Just South of Perfect

by Grace Palmer

  Stella didn’t realize how long she had been quiet until Melanie knocked on the door. “Stella?”

  She cleared her throat and pulled the shirt over her head. “Yeah?”

  “I thought maybe you fainted in there,” she laughed. “You went quiet.”

  She opened her mouth to make an excuse. Maybe she could tell them a migraine came on. She had been prone to them in her mid-thirties, though not as often anymore. That should work. She would just tell them she got a migraine, ask them to pass the message on to Sam, and then go hide in her room for the night. Tomorrow, she’d be gone without another look back at Willow Beach or Sam Warren. Easy.

  Easy, but also cowardly.

  Hadn’t Stella come on this trip, however unwillingly, to figure out what she wanted from life? To forge a new future for herself?

  Did she want to be a coward, too afraid to ask for what she wanted? Or did she want to be bold?

  The answer was obvious, but it still took a tremendous amount of effort to pull open the dressing room door and face the two young women standing in front of her.

  “Can I ask you both something?”

  Melanie’s easy smile slipped, her forehead creasing with concern, and Tasha nodded vigorously. “Of course.”

  Stella took a deep breath. “Have Sam and your mom ever…” Finishing the sentence was difficult. Georgia and her husband, the girls’ father, had been together for a long time. More than that, Sam was a longtime friend of the family. Suggesting anything untoward could be offensive, but who else could she ask?

  “What I mean to say is, has Sam ever expressed an interest in your mom? Beyond friendship, I mean? I know they are friends, but I just wonder if I’m walking into the middle of something here. It shouldn’t matter, of course, since I’m only in town for the weekend. If you don’t want to answer then you don’t have to. I just—”

  “Whoa.” Tasha waved her arms, cutting Stella off before she could get too carried away. “Misunderstanding alert. Beep beep.”

  “Oh my gosh, no.” Melanie jumped in and laid a friendly hand on Stella’s shoulder. “They are friends. Good friends, that’s it.”

  “Mom and Sam knew each other first, actually.”

  “She thought he was cute, but he wasn’t interested.” Melanie and Tasha were almost talking over each other in their eagerness to tell the story.

  “They stayed friends and then Mom met Dad,” Tasha said with no lack of bitterness in her tone. “Recently, I’ve wished she and Sam could have worked out way back when. Maybe then things wouldn’t be so messed up now. But who knows? Things work out the way they’re supposed to, I guess, and Sam and our mom are definitely not an item. At all.”

  “Tasha meant that Sam loves our mom like a sister. Seriously.” Melanie lowered her chin and looked up at Stella from under long lashes. “There is nothing going on there at all. I swear to you.”

  “Mom and Joel are getting very serious. They’ve only been dating a few months, but who knows with those crazy kids?”

  “They aren’t crazy,” Melanie said quickly. “They’re in love.”

  Tasha held up her hands in surrender, clearly agreeing to disagree, and after Melanie’s mention of a nursery the day before, Stella thought she might be getting more serious with her boyfriend than anyone else seemed to realize.

  “I’m sorry I even asked,” Stella said meekly, drawing their attention back to her. “It was inappropriate and none of my business.”

  “Of course, it’s your business! You’re going on a date with him tonight. You have to know what to expect.” Tasha slipped back into her usual playful tone with ease, and then marched across the dressing room to grab Stella’s arm and pull her out to the tall mirror. “I only hope Sam knows what to expect. Because my goodness, this outfit is incredible.”

  Stella had put on the clothes without much thought, too caught up in the conversation happening on the other side of the door, but now that she was looking at herself in the mirror, she realized she looked awesome.

  The white linen pants Melanie had picked out were cinched at the waist with a large white tie, but the legs were wide and airy, cropped at the ankle. Tasha quickly tucked the front of the fuchsia shirt into the pants, and the outfit was made. It was simple but colorful, casual but classy, and as soon as Tasha handed Stella the slip-on leather sandals, she was ready for a sit-down dinner or a walk on the beach. It was the perfect outfit, and Stella felt fabulous.

  “I feel like this is so simple that I should have been able to do it myself, but I never would have picked these things out.” Stella turned to admire herself from all angles. “This outfit is perfect.”

  “You’re perfect,” Melanie amended. “Like Tasha said, we took your style and elevated it. This was already you; we just helped you find her.”

  It was silly, but Stella’s throat felt tight.

  She’d walked into the shop ready to find an outfit for Sam, but now she was walking out with an outfit for herself. Clothes to represent the future she wanted. The future that, with every day, was becoming a little clearer.

  12

  As soon as she got back to the inn, Stella carried her bags up to her room and lay down on the bed. The date hadn’t even happened yet, and she was already exhausted. The temptation of a nap hung over her, threatening to pull her eyes closed, but then her phone rang.

  She rolled across the bed and pulled it out of her purse but froze when she saw Mike’s name on the screen.

  When she’d left notice that she would need an additional week off work, rather than email Mike and have him talk her out of it, she’d called his office phone and left a message. It took him days to check his messages, and she knew by the time he got around to it, it would already be too late for him to argue. But now her chicken had come home to roost, and she was going to have to explain herself.

  Stella answered the call and brought the phone to her ear with a wince. “Hello?”

  “Stella. I just received your message. Branch policy is to submit PTO via email.”

  “Oh, is it?” Stella knew that. She’d suggested the idea after the second time Mike had almost fired someone for being late only to realize they’d requested the day off a week in advance.

  “Yes, and I have to say, there couldn’t be a more inconvenient time to take off. Your workload is substantial.”

  “I’m two weeks ahead of schedule.”

  “Yes, but since this is a new client, and an international one at that, we will need longer than the standard review process to work out all of the bugs.”

  Stella rolled her eyes but did her best to keep her voice neutral. “The client being international doesn’t change anything on the technical side of my work. The only difference is the country listed on the ‘about’ page. And even if we do want to put this design through a more rigorous process, our usual review process takes a week. Like I said, I’m two weeks ahead.”

  The line went quiet for too long, long enough Stella knew Mike was squeezing his forehead together with his thumb and forefinger and pursing his lips in frustration. It was the face he made when he was trying and failing to win an argument.

  “I just don’t know if I can approve an entire week off for you right now. I allowed you to have Friday, but losing five days of work is excessive. Even Brenda is here on a Sunday.”

  Stella wanted to tell him it was because Brenda had been too busy packing suitcases at Stella’s house to get her work done Friday, but she kept that information to herself. “I have two months of accumulated vacation days. I never call in sick, I rarely go on vacation, and I always turn my work in on time. I do not see how one week off when I’m already two weeks ahead on this project is going to hurt anybody.”

  Her hand shook around the phone from sheer adrenaline. Standing up for herself at work wasn’t something Stella had ever done. There hadn’t really been a reason to. She’d always shown up when she was supposed to, done what she was asked, and never complained. This was the first time there had been an
y conflict, and still flush with the confidence her new outfit instilled in her, Stella was ready to defend herself.

  Mike huffed out a breath, but Stella cut him off before he can speak. “And I’ve been meaning to talk about our daily design reviews. I think they’d be more beneficial as a once-weekly check-in. As it is, they are slowing me down and giving me fewer hours to work every day, wouldn’t you agree?”

  There was another long pause, and this time, Stella couldn’t imagine Mike’s reaction. She couldn’t picture his expression or guess at what he was thinking because this situation had never happened before. Stella had never once pushed back, and she had no idea what was going to come next.

  Years ago, her dad had told her to always have a “walkout fund”—enough money saved that if she ever needed to quit her job and storm out of the office, she could. As soon as her dad gave her the advice, she made a separate savings accounts, filled it with two months of income, and hadn’t touched it since. Without Jace to feed, she might be able to stretch it to three months if she was frugal. Though, with the car repairs, she’d be back down to two months…maybe even six weeks.

  Anxiety gripped Stella’s chest like a vise. If Mike decided to fire her, would she even be able to find another job in six weeks? What if she couldn’t, and she lost the house? Or her car? In the blink of an eye, a future full of defaulted payments and repossessions filled her mind, and she almost shouted into the phone that she took it all back.

  Thankfully, Mike found his voice before then. “Let’s talk about this when you get back in the office next week, okay?”

  His voice was authoritative, but it was a retreat nonetheless. She’d pressed, and he had relented. Stella had won.

  When she hung up the phone, she dropped back down on the bed and shook her head in disbelief.

  As it turned out, this new Stella was a bit of a firecracker.

  Stella wished she would have asked the Baldwin girls about her hair and makeup. Should she wear her hair down? Up? Half and half?

  And makeup. Oh, makeup. It had always been the bane of Stella’s existence. For an embarrassing stretch of time several years ago, she’d watched teenage makeup artists on the internet and tried to replicate some of their techniques, but without much luck. Apparently, blush had gone out of vogue, which was news to Stella. Blush was basically the only makeup she wore as a teenager—red slashes of color all along her nonexistent cheekbones and up into her temples.

  She tried giving it up at the behest of the teenage girls in the videos, but she eventually went back to her tried and true routine: tinted moisturizer, setting powder, blush, and mascara. It was basic and impossible to mess up. So, that was what she planned to go with tonight. She was nervous enough for the date without also having to worry about looking like a clown.

  For her hair, after giving it a wash and a blow-dry, she pinned one side back above her ear and stashed an extra hair tie in her purse in case it was windy on the beach. It wasn’t like Sam hadn’t already seen her worse off. When he came to tow her car, she’d sweated off her makeup and had her hair pulled back into a wild bun that looked more like a hornets’ nest on top of her head. Literally anything was an improvement on that look.

  The first time she finished getting ready, she looked at the clock and realized it was only five. She still had an hour to wait. So, she touched up her hair, applied another few layers of chap stick, and dabbed on perfume.

  Forty-five minutes left.

  She paced for fifteen minutes, checked her purse for her wallet and room key, and considered calling Jace.

  He didn’t want to know about this date. There was a reason Stella kept her dating life out of his view. Eighteen years old or not, no boy wants to know about his mom’s dating life. Jace would probably prefer Stella moved to a nunnery than hear the details of her pre-date jitters.

  Was “jitters” a strong enough word for what she was feeling? It made no sense. Stella was leaving town tomorrow. She wouldn’t ever see Sam again, so why did this matter so much? Why did she keep cycling through conversation topics in her mind and trying to think of funny anecdotes just in case an opportunity to use them arose?

  Stella was never nervous about talking with people. She wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, but she wasn’t a caterpillar, either. She fell somewhere in between. Either way, social situations didn’t give her stomach cramps and make her want to curl into a ball on the floor of her closet. So why did she want to do both of those things right now?

  Stella shoved her phone deep in her purse and marched out of her room with conviction. The longer she sat in that room with nothing but her worries to keep her company, the worse she’d feel. She needed to give herself room to breathe and relax.

  The inn had a small sitting area just off the lobby with two comfortable couches and a wall of bookshelves. Maybe reading a book would distract her and help pass the time. When she got to the room, though, someone was already there.

  Georgia Baldwin was curled into a chair with a large book open on her lap and a mug of steaming tea in the other hand. She didn’t look up when Stella entered. She didn’t even look up when Stella pulled a book blindly from the shelf and sat on the sofa across from her. In fact, it took Georgia a full five minutes to realize anyone was in the room with her. When she did realize, she let out a small yelp and sloshed tea over the edge of her cup.

  “I’m so sorry! I didn’t even hear you come in.”

  “I’m sneaky,” Stella said, even though it was a lie. She’d actually made a decent amount of noise when she came in, hoping Georgia would look up and talk to her, but apparently her book had been too engrossing.

  Georgia shook her head and laughed at herself. “I tend to get lost in a good book. Richard always said I could read through a hurricane if the book was good enough.”

  “I wish I could get lost in anything right now.”

  Georgia’s brow furrowed, and she put the book over the arm of her chair and leaned forward. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  It wasn’t the most subtle of transitions, but Stella was desperate for some comfort. Even though they were roughly the same age, Georgia felt like the mother hen of the inn. And Stella could use some motherly advice.

  She gestured down at her outfit. “I have a date. Your daughters actually helped me find this outfit.”

  “Was it by choice or force? They forced a makeover on me a few months back.”

  “A bit of both,” Stella joked. “But they were really helpful. They made me feel a lot better, but I’m afraid the confidence is starting to wane.”

  “Nervous?”

  Stella let out a shaky breath. “Incredibly. I’m not sure why. I’m leaving tomorrow, you know.”

  “Sure.” Georgia nodded. “Why care what people you’ll never see again think about you?”

  “Exactly! Why? It’s so silly.”

  “The heart is a silly thing sometimes.” Georgia leaned back in her chair, feet tucked under her, and took a sip of her tea. “You just can’t reason with it.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if my heart has much of a say in what’s happening here. It’s only a first date.”

  Georgia smiled knowingly, and Stella wasn’t sure she liked the silent insinuation. This wasn’t love. You couldn’t love someone after only knowing them a few days. But you could like them, Stella supposed. Though even that seemed rash. No decisions could be made before a first date had even happened.

  “I heard from a few ladies working at the theater on Saturday that Sam treated you to a picnic lunch, so I believe that would make this your second date.”

  “How do you know my date tonight is with Sam?”

  “I’m a mind reader.” Georgia laughed and then arched a brow. “Also because I’ve known Sam since we were basically kids, and I know when he is interested in someone. He likes you, Stella.”

  Stella should have spoken with Georgia about Sam earlier. She shouldn’t have made assumptions about their relationship. If she could talk a
bout him going on a date with Stella with this much warmth and kindness, it was obvious there was nothing between them. Stella felt foolish for spending so much time worrying about it.

  “Did Barb, Pam, or Cheri tell you that our first date was a bit of a disaster?”

  Georgia narrowed her eyes. “How did you know Barb, Pam, and Cheri told me about your picnic?”

  “I’m a mind reader.”

  They both laughed. Georgia said, “Those ladies and Alma are the only way I stay up to date with the latest news in this town. I’m always so busy around here that I don’t have time to keep up. But no, I don’t think they spied long enough to see how things went.”

  Stella ran through the conversation she and Sam had, leaving out everything that was said about Georgia and her husband. She told her how much Sam cared for Drew and all the nice things he had said about him. “I told Sam I thought he and Drew had a lot in common in that they are both charming and talented, and he clammed up. We barely said five words between us the rest of the meal. I’m honestly surprised he agreed to go on this date.”

  Georgia frowned. “I think Sam’s response has more to do with him than with you. Clearly, he wants to go on this date with you, so I wouldn’t worry that you messed things up. If I had to guess, I’d say he is out of practice. He hasn’t dated anyone seriously in years, and he may not have known what to say.”

  “Why hasn’t he dated?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” she said. “Sam is a man who knows what he wants, and he isn’t willing to settle. It’s what makes him a great mechanic, and it is also what has kept him single. Whatever you may feel about this date, I know Sam isn’t taking it lightly. He wouldn’t agree if he didn’t like you.”

  Stella felt simultaneously better and worse. On one hand, she was more confident in Sam’s feelings for her, but on the other hand, what good were those feelings if she was leaving for Boston soon? What kind of future could they really have together? It wasn’t like he could up and leave his business, and what would Stella do in Willow Beach?