4. Nora
Chapter 4
Nora
I put my hands on my hips. “What the hell did I do wrong?”
The coffee table in front of my new couch was definitely crooked.
I should have just bought the big one that didn’t need to be put together, but I’d spent a small fortune at the furniture store outfitting my bedroom and the living room.
My doorbell rang and I set my drill on the floor.
The Indigo Valley grapevine was in full force. I’d stopped in to see my dad earlier that day and had seen a few people at the grocery store. Even on a Monday morning, there were a shocking number of people in the stores. I peeked through the peephole and swung the door open with a smile.
“Hey!”
“And why was I not the first to know you were in town?”
Parker Olsen, one of my best friends in high school, was on my doorstep with a bottle of wine in her hand and a familiar Chinese food bag in the other. She’d been adorable in school, but now she was downright stunning. She wore stovepipe black pants with a pink sweater and killer black heeled boots. Her curly blond hair was tied up in a high ponytail leaving her face unframed. Sea green eyes were sparkling with humor.
“Because I didn’t have a seat for anyone until today.” I backed up to let her in. “You look amazing.”
She kicked up a foot and gave me a wide smile. “Okay, forgiven.” Then she sauntered in smelling of gardenias while I’d forgotten to shower.
“My dining table didn’t come yet,” I said as I followed her in.
“All good.” She glanced around. “Cute, in a 90s way.”
“Yeah, I didn’t have many options with rentals.” The kitchen was a far cry from the chrome, steel, and white of my old condo. Personally, I liked the tiny rosebud wallpaper and cream countertops.
Kind of. Well, enough to deal with now. The only thing I missed from my place with Booker was the disgustingly expensive Ilve stove.God, I loved that thing, even if he did give it to me for our fourth anniversary. I should have known then we were in trouble.
I led her into the living room. “The table is...not awesome.”
She laughed at the crooked table. “Well, lucky for you, I am an expert at building furniture.” She set the bag down and handed me the wine. “Get us some glasses.”
“That I can handle.” I disappeared back into the kitchen. “I didn’t realize you were back too,” I called from the kitchen as I grabbed two glasses from the drainer.
“Yeah, my little brother got married,” she yelled back.
I dug for my corkscrew in the mess of my junk drawer. I hadn’t gotten to organizing the lot of it yet. Leaving LA with little more than my clothes and jewelry had seemed like a good idea at the time. Starting over was not as easy as I’d pictured.
I returned to the living room to find Parker’s boots off and her sitting cross-legged in front of the coffee table, already pulling out my hard-won screws from the little locking things. I held out her glass.
“Thanks.” She took a long drink and set it next to her on the floor. “You just put the foot in the wrong place. Easy fix.”
“I would have figured it out. Probably.” I dropped on the couch.
“All good. Think this is the same one I had in my first place.” She rolled on to her knees and flipped the table back upright. “Voilà.”
“You rock.”
Parker crawled over to the food and brought it back, setting it on the coffee table.
“Your brother getting married made you want to come back? I thought you were in Chicago. Or was it Kansas City?” I had lost track of a lot of my friends living on the opposite coast of most of them. Add in Booker’s crazy schedule as well as my own company, and I’d barely known where I was scheduled to be most days, never mind anyone else.
“Kansas City. Matty is having a kid and I kinda wanted to be around to play Aunt Parker.” She pulled out white boxes and plastic containers full of dumplings as well as two huge wonton soup containers. She tossed me a pair of chopsticks. “I wasn’t crazy about where I was working and had a shitty breakup—a fresh start sounded good.”
I slid off the couch to sit across from her. “You too?”
She flipped the cover off the dumplings and sauce. “Yeah. Todd was a lawyer.” She cupped her hand under the dumpling as she took a bite with a sigh. “Worst and best Chinese food ever.”
I laughed and did the same. “I mean, his name was Todd.”
Parker snickered. “There’s that too. And man, did he live up to the name in the end. I was blinded by the BMW and his good hair.” She tapped her lips with her chopsticks, then she picked out one of the white boxes, popping the folded top.
The familiar scent of low mein made my stomach rumble. I took the other white box to find pork lo mein inside and groaned. “God, I haven’t had this since... forever it seems like.” I dug in with my chopsticks. “Booker was obsessed with sushi and keeping his carbs down.”
Parker finished chewing and took a sip from her wine. “You and Booker broke things off, huh? Damn, you guys were goals.”
“Yeah.” I picked through for a mini corn. “I thought so too.”
Perfect couple.
Perfect engagement.
Perfect marriage.
Perfect facade.
I crunched the little vegetable and then went for a dumpling, eating it over the lo mein so I didn’t end up with it down my shirt.
I kept expecting to feel the loss, but there was nothing but relief.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I picked up my own glass and drained it.
“Think you’re lying.”
I laughed. “No. Actually I’m good. I think the problem is I’m too good.”
“Oh.” She picked up one of the pints of soup. “Tell me Booker ended up with a bald spot and a paunch.”
“Nope.” I got to my feet and got the wine from the kitchen, bringing the whole bottle with me. I topped up mine and hers when she held it out. “Appallingly sexy, still.”
“Did he cheat?”
“No. I wish it had been that easy.” I rolled my eyes. “Okay, so that wouldn’t be easy, either. We just kinda of ghosted each other and somehow still lived in the same place.”
“That’s a trick.”
“Tell me about it. There was nothing truly keeping me in LA. So, here I am.”
“Well, I for one, am glad to see a familiar face. Remember Tina?”
“I do.”
“Well, she’s Christina these days. My mom said she’s head of the beautification committee.”
I choked on my sip. “Excuse me?”
“I know.” She sipped some of the broth right from the pint then fished out another wonton. “If only they knew that Tina, Gus, and Booker had stolen the statue of Patterson McBride from the front of town hall.”
“I still don’t know how they managed that.” I laughed as I sat back against the couch with my glass. Living in a small town meant people knew way more about you than a person would like. But it also meant inside jokes and stories no one else would understand. So very different from California on every level. “So, what are you doing these days?”
Parker swapped to the lo mein again. “This and that. Thought I was going to be a lawyer, but then I figured out just how many hours that would mean and I switched to criminal justice.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Are you telling me you’re a cop?”
She laughed. “Actually, you’re looking at the new Chief of Indigo Valley. Old man Pope finally retired. They didn’t even bother doing an election, just called my captain in KC and decided good enough.”
“Well, your mom and dad are actual saints in this town.” Parker’s parents ran the Hope Street Diner, and her dad had coached Little League for as long as I could remember.
“Matty is almost as anointed. He’s the one who actually ended up being a lawyer. He and his wife do family law. They’re having the first grandchild so they’re racking up the bonus points left and right.”
“Sounds it. And also sounds like some things have really changed around here.”
“Nah. Still not a damn thing to do in this town after eight p.m. Saratoga is close enough, of course, but goddamn, are they expensive these days. All the high brow restaurants, bistros, and bars full of microbrews require at least a hundred dollar hit to the wallet.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Pass. At least it’s not smoothies that taste like paste like Los Angeles.”
She laughed. “Oh, we have the Smoothie Shack on Hope. Pretty good, actually. So, what do you do these days?”
“Social media marketing was my deal. Somehow, I don’t think that’ll be a big draw here in the valley.”
“You never know. The businesses in this town are in the dark ages. You might be able to teach them a thing or two about going viral.”
“Could be.” I raised my glass. “To starting over in Indigo Valley.”
“To starting over.”
We clinked glasses.
At least I had one familiar face in my life.
And I tried not to think about Sullivan as the other. He was definitely not supposed to be on my list of reasons to stay.