You wanted to check up on me. Lindsay didn’t say it, but the thought zipped through her mind. Weirdly, though, it didn’t rankle. At all. She simply shrugged it off, admitted to herself that it made sense. Piper had approved an outlay of cash and she was checking to see if it had been worth it. “Piper, these are my very good friends, Maya and Roberta. Guys, this is Piper Bradshaw, Mrs. B.’s daughter.”
Handshakes and “nice to meet yous” went around the group as Lindsay poured Piper a glass of Zinfandel she was sure she’d like. No trying to ply her with blends tonight. Didn’t seem like she was in the mood.
Lindsay handed her the wine. “I’m surprised to see you here tonight.”
Piper shrugged, sipped the wine without asking what it was, which Lindsay found interesting. Did that indicate some level of trust? Doubtful, but a nice thought. “Like I said, I wanted to see how things were going. Check out the music.” She sipped again. With a glance at Maya and Bert, who were in a conversation of their own, Piper lowered her voice. “I also wanted to check on details about tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Lindsay asked, momentarily lost. Then she remembered the graduation party. “Oh! Oh, right. Tomorrow.”
Piper studied her for a beat. “Listen, if you’d rather I not go, I totally get that. Matthew sort of forced this on you.”
So many responses went through Lindsay’s head in the moment, even as she kept one eye on the room to make sure her employees didn’t need her. The strange thing was, though, that she’d sort of been looking forward to not attending the party alone. Maya and Bert had other plans or she’d have asked them. “Oh, no, it’s fine. It’s great. I’m glad you’re coming. Unless you don’t want to…”
“No, I do. I do.” Piper looked off into the wine bar.
“Okay. Good.”
“Good.”
Lindsay was suddenly aware that both Maya and Bert were now watching, and she would have questions to answer.
“What time shall I pick you up?” Piper asked.
“One forty-five?” Lindsay liked that Piper wanted to drive, though she wasn’t sure why.
“Text me your address.”
Lindsay pulled out her phone and scrolled to Piper’s number, which she’d entered the night she’d met with her and Mrs. B. She typed in her address, hit Send. “There.”
Piper checked her own phone, gave one nod, and put it back into her purse. “So, Maya. Roberta. What do you guys do?”
Apparently, that was the end of the party discussion, and Lindsay was somewhat relieved. A table of five left just before the band returned, so Lindsay crossed the room to bus it. As she gathered empty glasses and trash, a glance up told her Piper had moved to a vacated stool and was sitting closer to Maya and Bert, and she wasn’t sure what to do with that. Bert said something that made Piper laugh loudly, and Lindsay smiled when she realized that it was the first time she’d ever heard Piper full-out laugh like that. It was a very pleasing sound, she had to admit.
Smooth started up again, playing a tune Lindsay recognized but couldn’t remember the name of, and the front door opened to a trio of women looking for a table. Lindsay, her arms full of the mess from the table she’d cleared, welcomed them as Bridget took over and led them to a table.
Once Lindsay had dumped everything off in the back, she returned to her friends to find Piper finishing up her wine. She raised her eyebrows at Piper, who nodded with a grin. “One more. Your friends are funny.” She turned back to Maya—who was a doctor and was telling a story about the mother of a patient, never discussing names or anything personal about her, of course—and Lindsay tried in vain to figure out how she felt about this. Piper Bradshaw, a.k.a. Princess Elsa, was sitting in the wine bar, enjoying a glass of wine and laughing at stories told by two of Lindsay’s best friends. It was like being in the Twilight Zone. Surreal.
But in a good way.
That was the weird part. It was good. It felt…kind of perfect, actually.
Smooth finished their set at ten on the dot to a nice burst of applause. When Lindsay paid them, she asked if they’d be willing to play again. They agreed with enthusiasm and she mentally put the entire evening into the win column. She couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. B.
Back at the bar, Piper had slid off her stool and was gathering her things.
“We’re open for another hour,” Lindsay told her, only aware of the slight plea in her voice after she’d heard it.
“I know,” Piper told her. “It’s been a very long day, though. I’m beat.”
“Plus, she’s got to rest up for tomorrow,” Maya said, looking at Lindsay. “Big day.”
“It was so nice to meet you both,” Piper said, with a little wave.
“Same here,” Bert said. “I suspect we’ll see you again soon.”
Lindsay watched as the door closed behind Piper.
“Well,” Maya said, then set her empty glass in front of Lindsay with a determined firmness. “That was interesting.”
“Tell me something, Linds.” Bert took Piper’s vacated stool, made a show of making herself comfortable as Lindsay filled Maya’s glass.
Lindsay looked at her, knowing what was coming. “Okay.”
“How is it that this woman,” Bert waved a hand toward the door, “is your date to a family party tomorrow and we—your best friends in life—had no idea?” She tilted her head in confusion. “How is that possible? Hmm?” She propped an elbow on the bar and her chin in her hand.
Lindsay glanced around the wine bar, silently hoping somebody needed her help with something, but she was out of luck. Evidently, the Universe wanted her to explain herself to her friends. With a sigh, she told them about Sunday, how she’d been innocently talking about her dread around the family gathering, how Matthew had volunteered Piper to go with her, how neither she nor Piper could manage to get out of it. Nor did they seem to want to.
“At least I didn’t,” she finished up, being totally honest.
“You like her, huh?” Maya asked, and Bert chucked Lindsay in the shoulder.
“I don’t know,” Lindsay said, a little flustered. “And that’s the truth.” She took a moment to think about it. She’d never not been honest with Maya and Bert, and she wasn’t about to start. “I find her intriguing. Maybe that’s a better word for it.” With a scoff, she added, “I mean, she hasn’t been easy to like.”
Maya shrugged. “I liked her right away.”
“Me, too,” Bert agreed.
Lindsay made a face at both of them. “Fine. I haven’t found it easy to like her, and I don’t think she liked me right away.”
“Because of this place,” Maya said, understanding.
“I thought she didn’t ever come here,” Bert commented. “Didn’t you tell us that when your boss first said she was leaving?”
Lindsay nodded. “At that point, she hadn’t. Now? She’s been showing up a couple times a week.”
“Maybe she’s feeling extra responsible with her mom gone?” Maya asked, her expression one of searching for a solution.
“That would make sense,” Bert agreed.
Lindsay shrugged. She really wasn’t sure of the reasoning, but Maya’s suggestion was as good as any she’d come up with. “I feel like I’ve been pretty good about giving her the benefit of the doubt around it.” She had, hadn’t she? “She doesn’t seem to like change, so I’m trying to slip my changes in slowly. I just want her to understand that I’m only trying to increase business. There are new restaurants and bars cropping up around here all the time. We have to stay fresh and unique in order to compete. You know?”
Her friends nodded their agreement, even though as a pediatrician and a history teacher, neither of them worked in any kind of sales capacity.
Maya gestured around the wine bar. “Well, I’d say your music idea was a success.”
“Me, too.” Lindsay grinned, a feeling of satisfaction washing over her.
A few moments later, Maya and Bert had finished their wine and gathered their belongings.
&nb
sp; “This was great, Linds,” Bert told her. “We need to come here more often.”
“I will second that,” Lindsay said. “And thank you. It was great to have you here for support. I know you guys are busy. I appreciate you coming.” She moved around the bar to hug each of them goodbye.
“We expect a full report about tomorrow,” Maya said quietly in her ear.
“It’s just a graduation party,” Lindsay said.
“Still.”
“Fine.” Lindsay shook her head with a chuckle.
“Don’t make me hunt you down,” Bert said, pointing a finger at her.
“Go home,” Lindsay said, laughing, and shooed them out the door.
Things were winding down in the wine bar, and Lindsay began bussing the tables that had emptied. The success of the evening combined with the anticipation of tomorrow and made for a very weird, good-and-bad, happy-and-nervous, mixture in Lindsay’s stomach. Satisfaction over the success of the evening plus butterflies about the party tomorrow equaled a very unsettled sensation in her body, like she was totally confident she knew all her lines, but was super nervous about stepping out onstage.
Only time would tell if she got a positive review…
* * *
Saturday dawned bright and sunny, a lovely early-June day, and Piper was on the water first thing. These were the mornings she loved most: the temperature comfortable enough that she didn’t need to tough it out until the paddling helped her body warm up; quiet and serene with only a few fishermen out in their boats; the water like glass, smooth and reflective. She could see the blue sky, the clouds in the water as if looking into a mirror. Her paddle cut into the lake silently, pulled her kayak along with almost no sound at all.
To her right, on the shore, a deer lifted its head and watched her as she glided by. “Hi, beautiful,” she whispered. A hawk circled nearby and a fish jumped about fifty feet ahead of her, landing with a splash, sending circular ripples across the water.
Piper was a city girl at heart. She’d be the first one to tell you. She had no desire to camp. Hiking was okay, but wasn’t her go-to activity. She loved animals, but in her house, not on a farm. She needed to know there was a grocery store or coffee shop or movie theatre within a few minutes’ drive. But these mornings in her kayak, on the water, with nature, they grounded her. They helped her to breathe easier, to center herself. She supposed it was her own form of meditation, and though she wasn’t able to kayak every morning, if she went too long during the summer without doing so, she got cranky, felt unbalanced. It was a need for her, something necessary for her sanity.
It was odd to her that she was actually looking forward to today. Well, somewhat. Parties full of people she didn’t know weren’t really her favorite thing (were they anybody’s?), but she’d been to enough business meetings and mixers and conferences for work that she knew how to navigate a room full of strangers with maximum ease and minimum stress. The week had seen her cycle through several emotions over it: irritation at Matthew for butting in, annoyance at herself for letting him butt in and then being unable to just say no, thinking up and then discarding excuses to bow out. More than that, though, was the strange realization that she was finding Lindsay…intriguing. That was the only word she could come up with that seemed to fit how she’d been feeling lately. She was a big enough person to admit that she’d maybe jumped the gun on her judgment of Lindsay, assuming her to be flighty and flaky and not at all somebody who could run a business. So far, Lindsay had proven her wrong. And while part of her was embarrassed by that fact, another part was glad. Glad to have been mistaken—though she wasn’t quite ready to admit that fully to herself. Or to Matthew. God, she’d never hear the end of it, a thought that actually brought a grin to her face.
Back home, she moved the kayak off her car and into the garage. No need to show up at Lindsay’s with it still strapped to the roof. She sipped coffee while scrambling herself some eggs and doing her best not to think about work. Of course, she failed, and for about the thousandth time in the past few days, wished her father was around so she could bounce some things off him, get his take. Things were looking good for the Harbinger deal, which meant things were looking not-so-good for Piper’s staff. She and Ian had texted back and forth when Piper had gotten home from Vineyard last night, and that had gone on until well after midnight. He was as worried about his people as she was hers.
She spent the rest of the morning cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming, and doing various household chores that she always vowed she’d stop saving for her weekends, but she’d never been able to follow through on the promise. By 1:00, she was standing in her underwear in front of her closet trying to decide what to wear to a graduation party for somebody she didn’t know. With a temperature in the mid-seventies, she decided it was time to break out the sundresses. She chose a black one with a yellow paisley design on it. It was sleeveless and soft and she paired it with some strappy black sandals with a slight heel. She clipped her hair back, added some jewelry and makeup, and was ready to go by 1:30.
On her way through the dining room, she snagged a bottle of wine off her wine rack. While she thought getting a card and giving money to a girl she’d never met in her life might be awkward and even a little creepy, she refused to show up with nothing at all. The wine would be for Lindsay’s mother, the hostess.
At exactly 1:45, Piper pulled to a stop in front of the address Lindsay had texted her. It was a cute little Cape Cod with tan siding and navy blue shutters. A large pot of pink petunias stood to the right of the front door and a birdfeeder on a black shepherd’s hook to the left. Several chickadees were lunching away. Before Piper could get out of her car or even beep, Lindsay was jogging up the driveway, a small black bag draped over her, cross-body style, a light blue envelope in hand. She wore her usual attire of jeans, but these were black and almost dressy. Her top was a pale yellow button-down, the sleeves rolled up her forearms and held there by buttoned fasteners. Black flats were on her feet. Her blond hair sparkled in the sunlight as she reached the car and pulled the door open.
“Hi there,” she said, and for some reason, Piper wondered if the cheer in her tone was forced.
“Hey.” Piper squinted at her for a moment. “You okay?”
Lindsay gave something between a grin and a grimace and waved her off with a sigh. “Yeah. I’m just never thrilled to go to my mom’s house for things like this. I’d rather be one-on-one with her, you know?”
Piper nodded and shifted the car into gear. “Well, it’s good that you’re going. I imagine you get points for that. Where are we headed?”
Lindsay gave her the address and directions as they drove.
“Are you close to your mom?” Piper asked her after they’d driven for a few minutes.
“That is an interesting question,” was Lindsay’s reply, and Piper glanced at her. “Sometimes, I think yes. Other times, I think we used to be. Still other times, I think we’re not at all.”
“Complicated.”
“Understatement.”
Piper waited, but Lindsay didn’t say more. “I’m going to need some details, please.”
Lindsay was looking out the passenger side window, but Piper caught the corner of her mouth when it quirked up. “My parents were very young when they had me. Probably shouldn’t have gotten married, but they did. They struggled for several years before deciding to get a divorce. They had joint custody, so I went back and forth. It could be great for things like Christmas or your birthday, when you get double the presents. But it was tough at times, like if Dad had something he really wanted to go to when it was his weekend to have me.”
Piper nodded, but kept her eyes on the road. “I imagine that could leave you feeling a bit unwanted.”
“Exactly. And it happened on both ends. Don’t get me wrong; my parents were good to me and they did the best they could. I know that. But it wasn’t the ideal childhood.”
“They’re both remarried?”
“Yeah, in the
same year I turned eighteen. Isn’t that weird? And my mom married a guy with two girls and my dad married a woman with two boys and a girl.”
“Wow. That’s a lot of instant family.” Piper couldn’t imagine how jarring that must have been for teenage Lindsay.
“You have no idea. And they’re all younger than me. Josh is on my dad’s side and Maddie is on my mom’s side and they’re both twenty-four. They’re the oldest.”
“And you’re…?”
“Thirty-five.”
“So you were eighteen and your parents each married people with kids that were seven and younger?”
“Yup.”
Piper saw the likely path things took. “Let me guess. They each ended up with cute, new families that were intact, for all intents and purposes, and you ended up being an add-on.”
Lindsay turned and looked at her, her expression registering slight surprise. “Yes. Exactly. I headed off to college and lived in an apartment with a friend, so it’s not like I was even around most of the time.”
“That had to be tough.”
Lindsay lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I did okay.”
“You did.”
Piper glanced at her and their gazes met and held for a beat. Lindsay finally turned away and pointed. “It’s that house on the left, the blue one. See the red car? You can park right behind that.”
Piper did as instructed, and they both got out.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Lindsay said as she gestured to the wine bottle.
“I don’t like to show up empty-handed,” Piper said with a shrug, and something about the look that zipped across Lindsay’s face made her think Lindsay liked that she’d brought a hostess gift.
“Um…did you notice that we match?” Lindsay pointed at Piper’s black and yellow dress, then to her own black pants and yellow top.
Piper grinned. “If people ask, tell them there was a memo.”
“Got it.”
Lindsay didn’t move, simply stood next to the car and Piper waited with her for a moment. “You gearing up?”
“Exactly.” Then Lindsay made a little punching move with her fist and gave one determined nod. “Okay. I’m good. Ready?”
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