Chapter 3
LILY
Iabsolutely, one hundred percent made the right decision to spend my year off in Harbor Hill. Every morning I wake up in my little apartment with the big windows and I think: yes. This. This is where I'm supposed to be.
Harbor Hill is just what I needed, a place where people know your name before you've introduced yourself, where the barista remembers your order and the guy at the hardware store asks about your brother. It feels like being held.
Mornings belong to the shop. Every day I am here before Erin, apron already tied, hands busy with whatever she needs. Stems to trim. Ribbons to cut. Orders to wrap in brown paper and twine. The work is simple and repetitive and exactly what my brain needed after four years of academic chaos.
I do my makeup every day and every day life is returning to my face little by little. My nails are done, and I take my chance to enjoy them while I can. The current set is a milky pink chrome set and I can't stop staring at them as soon as the gloves come off.
Ruth delivers coffee around nine. The walk across from the diner gives her an excuse to stay forty-five minutes. There's an unspoken agreement that Ruth brings caffeine and gossip and we provide an audience. Everyone wins.
Afternoons are open. Some days I explore town, wandering streets I've already memorized just to feel the cold on my face.
Every day I make sure to see Rome and if I get lost in my head and my worry about the future, he gets worried and seeks me out.
Either way, I am where I want to be, close to my family.
Some days I curl up on my couch with a book or just look out my window at the people moving about until my eyes get heavy.
And every day, without fail, I spend at least an hour on my coursework. Keeping up with the reading, staying sharp for when I go back next year.
I am resting. Productively. Rome would hate that distinction, but it's my distinction, and I'm keeping it.
The door swings open and Ruth barrels in like a woman on a mission. She sets our coffee and blueberry muffins no one asked for on the counter, puts both hands flat on the surface like she's about to deliver a medical diagnosis, and pins me with a look that could pin a butterfly to a board.
"Okay." Her voice is serious, too serious. "I need to ask you something and I need you to be honest with me."
"Good morning to you too, Ruth."
"Have you put botox in your lips?"
I blink and scoff at the same time. "Botox?"
"Yes. Botox. In the lips." She gestures vaguely at my face like it's evidence in a criminal trial. "Because I have been looking at your mouth for two weeks and it is not natural. No one has lips like that without help. I Googled it."
I give her the Rome look — the one that says I cannot believe I have to explain this to you.
"Ruth, botox is not what goes in your lips."
"What goes in your lips then?"
"Filler, Ruth. You put filler in your lips."
She looks between us, face twisted in utter confusion, like I've just told her the earth is flat and she's trying to decide whether to believe me.
"What's the difference?"
"About thirty years of medical advancement, you dinosaur."
Erin snorts, the sound escaping before she can stop it, and Ruth's head whips toward her, offended and delighted in equal measure. That's her default state. Perpetually scandalized and loving every second of it.
"The face," Ruth continues, undeterred, waving a hand in the general direction of my entire head. "It's too perfect. We've been over this."
A big sigh leaves me. "We have indeed been over this."
She ignores me completely. "I'm just saying. In my day, a girl looked like a girl. You look like someone drew you."
I catch Erin's eye for backup. She's suddenly very busy, lips pressed together, shoulders shaking. Traitor.
"Thank you?"
Ruth tears off a piece of muffin, chews slowly, studies me with the a critical eye. "It wasn't entirely a compliment."
"Ruth," Erin interjects, tying off a wrapped order, "you would never ask Rome if he's had work done and he has the exact same mouth. It's a Moreland thing."
Ruth sips her coffee. When she speaks, her voice is pure mischief.
"Yeah, and you'd know, wouldn't you? Seeing how you're locked on those lips every time you're in the same room."
Erin turns pink. Not just her cheeks, but her entire upper body, from collarbones to hairline, flushes the color of the roses in the display case. I gag. Loudly. Theatrically. With my whole body.
"I am begging you," I plead, hand pressed to my chest like I've been wounded, "both of you, never to reference my brother's mouth in my presence again."
"It's your lips, sweetheart."
"You brought up my lips. Mine. Not his."
Ruth waves a hand like this is a technicality beneath her notice.
"Anyway. I wouldn't dare say any of this to Rome. That man would give me a look that would freeze the harbor."
Oh, please. Ruth, who once told the mayor his tie was ugly to his face at a town hall meeting. Ruth, who has never met a boundary she didn't bulldoze.
"Ruth," I fold my arms. "You are afraid of absolutely no one."
"That is not true. I am afraid of several people."
"Name one."
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Takes a long sip of coffee.
"Ruth…"
"I'm thinking."
"You can't name one because there isn't one. You told Mrs. Patterson her casserole tasted like revenge gone too far."
"It did." She doesn't even flinch. "She used too much oregano and not enough love."
"But Rome scares you?"
Ruth points a finger at me, her expression still playful but with an edge of genuine grievance underneath.
"Your brother doesn't scare me. He disappoints me with his face. There's a difference. That man walks into my diner looking like that and I can't even yell at him properly because I lose my train of thought. It's rude."
Erin hides her face in her elbow. I lean against the counter, loving this crazy woman. How could I not? Ruth looks pleased with herself, which is dangerous. A pleased Ruth is a Ruth who's about to change subjects at whiplash speed.
"Anyway." She picks up her coffee and remaining muffin half. "Did you hear about the Beckett boy?"
And we're off. Today's download: the Beckett boy was seen with the Miller girl behind the hardware store. Scandalous, because the Miller girl is supposedly engaged to someone from two towns over. Ruth has sources. Always has sources.
"How do you know all this?" I ask, never fully understanding how everything gets back to her.
"I own a diner, sweetheart." She says it like it's obvious. Like diners are naturally hubs of espionage. "People tell me things while they eat pancakes. Pancakes are a truth serum."
She stays the full forty-five minutes. Covers the Beckett boy, the Miller girl, the new help at the diner. The new help has been downgraded from "too pretty to be trusted" to "pretty and possibly stupid, which is worse." Ruth's ranking system is cruel and comprehensive and entirely her own.
She kisses my cheek on the way out.
"She's unhinged," I say after the door slams shut.
"She's the heartbeat of this town and she knows it."
I guess she's not wrong.
Poppy breezes in later that afternoon, jacket half-off, phone pressed between her shoulder and ear.
"Babe, I know, but I'm at Erin's now so you're going to have to hold that thought."
She pauses, listens. "Mmhm. Yeah, you can do that when I get home. Yes, please. Love you, bye."
She hangs up, drops onto Ruth's stool like she hadn't just had that conversation in front of us.
"Hi." She beams. "How is everyone?"
Erin and I stare at her.
"What?"
"What was that?" I ask.
"What was what?"
"The phone call. The 'you can do that when I get home' phone call."
"Ramsey wants to try something new with the…"
"Stop," Erin cuts in, at the exact same moment I lean closer for details.
Poppy rolls her eyes and gives Erin a stern look.
"...headboard," she finishes.
"Go on," I say, ignoring Erin, who throws a handful of petals at me like that's going to shut me up.
"It's just a headboard, girl," she says dismissively.
”Ruth asked Lily about lip filler," Erin announces, clearly desperate to change the subject.
"She called it botox," I add.
"Classic Ruth." Poppy doesn't miss a beat. "Last month she asked me if I'd had my cheekbones shaved."
"Shaved?"
"She saw something on 'the apps'."
"Ruth has social media?"
"Ruth is on everything." Poppy pulls her legs up onto the stool, getting comfortable. "She has a Reddit account."
I set my scissors down. "That's terrifying."
"The username has 'diner' in it. She's not even anonymous."
Growing up, the closest thing I had to girlfriends was the occasional researchers' kids at whatever dig site my parents were parked at that year.
Temporary people in temporary places. You'd get close over a few months, promise to stay in touch, then we'd all pack up and you'd never hear from them again.
I learned early not to hold on too strong. Learned that connection was always on loan.
This is different. Erin and Poppy aren't going anywhere. They're rooted here, in this town, in this shop, in each other. They pulled me in last summer like I'd always been there. No audition or probation period. Just: you're one of us now, sit down, have some wine, tell us everything.
I didn't know friendship could feel like that. Like nobody was going anywhere.
"You look good, Lil." Poppy's watching me now.
”Ruth would agree," Erin adds. "Suspiciously good, apparently."
I roll my eyes, but Poppy shakes her head.
"No, I mean it. You look good. Rested. Less like you're running on caffeine and panic."
She's right. I spent the last four months of undergrad sleeping maybe five hours a night, running on iced lattes and adrenaline, finishing my thesis while my body slowly tried to shut itself down.
By December I was so burned out I couldn't read a menu without my eyes glazing over. Couldn't form sentences, couldn't think. All I could do was burst into tears at any given moment about nothing and everything.