Page 1 of At First Smile

CHAPTER ONE

Cane Austen and Me

Pen

“ M ommy, what’s she doing?” The small chirp of a child’s voice draws my attention.

I am not the aforementioned “mommy,” but my head tilts toward the tiny human anyway. There’s something in the shock and awe in their voice telling me there is a small finger pointing at me.

“It’s her stick?—”

It’s a cane . I don’t correct the wrong terminology. Instead, my smile tight and white cane ahead of me, I stroll down the not-yet-fully awake Buffalo-Niagara Airport terminal.

“It helps her see.”

Ah, if only it were that magical. It’s barely seven a.m. After spending a week with my mother, I lack the temperamental bandwidth to explain to this woman and her child the intricacies of being legally blind.

It’s a cane. It doesn’t help me see, but rather it’s a tool to allow me to use nonvisual cues to get from point A to point T.

Right now, the point T I’m destined for is the Tim Hortons tucked into the airport’s food court.

Aunt Bea always said I was a shining light illuminating the darkness in the world’s understanding of what it means to be blind.

It’s why I’ve dedicated so much of the last ten years to educate people through my social media page, Cane Austen and Me.

To my thirty-thousand followers, I’m the “It” blind girl, documenting my every day and big adventures with Cane Austen, my white cane, helping the non-visually impaired world’s knowledge be just a little less obscured about vision loss.

The knowledge that I’m no longer Aunt Bea’s little light aches deep in my heart.

I can almost feel her soft arms folded around me as she cooed, “Pen, you’ll help them understand.

” No matter how tired I was, she’d have expected me to stop.

Explain how the cane works. Tell the child that not all blind people can’t see.

Set his mommy dearest straight on the blind people facts, helping their little human grow up without misinformation and ensuring that other little humans – ones like me with failing vision – don’t repeat the storyline I’d faced as I grew up.

Clear their vision , Aunt Bea’s sing-song words dance in my heart.

Sighing, I pivot on my strappy, wedge sandals and head toward the sound of the mother and child. A little boy sits, feet kicking, beside a woman, her long hair gathered into a messy bun, at a half-full gate.

“Hi. I’m Pen.” My free hand gathers my long auburn hair, brushing it onto my right shoulder. The action soothes the pulse of anxiety. No matter how many times I do this, it’s still awkward as fuck. Good thing I love you, Aunt Bea.

The little boy tips his head to his mom, whose forehead puckers in confusion.

Yep, I’m weirding them out. Frankly, I don’t blame them.

Most people don’t have a lot of interactions with the legally blind.

Let alone one who walks up to them and introduces themselves.

Thanks to Aunt Bea, that is exactly who I am.

Even if there are days – like today – where I wish I wasn’t.

Where I’d rather fade into the crowd, unseen and forgotten.

“I heard you ask about my cane,” I lace just enough sweetness into my words to not send anyone into a sugar-rush.

“This is Cane Austen. I’m legally blind, and she helps me stay safe.

See how I sweep the cane? It’s called constant contact and helps me trail things to guide my path or find things, so I don’t trip and fall.

” With a tight upward curl of my mouth, I demonstrate how I use the cane.

“Are all canes girls?” The little boy’s face twists into a pout.

A genuine smile kicks across my face. “Not all, but this one is.”

“Why did you name it Cane Austen?” The woman’s eyebrows knit.

“So she’ll help me find my Mr. Darcy,” I quip, making the woman snort with laughter.

It was the same reaction Aunt Bea had. This is my tenth Cane Austen.

I’ve had a new one every year since I was sixteen.

While everyone else was getting their first car, I was getting my first cane.

The eye condition I have, retinitis pigmentosa, progressed to the point that a cane is necessary to keep me safe.

I’d been diagnosed at age six, so I knew my vision was fading to black at a glacial pace…

slow but unstoppable. The gradual progression of vision loss didn’t lessen the painful realization that, while classmates were getting their licenses and cars, I was facing just another way in which I wasn’t like them.

Not allowing me to wallow, Aunt Bea presented me with my first white cane.

Blindfolding me – which she found hilarious – she dragged me into the driveway where she gifted me a white cane tied up with a giant red bow.

She’d even put a Porsche sticker on it, winking as she affirmed that her niece would travel in style.

“You gotta name this bad bitch,” she’d crooned, explaining that the cane was my car, and everyone named their vehicles.

The little boy worries his lower lip, as if considering his words. “What does ‘legally blind’ mean?”

What, indeed? To the world blind means you can’t see, but unsuspecting civilians didn’t realize that blindness is served on a spectrum.

The majority of legally blind people are like me, with some usable vision.

There’s a whole medical explanation that Trina, my ophthalmologist bestie, would bore people with at parties.

I keep it simple, saying I have enough vision to get myself in trouble but not enough to always get myself out of it.

Which is why I avoid trouble. As adventurous as Aunt Bea raised me to be, I don’t take uncalculated risks.

After finishing my impromptu blindness in-service, I leave the smiling mother/son pair and redirect myself toward Tim Hortons.

My flight to LAX doesn’t board for another hour, so I have ample time to secure my sought after breakfast sandwich and make it to the gate to lose myself in my steamy romance audiobook.

There’s something delightful about listening to the swoony and sometimes illicit words of a favorite male narrator, with his hot guy voice, in public places.

The idea of exposure makes the risk so much more rewarding.

Whoever ends up sitting next to me on my flight home would, no doubt, turn a violent shade of red if they only knew what I was listening to.

Grinning, I stroll toward Tim Hortons. Bless the airport gods!

I fight the urge to wiggle my hips, spotting only one other person in front of me.

The sweet ecstasy of a multigrain breakfast sandwich and apple cinnamon tea is within my grasp.

Besides seeing Trina, Tim Hortons was the only thing bringing me joy on this trip back to Buffalo.

After moving to Seal Beach, California with Aunt Bea at seventeen, this Western New York staple was the only thing I missed.

That includes my mother, who was already on husband number three at that time, and had no problem letting her teenaged daughter move cross country without her.

Whenever Aunt Bea and I went home, the first thing we’d do was hit Tim Hortons. Each Christmas, Mom sent us an assortment of teas, coffee, and hot chocolate from the retailer. Even this last Christmas. Though there’s no longer a coffee drinker in the house.

I swallow the growing lump in my throat. Adjusting the large weekender bag on my shoulder, I force my focus to the back of the head in front of me. Only, in order for my gaze to actually land on the back of the man’s head requires craning my neck. How tall is he? I’m five eight, but he’s a giant.

“The card machine isn’t working,” the peppy cashier says to the tall man.

“Oh.” His large hand slips to his pocket.

No doubt the action is to grab the wallet bulging from his back pocket and not to call attention to the way the faded jeans hug his firm backside. One that Trina would joke that she could bounce a quarter off. Although, I could think of far more pleasurable things to do with that ass.

Stop checking out his behind! Pushing my red-frame glasses atop my head, I twist my now extra foggy vision away from the tall man’s cute butt. I mean, how would I feel if he was ogling me like I’m the last cupcake?

That might be a nice change. It’s been a minute since someone looked at me with the same kind of covetous gaze that I’d used when looking at baked goods after that ill-begotten month I tried to give up carbs. Life’s too short to not eat a cookie or ten.

“Shit!” he grumbles, closing his wallet. “Is there an ATM around?”

Second-hand embarrassment on his behalf flushes my cheeks. Few people carry cash on them. My always prepared motto means I’m not one of them. No matter what country I’m in, my wallet remains stocked.

The cashier taps the counter. “I think there’s one down by gate twelve.”

“Thanks. I’ll run down and come back,” he says, slipping his wallet into his back pocket.

Poor guy. My lips drag into a frown. Traveling is frustrating enough but to toss in an unnecessary trip across the airport terminal is obnoxious.

“No need, I got this,” I offer, pulling my glasses back down. “I have cash.”

“No, it’s–” His words halt as he spins to face me. Beneath the brim of a blue cap, a smile curves at his lips. Its brightness is accentuated by his tidy dark beard.

A sudden swoop seizes my stomach, causing an explosion of butterflies. That’s new. Am I into men with beards?

A navy Henley molds to his muscular frame.

A fresh woodsy scent wafts from him, eliciting scenes of a pre-dawn walk through a dew-kissed forest. His entire aesthetic screams sexy lumberjack.

Like someone who would press you against a tree, its rough bark biting into your bare ass, while even rougher hands held you in place.

Good lord, perhaps I need to cut down on my dirty audiobooks.

“That’s kind of you, but I have cash. It’s just in the bank.” A gentle, barely noticeable Irish lilt mingles with his low gruff timbre.