie to your daughter?” I ask as if I’m offended.
“You should’ve had to wear the counterpart to this.”
“She told me I had to be a princess.” I shrug and look as innocent as I can. “What could I do? Plus, I’m sure you’ve had movies where you didn’t care for the costumes.”
“Is this what life is going to be like from here on out? My daughter and almost-wife laughing at me?”
I lean into the door and whisper, “I don’t know, honey, but I sure hope the future holds as much laughter as the three of us have had in the last few weeks.”
Our makeshift bridge sits in the middle of the porch, the green and brown paint we purchased at Home Depot giving our set some definition.
Spence trudges up to the stage and sits in front of the bridge with his legs cocked up and his hands around his knees.
As our resident troll, he wears a pair of brown jeans and a ripped-up green T-shirt.
For kicks, he added a wig full of short auburn crazy hair and a big gray nose.
He’s the only one in the play who has the wrong script and doesn’t know how the production really ends.
He sighs loudly and dramatically.
“Daddy!” Toby yells as Layla squeals. The crowd chuckles.
Alex walks onto the stage, fairy wings, crown, and wand in place, and announces, “‘The Thwee Billy Goats Gwuff.’”
Everyone claps.
Spence crosses his arms and says in a loud, low voice, “I wonder who will try to cross my bridge today.”
Alex walks behind the set to give the picture that she’s on the bridge.
Spence rubs his belly. “Who dares to cross my bridge? I sure would like to gobble someone up for a snack today.”
“It’s me,” Alex says. “Don’t eat me. Merweradith is coming.”