Josie Day Is Coming Home by Lisa Plumley Page B

soon.
“How about twenty-five copies? That’s all. Just a measly twenty-five.
Please?”
    “Look.” The clerk frowned. “You
out-of-towners come up here, putting up your posters and your new subdivision
signs and whatnot all over the place, and then the city council gets all pissy
with me because of the litter! I’ve had it. No copies.” She glanced
sideways. “Sure, Trudy. Go right ahead and use that Xerox.”
    Josie watched, frustrated, as the other customer trundled
off to the beat-up copier.
    “Is there another copy shop in town?”
    “No.” The clerk seemed to try to hide it, but a
smug smile spread across her face anyway. “Looks like you’re out of luck.
Maybe you’d better go on back to Las Vegas.”
    Confused, Josie angled her head. “But I never told you
I was from—”
    “Oh, I remember you, Josie Day,” Permed Lady
interrupted. “We all do. We know what you’ve been up to, too.”
She leaned sideways and waved another customer forward. “Next!”
    Two more customers pushed to the counter, crowding Josie out
of the way. Flummoxed, she edged sideways. She wasn’t sure what to do. If she
didn’t get her copies, she couldn’t advertise, but….
    Several more smirks followed her. Two elderly women
whispered and pointed. Suddenly, Josie didn’t care quite so much about
generating dance school demand. Not today.
    Clutching her flyer, she bolted for the door. If she’d ever
needed a jazzy showgirl walk to help her hold her head high, it was now. But
she couldn’t quite manage it. Not when her so-called triumphant homecoming was
turning out to be so much harder than she’d expected.
     
    It got worse.
    Strolling down the cracked sidewalk bordering Main Street,
Josie wrinkled her nose at the exhaust billowing from the pickup trucks
putt-putting past. She took stock of Donovan’s Corner.
    She noticed which shops were new, which were renovated, and
which were the same old fabric store, convenience mart, and single-plex movie
theater she’d grown up with. She breezed past the chamber of commerce. She
dodged retirees out for their daily dose of fresh air. She pinpointed several
good locations for putting up her (future) dance-school flyers, since—as Josie
told herself firmly—there was no way that woman at Copies 2 Go was going to
keep her down for long.
    Then disaster struck.
    “Josie? Is that you?”
    Spinning, she confronted the owner of that voice.
    Her sister.
    “I thought that was you!” Jenna said, eyes
wide with surprise. Holding a toddler in one arm and a bulging purse in the
other, she looked exactly like what she was—a small-town wife and mother of
two. “What are you doing in town?”
    Awkwardly, Josie hugged her. “Just…a visit.”
    Jenna gave a disbelieving sound. “You haven’t visited
Donovan’s Corner since you hotfooted it for Vegas. Come on. What’s really going on?”
    Well, I inherited a mansion. Sort of .
    No. Josie couldn’t tell her that. Not yet. Telling Jenna the
truth would lead to the showgirl discussion, the saving-Tallulah discussion,
and the April Fool’s Day gullibility discussion. Then, as sisters, they’d be
forced to segue into the dance-school impossibility lecture, the copy-shop
scandal disclosure, and the general “why don’t you grow up?”
analysis.
    Josie wasn’t up for all that. Not when her elder
sister—who’d always done everything right—was standing there in her
nonscandalous blue jeans and oversize polo shirt, with her angelic little girl
and (probably) a sensible purse full of sensible grocery coupons and a sensible
shopping list. Full of healthy vegetables and prune juice.
    Nobody was telling Jenna she couldn’t use the Xerox
machines. Nobody was whispering and pointing and frowning at her. Josie would
be willing to bet nobody ever had.
    So what was really going on?
    Diversion. That’s what was going on.
    “Hey! Is this really little Emily? I don’t believe how
big she’s gotten!” Smiling, Josie leaned toward the