“Thank you, we have a lot to do. The tornado crippled the town we used to know.”
“Wow, people never rebuilt from ’89?” Hope remembered the dark funnel barreling toward them that long-ago summer day.
“Yes, a lot of people and businesses didn’t bounce back.”
Speaking of tornadoes, a petite woman with dark hair in a shag cut and a voice Hope hadn’t heard in decades burst out the front door of the proposed restaurant space.
“HOPE!!!!”
J.J. Pawlak was a dynamo in a completely different way than Libby. She was energy, mirth, and laughter, all compressed into a petite package.
Hope felt tears spring to her eyes.
“J.J.!” The two women hugged hard, and then Hope stepped back to get a better look.
“How in the world can you look fifteen? Aren’t we fifty?”
“That we are,” said Libby.
“It’s all the green juicing I do.”
“A margarita is not green juice,” said Libby.
“A margarita does too qualify as green juice. Lime is squeezed. Juice is had. It’s health food.”
Hope laughed and felt her younger self take a step forward over the broken glass of her current life. Who knew laughing with old friends was a time machine, no matter how long it had been?
“I’m about to wow Hope with Dean’s work. He’s turned these spaces into one of a kind gems,” Libby said.
“Oh, please don’t tell him that. He’ll insist I make dinner or something ridiculous.”
A burly man in a Tucker Contractor t-shirt with a tool belt, a salt and pepper beard, and a big smile walked out the door next.
Hope assumed it was Dean himself. He towered over his petite wife. But the same energy radiated from him as it did J.J.
“I heard that! And give me a break. I deserve a reward for this building, not an act of violence in a casserole dish.” The affection in his eyes when he criticized his wife’s cooking was clear. The comment was sweet, not nasty.
Hope had a little spike of envy. Why couldn’t Archie be more like that? His idea of banter was calling her stupid.
She shook it off. Archie could be any way he wanted. He was back in Kentucky having his midlife crisis or whatever.
“This is Hope. One of the ladies from the eighties,” J.J. said.
“Hope is a chef,” Libby added.
“Home cook and caterer,” Hope corrected. She didn’t want to make them think she was more than she was. She was no chef; she hadn’t earned that title. She managed a breakfast diner at best and didn’t run the kitchen at all.
“Fine, Hope just won a huge title, The Best Cook in the World, but she’s not a chef.”
“Stop,” Hope said.
“Wow! You won the whole thing? That’s so great!!” J.J. high-fived her.
It was sweet, they hadn’t seen each other in forever, but she felt affection and love from J.J. and Libby as if they’d never parted.
She also felt bad that she didn’t know a thing about the two women who had swept in and swept her up. She’d figured out that Libby was a powerhouse community organizer. Get it done, society, bigwig, the kind of woman that might have intimidated the heck out of Hope back in her PTA days.
J.J. owned a salon or worked at a salon. The last few hours had been a whirlwind. A million new details about her life, and her friends, were trying to sort themselves.
