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“Do you want to go with me, Charlotte?” she asked. “Or maybe we could even eat at Popcorn one day!”
“I could make that happen,” Mac said. “Just give me a date. My treat.”
Charlotte handed him a beautiful purple ball. “That’s okay. You’ve done enough for me.”
“I’d love to cook for you. Both. I’d love to cook for youboth,” he clarified, and his neck began to redden. “What about Thursday night?”
“Yes!” Zoey said before Charlotte could refuse.
With a nod, Mac walked away.
“He’s a James Beard Award winner,” Zoey said. “It’s on the website. I don’t know what that means, but I think it’s important.”
“Well, I’m no James Beard Award winner, but I’ll make tacos for dinner for us when I get home, okay?”
“Okay.” Zoey paused, then she said, because she felt it needed saying, “You know that invitation wasn’t really for me, don’t you?”
“He’s nice,” Charlotte said, taking an elastic hair band out of her jeans pocket. “I’m definitely no expert, but isn’t that what nice men do?”
“If he asked you to dinner, only you, what would you say?”
Charlotte put the band between her lips as she brought her long blond hair up into a ponytail. “I would say I don’t like eating out alone,” she said around the band.
“You know what I mean.”
“You’re making something out of nothing.” She tied up her hair. “Now, I’ve got to go. It’s not a great start if I’m late on my first day when I live zero-point-two seconds away.”
When Charlotte left with a squeak of the garden gate, Zoey thought about going back up to her studio just so she could put off going to Lizbeth’s. The sooner she got started, the sooner she would finish, and she didn’t want to be finished, to go back to waiting for things to happen.
One week. That was all it had taken. There was a perverse part of her that wished Lizbeth’s place had been bigger so it would have taken all summer to go through.
But the allure of those last boxes ultimately got the better of her.
“Come on, Pigeon,” she called to the garden. “This is the day you’ve been waiting for.”
A few hours later, after looking through four consecutive boxes of brochures from television offers that Lizbeth had obviously sent off for just to collect—information about retractable awnings and gutter systems and erectile-dysfunction supplements—Zoey suddenly had a feeling that she should be annoyed. She stopped and looked up, automatically frowning. But there was nothing to be annoyed about.
That’s when she realized Pigeon wasn’t with her.
The more that had been cleared from Lizbeth’s place over the past week, the more time Pigeon had spent inside with them. She would pace across the floor while Zoey tried to ignore her coos, claiming she had no idea why stray pieces of paper in corners seemed to rip on their own when Charlotte’s back was turned.
“Pigeon?” she said. The space was so empty now that her voice echoed off the dirty walls.
Nothing.
She took off her mask and gloves and got up. She walked out into the summer sunshine, which was still catching glints of raindrops lingering on the garden foliage. She put her hands to her lower back and stretched. The dellawisps were pecking around on the ground, and Zoey figured Pigeon was with them. She didn’t know if she felt offended that Pigeon had finally decided to leave her alone, or relieved. She’d told Pigeon to make friends with the other birds, after all. But Pigeon never did what she was told. And Zoey didn’t like the thought of Pigeon letting go ofherso easily, as if Zoey were the only one who could say goodbye.
While she was standing there watching the birds, trying to determine exactly where Pigeon was, she caught a movement across the garden.
Had she imagined it, or had the sheer curtains covering Lucy Lime’s patio doors just moved?
Was Lucy watching her?
Lizbeth’s condo had been unlocked again this morning. By now it made Zoey smile, imagining Lucy coming in to sit and talk to Lizbeth. The stone floor had even still been wet in places, as if Lucy had tracked in rain during last night’s storm.
Zoey lifted her hand slowly and waved. It had been days since she’d resolved to ask Lucy to lunch. And now it was the last day any of them would get to spend in Lizbeth’s place, the last day it would reallybeLizbeth’s place.
So why not ask her now? The worst thing that could happen was that Lucy would say no.
