by Ellie Hall
The list comes to mind. The one I was looking at when Minnie texted. Paris, London, Amsterdam...
“All this right in our backyard.” Minnie’s excitement pulls me from my drizzly thoughts. “So I started to make an itinerary. A bunch of places to visit.”
Just then the scent of perfume and the sound of melodious laughter echoes from the doorway.
Hazel never fails to make an entrance. She sees us immediately and struts over. Maxwell gets in line to place their order.
Taking a seat, she says, “It’s Sunday. We should be having brunch. Wait. You don’t have anything to eat or drink, Colette.” She leans closer to me. “You’ve been looking a little thin lately.” Then she calls, “Maxwell, please make it two. So what are we talking about?”
This woman operates her own power station. I used to have that kind of oomph and energy. My sigh sounds like it belongs to an elephant.
“Being tourists in the city this summer,” Minnie exclaims like it’s the greatest idea ever.
Hazel agrees. Maxwell comes over and the conversation turns toward travel.
I zone out as I pick at the jumbo blueberry muffin Maxwell got me.
“I have travel points that are about to expire. Too bad they don’t transfer to museum admission,” he says. Not that he has to worry about money.
Me neither, at least for a little while. I haven’t told them that I took a little hiatus from work. It’s been three weeks. Nope. I haven’t gotten bored yet in case you’re wondering. Sleeping all day can keep boredom at bay.
“Have you ever been?” Hazel asks.
I blink a few times. “What? Been where?”
Hazel discretely flashes Minnie a look of concern. About me. I want to tell them, Ladies, you don’t have to worry about me. This is a little blip, a rut. It’ll pass. But I don’t say the words because they’re weak. Because I’m not so sure they’re true. I haven’t been to work in three weeks, but I’ve felt this low for months. It’s not getting better.
“Have you been to Europe? There was that Belgian.” Hazel waggles her eyebrows.
“Who?” Then I remember the guy from Brussels that I briefly dated. Well, if showing him to the post office on Forty-Third Street and asking him about waffles and chocolate counts. I was going there anyway, and the line was long. We talked for a while. My thoughts muddle and meld. “No, never been to Europe. We were going to for our twenty-first birthdays, but—”
When the confusion on Minnie, Hazel, and Maxwell’s faces registers, I realize I’ve said all of this out loud.
“Who?” Minnie asks, echoing my question from about two minutes back.
“We, um—” When I was a little girl, I broke my mother’s favorite coffee mug. I hid it in the laundry basket. For three days, I lived in fear of waking up to her hollering at me in a caffeine-deprived state.
I jumped at the gurgle of the coffee maker. Every night when I said my prayers, I almost confessed. Then on that third day, when she got around to doing laundry and asked me what the mug was doing there and why it was broken, my brain created no less than five lies on the spot. But the truth had been preparing its number, polishing its shoes. It tap-danced its way out of my mouth.
My mom placed her arm around me and thanked me for telling her the truth and that next time I ought to do so right away. She also said that she didn’t like the idea of the cup sitting in a heap with dad’s underwear. We both laughed. The truth felt good.
But right now, it terrifies me. My brain concocts no less than five stories to tell my friends, but it also still recalls its love for shiny patent leather, the click-click of the metal taps on the wooden stage...and the freeing feeling of laughter.
“We. Marcus and me. My high school sweetheart.” A sniffle starts, but I force it away.
“The one who won you the jar of chocolate kisses at the sweetheart dance?” Minnie asks, referring to our Galentine’s Day party when I mentioned that story sans details.
“Then gave you that many kisses,” Hazel adds.
Back around Valentine’s Day, I was cleaning out my closet to donate a bunch of stuff to charity and came across a box.
The do-not open Pandora’s kind of box. The one that contained all the physical evidence of my broken heart.
You can guess what I did.
The lid came off. Hasn’t gone back on.
The overwhelming desire to run away came and hasn’t left. Not run away from home—I’ve already moved out—, but from the density of this grief, sitting on my chest, clawing at my skin, and gnawing on my bones.
Not runaway so much as to disappear to disapparate—like in Harry Potter. The geeky film spots in London were one of the places I put on the bucket list but secretly knew that Marcus wanted to visit too.
“You and Marcus?” Hazel repeats carefully, as if she senses this is hallowed territory.
“He was my high school sweetheart. We started dating early junior year. We were instant best friends after I broke into the football field snack bar, spent the night popping popcorn, and then filled up the teacher’s lounge with it.”
Maxwell chortles. “So sly. A teenage mastermind.”
“Mwah ha ha.” I twiddle my fingers.
“So you guys were going to Europe when you turned twenty-one?” Minnie asks.
“We’d made a bucket list—or wish list—of a bunch of places we wanted to visit and had a shoebox and would put money in it to save up. I still have the four hundred and ten dollars we saved. It was going to be our honeymoon.”
“You were going to get married?” Hazel coos. “That’s so sweet.”
And that’s where the curtain comes down. The show is over. I tiptoe in my tap shoes off the stage. The thing is, we did get married, but I can’t tell them that. Or what happened later. It’s too painful.
“High school romance. Tale as old as time. You mean to keep in touch while going to different colleges. Too bad it rarely works out,” Bash says from a crouch on the floor.
I startle. We all turn to look at the coffee shop owner with his man bun.
“How long were you standing there?” I ask. “Er, squatting.”
“I was adjusting this table.” He jiggles it with his hand. “Customers keep complaining that it’s wobbly.” He smiles thinly. “It’s not the table. It’s the floor. They should be complaining that these old boards are uneven.” Turning on his heel, he huffs off.
“I am so thankful Catherine didn’t end up with him,” Minnie whispers.
Hazel bats her hand. “He’s nice in a quirky kind of way.”
I eye our surroundings, worried he may have heard that too. But he’s back by the register.
Hazel lights up. “Colette, you should use Maxwell’s travel points and go to Europe. Make good on that bucket-wish list. Can she use them?” she says as if Bash’s assumption was correct that my high school sweetheart and I went our separate ways in college and broke up.
Maxwell smiles. “Of course. We racked them up during our honeymoon and aren’t going to have a chance to use them before they expire.”
“You can take selfies and post them on social, telling that Marcus guy he’s missing out.” Minnie cackles like happiness is the best revenge.
Hazel bounces in her seat. “And we’ll make you a love list. Wouldn’t it be ironic if you met the love of your life while on a trip that you were supposed to go on with the bucket list bozo?”
I already took off the tap shoes. I don’t correct her. Marcus wasn’t a bozo. He was the best.
“Okay, so where’s the list? What’s the itinerary?” Hazel rubs her hands together. She lives for this kind of thing.
Without thinking, I pull it out of my purse.
Hazel reads, “London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Paris.”
“Marcus wanted to see where his Scandinavian ancestors came from—he had a Viking obsession. My picks were London and Paris.”
“You’ll be closer to Catherine,” Minnie muses.
Okay, I’ll admit, I
’m kind of zoned out. A bit numb at exposing part of the truth about my past that I’ve kept tucked away during the decade-plus of our friendship.
The girls make a list of quintessential European experiences—cobblestone streets, wishes in fountains, and ample amounts of pastries.
Minnie’s cheeks turn pink when Hazel mentions Tyler’s usual trip to France for the holidays.
However, they don’t know what really happened to Marcus and why I’ve lied about all the dating I’ve done since we’ve been friends. Granted, I’ve gone on a few real dates and “seen” guys for weeks or a month, tops. But no one ever compared to Marcus, so why bother?
But I snap back to focus when I hear them discussing departure times.
“I can’t just pick up and leave,” I say.
“What’s stopping you?” Hazel asks.
“You’re not working on a case,” Minnie adds.
“How do you—?”
“I stopped by the office last week to surprise you with lunch,” Minnie says. “Elsa said you’re on leave for the summer.” She slaps the table. “I just thought of something. Are you pregnant?”
My brow furrows. “No.” I’d have to be involved with someone for that to happen. Not to mention married. I don’t want grandmama to curse me.
Hazel scans me again, highlighting the fact that I probably have lost a little weight. “No. She’s not pregnant. It’s not like we haven’t noticed, Colette. You’re our best friend. You’re in a funk. You need to shake things up.”
Maxwell, new to our group but not to my friends’ antics, fidgets, slightly uncomfortable at the personal turn the conversation has taken.
You and me both, brother.
Minnie flashes her phone at me, showing off travel social media accounts she follows with quirky names like WanderLost and Seek, Find, Float. “Oh, check out this one. From Europe with a Kiss.”
“Ooh, he’s cute,” Hazel says, pointing at a picture of a guy from that last account, which features famous destinations with accidental photobombs of attractive European men in the background.
She’s not wrong, but I’m not looking for attractive European or Manhattan men for that matter.
Maxwell grunts.
She kisses his cheek. “Not as cute as you, babe.”
I twist a napkin around my finger. “I like Minnie’s touring Manhattan idea better.”
“Nope. You’ll get a confirmation email for your plane ticket.” Hazel sets Maxwell’s phone down. “JFK to Heathrow tomorrow.”
I tuck my chin back and shake my head. “Hazel, no. I can’t go to Europe tomorrow.”
“It’s first-class, darling.”
“No way. What about accommodations and the nine-million other details?”
Hazel taps away on her phone. “I’ll arrange everything. My friend Jesse will meet you too. You’ll have the best time. It’ll be an unforgettable experience. A summer to remember.”
“I can’t go to Europe by myself.”
“But your eighty-two-year-old grandmother went Alaska, alone. Alaska. The final frontier.”
I sag in my seat. “It was the only state she’d never visited.”
“Sounds like bucket list material to me,” Hazel singsongs.
Minnie cocks her head slightly, leveling me with a think-about-that-carefully look. “If your grandmama can visit Alaska solo, surely you can tour Europe.”
I hedge, squirming in my seat.
“When was the last time you went on vacation?” Maxwell asks after Hazel gives him a not-so-subtle look to back her up.
“Three, four years ago. I’ve been busy at the firm. Socking away money for a rainy day.” I wince. “A rainy day being retirement.”
“It rains a lot in England,” Hazel says knowingly, since that’s where she’s from.
Hazel leans in. “Think about it like this. You’re burned out, depressed, you’re single, and it’s summer.”
“Wow. You really know how to make a lady feel good,” I mutter.
“It’ll be a soul journey. Your very own Eat, Pray, Love,” Minnie adds.
“Sounds dramatic. More like Eat, Pray, Leap into the unknown,” I grumble.
But they won’t hear any more of my protests or objections.
And that, my friends, is how I end up on a red-eye to London. With red eyes. From crying. Unforgettable? More like unbelievable.
Hazel and Minnie lead me to the security checkpoint at the airport. The guard gives me a stern, “Move along” when I refuse to let go of them.
“It’s not like we’re forcing her to get an MRI or a pelvic exam,” Minnie mutters.
“It’s not like you’re about to go on holiday to Europe.” Hazel’s expression is pure sarcasm.
“By myself,” I say. That was not part of the original bucket list plan.
They pause as if considering whether sending me out of the country in this state is wise.
“Nope. We have to do this quick and dirty, like tearing off a bandage,” Hazel says, shrugging me off.
It’s then I realize the trip to the coffee shop was an intervention. “It’s not fair. It’s two against one. If Catherine weren’t in Italy and Lottie in love, they’d have my back.”
“When I told Catherine, she encouraged it, extended her stay so you could visit.”
I sink back as travelers brush past me, clearly annoyed, but suck me into their midst. New Yorkers. Sheesh.
My best friends wave and blow kisses as I’m sucked through security and into the unknown.
Keep Reading!
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If you love romantic comedy and doing good, please check out the box set Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever After!
Inside, you’ll find 20 novellas, including one by yours truly called, An Unwanted Love Story. It features cameos from the Falling into Happily Ever After series characters.
It’s enemies at first sight, but it’s not my fault he doesn’t like ice cream. But I blame him for the fact that our lake is in trouble. The only problem is, I’m afraid he’s melting my heart. But can I do the same for him?
This mega box set releases this summer but you can preorder now to lock in the low price of only 99c and will only be available for a limited time!
All proceeds from pre-sales of this 20-book collection go to Pets for the Elderly, a charity that matches seniors with shelter animals.
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Also by Ellie Hall
♥All books are clean and wholesome, Christian faith-friendly and without mature content, but filled with swoony kisses and happily ever afters. Books are listed under series in recommended reading order. ♥
-select titles available in audiobook, paperback, and large print-
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The Only Us Sweet Billionaire Series
Only Christmas with a Billionaire Novella (Book .5)
Only a Date with a Billionaire (Book 1)
Only a Kiss with a Billionaire (Book 2)
Only a Night with a Billionaire (Book 3)
Only Forever with a Billionaire (Book 4)
Only Love with a Billionaire (Book 5)
The Only Us Sweet Billionaire series box set (books 2-5) + a bonus scene!
♥
Hawkins Family Clean/Sweet Small Town Romance Series
Second Chance in Hawk Ridge Hollow (Book 1)
Finding Forever in Hawk Ridge Hollow (Book 2)
Coming Home to Hawk Ridge (Book 3)
Falling in Love in Hawk Ridge Hollow (Book 4)
Christmas in Hawk Ridge Hollow (Book 5)
The Hawk Ridge Hollow Series Complete Collection Box Set (books 1-5)
♥
The Blue Bay Beach Reads Romance Series
Summer with a Marine (Book 1)
Summer with a Rock Star (Book 2)
Summer with a Billionaire (Book 3)
Summer with the Cowboy (Book 4)
Summer with the Carpenter (Book 5)
Summer with the Doctor (Book 6)
Books 1-3 Box S
et
♥
Forever in Love and Laughter
To Swoon or Not to Swoon over the Billionaire
To Love or not to Love the Billionaire
To Crush On or Not to Crush On the Billionaire
To Date or Not to Date the Billionaire
Christmas Do Over with the Billionaire
♥
Ritchie Ranch Clean Cowboy Romance Series
Rustling the Cowboy’s Heart (Book 1)
Lassoing the Cowboy’s Heart (Book 2)
Trusting the Cowboy’s Heart (Book 3)
Kissing the Christmas Cowboy (Book 4)
Loving the Cowboy’s Heart (Book 5)
Wrangling the Cowboy’s Heart (Book 6)
Charming the Cowboy’s Heart (Book 7)
Saving the Cowboy’s Heart (Book 8)
♥
Falling into Happily Ever After Rom Com
An Unexpected Love Story
An Unlikely Love Story
An Accidental Love Story
An Impossible Love Story
An Unconventional Christmas Love Story
♥
Click here to see all of Ellie’s books or visit her website www.elliehallauthor.com for more.
♥
About the Author
Ellie Hall loves puppies, books, and the ocean. She writes sweet romance with lots of firsts and fizzy feels. Oh, and she loves tea in the morning and pizza for dinner. She believes in dreaming big, working hard, and lazy Sunday afternoons spent with her family and dog in gratitude for God’s grace.
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