Heart Land Read online

  Praise for

  Heart Land

  “A heartwarming, faith-based tale of a driven woman struggling to straddle small-town life with big-city aspirations.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Heart Land is a fun-filled romp with heart! Stuart has a fun, lighthearted voice, which is exactly what the world needs right now! If you’re in need of a humorous pick-me-up with romance and warmth, this book comes highly recommended.”

  —Kristin Billerbeck, author of The Theory of Happily Ever After

  “A love letter to small-town Iowa . . . I’m tucking Heart Land onto my keeper shelf.”

  —Hillary Manton Lodge, author of Jane of Austin

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  To my parents, two Iowa kids who have built something beautiful

  one

  No one had said anything about farm animals.

  Three minutes to midnight in a cavernous Manhattan loft, dark except for the lights we’d brought in for the photo shoot, and my view was entirely taken up by three leggy models holding sheep. Sheep. As in woolly coats and blank expressions and a reputation for being daft. There were three small ones, lambs, if we were being technical, and each of the models clutched her own. I wasn’t sure who looked more terrified, the animals or the women.

  One of the lambs bleated loudly, and Akeyo, the model on the far left, startled, causing the photographer to bark for neutral faces.

  I shifted in my boots, a glorious pair made of the softest charcoal suede. They were a complete indulgence, a splurge from a month prior when I was finally allowing myself to believe I could soon be vacating my position as a design assistant at Milano, one of the premier fashion houses in New York, and heading at last into the designer role that had my name on it. The final edict would come down tomorrow, and in a moment of pre-promotion hopefulness, I’d tugged on my new boots in the early morning hours. Turns out, I’d been suiting up for an interminable workday. And turns out, these boots with the three-inch heel, so perfect at nine a.m., eleven a.m., even three p.m., were spawn of Satan every minute after eight.

  I checked the clock on my phone again and bit my lower lip to stifle the groan. We had hit the nine-hour mark into the Photo Shoot of Doom.

  Taking a deep breath in, I let it out slowly, reminding myself again that tonight would mark the end of long days without purpose and that tomorrow held the promise of something entirely different. Slow breath in, slow breath out, I thought as I watched the assistant to the photographer’s assistant rush up with a bottle of water and a pack of chewing gum.

  Isa snorted quietly next to me. “I think we passed the point of cleansing breaths when the first model broke out in hives.”

  Isa had started her job as a junior visual merchandiser at Milano the same week I had been brought on as a design assistant. We had gone to the Fashion Institute of Technology together, both of us finishing at the top of our class, and we had struck up a fast friendship over our love for vintage Dior and our disdain for sensible shoes.

  “Remember clogs and how we hate them?” I whispered, sucking in a sharp breath as I moved too quickly and felt the sting of a new blister.

  Isa raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow. “I do remember. A sister never forgets.”

  I shook my head, my whisper rising in volume. “I’m leaving the sisterhood. I love clogs. I want them. Big, ugly ones with arch support and horrible, thick leather soles that make me look like a chef. Or a Midwesterner.”

  Isa tsked. “You can take the girl out of—”

  Her words stopped abruptly when Javi, the senior designer in charge of the shoot, threw a clipboard across the room.

  “Iowa!” he shrieked, shielding his eyes from the glare of lights.

  I jumped and headed toward him, dodging the art director, the creative director, and an impossibly tall makeup artist who was beelining for Akeyo with a tube of lipstick, deep wine color already bared. I walked across the room cringing at the nickname Javi had christened me with for the photo shoot. In general I tried to forget my state of origin. In general I found others much less willing to forget. Doing my best not to shuffle or whimper with every blistered step, I picked through the electrical cables snaking around the photographer and her crew.

  “How can I help, Javi?” I asked, bright smile in place.

  “Grace, thank God you’re here and not one of those other idiots in your department.”

  My smile remained fixed. I knew two things: first, that Javi thought we were all idiots, me included, and second, that he had given that same faux compliment to every person on our team at one time or another. “What do you need?” I looked at the models, itching to try my hand at these shots for Milano’s newest ad campaign. The women were perched on an elaborate assemblage of wooden crates draped with the sumptuous fabrics Milano would feature in its upcoming fall line. The models wore beaded bralettes over wide-legged, high-waisted trousers. The cut on Akeyo’s top needed different tailoring, and I knew just what to do to make it beautiful. My fingers twitched involuntarily, willing Javi to ask me what was wrong and how to fix it. Ask me how to fix it. Ask me what’s wrong and how to make it right.

  He took an indulgent pull of his umpteenth espresso of the day before pushing the empty cup toward me, the person nearest to him who occupied a low rung on the totem pole. “Put your 4-H skills to good use and take that animal,” he said, nodding to the sheep held by Akeyo. “The sheep is tired and starting to sleep. I need his eyes to be open.”

  I bit my lower lip, feeling my pulse quicken and recognizing both an exhaustion and a disappointment familiar enough to make me nearly burst into tears. I stared for a moment at Javi, who already had his back to me and was engaged in conversation with the creative director on the possibility of changing the ad’s font at this stage of the game. Gripping Javi’s empty espresso cup, I considered saying all the things I’d wanted to say over the years to so many of those higher up in the pecking order. I could, for example, return his empty cup and point him toward the trash bin a few paces away. I could ask him (again) to refrain from mentioning geography when ordering me around. I could, most thrillingly, march right up to the models and start rearranging, redraping, redoing all that was done wrong and then amaze and delight everyone in the room when I resurrected an ad campaign that was in desperate need of inspiration.

  I sighed. Every one of those options was unthinkable, so I tucked the empty paper cup into a pocket of my pants and held out my arms to Akeyo. Her eyes were large, a brown so deep it bordered on onyx. She trained them on me with pity before erupting in a hoarse coughing fit.

  “Sorry,” the model said, quietly enough to keep it between us. “I’m getting over a cold.” She glanced out of the corner of her eye toward Javi, and I did the same. He was, mercifully, now yelping at the creative director, the two of them gesticulating forcefully at the images of the shoot displayed on a computer.

  “We shoot tethered so we can make these changes!” Javi shrieked. “This is why we connect the camera to the computer, Giles, so that we can change directions as needed, in real time!”

  “Exactly no!” Giles said, his French accent becoming more pronounced as his face reddened. “We cannot change at this juncture. The font and placement shall not be moved!”

  Akeyo coughed again, her eyes betraying nerves.
She and I both knew that there were plenty of women not struggling with a hacking cough who could be summoned for her place in this campaign. I rummaged in a deep pocket of my trousers and slipped her a cough drop.

  “Thank you so much,” Akeyo said softly, her eyes filling with emotion. She lifted her chin toward the sheep wriggling in my arms. “And I am so sorry that you are in charge of the livestock.”

  My smile was tired but sincere. “Looks like the livestock is safest far away from cameras and computers right about now.”

  Akeyo giggled, and I made my way toward the makeshift pen at the back of the room. I must have been muttering because Luca, suddenly next to me, said, “Baby, conversing with the animals makes you one slippery step away from a place you don’t want to visit.”

  I put down the sheep and turned to face my friend. “The fabrics are perfect. You nailed it again.”

  Luca narrowed his gaze at the scene lit up before him. “I really did,” he said, nodding slowly. Luca was Milano’s technical designer, a transplant from our Rome office, and he was a mastermind at putting designs into action. He was able to take a vision and make it a reality, from sourcing hard-to-find fabrics to determining just how many centimeters lay between each button on a cuff. He watched the scene before him, his eyes darting back and forth between the models and the posse of folks staring, not directly at the models, but at the images appearing on the screen. “The fabrics are sublime. But there’s something off about Akeyo’s top.”

  Isa joined us and handed me a glass of cucumber water. She nudged me gently and said, “There’s totally something off with that top. And I’ll bet Grace knows how to fix it.”

  I sighed. “I sure do,” I said, not bothering to detail it to the friends who didn’t need me to prove anything to them. I sipped the water and turned to check on the sheep. I shook my head at the absurdity of my life. No little girl grew up with this version of The Dream. I was sure of it. And not only because I’d taken stock of The Dream countless times throughout the last decade, checking its pulse, wondering if it would still stir to life if I poked it with the toe of my favorite (and only) pair of pointy-toe Louboutins. I’d had plenty of practice looking in on the original dream, but even the casual observer would have been able to tell you that tonight’s version of events was a far, far cry from how this whole thing had been meant to play out. One more night, I thought as I scooped a clump of sheep poop into a bag and turned to my friends.

  “Who said the fashion industry in New York isn’t glamorous?” I said.

  “Ew,” Isa said, making a face. “You act like this is normal. We don’t have poop like that in the Bronx. Rat poop and roach poop, yes. But that stuff is so . . . big.” She shuddered at the bag I was tying off.

  I rolled my eyes. “Iowa is not exactly the sheep capital of the country. Pigs and cows are more our thing. Their thing,” I corrected, the reflex kicking in. “And I only learned to pick up poop in a bag after moving to New York and walking with you in Central Park.” I pointed to Luca. “Yolo the Yorkie is the mistress of poop in bags.”

  Luca straightened. “Do not compare Yolo to these savage beasts. Yolo is a sophisticated animal who loves foie gras and deep-tissue massage. She does not bleat.”

  I caught Isa’s gaze and saw her biting her lower lip—Isa who could not keep a succulent alive and who once screamed bloody murder when a butterfly brushed her cheek, claiming there were no butterflies where she grew up and that all animals should have the decency to just stay in the zoos the city provided for them.

  Javi shouted from the other side of the room. “We need the sleepy sheep, Iowa! Let’s finish this up and get out of here before midnight, shall we, people?”

  I leaned over to pick up the squirming sheep, who much preferred to be gnawing on the very expensive wheatgrass someone had purchased for its pleasure. “These sheep are better protected for their working conditions than we are,” I huffed as I gathered up the animal in my arms. “Did they unionize or something?”

  Luca and Isa were uncharacteristically silent after what I thought was a very funny joke. I turned and bumped straight into the chest of James Campbell, my painfully good-looking boss, who had, if I wasn’t mistaken, taken to passing by my desk more than was strictly necessary in recent weeks. He cocked his head first at the sheep, then at me.

  “Miss Kleren, are you interested in filing a complaint?” He wasn’t trying very hard to hide a smile. “I’m pretty sure there’s a form for that somewhere.” His light blue eyes sparkled with amusement. I realized I was staring at those eyes when Isa cleared her throat.

  “No thanks.” I straightened and tried for some dignity. I sidestepped as elegantly as I could while holding a sheep, and walked toward an increasingly impatient Javi. James followed me, and I stole a glance at Isa and Luca as I walked away. Isa raised one eyebrow, and Luca smirked. Their ears were likely still ringing with a particularly spirited monologue from earlier in the week, when I had dissected, not for the first time, whether James was actually flirting with me at work or if he was just being friendly. Just when I’d thought the verdict was definitely in one direction or another, James would leave me guessing once again.

  I completed the sheep handoff to Akeyo and retreated to the shadows behind the lights. James followed me.

  “Love those boots,” he said, nodding appreciatively at my feet. “Those are boots that should be seen outside of this depressing warehouse.”

  I fixed my eyes on the shoot, determined not to show my cards just because he had elevated taste in footwear. “Yes, well, even my feet are committed to doing well at this job. I’m all in.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” James said, a smile in his voice. Of course he had noticed, I quickly reasoned. He’d reviewed my work for years, and he knew I was overqualified and underpaid but that I was sticking it out at Milano because I was one break, one quick promotion away from a designer position and the chance to finally do what I was wired to do.

  We watched the scene before us in silence, laughing together when Javi took a blush brush out of a makeup artist’s hand and did an impromptu demo on his own face, jabbing his finger at an image on the screen. “This woman just returned from a shoot in Barbados! Near the equator! How is it possible your makeup is causing her to look sun starved?”

  I startled when James took my hand in the darkness.

  “Hey,” he said softly, and I turned to look at him. “Listen, I hope I’m not out of line saying this, but I like you, Grace. And I think you like me.”

  My eyes widened and he laughed.

  “Don’t look so shocked. Certainly I’m not the only one who’s been thinking along these lines?”

  His boyish grin made me stutter a response. “Yes. No. I mean, you’re not the only one who has been thinking.”

  “Good,” he said, amused. “I like a girl who thinks. So,” he said, leaning closer, voice lowered to protect the privacy of our conversation, “let’s get out of here, grab something to eat. I’ll cover for you. Javi’s a total pushover when it comes down to it, and he’s distracted anyway. We can unwind, you can tell me about your day, and those shoes can get some of the attention they deserve.” He looked suddenly hopeful, maybe a bit nervous, and I felt a part of me undo itself a bit with his vulnerability.

  But I gently removed my hand from his grasp. “Thank you. It’s a lovely offer, James, but I’ll need to decline.”

  James made a face. “Rather polite, aren’t we? That’s not the Grace that banters with me in the coffee room.”

  I met his gaze, wanting to tell him there was more to me than a good banter, that he’d been right to think I was interested, but not knowing how far to push this conversation, especially the night before I was to finally have my chance to speak up and be heard by James’s boss, my boss, the woman with the power to change everything for me. At the mere thought of Nancy Strang, the formidable head of design at Milano, I stood straighter, returning my eyes to the shoot, on firm footing again. “I’m so sorry, but I ne
ed to get plenty of rest. It’s open-call day tomorrow, and I present first thing in the morning.”

  James came to stand in front of me, blocking my view. “I know that, silly girl,” he said, his eyes alight with amusement. “I might have put in a good word for you to get that prime appointment time.”

  “You did?” I said, hating how my voice had taken on a neediness I definitely felt and desperately wanted to hide. I cleared my throat. “I mean, thank you so much. I’m sure I can take all the help I can get.”

  “So just come with me.” He linked his fingers in mine, slowly rubbed the inside of my palm with his thumb. “I promise I won’t keep you out too late. We can just stop by my apartment.”

  I raised one eyebrow.

  “Just for a bit,” he hurried on. “Noemi left pasta e fagioli in the fridge and I know for a fact she baked homemade focaccia today. Even people with presentations in the morning have to eat.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Most people with presentations in the morning don’t have personal chefs,” I said, but my stomach was rumbling at the thought of a rich, hot soup and fresh-baked bread. Plus, the idea of seeing James’s Upper West Side digs was a temptation that sounded decidedly more interesting than a rigid campout on the high road. “A personal chef sounds distinctly foreign to a girl like me.”

  “Well, then, it’s good you know someone who can introduce you to the finer things.” James’s voice had lowered, so I needed to lean toward him to hear his words.

  I could sense Isa and Luca watching us. The responsible thing to do was to clarify what James was up to, what I was up to, after so many of these flirty conversations that week and so many other weeks throughout the last six months. The responsible thing to do was to stay at work until Javi called the shoot. The responsible thing to do was to fish out my latest overdrawn account notice that was burning a hole in my bag and hold that notice like my favorite stuffed animal, a near-and-present reminder that I had no business taking cabs from the Upper West Side to my tiny apartment in Harlem, much less wearing shoes that could pay for things like food and shelter.