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I waited for a beat as she all but threw herself off my bed and blazed down the hallway.
“Lu-Lu! Wake up!”
That was followed a second later by a pained grunt from my best friend. “Dear, God,” I heard her wheeze and smiled at my evil brand of payback. “Be gone with thee, Satan!”
“I’m getting in the shower,” I called through the house. “You’re on kid duty.”
“I hate you so much!” she returned.
I threw my legs over the side of the bed as Renee prattled on loudly to her Lu-Lu, and forced myself to climb out and pad to the bathroom.
I cranked the water as hot as I could stand it and scrubbed at my body and hair until I felt somewhat normal. The whole bathroom was full of steam by the time I got out and scoured the last of the tequila from my mouth with my toothbrush.
I could have hurried so I could relieve Luna of her babysitting duties, but I figured this was the perfect payback for her heavy-handed pours the night before. So instead of rushing, I took my time exfoliating and moisturizing my face and body.
It was only once I was all fresh and dewy and feeling a million times better that I threw on an old pair of joggers and a tank top and headed out. I didn’t bother blowing my hair dry. Once I stepped out into the salty sea breeze, it would do whatever the hell it wanted anyway, and that usually meant going wild and wavy.
Luna looked up from her coffee mug as I came into view and hit me with a glower. “Took you long enough,” she grumbled before taking a hearty sip of the strong brew.
“And good morning to you too, sunshine.”
Renee swung around on her stool as I rounded the bar toward the coffee maker. “Mommy! Lu-Lu made me waffles!”
I looked from the plate of tiny, precisely cut squares of frozen waffles to my girl’s syrup-covered smile. Even hung over and grumpy, Luna was the world’s best babysitter. She loved Renee so much, there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do, including making the only version of breakfast she was any good at. If it couldn’t be toasted or microwaved, Luna didn’t want anything to do with it. “I see that, honey. Did you say thank you?”
“Yup!”
“Did you have a nice shower?” Luna asked crankily once I poured myself a cup of coffee and joined her at the counter across from my daughter. “You were in there long enough.”
I gave her a big smile I knew would only rile her up more in her hungover state. “I did, thanks. And it’s what you get for turning that last margarita into a triple. Or a quad. Is that what comes after three?”
“I don’t know,” she groaned, closing her eyes and massaging her temple. “I don’t know. My brain isn’t working right now.”
“I told you to stop after the third one. Not my fault you didn’t listen.” I leaned closer and gave her a sniff. “God, you smell flammable.”
“And my mouth tastes like someone lit a dumpster on fire.”
I let loose a giggle and patted her shoulder. “There’s a spare toothbrush in my medicine cabinet you can use. And you can borrow some of my clothes if you want to take a shower.”
“Yes. Please and thank you.” She started out of the kitchen with mug still in hand, calling over her shoulder, “Just so you know, I’m using all that sugar scrub you love so much.”
“We’ll be out in the workshop when you’re done.”
The workshop was another huge selling point for the cottage. It was originally a detached single-car garage that sat a little farther back from the house, closer to the beach, and faced sideways, overlooking the backyard and beach. It was closer from my car to the front door if I just parked out front, so I never used it for its intended purpose, making it the perfect place for me to work.
Making pottery had been a hobby of mine since I took a class in high school. In a life that felt so unstable and unhappy, it became an escape for me. When I was sitting at that wheel, wet clay between my fingers, creating something beautiful, I was able to forget, even temporarily, how lonely I was, how badly I craved someone to just love me.
Over time, it became a form of therapy for me, then, after marrying Graham, an escape from the world all together.
A couple of the local shop owners were nice enough to sell some of my pieces out of their stores, and while the extra money was nice, that wasn’t why I did it. I did it because I loved it.
She gave me a lazy wave before disappearing around the corner toward my bedroom and bathroom, and I turned back to my girl, grabbing the syrup-covered plate and giving it a serious scrubbing before asking, “Hey, doodle bug, you want to help me in the workshop today?”
The pieces I didn’t put up for sell, the ones I kept for myself, were the ones I gave to Renee to paint. She loved to join me out there, creating random, colorful patterns with no rhyme or reason. I glazed those and kept them. Every dish we ate or drank from in my house was a one-of-a-kind Renee original. My baby girl’s brilliant creations.
She sucked in a gasp dramatically, and I knew exactly what was coming next. Sure enough, an instant later she let out a shriek that was so damn loud I thought she might shatter the glass in every window in the house.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
