Harper was laughing. It wasn’t the performative laugh that she normally used. It was a real laugh. She threw her head back slightly. Claire had heard it maybe a dozen times in the past year.
The man across from her was in his mid-fifties, wearing wire-rimmed glasses. He had a stillness about him. He was talking, and Harper was actually listening.
She wasn’t even checking her phone, which was one of the most astonishing things Claire had seen all evening.
The bell rang.
The man stood up and said something that made Harper smile, and then moved to the next table.
Harper watched him go. She picked up her wine glass, took a long drink, and then Claire could read the expression on her face because she’d been reading Harper’s expressions for thirty years.
She had just been surprised by something she hadn’t expected. And she was probably trying to make a case in her brain of why she should totally ignore it.
Later, in the bathroom between the rounds, Claire cornered her.
“Who was that?”
“Who was who?”
“The man with the glasses, the one who was making you laugh and kind of throw your head back.”
“His name is Peter. He teaches history at the Citadel. And he was very pleasant.”
“Again, you threw your head back.”
“I did not throw my head back.”
“Harper, I was watching you. You threw your head back. And you laughed. You almost gave yourself whiplash. You don’t do that for someone who’s just pleasant.”
Harper reapplied her very red lipstick. “He was funny. He told a joke about the Citadel’s admission process that was actually pretty clever. And I appreciate the construction of good humor. That’s all.”
“Are you going to check his name on the card to indicate interest, as Bev said?”
“I’m seeing Jordan.”
“You’ve had coffee with Jordan two times. That’s not seeing someone.”
“Well, it’s the beginning of seeing someone. It’s like the preamble of seeing. I’m in the opening chapters of seeing.”
“What about Peter?”
She capped her lipstick. “Peter is irrelevant. Peter is a little speed-dating story I’ll tell at parties. He’s a man I spoke to for four minutes in a wine bar, and I will never speak to him again.”
She said it with such finality that Claire had to let it go because pushing Harper was like trying to push a boulder uphill with a teaspoon.
But still, she filed it away.
Not because she thought Harper should pursue Peter necessarily, but because Peter proved something Harper actually needed to see.
That she was capable of laughing with a stranger, of being surprised, of letting her guard down for a whole four minutes.
If she could do that with Peter, then she could do it with Jordan. The muscle still worked. She just needed to strengthen it.
Nina’s night was the quietest of the three.
Claire didn’t find out until afterward, in the parking lot, when they all stood by Claire’s car in the warm May air and debriefed. They debriefed the way they always did, thoroughly and honestly, with the wine still warm in their systems and plenty of humor.
“I met someone,” Nina said, leaning against the car.
