It was impressive. Maude wondered if she should ask for some tips. Other than cutting a few inches off her still long hair, she hadn’t changed much since high school. Maybe a little in college. She’d learned how to do her brows better then. And stopped wearing such clunky shoes.
But she still favored the same bohemian styles. Loose, flowy tops and skirts. Low-cut jeans, sometimes with patches, sometimes with rips. Hoop earrings, strands of beads, lots of colors.
Yes, she’d mixed in some logo T-shirts and the occasional thrifted jacket or cardigan, but a little update wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Maybe.
Of course, the real question was, why did she care now?
She knew why. Her gaze shifted to the flowers. She liked Ollie. And he was doctor. Not even just a doctor, but a heart surgeon. And Maude had seen a lot of pictures of Emily last night.
She was nicely dressed in every one of them. Hair and nails always done. Makeup perfect. Maude couldn’t even remember if she’d taken hers off last night.
She swiped a finger across her left lid and checked it. A smudge of black told her no, she hadn’t.
Ugh. She was a mess. Ollie might want to be friends with her again, but could he genuinely be romantically interested in her when she was the exact opposite of Emily?
Maude knocked back the last sip of her coffee and went inside to get another cup. Before she did that, she cleaned her face, moisturized, brushed her teeth and hair, and put on some deodorant.
That was better. Not sure who she was hoping to impress, but she felt like it was a step in the right direction. Coffee refilled, she went back out, still in her tank top and underwear.
Ollie was standing in her backyard.
She yelped and ran inside, spilling her coffee in the process.
“Maude?”
“Hang on,” she called back. She could not go out there like this. Her mind was a muddle, not quite awake enough to make sense of what she needed to do. Get dressed, obviously, but in what? She seized the first thing she could think of. Her denim overalls.
She yanked them on, grabbed some paper towels and went back out to the porch to mop up the mess she’d made. “Hey, Ollie.”
“Hey, Maude. Sorry about just stopping by. I seem to do that a lot. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s okay.” She meant it, too. “Come on in.”
He opened her screen door, and came in, but just stood there, out of the way of her cleaning. The aroma of coffee mingled with salt air. “Can I help?”
“No, I got it. You want a cup of coffee?”
“You have any left?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Very funny. Yes, plenty.”
“Sure, I’ll take a cup.”
She got the last of the spilled coffee and stood up. “Be right back.”
She refilled her cup, filled a second one for Ollie, added cream and sugar, then carried them out. He was sitting in the only other available seat besides the lounger where her stuff was, the chair next to the small table where she’d placed the flowers. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank you again for the flowers. They’re really beautiful.” She sat on the lounger cross-legged, facing him.
He smiled and drank his coffee. “You’re not going to believe why I’m here.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” She wasn’t about to guess, but her mind instantly went to a worst-case scenario. He was getting back together with Emily.
“I had breakfast with a friend of yours this morning. Cece Davenport.”
Maude exhaled. “From the book club. Cool. Why did you guys have breakfast?”
