* * *
In the week that had passed, Liddy had seen more fan girls over the age of forty—and more heaving breasts—than she cared to think about. Housekeeping had been busy cleaning up too-many-to-count spillages of Chardonnay on the indoor tile floors, not to mention the array of thongs flung from various balconies. What would these women have done if the men parading through the lobby for several days had been the real deal—and not just impersonators?
“Score!” Trace showed up for the night shift wearing a vintage cap.
Liddy tapped her chin with her index finger. She didn’t want to hurt her co-worker’s feelings, but that hat did not match her outfit at all. “A new thrift store find?” she finally asked.
Trace laughed. “You wish. No, it’s a replica of Noah’s newsboy cap. Matilda in Housekeeping said it was left behind in one of the guest rooms after the fake heartthrob convention, so she saved it for me.”
“Noah?”
Trace’s eyebrows rose. “Ryan Gosling? From The Notebook.”
“Ah. Now I get it.”
Trace swooned. “The most beautiful movie hero that there ever was. They don’t make them like him anymore.”
Liddy laughed lightly. “Good thing you have someone looking out for you.” She stood then and hooked her purse into the crook of her arm. “With that I guess I’ll take off for the night.”
“I have to say, Lid, you’re looking so much better than you were last week. Sweet hat, by the way.”
Liddy tried not to wince. “Really?” Today she had worn a flimsy black hat that her mom had bought her the weekend before, when she and her father had come for a visit. Her hair had been growing in well lately, but it still stuck straight up in the air like from electric shock, and so she’d had to become more creative with her appearance in public. At the beach, she didn’t care—all kinds of weirdness on the sand, so she fit right in there. But here, in the public eye, she conceded that she needed more polish.
“Maybe not as cool as mine,” Trace said, preening over her own find, “but darn pretty, if you ask me.”
“Thanks. See you tomorrow,” Liddy called out as she headed out the door. It bugged her how much she needed that compliment right now. She was woman! Hear her roar! Okay, seriously, it was more of a whimper right now. But a downright healthy one, at least.
Who was she kidding? She was headed to church and, just in case she ran into you-know-who, she didn’t want to look like a freak. Last time he called her, she certainly sounded like one.
She turned in to the church parking lot, adjusted her hat, and stepped out of her car.
* * *
He was there. And he was alone. Not that she had noticed during the service. She was paying attention to God (for heaven’s sake), offering up whispers of thanks for the silver linings in her life. Home – check. Food on the table – check. Health – double check. Regardless of the dips in the past year—and they were plentiful—Liddy knew that all had not been lost. In fact, much had been gained. Well, okay, some had been gained.
And for that she was thankful.
Liddy was so deep into contemplating her newfound gratefulness that as she made her way toward the church’s exit doors she nearly ran into Beau.
She stopped short. “Hey.”
“Hi.” His eyes swept across her face.
“Nice service,” she said, knowing immediately how lame that sounded. Everybody knew that describing an event as “nice” meant you couldn’t think of anything else because you had not paid one whit of attention to any of it. You need to say something specific, such as the pastor’s message on forgiveness stirred you to seek out all those whom you have offended sometime in your lifetime. Or maybe something less cheesy.
“You look … beautiful.”
She blushed. She couldn’t see it, of course, but she could feel the warmth all the way to the tip of her hat-topped head. She managed to keep eye contact with him, however, and answered with a simple, “Thanks.”
“The beach must be treating you very well. Are you able to take walks and enjoy the sunsets?”
He had this look on his face that made her think he had more to say but that, perhaps, something was keeping him back. “Yes, I do take walks,” she answered him. “And I’ve also been back to work for a week.” The banter was banal at best, yet strangely cozy, too, like they were the only two people left in the sanctuary when, really, several elders hovered nearby. For his part, Beau didn’t appear to be in a hurry to run off, even though service had already ended.
“Wow, you’ve made great strides in what, six weeks?”
She nodded, fully aware that it had not exactly been a smooth time for her. She had made plenty of cringe-worthy mistakes in regards to both her mental and physical health. Still, she seemed to have turned a corner. “I’m back to cooking my own meals again,” she said. “Feels good.”
“Ah, so you’re a good cook.”
She laughed at this. “Hardly. My idea of a good time is organic pasta with some simple homemade sauce that I usually eat standing up over my sink. I’m just happy I can do that again.”
He nodded. “Sounds perfect.”
Liddy leaned her head to one side, considering him. “Would you like to join me at the sink sometime?” She hadn’t meant that to sound like such a come-on, but somehow it did. She could tell by the surprised smile that so quickly alighted on his face.
But instead of answering her question, he said, “What are you doing right now?”
The hovering elders had wandered away. Except for the lone custodian straightening chairs at the front of the sanctuary, the church was now empty. She didn’t know what to say in response to Beau’s question.
“What I mean is … why don’t we grab something to eat right now? Would you like to?”
She hesitated. Her head tried to grasp more than one thought, like dangling strings. Why now? And what about the woman she had seen him with on occasion? She couldn’t read Beau, and it unnerved her. Would it make him feel weird to sit across from her with her blonde locks spilling out from beneath the brim of her hat? Would it make her feel weird, too?
Despite her awful divorce, then her awful mistake with Zack and the subsequent pledge to forget about men, this moment felt safe, and she couldn’t help but answer, “Yes.”
Chapter 12
“Well?? Is he … interesting?”
Liddy gasped at Meg’s question about her impromptu … what was it exactly? Not a date, really. Casual meet-up? Rendezvous? She gave her head a tight little shake in exasperation as she and Meg walked side by side on the paved road after sunset, listening to waves crashing in the night. “What do you mean? Of course he was interesting. And so, so funny.”
“Okay, so, that I don’t see.” Meg’s pace sped up as she talked. “Handsome as all get out—I’ll give you that, but the guy I met that night at your church was intense. Really serious.”
“He lost his wife, Meg. Life’s been rough on him, but—” Liddy released a breathy sign into the night air—“I don’t know, we just sat there in this old coffee shop talking for forever. I’m almost embarrassed at how I talked the poor guy’s ear off, but he looked amused the whole time.”
Meg glanced at her. “You’re happy.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Well, I don’t want to read too much into it—it was just coffee and pie.”
“True. You did talk the guy’s ear off, after all.” She paused. “Just how much did you tell him?”
Liddy ran the memory through her mind all day at work, and now as Meg asked the magic question, she wished she hadn’t said quite so much about herself. Hopefully, she hadn’t nauseated the poor guy.
“We didn’t talk much about the surgery,” Liddy said. “I was relieved about that, really. I’m pretty sick of retelling it.” She shrugged one shoulder and continued. “But I could have been a little less regaling with stories from my married days.”
Meg hummed a groan.
Liddy slowed and turned toward a beach
access break between houses. The moonlit pocket of wave caps darted in and out of view. “I know,” she said, staring out at the dark sea. “He just kept asking me about my life, and I don’t know … I spent most of my adult years with Shawn so things about that time kept, you know, coming up.”
“How did he react?”
“He laughed mostly.”
Meg paused. “So you kept the ugly stuff out then.”
“Yeah, pretty much. Now that I think about it, I told him about my house renovations gone bad, and how freezing the desert could get at night. He asked how I ended up here and I told him that my mom used to drive us out from our home in LA to Santa Monica to play in the sand and that I never wanted to leave, so it was natural to find a place by the sea after my marriage ended.” Liddy dipped the toe of her shoe into the sand, reveling in the soft landing. “He’s got this …”
“This what?”
“He’s got this laugh that’s contagious, you know? It’s deep and hearty, like stew, and I kind of wanted to eat him up.”
“You’re in trouble.”
“Am I?”
“You just said you wanted to eat the guy up, like he’s some kind of thick, rich soup.” She wagged her head. “Never heard a woman say that before.”
Liddy could feel pink encroaching on her cheeks. She lifted her foot out of the sand and gave it a good shake before continuing on their walk. “I did let him get a few words in here and there,” she said. “He’s a Rockies fan, for instance.”
Meg weighed this news with one hand. “I guess we can forgive him that. You’ll have to wear blue on game days, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And he likes to play tennis, so I told him he could use the courts in my complex.”
Meg slowed again. “I hate to be a downer, but—”
“But what?”
“Well, aren’t you going a little fast? I mean, you’ve always gone for the dark and brooding type. Beau’s more like a ginger, a handsome one, but my guess is he burns easily in sunlight.”
“What … are we in high school again? Beau doesn’t fit the criteria that I once wrote inside a cootie catcher, so we can’t be friends?” Liddy dipped her chin. “Tell me you don’t think I’m that shallow, Meg.”
“I’m not saying that about you, but in all fairness, you may get tired of taking spoonfuls of ginger. Since he’s not exactly your type, I mean. My point is … where will you be if you’ve already committed to free anytime admission to your tennis courts?”
Liddy kept moving forward, her arms crossed at her chest. After everything that had transpired over the past year, wasn’t it time for something positive in her life? A real downer would be to live a life of valleys, and for once, it seemed, she’d reached a tall, green hill.
Then again, Meg had one thing right: Liddy moved fast. Often too fast for her own good. That’s how she’d ended up married to Mister Wrong in the first place. She’d followed him out to the desert, where he wanted to be, and her existence there became a living metaphor. Her dry, dusty reality.
And she didn’t care to think about her stupidity with a married drifter. What possessed her to go off with a stranger? She hugged herself a little tighter. When he had appeared on the beach like some kind of alluring kindred spirit, she’d been intrigued. And when he’d looked at her like a slice of watermelon on a blazingly hot day, especially so soon after her surgery, well, he had found her kryptonite. Until then she had felt ugly and weak, but his attention managed to help her forget her truths. Now, all she felt was shame, a constant mental flogging that would be her undoing, if she let it.
“Liddy,” Meg said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you—”
“It’s fine. You didn’t. In fact, you’re probably right.”
“Not if you think that I meant you were shallow.” Her friend’s voice quivered. They had reached the end of the pavement that gave way to the harbor mouth and soon they would have to turn around. In front of them, a lone fisher boat chugged out toward the open, blackened sea, a harsh spotlight guiding its way. “I’m afraid for you, Liddy. That’s all this is.”
Liddy cut her a look. “You don’t have to be. The doctor says my prognosis is good. I’m feeling better all the time.”
“It’s not that. I’m worried that you’ll lose your heart to this guy.”
“Don’t.”
“Maybe he’s not ready for a whirling dervish like you.”
Liddy laughed. “What?”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt he could fall in love with you, but what happens when he begins to worry about your health? He’s already been through a trauma.” She let out a worried sigh. “Maybe he’ll never be able to commit to you or maybe not to anyone. And you deserve someone who can.”
Liddy exhaled and began walking again, turning toward home. She had not considered Meg’s dire prediction, nor had she focused on her illness much. It was, after all, behind her. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? Right now, Beau and I are just getting to know each other. He’s funny, and I enjoyed his company last night. No need to start obsessing over what may or may not happen in the future. Can we at least agree on that?”
Meg linked her arm through Liddy’s. “Yes, we can. But I swear, Liddy, if he hurts you he’ll have me to deal with—and you know I’m not kidding one iota. I’ll do it!”
Liddy chuckled, thinking back to that night a few months ago when Meg threatened to key her ex-husband’s car. “Yes, I believe you will.”
* * *
Sunday morning, and duty called. A large group of seniors from Arizona were checking in—taking advantage of the hotel’s Sunday through Wednesday discount. The men were there to play golf (no surprise there), and the ladies all wanted to have their hair set. All twenty-one of them. Trace came in early to help Liddy make the calls to the private cell phones of shop owners all over town. Had to make special arrangements for Monday appointments, since most of the salons would be closed.
“Whooey,” Trace said when she’d hung up the phone for the last time. “Was worried the town would run out of rollers.”
Liddy laughed hard, releasing an un-ladylike snort. “I could almost feel Javier rolling his eyes when I begged him for a spot. And for a Monday, too.”
Trace gasped. “Did he give you one?”
“In return for a voucher to the restaurant, yes, he did.”
“Well, you’re slick. I crossed him off my list a long time ago because he told me he threw out all of his rollers.”
“He told me that, too, but amazingly he found a stash of them when I mentioned the voucher.”
“Ha. Well, hopefully the restaurant will still be kickin’ when he wants to use it. Otherwise, you’ll have to come up with some other kind of bribe. Cash worked just fine for all of my salon owners.”
Liddy twisted her lips into a frown. “Things have been awfully quiet over there, haven’t they? Maybe nothing is happening in the restaurant after all.”
Trace shook her head. “That’s not what I heard.”
Liddy raised an eyebrow. Thankfully the lobby had cleared of grey hairs and oversized luggage. Two of the bellmen had stepped outside for a smoke, and from her spot behind the desk she noticed Hannah take a rather relaxed sip from a flask before stashing it below the counter. “Are you going to elaborate?”
“Well, Jojo over at Hair-A-Lot just told me that Chef was in for a face peel and had some things waxed.”
Liddy wrinkled her nose. “Guys get those?”
Trace glanced around and lowered her voice. “Yeah, and she says he’s lost some weight, too. And that he asked her to shape his eyebrows for him.”
“No kidding.”
Trace straightened and shrugged. “He is Italian.”
“So he’s part of the mafia now?”
“Maybe.”
Liddy groaned. “Oh, brother. Maybe slow down on reading all those murder mysteries.”
“Okay, you laugh, but everyone’s been talking about weird things goi
ng on in the restaurant at late hours, and now Chef is suddenly having himself all smoothed and powdered like some kind of don.” She shook her head. “I don’t know about you, but I’m staying on that man’s good side.”
“Maybe he won’t be back.”
Trace stuck her face close to Liddy’s. “You hear something?”
Liddy recoiled. “No, not at all. But you said he hasn’t been around awhile and, I don’t know, Hans was evasive the last time I even mentioned Chef’s existence.”
“Hmm. It is all pretty bizarre, if you ask me. When I’m here I keep one eye on the lobby and the other eye on the door, just in case the cops come bustin’ in.” She touched her purse, a little used number she picked up from Downtown Thrift that hung on a nail beneath the desk. “They show up and I’m grabbin’ this baby and getting out of here.” She leaned forward. “There’s mace in here, if you ever need it.”
The desk phone rang and Liddy answered it before she could react to Trace’s offer.
“Liddy, it’s Beau.”
Her pulse quickened. “Oh, hey.” With her tongue suddenly tied, it was the best she could do.
“I thought I might find you there. Are you able to talk for a minute?”
Considering all guests were apparently taking a nap, she said, “Sure.”
“Great. I thought if you were going to the service this evening, you and I could grab a pizza afterward. Would you like to?”
She thought about this. He’d qualified his invitation with church attendance, but had he meant to? And did grabbing a pizza constitute a date? Maybe he just wanted to clear up any misunderstandings about last Wednesday night’s coffee date, you know, that wasn’t really a date.
Was she overthinking this?
Liddy glanced at the clock. If she left work on time, which she surely would, she would have plenty of time to freshen up in time for the evening service. “Yes, I believe I will be there tonight. I’d love to grab pizza with you.”
“Great. I’ll meet you there.”
She hung up the phone. Did he mean meet you “there” as in at the church or at the pizza place?
Walking on Sea Glass Page 10