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Helen shuffled closer to Penta, careless of grass stains on her denim shorts. “Where did that man of yours get to?”
She wriggled at the idea of Cash being her man. “He’s in the lineup for ice cream.” She pointed to a snaking queue that led to a truck serving flavours that included matcha tea, poached pear with goat cheese, and honey lavender.
Helen nudged her with an elbow. “It’s nice to see you happy.”
She considered this statement. “Does that mean I didn’t look happy before?”
In her usual exuberant style, Helen was decked out in rainbows from her socks to her headband. The sequined arc on her T-shirt glittered and flashed in the sun. “Not like this. Not relaxed and content. And if I may say so, well-pleasured.”
Penta’s flush seared her cheeks. “Helen!”
“What are you embarrassed about? It takes one to know one.” She smiled fondly at her husband, Nathan, currently in deep discussion with Dr. Rafe Talbot. Rafe had come with Natalie Minton, a long-time member of the Silverberries. Penta wasn’t sure about the stern-faced man yet. He seemed rather dour and unfriendly, especially compared to the bubbly Natalie. But he’d been present when Lynn—sitting a little further down the hill with her husband Benjamin and their toddler and infant sons—went into shockingly fast labour a couple months ago. Despite being a pathologist and not an obstetrician, he had handled the situation marvellously. Penta was giving him the benefit of the doubt. For now.
“It’s different for you. You knew Nathan for years before you got together. Cash and I met barely a month ago. We have nothing in common.” The doubts she was constantly battling swarmed like black flies. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing with him. What he’s doing with me.”
“Stop that. You are a lovely woman with plenty to offer any man. Do you like him?”
“I do.” She didn’t have to think about it, not even for an instant.
“Then just relax, see where things go.”
Nathan approached and held out his hand to Helen. “The lineup at the churro station is as short as it’s going to get. Come with me?”
“Of course!” She bounced to her feet, gripped his hand, and the couple headed down the slope, passing Terrance as he made his way slowly upward.
He joined Penta, lowering himself carefully to the grass, and let out a deep sigh. “I hate sitting on the ground, but my feet are killing me.”
“How are things going?”
“Very well. The usual hiccups, of course, but nothing insurmountable.”
Unlike Helen, Terrance’s homage to the day’s theme was a striped silk scarf tied loosely around his neck and a small pin on the collar of his pale blue polo shirt. How he managed to preserve the knife-edge crease in his khaki dress shorts she would never know. “Where’s Bennett?”
She watched his response with sharp attention. They’d spoken a few times since the motorcycle lesson, when he’d first hinted there was tension in his marriage. She’d been waiting for him to bring it up again, but he hadn’t, and he didn’t do so now.
“Dealing with a porta-potty emergency.” He shuddered.
She decided a gentle prod wouldn’t be out of line. “And you guys are...okay?”
Terrance stared over the crowd, his eyes unfocused. “We’re going to counselling. I think it’s helping.”
“Good. Good for you both. If there’s anything I can do...”
“There isn’t, but thank you. We have to work through this ourselves. I am more hopeful than I was a month ago.” He patted her knee briskly. “What about you? How is that brood of yours?”
“Mark wants to take the girls to Mexico for August. To stay with Jacinta’s family.” She had thought of little else all week.
“That sounds exciting.” Which was exactly what Cash had said when she’d mentioned it to him. Both had also used the same dry tone, apparently knowing without being told she didn’t like the idea. “What about the boys?”
“He invited them, of course. But they said no.” She tried not to sound smug, as she doubted she was the reason Felix and Cyril had rejected the offer. Still, the result was the same. She wouldn’t be losing all her children to the lure of a far-off land.
“You’ll let the girls go?”
Cash had reached the front of the line. “I don’t want to. I know, I know, that’s selfish. But a whole month? We used to spend every day of the summer together. It was our special time.”
“You can’t stop them from growing up, and seeing another way of life will be an excellent experience.”
She sighed. “I have no good reason to refuse, and they’d hate me if I did. I just need some time to get used to the idea before I say yes.” Below, Cash turned from the food truck with a cone in each hand and wound his way through the milling crowd toward her.
