Page 6 of The CEO’s Assistant

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” she said, her voice warm and sure. “I’d remember.”

“First time,” Wren said.

She looked at Wren a moment longer than a bartender needed to, as if she were assessing her. “Long week,” she said finally. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Then not the lemonade.” The woman was already reaching under the bar. What she set down was small and dark in a heavy glass. “This’ll do you more good. On me.” She watched Wren. “I’m Lavender.”

“I’m Wren.”

“Wren,” Lavender repeated, as if committing her name to memory. “Welcome in, Wren. Nobody in here needs a thing from you tonight, so you just sit and enjoy.” She went back down the bar to her work.

Wren wrapped her hand around the glass. It was warmer than she had expected it to be. Lavender must have kept it near a heat source. She took a drink. It was dark and a little herbal, but not too sweet. And it happened to be the first thing stronger than coffee that she had had in three months. The warmth trailed down through her and settled in her stomach.

She looked around the room. It was full of women on a Friday night, and Wren realized it was the first time since she’d been in a space like this in more than a year. She drank the liquid slowly and left her phone in her pocket, choosing instead to stay present. There was low music that threaded through the din of conversation, turned down far enough that you had to go looking for it, but Wren heard the faint sound of a piano in it. She watched the bottle be passed around the communal table and the two at the window who had eyes for no one but each other. She watched Lavender work the whole bar—a few words exchanged with one woman, a refill for another—and her rings catching the light when her hands moved. The whole room seemed to rearrange around her effortlessly. Wren continued to nurse her drink.

The woman sitting two stools down from Wren finished a chapter, slid a bookmark between the pages, and laid the book face-down on the bar. A hardcover, the dust jacket worn soft at the corners and the spine turned away where Wren couldn’t make out the title. She picked up her own glass, something pale in a tumbler, and turned a little on her stool to face Wren.

“You’re new,” she said.

“Guilty. I’ve been here for a couple of months now.”

“Where’d you come from?”

“The Bay Area,” Wren said mechanically. “Boston before that.”

The woman nodded. “What brought you here to Phoenix Ridge?”

Wren paused, considering how much to tell this strange woman in a bar. She opted to hedge. “For the quiet, mostly. And it’s a smaller city than I’m used to. I wanted that.”

“Fair enough. I’ve lived here my whole life and haven’t really considered living anywhere else.” She tipped her head at the people behind them. “And I like this bar.”

“I can see why,” Wren said, her posture loosening slightly.

“Well, enjoy.” The woman gave her a small smile, then swiveled on her chair and opened her book again.

Wren smiled in return then went back to her drink. When she finished, she didn’t order another and instead left a folded twenty on the bar, more than the drink would’ve come to, then stood, shrugging on her coat.

“Night, Wren,” Lavender called from down the bar, not missing a beat. “Come back when you can stay a bit longer.”

“I will,” Wren said, and something in her bones knew it wasn’t an empty platitude and that she would be back eventually. She picked up her bag from the floor and slung it over her shoulder.

“Good night,” the woman with the book said, offering Wren another smile.

“Good night.”

She pushed through the purple door, the chime bidding her farewell, and stepped outside in the spring night. She went back down toward the water and along the harbor toward home. The wind had shifted again when she was inside. It came off the water harder now and bore straight through her coat. She put her chin down into her collar against it. The blooming dogwoods were behind her now, and she caught them once before the wind shifted again, then not again.

The seafood restaurant had closed. The window where the two women had leaned over their wine was dark now, and the wooden chairs were upside down on the tables inside. There was no one on the harbor walkway, not at this hour on a chilly Friday night in April. Somewhere past the breakwater, the foghorn sounded low and then let off.

Wren wasn’t in a hurry. The warmth of the drink was still in her chest, just lower now. She walked with her hands in her pockets as the town receded behind her. Partway along the empty stretch of sidewalk, though, she stopped. She didn’t have a particular reason she could point to. There wasn’t anything ahead of her and nothing behind. She stood on the path with the ocean on one side and dark slips on the other with the wind whipping against her.

For three months, she had been constantly on the move. But here, now, she let herself stand still, allowing life to catch up around her.

5

Chapter 5: Cordelia