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"Ahhh, yes! The book club." Elijah is smiling like they've finally landed on a topic that makes sense to both of them. "She's talked about it, and about how much she loves all the women she's met. She really admires your mum. It's great to hear her talk about books and friends and to really enjoy her life here. It makes it a lot easier to be in another country when I know she's got her own full, happy life here."
Athena watches Elijah closely as he talks. It's clear that he loves his mother, and that he wants her to be happy, and she senses a touch of guilt that he lives so far away.
"She does seem happy," Athena offers. She looks at the bottles of glue and the assortment of candies and sprinkles that are still sitting on the counter between them. "Hey," she says, trying to sound as if she's just had a brilliant idea. "Since you're here for the holidays, I mean, only if you're bored or have nothing else going on, I'm holding an event here at the shop tomorrow for all the island kids. Holiday crafts, cookies to decorate, story time..." Athena trails off, suddenly feeling like the biggest idiot in the world. What could have ever made her think that a grown man--a stunning, sexy, worldly, grown man like Elijah Hartley--would ever want to help toddlers put glitter on paper in a tiny bookshop on Shipwreck Key?
A huge grin cracks his face as he glances at the cookie decorations. "Seriously? That sounds brilliant, Athena."
The way he says her name makes her whole body tingle with an electric current. His accent just adds to his overall appeal, and she can't help but smile back at him.
"Okay, I'll definitely pitch in." His smile fades as he thinks of something. "But how about you let me make the cookies--if you haven't already made them or bought them? I'm a decent chef and an alright baker, and it would give me a project for today." He lowers his voice conspiratorially as a woman enters the bookshop. "As much as I love my parents, a guy can only play so many hands of cards with his dad or wrap so many presents with his mum, so if you give me a mission, I'll have an excuse to crank up my own music in the kitchen and get to work."
Athena smiles again as she pictures Elijah in an apron playing rock music and rolling out cookie dough.
"Deal," she says. "I can run back to the store and buy anything you need for cookies--just give me a list."
Elijah is already walking towards the door and shaking his head. "No way. I've got it all. You just tell me what time to be here tomorrow, and I'll show up with, what? A couple hundred cookies?"
Athena's laughter bubbles over. "I was thinking a hundred, but as many as you want is fine with me. I'm sure the kids will eat them. And the event starts at ten."
Elijah pulls open the door and lifts a hand in salute. "I'll be here at ten tomorrow with bells on, and hundreds of sugar cookies for this island's little elves to decorate."
Athena watches him as he crosses Seadog Lane. She’s elated. This is the most exciting thing that's happened to her since she moved down to Shipwreck Key, and she's not going to mess it up.
"Hey, Joe?" Athena says into her phone after dialing Fed Men Tell No Tales and waiting for the cashier to answer. "It's Athena Hudson. I'm going to have to cancel that cookie order for tomorrow..."
Marigold
There’s a lot to lose when your entire career has been based on people judging you for how you look. Because change is inevitable: without question, your looks will not always please people the way they did when you were young. Even the most devout sunscreen users, those of us who choose never to smoke, let nary a drop of alcohol cross our lips, those who sleep eight full hours a night, eschew sugar, and eat the healthiest of diets—even those people will face their own reckoning with aging. And I’m being honest when I tell you that none of those things apply to me. I sunbathed with the best of ‘em in the 80s; I smoked cigarettes as a young model trying to stay thin and pass the time; I drank and partied and danced all night, forgoing sleep and bingeing on unhealthy foods the next morning to stave off a hangover. I’m not going to lie to you! Why would I? I, Marigold Pim, am just as human as the next girl. And now, at fifty-one, I wake up and look in the mirror each day to see the face I’ve earned, just like everybody else does.
So what’ s a woman to do for a career when the profession she’s chosen (or the one that’s chosen her, as it does for so many young girls with coltish legs, wide, innocent eyes, and just enough shyness to make us malleable and open to the suggestions of any man who picks up a camera and points it at us) decides that we’re no longer viable? That’s a fabulous question. I’ve known former models who start their own agencies, stay in the fashion realm in some capacity, write books, turn to acting, or just give it all up and raise horses in Santa Barbara or live in the mountains in solitude. For me, the beach life called. I’ve been living next to the ocean for a decade now, and while my modeling days are mostly behind me (unless Ralph Lauren comes calling—Ralph? Can you come calling?), I think I still have things to offer. Words I want to say. Thoughts I’d like to share. Hence, this book.
If you’ve picked this up and read this far, then perhaps you’re also a woman of a certain age. Perhaps you know something of what it’s like to be going about your merry business, raising children, being a life partner to someone, working a job to pay the bills, when all of a sudden the world hits the brakes on you (as does your metabolism, let’s just be honest). Maybe you know what it’s like to wake up one day feeling like you’re wearing padding around your stomach with no idea how it got there. Or perhaps you recall where you were the first time you walked down the street feeling like you’d knocked it out of the park—fabulous outfit, a good hair day, makeup that made you feel pretty—only to have not a single person notice. NOT. ONE.
If so, then this book is for you—yes, YOU. It’s for the woman who knows what it’s like to slide into invisibility. To suddenly be fighting an uphill battle with your body that you never signed up for. It’s for the ladies who were so busy raising babies, keeping a house clean, and being everyone’s Girl Friday that you never noticed that the babies were grown, the house was too big for just you (or just you and that spouse who you no longer seem to know how to talk to), and that no one needs you to be their Girl Friday anymore, because, frankly, you’re too old, too slow, or too out of touch to understand how things need to be done.
You don’t need to have been a fashion model to know where I’m coming from, you just need to be a woman of a certain age. So let’s take this journey together. Let’s be each other’s Girl Fridays.
Marigold lifts her fingers from the keyboard and takes her AirPods from her ears. She’s been listening to The Police as she types, letting the words flow from her heart as she considers who her audience is. If she ever finishes this book of essays (which is how she’s thinking of it—and shewillfinish), then she wants other women to pick it up, read her intro, and know instantly that it’s for them.
“Elijah?” Marigold calls out, frowning as she closes her laptop on the desk in her bedroom. The smell of sugar cookies wafts through the house and she follows the sound of Elton John singing “Step Into Christmas” from the stereo in the front room. She can tell by the scratchy quality of the song that Elijah has put on a vinyl album and cranked it up. “Buddy?” she says, rounding the corner into the kitchen, where her son is dancing around in the midst of what looks like a baking disaster. There is flour everywhere. “What’s going on in here?”
“I’m making cookies,” he says, handing her a hunk of raw cookie dough, which she normally would wave off, saving the calories for actual fresh-baked cookies, but since it’s Christmas, she takes it and pops it into her mouth. For Marigold, the holidays are the one time she lets herself indulge as much as she wants, because if she doesn’t just cut loose and enjoy the season, then she’s depriving herself of one of the great joys in life, and she knows it.
“I see that,” Marigold says, licking the sticky dough from her fingers. “What for? And why so many?”
“I met Athena,” he says simply, sliding his right hand into an oven mitt and pulling out a tray of perfectly baked cookies. He replaces it with another tray of little round globs of sugar cookie dough and closes the oven door.
“So you’re trying to win her heart with a million cookies?” Marigold asks with a laugh. “Also, I’m glad you met her—Athena is a doll.”
“Yeah, she’s sweet,” he says. “I stopped into the bookstore to see if they had a book I wanted, and she walked in with all this stuff, calling out for her mother. Turns out she’s holding a big crafty day tomorrow for the munchkins on this island, and she invited me to join in.”
A sense of pride wells in Marigold’s chest; her boy is just as tenderhearted as a grown man as he was as a little boy. She knows he loves volunteering in London for anything to do with children’s charities, and so it’s easy to imagine him doing something with Athena at the bookstore.
“Sounds fun, bud. And the cookies are for the event then?”
“For the kids to decorate.”
“Ah. Gotcha.” Marigold reaches into the cupboard for a glass to fill with water, but then pauses and listens to the music for a second. “Is the music too loud for Dad? I assume he’s napping.”
