1
THE BEGINNING
(About 5 years ago)
Dad is uncharacteristically serious as he walks into my room. “Sweetheart, we need to tell you something.”
Okay, this is weird. Not only his tone of voice, but also that he’s barged in here when he knows I’m getting ready for the auction. Even though he’s a dad of five girls, he still avoids the, in his words, super girly stuff.
“M-Mom?” I stutter as she follows him in. They take a seat on Sadie’s bed, across from where I sit on mine, hot flat iron in hand. I set it down on my nightstand in a hurry.
Now I’m nervous.
They’re tag teaming me? Jon Canton in business mode is intimidating enough but now he’s brought in Dr. Sandra Canton, looking every bit the renowned surgeon in her posture and expression, even though she’s in a black formal dress. It’s simple and conservative while still hugging her figure. Her hair is tied back from her face, the rich brown broken up by chestnut highlights that match dad’s light brown hair. Together, in the gown and tux, my parents are pretty stunning.
And terrifying.
“Whatever Skye said, I didn’t do it—” I start, having no idea what my cranky younger sister has pinned on me this time.
“You’re not in trouble, Susan.” Mom says gently. Still, I can’t exhale with relief yet. I look back and forth between the two of them and wait.
Not in trouble doesn’t mean I’m in the clear. My parents have stupid-high expectations. They can blame being in the public eye or the success of the family business all they want—I think they’d be the same driven perfectionists no matter their names or professions. It’s baked into their DNA.
And mine. Which is why my skin is trying to crawl right off my body. I did something wrong somewhere. I messed up. I hate messing up.
Mom looks back at Dad and raises her brows. He stalls, neither of them wanting to actually utter whatever it is they’ve come in here to say. Bye, bye, skin, nice knowing you.
“Well,” Dad clears his throat. “I know you’ve been seeing that Marcus kid.”
“Mark? We went on one date!” I say quickly. Mark is cute and nice but he’s not worth this itchy dread. I wasn’t sure I was all that excited for a second date anyway.
“Oh, uh, okay.” My father looks to my mother for relief. He doesn’t find any. “Still. You’re dating, you date, you go on dates…” He fumbles. I frown, confused. I’ve never seen my dad this awkward. “But you’re a junior now, almost senior, so, college is almost over, and dating can get, uh, more serious, you know? Your mother and I were serious at your age. So, uh…”
“Jon.” Mom scolds him under her breath.
“Okay, I’ll just say it. You’re going to have to break up with him.”
“With who?”
“Mark.”
“We’re not together!”
“Right. Good. Because there’s no point.” I start to ask what that means but Dad goes on quickly. “No point in dating because we have the perfect guy for you.” He stares at me, waiting, like what he said answered the one thousand questions barreling through my mind. I just tilt my head, trying to puzzle it out. He sighs before going on. “We’ve arranged something. Someone. For you.”
“Ohhhh, you want to set me up with someone on a date. You don’t have to be weird about it, Moms do this all the time. Mom, it’s one of your doctor friend’s sons, right?”
She is still glaring at dad as she answers me. “No.”
“We’re not talking about just a date, Susan.” He won’t look at me as he goes on. “It’d be a lot more than that. A lot of dates, a year at least and then, well, engagement, I guess?”
“Engagement?”
“Then you’ll get married. M-marriage. We’ve got the perfect guy for you to marry.”
“Wait.” I think I say? Or maybe I laugh the word. I’m confused. Because he can’t be saying what it sounds like he’s saying right now.
“He’s perfect for you and well, sweetheart, he’s perfect for us, your family.”
“Dad, you’re not making sense. Like, at all.”
Mom sighs and he slumps a little bit, finally getting to his point. “Perfect for Canton Cards. It’ll be a marriage and a business arrangement at the same time.”
“What?” My heart is pounding now, along with my head. “Are you guys joking? Sam put you up to this. Or Sadie. An idea from a play or something.” Neither of my parents nod or smile. “Right? This isn’t the eighteen hundreds, arranged marriages are not a thing, right?” My voice rises and twists like the ceiling fan whirring above us. “Right?”
“They are. They happen all the time in business, with celebrities, old money families, overseas in other cultures, they are, sweetheart.”
“Good one, really. Sam?” I call out to the doorway so my sisters can hear down the hall. “You can come out now, Sadie, Skye, Sally! Y’all got me!”
“Susan. They’re not here.” Mom says in the same low tone she used earlier for Dad.
“Mom?” Neither of them concede, they just look at me, waiting. “Mom! You can’t be serious. You want me to marry some guy just for our family business? Is that even legal? No, this is not real. Can’t be.”
“Just hear me out, Susan,” Dad starts, but I stand and try to leave the room. My mom puts her hand on my arm. It’s a soft touch but it stops me in my tracks.
“Mom!” I screech. “You cannot be on board with this! Dad and his obsession with expansion and projections and all that, sure, whatever, but you? You can’t really—”
“You can say no,” Dad raises his voice slightly, taking control of the conversation. Then he softens. “You can say no. But I’m asking you to give it a chance, to commit to dating at least a year, with the goal of a proposal and a quick wedding after that. We need this. Your family needs you.”
“ Canton Cards needs me. I’m not just an employee, Dad; I’m your daughter! Mom, what is happening! Seriously? How could you agree to this?”
I love Canton Cards. It’s a multi-million dollar greeting card business now, about to be in gifts and retail, about to expand outside of just the US and Canada. But my grandfather started it in his garage. For the first time, I have negative feelings toward our family legacy.
My mother responds, “I agreed because arranged marriages have an above-average success rate. And because of who it is.”
Who.
Who!
They’re serious. Dad says I have a choice but I can see it in his eyes, this is a done deal. He’s picked some guy to be my husband. The realization of it hits like a million bricks, first in my brain, then they fall, landing square in the pit of my stomach. I fight the urge to heave. I don’t have to ask, I look at Dad with wide eyes.
“Joshua Bell.”
I…
I exhale. I blink.
At least, I think I’m blinking?
“Bell Construction, you know? Here in Oklahoma. They’re right up on the precipice of national expansion, just a few years ahead of us. And, well…Canton Cards is…in trouble.” My father swallows and my mother frowns. My pulse starts to pound like a jackhammer…used in construction! Ah! This cannot be happening.
“Dad?” My mouth is dry because, forget awkward, my father, pillar of positivity and strength, looks downright scared.
“Your uncle made a few very big, very wrong decisions. I thought he was building out our own construction arm within the retail sector of our company. And, well, he wasn’t. Bell Construction got royally f—uh, screwed by your uncle’s schemes. They’ve agreed not to press any charges against us if…” My dad shakes himself and carries on, a hopeful mask back on his face. “If we can make this work. See, the Bells also agree that commercial real estate is a key component in building a legacy. They’re willing to partner with us and save us from the public scandal and…bankruptcy. Together we’ll buy the land and build shopping centers for all our retail stores, rather than just renting spaces as we grow. Our contract is huge, since we’ve already grown well outside Oklahoma. It pushes them to the next level and they… they save us, Susan.”
My mother sniffs.
“Not just us,” Dad adds after looking at her. His eyes mist up as well. “We have thousands of employees. Thousands of families, kids and loved ones, people who rely on us to succeed just to put food on their tables. The Bell family…” he straightens up, hope coursing through him again. “They are old money, oil money. The oil happened to dry up, but their connections didn’t. Their culture. The Bells have arranged their marriages for generations. Happily so, if you ask them. No divorces. Not one.”
“Josh Bell…” I whisper.
“Leeland Bell is a bit stuffy but he’s a good man, you’ve seen him at church.” Dad piles on more cement blocks in my gut. “They’re a nice, good, Christian family.”
I scoff. “Good Christian family? What’re you going to tell me next, Dad, this is God’s will for me? I mean, what if I have some other life calling! What if God wants me to be a missionary in Africa!”
Dad dips his chin at me and looks out from under his bushy eyebrows. “Does He?”
I grind my teeth. I’ve already told my parents I want to work in the business after I graduate. Dad already knows I love his, okay our, our greeting cards and gifts and our cute new retail stores.
I used to beg to go to work with him at the corporate office. I even snuck into the back of Grandpa’s giant town car once, just so I could stow away to the warehouse. I’ve been organizing product closets and color coding file folders since I was seven.
They know me. They know I love Canton Cards. They know I hate disappointing them.
And my mother.
She knows that Josh Bell is scorching, surface-of-the-sun, is-he-even-real hot. I think back to the last time I saw him on campus before he graduated three years ago. Everyone stared and a couple freshmen girls around me even pointed. That was before he was drafted to the NBA. He didn’t last long but he made a big splash. The media loves him so he got a lot of TV time. I’d heard he was already out of the game and back in Tulsa, doing remote interviews and sports commentary.
The bricks in my stomach start to morph into something light and floppy.
“Josh. Bell.” I say again.
“He already agreed, of course. Who wouldn’t want to marry my Susan?” Dad says, smiling a little too hard.
I picture Josh, on the big screen at OU games. On the big screen in this house, on ESPN, beaming down into our living room. He’s like a young, dark Tom Brady, but in a different sport. He’s…I’m…I groan, starting to feel humiliation rush up my cheeks. “Agreed? Agreed…like I’m agreeing right now? He’s Josh Bell!”
“And you’re Susan Canton. It’s not like he doesn’t know you, sw—”
“Don’t sweetheart me, dad! There’s no way superstar NBA hottie Josh Bell knows who I am!”
“Susan,” Mom calms me down with a light touch on my elbow and her even, factual tone. “He does. Just like you know the Bells, they know us. We go to all the same Sooner games, church and city community events, weddings and fundraisers.”
“Fund…” Those floppy butterflies in my digestive track turn right back to stone. “You mean tonight!” I swallow. “Josh Bell is going to be at the auction tonight.”
“Yes. Leeland and I came to an agreement this week and I’ll tell ya what he said! He said Josh was expecting something arranged and is excited how he made out! Said he was pumped he landed such a gorgeous, smart, sweet girl.” Dad’s chest puffs up with pride but Mom quickly elbows him in the side. “Right, yeah, and I told him it was up to you, that we’d talk to you about giving it a try, dating at least a year.” I still can’t believe the words coming from the mouth of my cheesy, loving, usually sane father.
“And if I don’t? If I can’t? What if he doesn’t like me? What if we don’t get along? What if—”
Dad holds up his hands to calm me but I can see they are trembling a bit. “Then we pay them back, we file bankruptcy and use the year to get organized and regroup...somehow.”
He is saying the words but he’s not believing them. It’ll be the end of Canton Cards, the end of growth, expansion. The end of my grandpa’s dream and my family’s legacy. Probably the end of my father.
No pressure!
I shake my head at my mother. She lifts a shoulder. “We cannot help the situation your uncle put us in. And I didn’t think you’d mind dating Joshua Bell for any length of time. He’s an accomplished, driven, young man from a good family. Not to mention how cute the boy is.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dad huffs at her comment, still ridiculously possessive of his wife’s attention. I would think it was cute if my life wasn’t being disassembled and rearranged this very evening. His eyes slide back to mine. “Look, meet him tonight and just talk to him. Your sisters aren’t going so you guys can get started, begin dating.”
I tug at a string on my cheery Vera Bradley bedspread. I resist the urge to pull it until the whole colorful design unravels…like my life as I knew it.
My sisters aren’t going. Of course not. Because they’d sniff out the weird arrangement in under a second. I twist the string around a few fingers until it hurts.
“Start pretending you mean!” My voice cracks as I release the thread. “So we can start lying to everyone.” I hate the idea of lying, especially to my sisters. And it’s insane that Mr. Morals, Captain of our Good Christian Family, is asking me to do so. “So much for God’s will, huh? What about me leading by example, doing what’s right, all that crap you’ve told me all my life! Now you want me to lie?”
“It won’t be a lie. It’ll be a real, true test. You tell your sisters I set the two of you up, that’s the truth.” I huff but he leans toward me, his eyes pleading. Finally, he looks apologetic. “If I could do this for you, if I could get you out of this, save you, I would.”
“What happens if we date a year and I don’t? Get us out of this?”
The two of them look between each other. “Like I said, we have a back up plan, a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it. If we come to it.” My father says the word but his tone makes it clear. This needs to happen and the year-long timeline is just to solidify the lie, lay the groundwork. He goes on, “All I’m asking of you tonight is that you just talk to him. Size him up. See what you think. It’s up to you. It’s your choice if you think you can do it for your family, Suze.”
Do it for your family.
That line from the Godfather passes through my brain, as if what I need at this moment is one of the million movie quotes I’ve got stored away. Never go against the family. The Cantons are no crime family but this whole idea feels very dark, very heavy.
For the first time in my life, at twenty-one, I actually want to cuss out my parents. I have my first urge to rebel, scream, break things.
Because they’ve got me.
If there’s one thing I can’t do, it’s let my family down.
And it infuriates me that my mom’s not wrong. I mean, chatting up a gorgeous NBA player is no real hardship. I’m already fighting an excited smile and she knows it and I hate that she knows it.
But darn, no damn it! Damn it all to hell, she’s right.
The stomach stones are growing wings and starting to flutter again as I think about it. Because there are definitely worse things in the world than having to date the one and only Josh Bell.
I just hope he’s as dreamy up close as he’s always seemed from afar.