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“I will absolutely eat that.”
“I’ll get plates.”
“So, I get dinneranda show?”
Heidi’s laugh was languid as a porch cat on a hot summer day. “Oh, sweetheart, you forget that you’re the show.”
She was out of earshot when Carine’s nervous titter escaped. Carine was never going to get anything past Heidi. That terrified her a little. Carine was so used to being on her own and making decisions unilaterally because what she did in her free time didn’t really impact anyone else. Someone who wasn’t her boss or mother establishing expectations for her was new and frightening. She’d never felt like that with anyone she’d dated or had flings with before. She didn’t know what it was about Heidi.
Deciding her face was as clean as she could get it without using a microfiber scrubber or scouring pad, she turned the water on full bore. Quietly, she opened the vanity drawers in search of lipsticks. There were none there.
Dammit.
Heidi was going to think Carine was being rebellious when in fact, Carine’s attention span lately was simply as scattered as her freckles were.
In the deepest recesses of Carine’s cross-body purse, her phone buzzed.
She went rigid there in front of the sink, knowing full well who the message was from. She’d avoided responding to Valerie’s,Hey, what’s up?text all day because Carine knew herself too well. She’d decide that no secret was ever too precious to tell. Then she’d end up thumb-typing hundred-word sentences about how she blamed her mother for her adult lack of self-control and insisting that she’d be a better person if she’d been told “Good job, Carine” more as a child.
Sighing, she took out her phone and read the screen.
I said what’s up?
Carine blew a raspberry and chose her words carefully. Valerie was an intelligent human, and she’d been around long enough that she knew Carine as well as anyone could. Ultimately, nothing Carine said would prevent Valerie from reaching the exact correct conclusion. The best Carine could do was control the force and velocity of Valerie’s journey there.
Carine typed:Hey, girlie. Let me call you in the morning after you’ve put Naomi down for her nap. Sorry I’m so tied up today.
“Are you finished, Carine?” Heidi called from the kitchen.
Valerie’s text status indicator showed she was typing.
“I’m finished,” Carine said to Heidi. “You know how mascara is. Never wants to come all the way off.”
Heidi appeared in the bedroom doorway with her arms crossed. She stared at Carine from across the room, assessing her. Carine could just barely make out Heidi’s eyebrow tilting as she turned the other way.
“You want soy sauce?” Heidi asked.
Carine peeked at her phone. Apparently, Valerie was still typing. “I won’t know until I taste the food.”
“Wise woman.”
Carine followed her out to the kitchen. Just before she was going to hang her bag on the coatrack, Valerie’s long-awaited text came through.
K.
Carine sighed and was glad Heidi couldn’t hear her.
No sooner had Carine finished her wine and Heidi had washed the dinner dishes than had Heidi looked up at the clock and ask, “Satisfied?”
“It was good. I hope they don’t close.”
“How are you feeling? Full?”
“Not full. Just comfortable.”
“Good. Stay right there. I have some laundry for you.”
Carine didn’t know why she was surprised. Heidi always did what she said she would. She emerged from the laundry room with Carine’s shirt crisply pressed and on a hanger. Carine hadn’t noticed before how much light shone through the fabric.
