“Married almost forty years.”
“No way. That’s incredible. Mine divorced when I was a kid.”
“I’m sorry.” He hoped that was the correct answer.
“It was a long time ago,” she said dismissively, gazing out the window as he turned the corner. “Oh,lookat this place. It’s out of a movie.”
Mariposa Village was one of those cottage towns with a populationof two thousand that tripled in size for July and August. The main street ran parallel to the marina and was a testament to the easy joys of summer living. It boasted two ice cream parlors and a gelateria (called, respectively, Sweet Dreams, Cool Thing, and La Vida Dolce), a boating store, and a house goods boutique filled with rope and buoy decor, thermo-regulated wine cups, and inspirational plaques on gray driftwood with mismatched fonts.
“Is this your first time here?” he asked curiously as they got out of the car.
“It is. My parents usually took vacations with their new families while I was with the other parent.” Valerie paused to look through the window of the used bookstore through cupped hands. “They’ve labeled the romance section ‘Mwah,’” she said with delight.
“The mystery section is ‘Chills ’n Thrills.’ Did you say your parents went without you?”
“It’s no big deal.” Valerie rolled her shoulders. “It’s not like I was dying for a week camping with my mom’s new family, you know. Italy with my dad would have been cool, but that meant getting an extra room and I would have had to babysit the twins anyway. I made my own fun at the library.”
Nico knew the kind of child she must have been—eager and bright, the kid teachers called a pleasure to have in class. Then he saw her, head down at the dinner table, as her mom or dad and their kids chattered about the memories she’d been excluded from making. Valerie’s assumed air of indifference somehow made it worse.
She reached the Lakeview before he did and pulled the door to let him through. The sliding glass at the back had been fully opened to the patio that overlooked the marina. Burgundy table umbrellas stood neatly furled like rows of soldiers preparing for a drill.
“How ya doing!” A tall woman with short black hair appeared, her thick bangs accentuating huge brown eyes and dark bronze skin.
“Hi!” Valerie stepped up. “We don’t have a reservation, but do you have a table for two?” She scrutinized the woman’s face, then her name tag. “Wait. Dalia?”
Dalia tilted her head. “Hold on, Valerie? It’s been ages.”
The two women gave each other a hug. “How have you been?” asked Valerie as they followed Dalia to a table. “What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since that engagement party Blair hosted at Casa Loma.”
“I remember. You came with Jack.”
Valerie’s smile, which had started widening at the beginning of Dalia’s sentence, disappeared. “Jake.”
“Jake, yeah.” Dalia bit her lip as she put down menus on the table. “Damn, I put my foot in it. He’s an ex?”
“Over six months ago and it’s all good.” Valerie’s smile returned and it looked real. Nico was starting to catalog all Valerie’s gorgeous smiles. The way her lips trembled when she was trying not to burst out laughing. The little one when she had a secret. And his favorite, any smile she directed at him.
A man in a straw golf cap with a sweater slung around his shoulders snapped his fingers at Dalia, and she looked at him coolly. “I’ll be back in a sec for your order,” she said to Valerie before sauntering off in the other direction.
Valerie turned to Nico, her eyes wide. “We’ve got an in!”
“An in for what?”
She nudged his foot with hers. “Restaurant gossip. Dalia might know about Yvette.”
“It was thirty years ago,” Nico pointed out.
“It’s still a lead.”
Nico was thinking of what Dalia had said. “She knows you from home. Will that be an issue?”
“No. None of my friends know my family.”
When Dalia came back, she told them she had rented a cottage with a few people she knew from the city.
“You should come by. We have a diving rock and everything. It’s all veryDirty Dancing.” Dalia hesitated. “No one’s from Blair or Jack’s crowd, by the way.”
When Valerie didn’t bother to correct Dalia misnaming her ex, but only asked if she worked at the Lakeview full-time, Nico felt a strange relief.
