Page 11 of It's a Widow Thing

“You need to get out of your own head,” Daisy said.

“I know. I do.” That had always been Sabrina’s problem—thinking too much.

Kendra reached over and touched Sabrina’s arm. “Hold on a minute. That’s not necessarily true.”

“Really?”

“I think it’s normal to react the way you did. To feel a little skittish. Especially if you haven’t been physically intimate with anyone since you lost Andrew. I think you should be patient with yourself. Be kind.”

Sabrina’s eyes immediately welled up. She’d been so ready to agree with Daisy, but Kendra’s appraisal of the situation spoke to something deep inside her. She generally wasn’t kind to herself. Instead, she was her top critic, the one who knew the fastest ways to blame herself for everything that went wrong. Her panic on the rooftop the other night didn’t have to stem from some personal shortcoming. It grew from the messy twists and turns her life had taken. She couldn’t simply declare herself ready to start over, and then have it be true. This was going to be a process. “Thank you, Kendra. I appreciate that.”

Daisy tutted and gulped her chardonnay.

“Will you be seeing him again?” Orla asked. “Or was that the end of it? A lot of men can’t handle that sort of rejection.”

That made Sabrina even more nervous. She admired Michael’s fearlessness, even when it was clear evidence of precisely how determined he was to make inroads with her. As to where that led and exactly how badly either of them might get their heart broken, she wasn’t sure. “He asked me out this morning.”

“Please tell me you said yes,” Daisy said. “Otherwise, I don’t know why we need to talk about this at all.”

“Oh, be quiet,” Orla snapped. “It’s fine if she said no.”

“I did say yes. It’s very hard to say no to him.”He looks at me with those big brown eyes and my resolve disappears.“He’s making me dinner at his apartment Friday night.”

“That’s how Jill won me over. With her cooking. It’s nice to know people still do that for each other,” Kendra said.

“Are you nervous?” Orla asked.

“I’m worried about expectations.”

“Do you mean sex?” Daisy asked. “Because if he kissed you at a party, in front of other people in your building, he definitely wants sex.”

Sabrina’s stomach wobbled. “It’s more than that. I think he wants something serious. And I’m not in the same zip code as serious.”

“Then tell him that,” Kendra said.

“I did.”At least I think I did.

“Good. I get the sense that it’s far too early for serious,” Orla added.

This conversation had been helpful on some level, but it was also a lot of echoing of Sabrina’s fears, especially from Orla. “Let’s talk about something else. I think we should hear more from our new member, Aurora.” She turned to her. “By the way, I work in the beauty industry and I really admire your work and your daughter’s as well.”

“Do you know Brooklyn?” Aurora asked.

Sabrina shook her head. “Oh, no. I only know of her. I have a tiny cosmetics company. Do you know Lela Bennett? She and I talked on the phone today. I’ve seen Brooklyn join her onGood Day USA.” Lela was the beauty expert on the morning talk show.

“If you’ve met Lela, you’ll undoubtedly meet Brooklyn,” Aurora said. “Those two are very close friends now.”

Sabrina could only hope to mingle with women like Lela and Brooklyn, but she sure liked to talk about it like it was a foredrawn conclusion. “Hopefully that will happen.”

The topic then switched back to Aurora, who said she wanted to get serious about dating. Orla told her to be careful, and that there were a lot of “skeevy” men out there. Kendra shared that she’d been having problems with her sister-in-law, who wanted some of her wife’s belongings, which Kendra wasn’t willing to part with. Daisy told them all that she’d slept with the barista at the coffee shop down the street from where she lived and was now worried he’d get clingy. Leticia shook her head in dismay at that story, then said that she had nothing new to share other than her cat had been sleeping more than normal and she was concerned. Orla, ever organized and focused on the group, asked for suggestions on their next meeting, which was supposed to be an outing.

“Wine tasting?” Leticia asked.

“Boring.” Daisy emptied the final drops of the bottle of Chardonnay into her glass. “Technically, I taste wine seven days a week. I think we should go dancing.”

“I look terrible when I get sweaty,” Aurora said. “But I’ll defer to the group.”

“I have sort of a wacky idea,” Sabrina said. “What about axe throwing? My assistant went to a bar downtown that has it. She said it was a blast.”