At two o’clock, Chad zipped along the driveway surprised to see Willow waiting for him so early.  As he neared, he saw her busily sanding something and sighed in relief.  She was working.  She wasn’t ready.  They still had time.
“Hey, whatcha doing?”
“Zucchini.  Why are you here so soon?  You said four.”
“I just thought I’d come help with anything you’re doing.  I feel bad about chopping up your day like this but it’s all we could think of.”
“You need me to get someone to the park.  Why me?”
“If it’s anyone else, Lily Allen will suspect but she’d never suspect you.”
Willow didn’t understand the nuances of carefully orchestrated surprise parties but she’d agreed to help.  “So we call.”
Chad punched in Lily Allen’s phone number and handed the phone to Willow.  She held up hands covered with grated zucchini and with panicked eyes shook her head.  Undaunted, Chad held the phone up to her ear and waited.  He wasn’t disappointed.
“Mrs. Allen?  This is Willow Finley.  I have a few things I could really use some advice on and I thought perhaps you’d be the best person to talk to…”
Chad barely kept a straight face as Lily demurred at first and finally capitulated.  The relief on Willow’s face and in her voice almost sent him over the edge.  However, they planned to meet at the church at four-thirty as Willow was instructed to arrange.
She pulled her head away rubbing another zucchini vigorously.  “I still don’t see how getting her to the church is going to hide anything.  She’ll see all the cars and know something is afoot.”
Amused at the choice of the word, ‘afoot’, Chad shook down the bag of zucchini and wiped his hands on the dry towel next to her on the swing.  “Well, you’ll get in there and it’ll be hot.  If I know Lily, she’ll suggest a walk to the park.  She loves the park.  If she doesn’t, all you have to do is suggest it yourself and voila.  You’ll cross the street, come around the corner hedge of juniper and voila!”
“But if she doesn’t like surprises, is this really a nice thing to do?”
Chad hadn’t counted on scruples.  He had carefully ensured that everything he said was absolute truth.  He’d just left out the part of whose party it was and that Lily knew all about it.  Willow’s job was to get Lily to a surprise party.  He’d never said the party was for Lily but he had said she always insisted that no one make a fuss over her birthday.
“Oh, Lily loves surprise parties.  She just asks us not to make a fuss over her.  We always do and she always has a great time.”
Three o’clock dragged past.  Willow continued to grate her zucchini.  Three-thirty came and went.  At four, she picked up another zucchini and it took every ounce of Chad’s self-control not to bean her with it.
“If you’re going to get changed to go into town and we’re going to be there by four-thirty, don’t you think maybe you should get changed?”
“I have to change?”
“Well, it is a party after all.  You’re soaked with sweat, your clothes are splattered with zucchini- Don’t you-”
“Party!  You said my job was to get her there!  You didn’t say anything about going to a party!”
His mind whizzed through the conversations about her role in getting Lily to a party and realized that to someone so unassuming, she wouldn’t realize that she was also invited.  “I’m sorry Willow.  I didn’t realize you wouldn’t know that it included an invitation to the party.”
“I picked enough zucchini to shred tonight when I got back.  I don’t have a gift.  I look awful!”
“Not quite,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?”
He grinned mischievously.  “I wouldn’t say awful.  You look like you’ve been working hard but I’ve never seen you look better.  Go take a quick shower and I’ll go pick a bunch of your flowers for her.”
It worked.  Willow raced inside with orders for him to put the zucchini in the summer kitchen.  While she dug through her closet for something to wear, Chad cut enough flowers for a huge bouquet.  He couldn’t help chuckling over the incongruity of her bringing herself flowers to her own birthday party.
She entered just as he wrapped the stems in a dampened kitchen towel.  “No don’t, I have a vase in the other room.  I’ll give it to her and she’ll have a gift that doesn’t die in a week.”
When she returned with the mosaic vase that he knew her mother had made, Chad protested forgetting for a moment that the gift would never be given.  “No you can’t.  I know you love that vase.  You can’t replace it!  Your mother-”
“It isn’t a gift if it costs me nothing.”
Curious, Chad glanced at her face.  “George Washington?”
A guffaw escaped before she could prevent it.  “David.  The shepherd.”
“I got the right gender anyway.”
They laughed as they climbed into Chad’s truck and sped toward the highway and then into town.  She left her vase of flowers with Chad and exited the pick up truck nervously.  “I’m going to blow this Chad.  I’m really not good at subterfuge.”
“You’ll do fine.  I’ve got to get out of here before she sees these flowers.  See you soon!”
Chad drove away as Willow climbed the steps to the church.  She entered the foyer and found Lily Allen waiting for her.  “Hi Mrs. Allen.  I’m so thankful you had time for me.”
“Oh Willow, I was just about to go outside and wait.  It’s stifling in here.  It’s hot as Death Valley in there.”
“Maybe we could find a place at the park? Willow suggested tentatively.
“Let’s go!”
As they rounded the hedge that blocked the corner view of the town square park, Willow shouted with everyone, “Surprise!”
The crowd rushed to welcome them and Willow stepped aside to make room for well-wishers but everyone gathered around her hugging her and offering well wishes.  “I thought-”
Lily made her way through the group and smiled.  “It worked!  Chad said it would but I didn’t believe him.”
“You were in on this?”  Willow’s eyes were filling with tears.  She grasped at any idea that’d keep her emotions in check.  Overwhelmed by both the thought and the sheer number of people, most of them virtual strangers, Willow’s eyes flooded and overflowed with gratitude and amazement.
Through the tears, Willow saw something large and white floating toward her.  She brushed them aside and saw the most immense bouquet of daisies and baby’s breath she could have imagined.  There was a face behind it, but she didn’t know whose.  Smiling, Willow pushed the daisies aside and squealed when she saw Bill’s face.
“You’re here!  I was just wishing you could be here!”  To everyone’s- well almost everyone’s- delight, Willow threw her arms around him.
Engulfing her in a bear hug and daisies, Bill wished her a happy birthday.  “You look amazing.”
“Did you stay over?”
“Chad let me sleep at his place,” Bill admitted.
Before they could talk any more, she found herself plunged into a whirlwind of gaiety.  Her daisies replaced the flowers for Lily Allen.  Chad, knowing the waste of perfectly good flowers would bother her, cut the top off an empty two-liter bottle of soda and used it as an impromptu vase.
At first, everything was overwhelming.  As the center of attention in a group larger than any group she’d interacted with in her life, she felt constricted and smothered.  Yet at the same time, there was something comforting in knowing that people who hardly knew her name cared enough to celebrate her birthday.
A cake procession made its way across Elm Street to the square and took its place of honor in the center of the gift table.  Willow had conscientiously been avoiding that table.  The idea of wrapped gifts from this lovely group of people was more than she could fathom.  A triple tiered carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and fresh daisies tucked in at the bottom- Bill couldn’t have ordered a more perfect cake if he’d tried.
She blew out twenty-three candles as the crowd sang Happy Birthday and then was delighted when the top tier was presented to her.  “Eat a piece now and take the rest home for Monday,” Bill whispered to her as she wondered aloud how to eat so much cake.
Chuck stood on the fringes of the group watching and looking a little out of place.  He knew how to be the intrusive and overbearing man who continually drove people away from him.  He didn’t know how to interact on an even playing field.  A grin split his face and proved he was much more handsome than anyone had ever noticed when Willow caught his eye and beckoned him to join them.
She’d noticed a man taking pictures of everything.  There were pictures of the guests, the gifts, the food, the children playing, and of course, of her.  While until now he’d been unobtrusive, he made his way through the crowd and declared he wanted a picture with “her men.”
Chuck was in his element.  He immediately stood behind her, a hand on each shoulder, looking proud to be included.  Bill and Chad, however, backed into the crowd behind them protesting.  Willow’s face registered disappointment and with a flick of his finger, the photographer had both men standing on each side of her, one foot on the bench, and grimacing terribly.
“Look guys, you don’t have to look like it’s torture to be with a pretty woman!”  The man winked at Willow.  “I’m Wes Hartfield by the way.  I’m Alexa’s brother.  Hope you’re having the best birthday you could have hoped for.”
“How could I not?” Willow teased glancing up at the faces above her.  “I always dreamed of being surrounded by handsome men.”
Wes snapped the perfect picture before she continued.  “Of course I always imagined them at around three feet tall in overalls and with homemade slingshots in their pockets.  Oh and freckles.  I wanted lots of freckles.”
A handsome man interrupted them abruptly as a band started playing a popular country song.  “I’m Joe Freidan.  I wondered if you might like to dance.”
“I’d love to but I don’t know how.  Maybe if I watch for a while.  Thank you though.”
He gazed thoughtfully at her for a moment and then held out his hand.  “Then let me teach you.  You’ll learn faster actually doing it and I’m a reasonably good instructor.”
She wasn’t a natural dancer but by the end of the song, Willow managed to master the rhythm of the Texas Two-Step.  Chad stepped in at the next song sending Joe to dance with Alexa.  Willow followed a little less hesitantly now that she was more familiar with both the steps and her partner and by the end of the dance, was quite familiar with the two-step.
As the evening wore on, the group became thinner and thinner until only a dozen or so of the singles group was left.  Willow had danced with every single man in the church as well as one of the other officers on duty.  Officer Martinez turned out to be a surprisingly great dancer.
The band announced their last song, Can I Have This Dance, and Chuck stepped forward but Willow caught something in Bill’s eye.  “You haven’t danced with me Bill.”
“There hasn’t been a song I know but I know this one.”
Willow thought Bill an amazing dancer.  She floated beside him through turns and whirls without ever learning the waltz.  “You didn’t tell me you were a great dancer.”
“I’m not.  I know how to waltz.  My grandmother insisted.”
“Well,” commented Willow calmly, “You definitely perfected it.  I could dance all night.”
Chuckling deeply, Bill pulled her a little closer and murmured softly into her ear, “No Willow, that’s another song and it isn’t a waltz.”
“Thank you Bill.”
“What for?”  He hadn’t mentioned his part in the birthday preparations and hadn’t intended to.
“For everything.  I asked Chad who planned it.”
Bill led her in a spin before he replied.  “I noticed your birthday; Chad did the work.  Well, he and his sister did.”
“I’ll thank her too when I can but you thought of it and you bought me those beautiful daisies.  It’s been wonderful.”
The last strains of the song ended but Bill stood as though ready for the music to begin again.  “I hate that song.”
“I think it’s beautiful,” she countered.
“It’s unkind.  She asks if she can dance for the rest of her life but the dance always ends.  If it’s for life, it shouldn’t end.”
Willow smiled up at him and stepped away.  “Perhaps she isn’t talking about a single dance to a single song but a dance as in a school or city dance where there are lots of songs and just as many different steps.  Life is the dance.”
“And he’s the partner she wants?”
Taking a glass of lemonade from Chuck, she grinned at both of them.  “It seems that way.”
“What?”  Chuck was lost.
“I know how she feels,” Bill murmured to himself.

***
One by one, Willow said goodnight to the remaining guests until Chad, Bill, and Chuck remained.  Chuck immediately offered to drive Willow home and since he was already going her way, he expected an easy agreement.  Bill offered as well saying, “I had hoped we could talk.”
On the other hand, Chad knew that he had to take her presents home- or at least one of them.  Most of the church had chipped in and purchased her a comfortable bicycle with baskets on the back and front.  He also knew that once she realized this, she wouldn’t hear of Bill or Chuck coming along too.  Another perfect chance to pass the baton to someone else slipped through his fingers.
“Do either of you have room for her bicycle?”
With that question, the issue was settled.  They piled the gifts into Chad’s truck; Willow waved cheerfully to Chuck and Bill, and rode off into the night with Chad.  Both men stared at the truck, then at each other, and at the highway, drove in opposite directions to their homes.
Meanwhile, Willow was silent all the way to the farm and as they carried the gifts inside.  As the realization of all she’d been given, the love and acceptance shown to her as almost a stranger, and the thoughtfulness of everyone at the party impressed upon her, she sank into her chair and sighed.  Chad watched concerned and confused until the packages were piled on the table and the bike stowed away.
“I didn’t say thank you.”
“You did,” he protested ineffectively.
“Not really.  Saying thanks here and there isn’t the same.  Mother would be so ashamed- Moth-”
She choked back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.  Chad thought she’d been stuffing down her grief again but this was further proof.  “You really don’t have to hold it in Willow.  It’s natural-”
Brushing aside tears, Willow glanced at the pile of gifts.  “Ok, you said one of these was from you; which one is yours?”
Feeling like he was contributing to the delinquency of a mourner, Chad pulled a small flat envelope from the middle of the pile.  It was wrapped in aluminum foil and sans a bow or card.  “This isn’t a real gift.  Not yet anyway.  It’s a ‘if you want it, I’ll get it but I wasn’t burdening you with it until I knew you wanted it’ gift.”
She carefully unfolded the aluminum foil, making a special effort not to tear it, folded it, and set it aside.  Somehow, he knew that it would eventually take up residence in her freezer.  The envelope announced ‘photos: do not bend’ which piqued her curiosity.
From inside, Willow slipped out a picture of a pair of lambs.  Her silence screamed at him until Chad couldn’t take it anymore.  “Well that’s why I didn’t buy one.  I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.  I’ll figure out something else.”
“Which one is mine?” she whispered.
“They’re both available so take your pick.”
Her head snapped up and she met his eyes.  “You mean these are the real sheep?  Not just an example?”
Chad explained that he’d gone to New Cheltenham and taken pictures of the lambs.  “They’re waiting for my call and then they’ll deliver her whenever you say.”
“Are both for sale?”
He was afraid of this.  Something in her tone told him she’d try to buy both since she’d always wanted a pair and then he couldn’t spend the money.  If he could have afforded both, he’d have offered both just to escape this issue.  “No.  One is already sold but if you want to buy the other they can deliver both.”
A sheepish expression crossed her face.  He couldn’t resist.  “How appropriate.”
“What?”
“You look sheepish.”
Willow’s laughter was genuine again.  “I had to try.  It’s the best present I’ve ever received.  Thank you.  Can you tell Bill to call them and pay for the other sheep?  I already fixed the fences so they can come anytime.  I’ll need more alfalfa though.  I didn’t plant enough for Wilhelmina and sheep this winter.”
He stood.  She’d accepted his gift.  It was time to go.  She was probably anxious to call one of the guys anyway.  “I’ve got to get going.  I’m glad you had a good time and I’m really glad you aren’t mad at me for using you to get you to your own party.”
“It was pretty ingenious.  I’ve read about all kinds of surprise parties and never has anyone used the guest of honor to get herself to the party.”
“Willow, nothing about you is common.  We needed an uncommon approach.”
***
The clock chimed midnight.  Willow wrote.  Genuine gratitude for several lovely pieces of fabric flowed from her heart and onto a hand decorated note card.  Lee had been so thoughtful.  She knew exactly what she’d make from each piece and she had all winter to do it.
A pile of notes with names but no addresses lay next to her.  There was one to Alexa for the book of Galactic Fairytales, one to the Allens for a CD of southern gospel music, and one to First Church at large for the bicycle.  She’d have to learn to ride that.
The beautiful papers from the Varneys were breathtakingly beautiful.  She had no idea such things were commercially available.  Obviously, Chad had told about their scrapbooks.  Mother- She wouldn’t think about Mother right now.
Two gifts remained.  She picked up the nearest one to her.  It was a tiny box with an even smaller card.  She opened it recognizing the writing.  It was from Bill.  “For memories past and future.  Happy Birthday, Bill.”
She carefully sliced open the paper with her letter opener.  Willow had a pile of beautiful wrapping next to her and she carefully flattened each piece for future use.  The box lid lifted carefully revealing a jeweler’s box.  Her fingers stroked the velvet gently.  She’d never seen a jeweler’s box but she recognized it from descriptions she’d read.
“Wow.  I see why people get excited about little ring boxes.  This is beautiful,” she whispered to herself as she pried open the lid.
Nestled against the white velvet lining of the box, lay a locket.  Marcasite and mother of pearl combined beautifully.  “And I thought the box was lovely!” she exclaimed.
Once her note was written, she pulled the final box to her.  Wrapped in comic paper, a twine bow, and without a card, the box gave no indication of the giver.  With as much caution as she’d shown with the other gifts, she sliced the tape from the box letting the papers fall aside.  She’d read those later.  Mother sometimes had brought home the comics section of newspapers and she’d saved them over the years.  They were treats for the rare occasions when she was sick.
The outside of the box advertised frozen waffles.  Somehow, Willow didn’t think the contents of the box reflected the pictures on the outside.  She opened the flaps and laughed.  Tears ran down her cheeks as she howled with mirth.  From within, she pulled a six-pack of Dr. Pepper and a Frisbee.
Taking up her last note card, Willow wrote her salutation.  “Mr. Charles Majors…”
If she could only see the faces of the people who received one of her thank-you notes!