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We found an empty picnic table and unwrapped our sandwiches.
“You still like Rueben’s right?” Natalie asked.
“Yup,” I said. “Still my favorite sandwich.”
Natalie had gotten the daily special, a turkey BLT with a special sauce that Linley would never give me the recipe for.
“What are you up to today?” I asked her. My sandwich was perfect, as always. You could always count on Sweets to deliver.
“I had to escape unpacking and organizing, so I came to check out town. I’m touristing today,” she said. Natalie looked like a tourist, in a loose black linen jumpsuit, with her hair pulled up in a ponytail, and aviator sunglasses.
“And how have you found Castleton so far?” I asked.
“So far, so good. I went to the library and asked about the knitting club. I’m going to go to their meeting next week, so we’ll see how that goes. And I have that interview on Monday to stress about. They’re meeting me at the café, even though I could walk to their house from mine,” she said.
“Sounds better than what I have on deck for this week.” The only thing I had to look forward to was the party this weekend. It had been ages since I’d had a good seafood boil. Esme had sweet-talked Skip into bringing everything over and cooking it for us. I hadn’t told Natalie because I wanted it to be a surprise.
“Well, if you need more excitement, I’m happy to provide. We could do a movie night or something. I still haven’t seen your place,” she said.
I didn’t really want her to see my place. It was small and old and shabby. All of my furniture was secondhand or given to me by my parents. Nothing matched. Nothing was cute. I could give some of it some new life with paint, but I was always too drained from work.
“Em?” Natalie asked. I’d been too distracted thinking about my house to answer her.
“Oh, yeah. You can come over anytime,” I said. If I told her she couldn’t come over, she’d want to know why. And maybe it wasn’t that bad? I couldn’t lie; I’d been jealous of the furniture in her Arizona apartment.
“Let me get my couch first,” I said. “It’s coming in next week.”
I was going to have to take off work, since the delivery window was in the middle of the day. That was why it was great to work for family. I could do things like that.
“I’ll help you break it in,” she said, and my face went red. She probably didn’t mean it in a dirty way, but my brain went there.
I was so painfully single, I saw innuendo everywhere.
“You’re going to have to tell me what it’s like dating around here,” she said, as if she’d read my mind.
“You grew up here, you know what it’s like.” So many people moved away from Castleton for better opportunities elsewhere. Those of us who stayed were already sick of each other. If the Chamber of Commerce wanted to revive the town, they’d have to figure out how to get singles to move here. Get some new blood to revive the locals.
“It’s bleak,” I said. “Very bleak.”
Natalie frowned. “That sounds depressing.”
I shrugged. “It’s reality. Paige keeps trying to get me to do the online thing, but I don’t know…” I trailed off. I didn’t want to be single, but figuring out how to find someone to date just seemed so complicated.
“Didn’t Linley meet her guy at a bar? We could try that,” she said.
“And if you went to a bar, who would you be hitting on?” I asked. I’d been wanting to know. The answer to this question seemed so important.
“I would be hitting on anyone who I found attractive,” she said, looking me right in the eye.
“So that would be…anyone? You’re attracted to anyone?” Why was my voice shaking?
“I mean, not anyone. I do have standards and people I’m not attracted to. But yeah, I’ve learned that it’s less about the package and more about the person.” She said it casually.
“Oh,” I said. “You’d get along with Paige. She falls in love with everyone. Well, not since she got with Esme.”
“I don’t think I fall in love that easily. That’s the hard part. The attraction doesn’t take much. Love is…love is much more difficult,” she said.
I knew exactly what she meant. I honestly didn’t even know if I’d been in love before. I feel like I would know if I had. I’d told my ex-girlfriend that I loved her, and I’d thought I had at the time, but now that I heard my friends talk about being in love, I didn’t think I had been.
