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Sage couldn’t get more words out past the lump in her throat, so she just nodded. A man had asked Thelma to dinner, and she’d originally said yes. But before Sage had gotten home last night, she’d canceled already with Reid.
We’ll both find a new place, she thought, and yes, she’d have to call Ty. He was the best real estate agent on the island, after all.
A few minutes later, Thelma got to her feet. “I have therapy after work tonight,” she said. “I’ll be home a little later, okay?”
“Okay,” Sage said, and she fork-waved her sister out of the apartment. She didn’t have to be to work for another couple of hours, but Thelma was obviously opening the drugstore today. She’d been hired as the assistant manager, and she did have money coming in from her ex. Enough that she could potentially find something small here in Hilton Head.
“Or she can keep this apartment,” Sage said. Thelma could afford the rent here already.
When she couldn’t carry her thoughts, worries, and burdens alone any longer, she did what she’d always done: She got out her phone and texted her Supper Club friends.
Bea, Cass, Joy, Lauren, and Bessie had been there for her when no one else was. Sage could tell them anything, and they’d either come back with advice, or simply express their love.
I’d like to request some extra prayers if y’all have them, she typed out, really letting her Texas roots show.Thelma and I have decided we’re going to find our own places to live…and I want to find something with a little more land.
She sent the message, already feeling lighter. Her friends knew a couple of the least heinous things that had happened with Thelma, and she expected to get plenty of affirming messages while she went to get dressed.
They did not disappoint, and Sage smiled at all of their love and support.
Prayers incoming!Joy had said. She was probably rushing off to school this morning, and Sage would likely get a longer message that night.
Wow, your own place again, Bea had said.Let me guess. You want chickens.She’d included an emoji of the bird. Bea usually kept things light on the text string, but she felt things deeply and had opinions if Sage sat down with her in person.
I’ll pray for you and Thelma, Cass had said.How’s she doing?Leave it to Cass to always ask about someone, as she’d suffered her own heavy losses when her husband had died a few years back. Looking at her now, in a big, beautiful, beachside home, with a handsome husband, Sage would never guess the path she’d once trod.
She tried hard not to judge someone from the outside in, because she never knew where they’d been before. It was a strategy she’d actually learned in her stylist trainings, because she talked with a lot of people. People from all walks of life, and she’d found herself in a situation or two where she’d had to bite her tongue, hitch a smile in place, and try to finish the job quickly.
But she knew that people didn’t normally say hateful things. They didn’t want to be rude or disrespectful—usually. If they were acting that way in her eyes, it was usually because she didn’t understand something fundamental about them. She didn’t know their past. She hadn’t suffered in the same ways they had.
Her friends called her the most laid-back of them all, and she supposed she was. But that hadn’t come naturally to her; she’d worked at it. She’d learned to let go of what she couldn’t control.
Sort of.
“Yeah.” She scoffed as she picked up her keys and put them in her purse. “This thing with Ty…you didn’t even let that get off the ground, because you couldn’t control it.”
She had a reason for that, though, and Sage wasn’t going to apologize for wanting a fairy tale love story. She’d never had one, and fifty wasn’t too late to hope for one.
Oh, no, it was not.
6
Sage put her client under the dryer and said, “Let me know if it gets too hot. You’ll be here about twenty minutes.”
“Thanks, Sage.” Debra looked up at her and took the comb from her. She had a scalp that sometimes didn’t like the bleach Sage had just carefully put all over it, and she’d use the comb to scratch when it started to burn a little too much.
Sage went to clean up her station, because while Debra sat under the hot air, she had a gentleman waiting for a haircut. She’d squeezed Ty into a slot like this today, and her heartbeat leapfrogged itself at the thought of him.
She tried to deny it, but it got tiresome lying to oneself at her age. So she was excited to see Ty again. That probably had more to do with talking to him about finding somewhere else for her to live than it did actually seeing him.
Oh, and there was the liar inside her again.
“Come on over, Dave,” she said to the man, and he put aside the magazine he’d been flipping through. “Something interesting in there?”
He laughed heartily, the only male in the salon today. “Right, Sage. I think I took a quiz on what type of shorts I should wear.”
“Hopefully the Bermudas,” she joked back.
Dave had to be close to her age, and he’d first come in with his wife. Now, he came when he could, as Martha’s appointments took about five times as long as his, and no one could read teen fashion magazines for that long.
