Love on Lexington Avenue

by Layne, Lauren

  What did Claire have?

  She lacked Naomi’s boldness and Audrey’s effortless charm.

  She was polite, sure. Likable, hopefully. Traits she’d always thought were enviable, but now she wasn’t so sure. Where had that gotten her?

  She was widowed. Alone. Bored.

  She had no career, no romantic prospects—not that she wanted those—no hobbies. Nobody looked twice at her, and she never looked twice at anyone else.

  Claire was more sure than ever that she was due for a change. The spontaneous cupcake date with Audrey on her birthday had been a good start, but it was only the start. She wanted more of that. More of doing whatever she wanted just because.

  “What’s going on with you?” Naomi demanded, giving Claire an assessing look. “You’re all up in your head.” She waved a finger around Claire’s head as she said it.

  “Too long a story for a hardware store.”

  Naomi studied her a moment longer, then nodded, pointing at Claire’s purse. “You get what you need?”

  Claire nodded. She’d picked up just about every paint swatch she could find in the pink/rose/mauve category. Partially because she was warming to the idea of pink accents in her newly renovated home, partially because it pleased her to imagine Scott Turner’s face when he saw her haul.

  “Perfect! It’s time for your belated birthday lunch. Which is on me since I was left out of the actual birthday festivities. Cupcakes without me. The betrayal burns my very soul.”

  “We texted. Twice,” Audrey said in defense. “You didn’t respond.”

  Naomi inspected her manicure. “Oliver and I were busy.”

  The slightly satisfied look on her face said exactly what they were busy with.

  “Oh?” Claire said innocently. “Netflix or . . .”

  “Or Netflix and chill?” Audrey said in a sly tone.

  Claire looked at Audrey. “What does that mean?”

  “Do not answer that question,” Naomi said, pointing a finger at Audrey. “Come on. Lunch.”

  Naomi charged out of the store, never breaking stride in her five-inch Jimmy Choos. Claire and Audrey exchanged a bemused glance and followed. It was pointless to argue with a determined Naomi.

  Fifteen minutes later, the three women were seated at a trendy French bistro as a server opened a bottle of champagne and poured three glasses. When he moved away, Naomi lifted a glass in a toast. “To our birthday girl. How does thirty-five feel?”

  “Well,” Claire said, taking a sip. “So far, better than thirty-four. I no longer have a husband to cheat on me.”

  “Dark,” Naomi said approvingly. “Very dark, and I like it. Now, fill me in, what did I miss when you got cupcakes without me?”

  “You mean when you were having sex with Oliver?” Claire countered.

  Audrey leaned in. “By the way, that’s what Netflix and chill means.”

  Claire frowned. “Why not just say sex?”

  “See, that’s why you can’t flirt, dear. You’re too wonderfully literal and straightforward.”

  “It doesn’t feel wonderful,” Claire muttered. “It feels boring.”

  She looked at Naomi. “Did you know that my favorite kind of cupcake is vanilla? Was vanilla,” she corrected quickly.

  “Oh, not this again,” Audrey said, slumping slightly in her chair.

  “Sure,” Naomi said. “What’s wrong with vanilla?”

  “I’ve just been wondering what it says about me that my favorite cupcake is flavorless, colorless.”

  “They have a color. They’re sort of yellowish. Beige. And they have a flavor. Vanilla. Better yet, it’s a flavor everybody likes.”

  “Well, I’ve decided I don’t want to be beige anymore,” Claire said. “And I don’t want to be universally liked. I want to be . . . interesting.”

  Naomi frowned. “You are interesting. And what do you mean you don’t want to be beige. You are not your cupcake flavor, Claire.”

  Aren’t I?

  The past couple of months flitted by in a sad, drab little montage. Her generic birthday cards. The flavorless cupcakes. Her Pinterest boards and renovation project folder overflowing with whites and beiges. The realization that she apparently didn’t even know what flirting was, much less know how to do it.

  “Claire?” Audrey nudged, worry in her voice.

  Claire smiled. “Don’t worry. I promise this isn’t some sort of midlife crisis where I’m going to go get a pixie cut that doesn’t suit my face or decide to start collecting tattoos that I’ll regret in a month. I’m just realizing I’m in a tiny rut is all.”

  “A vanilla rut?”

  “Basically.” Claire let her shoulders rise in a shrug before dropping them again. “I’m just so aware that my only identity these days is widow. And even more alarming, even before Brayden died, my only identity was wife. Before that it was girlfriend. Before that . . . I don’t know. I guess I just have this weird sense that I’ve lost sight of who I am. If I ever even knew.”

  Naomi opened her mouth, but before she could reply, the server approached the table. Feeling unexpectedly vulnerable, Claire welcomed the interruption, placing her order before her friends could tell the waiter to come back later. “I’ll have the mixed green salad, and I’ll add the scallops to that, please.”

  “Same, but add salmon for me,” Audrey said.

  “Croque Madame. With fries,” Naomi ordered.

  Claire handed her menu to the server, but when he reached out to take it, Claire’s fingers didn’t release it, realizing she’d just ordered a salad. Of course she had. Because she always ordered the salad.

  “Actually, I’ll take the Croque Madame as well,” she told the waiter, finally releasing the menu.

  “Fries?” he asked, scribbling the correction in his notebook.

  “Why not.”

  The server moved away, and both her friends were studying her.

  “What was that?” Naomi demanded. “I feel like something just happened.”

  “Yes. I changed my food order,” Claire said, sipping her champagne.

  “Yes, to fries. You never get fries. And you love salad.”

  “Nobody loves salad, but not all of us are running fiends,” Claire said pointedly at the exceptionally fit Naomi.

  “Plus, she’s burning all sorts of calories having sex,” Audrey grumbled.

  Naomi gave another of those secret, smug smiles as she took a demure sip of her champagne.

  Audrey sighed. “And it’s good sex, too. You can tell by her face.”

  “Oh, it’s not my face that knows it’s good. Well, actually—”

  “Nope,” Claire cut in. “I love you; I love Oliver; I do not want details.”

  “I do,” Audrey said morosely.

  “You know, I’d feel worse for you if you were even trying to have sex,” Naomi said, giving Audrey’s arm a playful flick. “When was the last time you went on a date? Or you?” She glanced at Claire.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to date,” Audrey protested. “I just haven’t felt the spark. I don’t want to date for the sake of dating.”

  “Why not?” Naomi asked. “It’s fun.”

  “Is it?” Claire interjected.

  Naomi gave her a look.

  “No, I’m really asking,” Claire said with a laugh. “Other than the awful blind date you sent me on a few months back, I haven’t dated anyone since Brayden. I guess I’ve never understood the point of dating just for the ‘fun’ of it.”

  “Is that why you were interrogating Audrey on the nature of flirting?” Naomi asked.

  “Sort of. Seeing you with that guy in the hardware store—”

  “Good Lord, sweetie, you can’t date that guy,” Naomi interrupted, aghast. “Not only was his breath appalling, but even more prohibitively, someone apparently has managed to look past his egg breath to marry the guy. He was wearing a ring.”

  “I don’t want to date that guy,” Claire said in exasperation. “I was just marveling at the way y
ou marched right up to him and effortlessly charmed the pants off him.”

  “Huh,” Naomi said. “I can’t figure out if I’ve just been insulted or if there’s a compliment in there.”

  “A compliment,” Claire reassured her. “I love the way that you don’t overthink things. Neither of you do,” she added, with a glance at Audrey.

  “Well, that’s not always a good thing,” Audrey pointed out. “Maybe had we thought through things just a little bit more, we wouldn’t have ended up all falling for the same guy.”

  “That’s why we have our pact,” Naomi said. “Impulse control, as it relates to the opposite sex.”

  Claire thoughtfully tapped her nails against her champagne flute. “What if I said I wanted your help with less impulse control?”

  Audrey reached over and set the back of her fingers to Claire’s forehead. “Hmm, nope. No fever. Wait. Is that what the cupcake binge was about? And you wanting to go grab pizza after?”

  “I missed cupcakes and pizza?” Naomi said.

  “Sex,” Claire and Audrey reminded her at the same time.

  “Fine,” Naomi muttered. “So, what are we dealing with here? A food revolution? You’ve decided to banish salads and embrace fries, cupcakes, and pizza to get out of your rut? Please say yes.”

  “I’m not really sure yet,” Claire admitted. “I just know something needs to change, and I have to start somewhere. Why not with cupcakes and French fries?”

  “And your house,” Audrey reminded her.

  Naomi tapped the table excitedly with her palm. “Oh! That reminds me, I never got the lowdown on Scott.”

  “Who’s Scott?” Audrey asked.

  “My contractor,” Claire said wrinkling her nose.

  “You hired him!” Naomi said, pleased.

  “I think so?” Claire said.

  “What do you mean you think so?”

  “Well, he never really told me how much he was charging me, just said we’d figure it out later.”

  “Yeah, that’s Scott for you,” Naomi said. “Super fly by the seat of his pants.”

  “You might have also mentioned he’s a little abrasive,” Claire said.

  “Abrasive?” Naomi titled her head. “He’s more just . . .”

  “Rude, condescending, and opinionated?”

  “Maybe a little,” Naomi admitted. “He’s good at his job, and he knows it. And has no issues saying it.”

  “Sounds like someone I know,” Claire said with a smile.

  Naomi blew her a kiss, knowing full well that she was good at her job and, like Scott, had no qualms saying so.

  “Is he hot?” Audrey chimed in.

  “No,” Claire said, just as Naomi said, “Yes.”

  “Oh, come on,” Naomi protested. “I may be in love with Oliver, but even I can see Scott’s got his own appeal. He wears a bomber jacket when it’s not a million degrees out, and let me tell you, it looks good.”

  Claire shrugged. “Well, yesterday he showed up wearing flannel. And it did not look good.”

  “Hmm,” Audrey said, tapping a fingernail to her chin. “See, I feel like I could totally work with the flannel. Lumberjack is super in right now.”

  “What about an ego so big it barely made it through my front door?” Claire asked. “Is that super in?”

  “Always,” her friends said in unison.

  “It even has a name,” Audrey said. “Alpha.”

  “Well, trendy or not, alpha lumberjack is not my thing. But as long as he goes along with my house plan, he can wear whatever he wants,” Claire said, setting her napkin in her lap as the server brought their food. “And he skips haircuts more often than he should.”

  She dove into the fries and closed her eyes for a moment in bliss. No doubt about it. Spontaneity tasted way better than lettuce.

  “Okay, what is the house plan?” Audrey said, picking up her fork.

  “The house plan is there is no plan,” Claire said gleefully.

  “Wait, seriously? You’ve been working on this for months, if not years. You’ve got that enormous pile of samples and crap.”

  “All in the garbage,” Claire said. “I’m starting fresh, bringing in whatever idea I feel like at the moment. If that’s a disco ball tomorrow and a built-in stripper pole next week, I’m rolling with it. And your boy Scott will have to roll with it, too,” she told Naomi defiantly.

  “I cannot wait to see this go down,” Naomi said, taking a bite of her cheese-laden sandwich. “When does Scott start?”

  “He’s there now.”

  True to his word, Scott had shown up at Claire’s home at seven that morning. She’d been ready with coffee, figuring it was the least she could do, though she regretted the kind gesture when he’d rolled his eyes upon hearing about her Home Depot errand.

  “Actually,” Claire said, reaching down and pulling out some of the swatches from her bag. “You ladies can help me with my first impulse while we eat.”

  “Ooh, pretty,” Audrey said, reaching out and running a finger over a lavender-tinted paint swatch. Her gaze scanned the assortment of pinks as Claire set them on the table, then grinned. “Strawberry lemonade! For your home.”

  Claire smiled. “Yup. I mean, I don’t want it looking like a gingerbread house or anything, but I don’t want to default to the expected neutrals.”

  “Like a Barbie dream house!” Audrey explained, already reaching for the brightest color options.

  Claire gave Naomi a wide-eyed Help! look.

  “We’ve got this,” Naomi said reassuringly, shoving a subtler set of colors into Audrey’s hand. “I’m thinking we’re going for fresh and feminine, right?”

  Claire nodded, grateful her friend understood the vision. Fresh, to shake off the stale feeling a year of mourning had left her with. Feminine, because even with her new impulse project, there was one thing she wasn’t leaving up to whim and spontaneity:

  She had no intention of sharing her home—or her life—with a man.

  Ever again.

  Chapter Four

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 8

  Claire returned home from her time with Naomi and Audrey feeling both a little mellow from the champagne and revived by the companionship.

  Claire had always been a girl’s girl. Throughout high school and college, she’d prided herself in her ability to navigate among the cliques and have multiple friend groups. She’d been the “mom” in every group. Levelheaded and thoughtful, Claire was the one who always had ChapStick, a bobby pin, and breath mints. The one who’d handed out water at frat parties and held her friends’ hair when they’d ignored her water and ended up puking their guts out. She was the one who’d dispensed advice that perfectly straddled tough love and gentle.

  When she’d married Brayden, she’d been extremely conscious of not letting her girlfriends fall by the wayside. Of course, it had helped that nearly all of her friends had similarly been married or in serious relationships. It had been great. For a while. Claire’s social calendar had alternated between wine and book club nights with the girls while the guys had poker nights and golf trips, and couple-centric dinner parties.

  And then Brayden had died, and everything had just . . . changed.

  Not at first. At first it had been . . . okay. Or as okay as the death of a cheating spouse could possibly be. When the news broke, Claire had been inundated with support, both the well-meaning and nosy varieties. She’d received more flowers than she had surfaces to put them on and had enough bagels delivered to fuel the carbo-load for all of the New York marathon runners.

  Eventually, though, the invitations had stopped. While she still heard from her college best friends with baby updates and the occasional check-ins, Carrie and Melissa didn’t live in New York. Text messages, phone calls, even FaceTime didn’t make up for an in-person shoulder to lean on, and those had become scarce after Brayden’s death.

  Her Manhattan friends, the group she’d once been the center of, had slowly disappeared. Claire knew it wasn’t malicio
us. She’d been in their shoes. When Kristen Seymour and her husband had separated, Claire had tried to include Kristen just as before, but eventually her friend had somehow sort of slipped away. Just like Claire had.

  And if she were being honest, Claire couldn’t be entirely sure she hadn’t brought some of it upon herself. Had she pulled back? Changed? Or was it that her newfound cynicism just didn’t fit in around married couples?

  Regardless, she wasn’t sure she would have survived this past year without Naomi and Audrey. Whether it was because of their shared experience with Brayden or just three women finding each other at exactly the right time, Audrey and Naomi felt more like sisters than friends, and had from the very beginning.

  Case in point, Naomi was with Oliver now, but unlike Claire’s other coupled-up friends, Naomi hadn’t drifted away. If anything, their friendship had become more rock-solid since Naomi and Oliver had gotten together, plus there was an added bonus of Claire now counting Oliver as a good friend.

  Claire was hanging up her keys on the hook by the front door when she heard a thump from upstairs, followed by a muttered masculine curse. She paused, half thinking about going upstairs to see if Scott was okay, but deciding better of it. If she went dashing after him at every crash and bump, it was going to be a long few months. It was already going to be a long few months, she realized as she eyed the pencil markings all along the walls on her way to the kitchen. Most were numbers, although the wall to her left simply had an unceremonious X.

  Claire had just poured herself a glass of water and was in the process of setting the paint swatches she and the girls had settled on next to her tile samples when Scott came into the kitchen.

  She glanced up briefly, then did a double take. The flannel he’d arrived in yesterday morning was nowhere to be seen, and instead the man wore only a white T-shirt with his jeans. A very fitted white T-shirt.

  He was more muscular than she’d expected. Yesterday she’d thought him lean, and he was. But seeing the way his arms filled out the sleeves of his shirt, it was obvious he was also strong. Not in a gym rat way, but in a masculine, I put this body to good use sort of way.