Millie suddenly got very busy weeding around her sweet peas. “Well, I am enjoying his company. Life is short, girls. It’s foolish not to take advantage of every good thing that comes along.”
Amber grinned wickedly. “Have you taken advantage of Altheus yet?”
Millie shook a gloved finger at her. “You are a naughty thing.” She sat back on her heels, admiring her handiwork, and took in a deep breath of spring. “A garden is such an amazing thing, isn’t it? There it is, the whole cycle of life played out for us every year— death, then resurrection, new buds, new life, new beginnings.” She returned her attention to Hope. “And speaking of new beginnings, dear, tell us about that handsome man you were dancing with at the street dance.”
How did they get back to her? “There’s nothing to tell, really. I was just having a dance with my sister’s boyfriend.”
“Your sister’s boyfriend,” Millie said in surprise. “Why wasn’t your sister dancing with him?”
Good question. “She was dancing with someone else.”
“You young people do things differently than we did,” Millie said. “In my day, when a girl was trying to hook a man, she didn’t send him off to dance with someone else.”
“Bobbi shares,” Hope quipped.
“Maybe if she shares so well, she should keep right on sharing,” Millie suggested. “You two looked like you were meant to be partners.”
Hope shook her head. “Jason wants Bobbi. And that’s just as well.”
“Why is that?” asked Amber.
Hope gave a one-shouldered shrug and smoothed out the dirt around her basil. “She’s the pretty one. Men love her.”
“You’re not exactly an aarf-aarf,” said Amber.
“I am naked.” Hope regretted the words the second they slipped out of her mouth.
“Oh, let’s not be going there,” Amber said with a snort. “We can’t have sixteen-year-old boobs forever. Mine left after Sethie was born.” She shook her head. “There’s nothing like childbirth to mess with your body image.”
“I can think of a few things,” said Millie. “Is it the fallout from the cancer, dear?”
Suddenly, Hope was a watering can. She watched in horror as her tears seeped into the soil.
“But that’s gone,” protested Amber.
What it left behind wasn’t. “No man wants a woman who’s scarred.”
Amber left her garden patch and came into Hope’s, sitting next to her and putting an arm around her. “Hey, come on. That’s not true. A real man cares more about what’s inside than what’s outside. And it can’t be that bad.”
Hope shook her head and swiped at the corners of her eyes. “It is. Trust me.” She ran a hand through her hair. It was getting longer all the time, the curl slowly loosening its hold as her hair remembered it had once been straight. “This is so embarrassing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.” But, of course, she did. It was the same thing that had been wrong with her since Jason Wells first walked into her shop. She had to get a grip.
Millie joined them now and sat on the other side of Hope, giving her arm a gentle pat.
“You had reconstructive surgery, right?” Amber pressed.
Hope nodded, unable to speak. She supposed if she had it to do over, she’d do it again, in spite of the complications, the second surgery, the scarring. An imperfect fake boob was better than no boob.
But not good enough to parade in front of someone. “It’s not the same.” She could barely speak. The words came out as a croak.
“Trust me,” Amber said, giving her a squeeze, “guys don’t care if the girls are real or not. They get turned on either way.”
“Think of how many women are walking around with implants and leading perfectly normal lives,” Millie added.
“I am leading a perfectly normal life,” Hope insisted.
“A life where you turn your back on love is not perfectly normal,” Millie gently chided.
“It’s better than trying to build a future with someone when I don’t even know how much of a future I’ll have,” Hope said, her voice barely above a whisper. She’d been trying so hard to look and act normal, and now here she sat, showing her friends her biggest scar of all, the one on her heart. “Getting cancer this young, my chances are so much higher that . . .” She couldn’t show any more. Her voice broke, failing her.
“None of us has any guarantee,” Amber said, hugging her fiercely. “You can’t just give up and sit on the sidelines.”
“Listen to an old woman and live your life to the fullest,” Millie added. “Take advantage of every good thing that comes into it.”
“Like Millie’s taking advantage of Altheus,” cracked Amber, easing them into a lighter mood. “So, when are you going to take advantage of Altheus?” she added, waggling her eyebrows.
Millie blushed. “Now, don’t be asking nosy questions. Anyway, he’s seven years younger than me.”
“Sweet. A boy toy,” said Amber, clapping her hands.
“We’re just friends,” Millie said firmly.
Amber cocked an eyebrow. “I hope you’re going to practice what you preach. After that lecture you just gave Hope, we don’t want to hear you didn’t go for it because of a little thing like age.”
“A little thing like age is why I don’t have to be in a hurry to go for it,” Millie replied crisply. She gave Hope’s shoulder a pat and then used it for balance as she got stiffly to her feet. “I think that’s enough serious conversation for one afternoon. But let’s take a lesson from our flowers. They seek out the sun. How can we do less than these sweet flowers?”
“I’m going to remember you said that,” Amber warned her.
BOBBI ARRIVED AT Jason’s place to find his truck gone. Darn! Now what was she going to do? Leave, of course. She wouldn’t stalk him, wouldn’t call him on his cell. Sometimes a woman had to back off. This was one of those times. She went back to Plan A: mall therapy.
But the mall wasn’t much fun, not without a purse full of tip money to spend, and especially not when, everywhere she looked, she saw women with their boyfriends. By the time she’d wandered through Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Anthropologie, she’d had enough. She drove back to the apartment. Still no Hope. She turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. Nothing. With cable TV and a million channels to choose from, you’d think there’d be something.
She called Anna and they met for coffee. But then Anna had to leave. Her boyfriend was coming over for dinner. That really depressed Bobbi, so she went to Crazy Eric’s and had a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a Diet Coke. Like the Diet Coke could save her from the burger and fries? She sat in her car and scowled at the giant wooden cartoon Viking perched on the roof as if her misery were all his fault. Okay, now she had to go work this off. Line dancing at the Grange. Perfect.
But it wasn’t. Bobbi normally enjoyed joking with the kids and their parents, commiserating with the single women who wound up here because dancing alone was better than not dancing at all, flirting with old Joe Burns who took her money at the door every week, showing off how quickly she learned the steps to new dances.
Not to night. Line dancing couldn’t do it for her—not when all she could think about was how much fun she’d had dancing with Duke and wondering if she’d ever be able to bring Jason up to speed or if Jason would even want to keep dancing with her. Or doing anything with her.
“You must have gone to the Grange,” Hope greeted her when she walked into the apartment.
“Yeah,” Bobbi said listlessly.
“I take it you didn’t see Jason?”
“No.” Bobbi frowned. “But, you know, I don’t need a man around all the time. I can be perfectly happy on my own.”
With all Hope’s plants and her cool, vintage furnishings, it was such a cozy apartment. Hope herself looked cozy, curled up on the loveseat with a book. She was living proof that a woman could be just fine without a man. Bobbi joined her sister, settling in with her Jane Austen book and a g
lass of wine. She could be cozy, too.
She lasted an hour. She was too stressed for all this coziness. “Want to watch a movie?”
“Sure,” said Hope, and set aside her book.
The movie didn’t really help, either, even though it was a good one with lots of funny scenes. Bobbi kept thinking about Jason. He had to have read her letter by now. Why hadn’t he called?
HOPE WAS AT the shop early on Monday so she’d be there for her flower deliveries from the wholesaler. Once the flowers arrived she had roses to prep and a cooler case to stock. By nine the phone was ringing. She should have had plenty to keep her mind busy, but the sawing and hammering, which got closer to her end of the building every day, kept luring her thoughts in the direction of Jason Wells.
“You have to stop this,” she scolded herself.
And she almost had when, out of the blue, he wandered into the shop. His pants were dusty and he had sawdust in his hair. He looked like he’d stopped mid project. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said, and tried out a new mantra. It’s only Jason, my sister’s boyfriend. It’s only Jason, only Jason.
He rubbed his chin as if he were trying to remember what he was doing in her flower shop. “Is your sister in yet?”
Hope shook her head. “Not yet. She should be any minute though.”
He nodded. And then he stood there in the middle of the shop, deep in thought.
He needed to get the message and leave since her mantra wasn’t working. “I’ll tell her you came by,” Hope promised, hoping to shoo him out the door.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said quickly. “Look, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“About Bobbi?”
Okay, now he was going to ask what kind of flowers she preferred. He probably wanted Hope to whip up a bouquet and have it waiting for Bobbi when she came in. Or maybe he wanted advice on rings.
“Does your sister like to read?”
What? “Excuse me?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. See you later.” And, with that, he turned and left.
What on earth was that all about? He’d filled a bookcase full of books for Bobbi. Never mind that they were Hope’s. He didn’t know that. She sighed. There was a lot Jason Wells didn’t know, and never would.
TWENTY-FOUR
TY DROPPED OFF an application at the Family Inn on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Charlie Thomas, the owner, called him in for an interview that afternoon. Amber played Cootie with Seth and bit off every fingernail as she waited for Ty to come home. She even did something she hadn’t done in a long time. She prayed. Come on, God, please come through for us. Pleeeaassee. It wasn’t the most spiritual prayer on the planet, but she figured God got the idea.
Now if God would just hurry up and answer. Ty had been gone forever. What was taking so long?
She heard the crunch of tires on gravel and tensed.
“My Cootie’s done,” crowed Seth. “I beat you again, Mommy.”
“That’s good,” she said absently.
The door opened. Seth hopped up and ran to greet his dad. She stayed rooted at the kitchen table. She was afraid to even look Ty’s direction. What would she do if she saw failure on his face again? How could she handle it? She was out of words and Millie wasn’t here to coach her.
She heard Ty say, “Hey, buddy.” Was there a new energy in his voice or was she imagining it? Now Seth was laughing.
She forced her head to turn and look her husband’s direction.
He’d picked Seth up and was twirling him in a circle. And then she saw his face.
Oh, God. A smile. She looked at her husband hopefully. “How’d it go?”
He set Seth back on his feet. “You’re looking at the Family Inn’s new chef.”
She jumped up with a squeal and ran to Ty and threw her arms around him, and now he was twirling her in the air and Seth was clapping and giggling. It was like they had just stepped out of a big, dark cocoon. God had been listening, and maybe there was hope for their future.
“This calls for a celebration,” she said. There wasn’t anything much to celebrate with other than popcorn, but she put a scented candle on the table and presented the treat with much fanfare. And the guys were pleased.
“The place is a disaster,” Ty said, digging into his bowl. Their chef quit two weeks ago and the owner has been trying to do it all. He says the cooking isn’t really his thing.”
“Then why on earth did he open a restaurant?” It was such a tough business. Who in their right mind would do that if he didn’t love to cook?
“He did it for his kids. His daughter had just finished cooking school; his son needed work. He bought the business from some family who had been here forever and thought he could do like they did and make it a family business. But then his daughter got pregnant and decided on a career change and his son moved to L.A. The guy’s heart’s just not in it now. He doesn’t know what he’s doing and he’s losing money.”
Her husband had just gotten hired by a man who didn’t know what he was doing to work in a restaurant that was going down. This was not what Amber had in mind when she asked God for help.
“But here’s the cool part,” Ty went on.
There was a cool part?
“Thomas might be willing to sell down the road.”
Leave it to Ty to find that out. Amber stared at him. He couldn’t really be thinking about throwing them from the frying pan into the fire.
Of course he could. She felt suddenly sick. “Why don’t you just feed me poison now and be done with it.”
Ty’s smile reversed direction. “Hey, hear me out.”
No. No hearing out, no talking. She blew out the candle. “Sethie, you want to watch SpongeBob SquarePants?” She picked up his bowl of popcorn.
“My popcorn!” he protested.
“You can eat it while you watch cartoons. Okay?” She settled Seth in front of the TV with his plastic bowl of popcorn, then went to the bedroom to put a pillow over her head and scream.
Ty followed her in, shutting the door after him. “You didn’t let me finish.”
She spun around. “I don’t want you to finish! I don’t want to own another restaurant. We don’t have anything left to lose.”
And she didn’t have anything left to give. No more trying to be encouraging, no more armor. She was done.
“We wouldn’t own it right away,” Ty explained. “I’d be the head chef, run the kitchen for the next five years, and Thomas would stay in. I’d get a percentage of the profits and that would go toward buying the place. That would give me time to turn it around.”
Turn it around? Turn it around? Was he crazy? They hadn’t been able to get their first restaurant going, and now he was an expert on turning around one that was in trouble.
She threw up her hands. “Why can’t you be happy to just be the head chef?”
“You can lose a job.” His voice wasn’t hysterical like hers, but his anger hit her like he was talking through a bullhorn.
“You can lose a business, too. Or have you forgotten?”
He stiffened. “No. You won’t let me.”
“Why is everything my fault?” she cried. “Why? Why is it always about you and what you want and never about me? When does it matter if I’m hurting?” She’d said her share of angry things when the restaurant went under, and since, but she was well beyond that now. This was new territory. Thoughts that had been backing up in her brain for months spilled out. “God, Ty, what have I done to deserve the sulking and the moping and the emotional disconnect? Where did it say in our wedding vows that I have to be your emotional punching bag? Where does it say I get to carry everyone in this family on my back?” She was waving her arms around like a mad woman, and Ty was staring at her in horror. And that made her all the more berserk. “When does it start mattering at all what I need? When do you start remembering that there are two other people in this family?”
He had no answer, of course.
He didn’t try to comfort her. Instead he left her. Big surprise there.
A moment later she heard the front door slam. Well, screw him, and screw his stupid armor. She fell on the bed and kept on crying. What was she going to do?
She was going to go see Millie. Millie would probably give her all kinds of advice she didn’t want to hear, but Millie would also give her a cup of tea and a listening ear. Even though things would never be better, Millie would make her feel better.
Except Ty had probably taken the car, and that thought made Amber angry all over again. He was wasting gas to burn off his mad, and she was trapped here at home, stewing in bitterness.
She went back out into the living room. Seth, fortunately, had gotten sucked into cartoons and was oblivious to everything else. She looked out the window and saw the car still parked outside. Wonder of wonders, Ty had taken off on foot. Well, good. Then she’d waste some gas herself. Except going to see a friend was hardly a waste of gas.
She called Millie and didn’t bother with small talk. “I need help. Can I come over?”
“Of course,” said Millie. “I’ll make tea.”
Amber hung up and joined Seth on the couch.
He was now mesmerized by a commercial for a sugary power drink. “Can we get that, Mommy?” he asked.
“Would you like to go get a drink right now?” That commercial had come at the right time. The promise of a treat was the only thing that would have pulled Seth away from SpongeBob SquarePants.
“Yes, yes, yes!” He started jumping up and down on the couch like he had springs on his bottom.
“Well, okay then, let’s go.”
She loaded Seth in the car and took off. They hadn’t gone far when they passed Ty, storming down the road, still in the clothes he’d worn to his interview. Amber stepped on the gas and floored it past him.
“There’s Daddy!” cried Seth.
“Yes, Daddy’s taking a walk.” She should have told Daddy to take a jump, right into the lake. She hoped he got blisters.
Love in Bloom Page 20