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In the parking lot, Leigh came over as Quinn got out of the car. “I was so glad you called,” she said, reaching out for a hug.
Quinn relaxed into her embrace, then stepped back and put her hands on Leigh’s shoulders to look at her. “I’m glad I called, too.”
They walked the cobblestoned path to the entrance of the bright yellow saltbox cottage with its lime green trim, the flower boxes bursting with geraniums.
The screen door creaked shut behind them. Without thinking, Quinn lifted her sunglasses onto her head. Leigh gasped and grabbed her shoulder. “Whathappened?”
Quinn moved the glasses back down to the bridge of her nose, where she had meant to keep them. “My heel got caught in a sidewalk grate in the city and I fell.”
“When did this happen?” Leigh asked, sizing up the side of her face, leaning back to take her in, evaluating and assessing.
“Last weekend. No concussion, only a few stitches. Not a big deal,” she added, trying to shake Leigh’s stare. No need to get into details.
“Well, it looks like a big deal. I wish you would have called me.”
“I did,” she said, smiling. “Just not immediately after it happened. I’m okay, really. Let’s have lunch.”
They were shown to a table and listened to the day’s specials. When their server returned with two sweating glasses of elderflower iced tea, they placed their orders. As she took a sip, Quinn looked around at the deliberately wind-blown customers. Fashionably wrinkled linen, floppy straw hats, nails gleaming with fresh-for-the-weekend mani-pedis.
“So, otherwise, how are you managing?” Leigh asked.
“Mostly, better.” She played with the seam of the napkin in her lap and felt her eyes start to tear up. “I still can’t believe it sometimes. It’s like maybe one day I’ll hear his car pull into the garage and he’ll be home again. But I know . . . I know.” She shook her head. “I finally went through his things.”
“That must have been so hard.” It was a genuine statement of empathy, she could tell from Leigh’s face, and it felt nice to be understood. Understood and not rushed.
“It was time—and now maybe you can think more about the future,” Leigh added.
So much for empathy. Leigh was who she was and, as her friend, Quinn would have to accept that person.
The waitress returned and set down their plates. She and Leigh had been closer before Harris died and, just as with her other friends, she had kept Leigh at arm’s length this past year. It was hard enough without seeing others’ sadness and pity, the fear reflected in their eyes at realizing the precariousness of their own sturdily constructed lives.
As they ate and caught up, Leigh shifted the base of her glass of iced tea from one side of her bread plate to the other. “So, since you mentioned being in the city, you know that dinner party I had last week?”
“The one I weaseled out of?”
“That one.” Leigh’s silver side bangs bounced as she chuckled. “Jonathan was there. He asked me how you were and we chatted for a second about you. Someone said they heard you had been at a . . .”
She cleared her throat. “A . . . club. Olivia’s.”
Quinn stiffened, her fork halting mid-air, somewhere between her salad and her mouth.
Leigh may have had the wrong name, but she knew. Talk at that dinner—so that’s how Jonathan had found her.
“It’s not for me to say anything. I just don’t want to see you showing up in the gossip columns, that’s all.”
Quinn couldn’t stifle the chortle. “Maybe it will help backlist sales.”
“So it’s true?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, and yes.” Quinn could see in Leigh’s eyes it was more yes than no. “I’m concerned. Not only as your agent.”
She eyed Quinn’s cheek again and arched a suspicious eyebrow.
“I’m fine. But I appreciate you care.” Setting her fork and knife down, Quinn continued. “Since we’re raising uncomfortable issues, I was hoping we could talk about where we go from here. I’ve taken time off, and I know the risks if I don’t start writing again, which I haven’t. I’ve thought a lot about it since that meeting with Nely.”
She adjusted the edge of the napkin, pulling it square across her lap. “I need to cut ties for a while. For an indefinite while.”
