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“I want Thai noodles,” Joy said.“And bubble tea.”
“So Lotus Flower,” Lauren said, a smile forming on her face for the first time that day.That wasn’t true.When she’d gotten the text about tonight’s video gab hour, she’d smiled.
“Lotus Flower.Eleven-thirty?Beat the rush?”
“I’ll see you there,” Lauren said.Most people would end the call there, but Lauren knew Joy, and she wasn’t ready to get off the line yet.
“You’re okay?”
“I’m okay,” Lauren whispered.“I just…maybe I should have Cass find me a house somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard.”A single sob flew up her throat, and she held the phone as far from her as she could while it came out.It hurt more than just physically, and she heard Joy’s tinny voice saying something, but Lauren couldn’t comprehend it.
The moment passed, and she opened her eyes as she brought the phone back to her ear.
“Are you there?”Joy asked.
“Yes,” Lauren said, her voice strong and unwavering now.She’d done this in meetings too.Thrown up in the bathroom before presenting to the entire board of marketing execs at Camping World.Turned around three times on the way to the office the morning of her introduction to the CEO at Campbell’s Soup.
No big deal.She could sob in one moment and be perfectly calm in the next.
“Lauren, I’m coming over.”
“No,” Lauren said.“Joy, you don’t need to do that.I’m fine here.”Her cat wound between her legs, giving a rusty meow that said she’d seen some birds through the big back windows.She walked toward the door, and Chloe pawed at the bell.It didn’t ring, because Lauren had removed the part that bounced around inside and drove her nuts.
Chloe ran out, her tail straight up, and Lauren left the door open.The wind blew, but not so much that the house would get cold.She’d installed a cat door, but Chloe was so finicky that she wouldn’t use it.Of course.Outside of her job, Lauren rarely had good ideas that others actually liked and implemented.
“Are you still going to Hilton Head this weekend?”
“Yes, of course,” Lauren said.She knew tomorrow would be better.She always felt better after a good sleep and a hard workout.Plus, she’d go back to work and get the praise she needed, and then the emptiness in her life wouldn’t matter so much.
“You’re an amazing friend,” Joy said.
Lauren laughed, the sound with little happiness.“Thank you, Joy.You’ve always been kind.”
“We rarely see ourselves the way others do,” she said.“See you tomorrow, my lovely.”
Lauren smiled at the way Joy always said goodbye, because her words did make her feel more lovely than she had a few moments ago.
She left her phone on the counter and went outside with Chloe.She didn’t want to talk to anyone else, and she’d fall down dead if Bea didn’t call.She sank onto the top step of her deck and sighed.Part of her wished she’d brought out her phone so she could contemplate swiping through the dating app just to see if anyone new had moved to town.
The other part of her was so glad she’d left her phone inside.A couple of new men had started at her firm, and she shook her head.Tobias was probably twenty-six years old tops, and a seventeen-year age gap made her uncomfortable.
She pushed the idea of how to find a boyfriend from her mind—and just in time too, as a pair of robins screeched at Chloe and divebombed toward the gray cat.Lauren jumped to her feet, not too keen on getting her eyes poked out, but she wouldn’t let anything hurt Chloe.As much as the cat annoyed her sometimes, she didn’t want to be alone at night.
“Hey,” she said just as Oscar, her second, much more reclusive cat came streaking past her.He yowled at the birds and jumped off the deck like a ninja-cat in Chloe’s defense, and Lauren wondered where in the world he’d come from.He liked to lurk under furniture and beds, or peer out at the house from the top of a bookshelf or the grandfather clock Lauren had inherited from her grandparents when they’d moved out of the house where she now lived.
The robins chitter-chatted angrily, but they lifted into the air without claw or beak touching Chloe.She came back to Lauren and curled into her side, where she slept at night too.Oscar disappeared into the hedge, and Lauren might see him sneak onto the top of her dresser once she’d brushed her teeth and peeled back her comforter.
“You’re okay,” she told Chloe, and she meant it as much for the feline as she did herself.“Tomorrow will be better.Just don’t provoke those robins.”And she wouldn’t poke at her loneliness or worry too much about what she didn’t have.
In fact, she took a page from Bea herself and went back into the house to make a list of all the amazing things she had in her life so she wouldn’t focus on the few things that were less than stellar.
“I’m running late,”Lauren said the next day, her phone stuck to her ear.Her elbow ached from being in this position for the past hour.“I’m just leaving, so I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“It’s okay,” Joy said.“I have a table, and they know you’re coming.”
“I’m sorry, Joy,” Lauren said, meaning it.She waved off her assistant and jabbed at the elevator button that would get her out of the building.Finally.“I’m getting in the elevator.”The call ended before she lost service, and she drove across town to Lotus Flower, the lunchtime traffic growing heavier the closer to downtown Sweet Water Falls she got.
She ended up parking in the grocery store lot and walking just to get there faster.She’d put in three miles on the trail outside her house that morning, and Lauren did love the freedom the outdoors provided for her.The Texas sky had always cleared her head in a way nothing else could, her friends included.
