Chapter 17
Seventeen
Displays of potted flowers surrounded Ally at Aggie’s nursery. Those full blooms mingling with the giggle of children. Ally’s heart soared at the scene, a perfect mix of beauty, mess, and noise, where multiple small tables spread across the open space designated for her art class.
With the children here extra receptive to her bouts of goofiness and creativity, she felt at home. At least, so much more than yesterday when she’d tried and failed to fit in with Chip’s friends.
Though her heart still sank at that memory, she forced her mind to the midmorning’s brilliant weather, the gentle sun enhancing the earthy sweetness emanating from the nearby plants, then the chalky smell of paint from her table where children decorated mini plant pots.
Aggie McKey stood in a far-off corner, entertaining parents and offering refreshments, the older woman’s joy at having so many people at her nursery evident in her beaming smile. Meanwhile, Emilia sat at Ally’s table too, having volunteered to paint faces, her deep brown gaze snagging on Ally. “So, how did things go with Chip? Am I allowed to send him an invite to the wedding yet?”
“It’s your wedding, you can do whatever you want.” Heat rose in Ally’s cheeks, and she kept busy passing a plant pot to a small boy to her right.
A beat passed, only for Emilia to speak again. “Sure I can, but we both know you were headed to see him after I spoke with you yesterday, and your evasive reply makes me think things didn’t go so well.”
“Wrong.” Ally let out a tight chuckle and reached for the paint palette the turning child beside her elbowed off the table, thankful to catch the thing long before it hit the ground. “I can tell you from recent experience that things can get better and worse all at once.”
“Oh no.” Emilia lowered her voice, her expression suddenly pinched. “What happened?”
Ally let out a sigh. “Let’s just say, things got more serious than either of us planned, and then Chip’s friends staged a surprise visit, which is when I learned his life away from Harlow is far more prestigious than he let on.”
“Hang on a minute.” Emilia sent forth a sideward stare. “Serious, as in…”
That stare, along with her trailing voice, hinted she asked whether things had gotten physical between Ally and Chip. Given all the inquisitive minds around, the conversation needed to stay restrained, so Ally gave a slow and confirming nod.
Emilia’s jaw dropped open, and she mouthed the word, “What?” before turning to gesture to the little girl she’d finished painting that she could go.
“You have to tell me how that all came about. I mean, not now because of kids, but…” She smiled at a little boy stepping up for his turn to have his face painted. “Eventually.”
Ally chuckled, although the sound held a tight edge of bitterness. “Well, all you need to know is, he has a huge opportunity knocking at his door. Any day now, he’ll be too busy being a super-star tech guru in Boston to show his face round these parts ever again.”
“Well, there goes my chance of having him at the wedding.” Emilia kept her tone flat, and her attention fixed on transforming her latest face-painting subject into Spiderman. “But ouch . That explains your vague answer. Let me guess, you like him too much already, and you’re worried he’ll be too busy for you?”
“You know me so well, it’s scary.” Ally scrunched the corner of her lip, not completely ready to admit her fears out loud. “But him being busy is the best-case scenario from what his friends had to say. I figure it’s more likely his new life will take him places that will have him completely forgetting I even exist. Not that I blame him.”
She checked the time on her phone. With just another twenty minutes left of today’s program, the children needed to switch workstations one last time. So she clapped her hands to get their attention. “Okay, everyone, it’s that time again. Stop what you’re all doing and move to the next table.”
The children’s voices grew louder, the relative peace abandoned for pushing chairs aside and racing to new tables. A hard tug came at the waist of her lavender summer dress, and Whitney stared up at her. “Aunt Ally, can I stay at your table? I don’t want to move.”
Ally bobbed to meet her four-year-old niece at eye-level, her gaze skipping to the potting table Whitney was due to visit next. “You don’t want to plant your own flower to take home to show your mom? I’m sure Jenna will help you if you don’t know what to do. She’s got a special way with gardens, yah know?”
She lifted her gaze and waved at Jenna, a waitress at Maynard’s, who also dabbled as a landscaper through the nursery, her presence today an early attempt at returning to work following a recent accident. The woman paused shifting potted plants onto a cart and waved back.
“It’s not that, Aunt Ally.” Whitney’s tiny voice had Ally peering down again. “I’m scared.”
“Really, now?” She gave a trouble-free smile and offered Whitney comfort in the form of a pat on the back. “Want to tell me what scares you?”
“Spiders.” Whitney scrunched her face, and her eyes turned watery. “Last time I played in Nan and Popo’s garden, a big black spider jumped out of the soil. It tried to eat me.”
Ally bit back a laugh but recalled her own childhood fears of spiders. So, she tilted Whitney’s chin upwards and gave her a light kiss on the nose. “Well then, there’s nothing to it. You stay at my station next to me, and since you’ve got a knack for painting, we’ll get Miss Emilia to spare one of her brushes, so you can paint my face.”
“Really?” Whitney’s cheeks lifted with an exuberant smile, the glint in her eyes a good sign that Ally would come to regret the offer, even though her smile broke loose too. Whitney, like almost all children, had an affinity for finding joy in life’s little happy turns.
Emilia, having heard the exchange, handed the girl a brush while lifting her brow at Ally in an, “Are you sure about this?” expression.
Ally nodded and reclaimed her seat, Emilia’s sideways glance continuing. “You’re at least a little happy for Chip though, right? It sounds like he’s going places.”
“Sure, I am.” Ally shrugged, her face hot because she should have felt prouder than she did. “For someone from these parts to be so talented, that Chip is making an impact on the wider world…” She paused, distributing pots for this new batch of kids to paint. “I just wish we had more time, yah know?”
Spiderman junior finished, Emilia changed kids again. Soon, she dipped a wet brush into her dry paint palette and then went about applying a vibrant purple unicorn horn to the forehead of the new girl before her. “Time to figure out if your relationship has potential?”
“I don’t know.” Ally’s voice turned husky, and she blinked down at her lap, the cold tip of Whitney’s paintbrush hitting her cheek. “Our potential is there, but Chip wasn’t the one to tell me about his new opportunity, his friends were, and I guess that leaves me with more than a few doubts and questions.”
As well as a sense that an end between us is inevitable, because in the end, I’m not sure I want to leave Harlow forever, and I’m not sure he’d even want me to go with him.
So, inevitable and painful. So much worse than any other guy-related heartbreak I’ve experienced so far.
“But, I mean, you got to meet his friends, Ally. That’s kinda big.”
“Emilia, I met his friends by accident, remember? Now focus. What am I supposed to do about all this?”
Emilia laughed and wrinkled her nose at the girl in front of her, a smiley little girl who—aside from her purple unicorn horn—now had a black pirate patch painted around her right eye. “Look, I haven’t had the chance to speak with Chip in any great way, but everyone keeps telling me he’s a guy worth knowing. Maybe he simply didn’t get a chance to tell you about his opportunity yet? Maybe he didn’t want to get your hopes up, or down, depending on what happens?”
“Because, once again, he’ll be leaving me behind.” Ally scoffed. “Let down is just the tip of how I feel now that I know.”
“Okay, well, that first time he left, you were kids. And this time, you already knew he’d be leaving. So, what’s changed?” Emilia shrugged, her focus not on Ally as she painted away. “Why not stick with the original plan and give the guy a chance to explain?”
“I know. I know. I guess I just didn’t want the truth quite so soon after, we… we… Yah know.” She winced at another cold slap of paint on her forehead from Whitney, that cold slap a welcome excuse to pause and take stock of the conflicted emotions churning in her belly since yesterday. “Things are so new and changing so fast. I don’t think I even have a right to confront him over what his friends told me, much less his leaving. He knows about my Dean dramas and is probably looking for signs of me being clingy. I don’t want to scare him away. And about his friends, they’re so… just so incredibly different. The years apart have turned me into an outsider. One thing’s for sure, I’m nowhere near on the same level as Chip.”
Emilia jerked her chin back in a look of surprise. “Well, now that’s a broad statement if ever I heard one. I wouldn’t know the first thing about building furniture or mending broken window fittings. Meanwhile, Blaine grew up far from the upper echelons of L.A. society, and still we get along great. You know, opposites attracting and all.”
Emilia patted the girl she’d been painting on the shoulder, allowing her to run along and show her parents her new pirate-unicorn face.
Ally stopped to let the boisterous noises around her, as well as Emilia’s advice, lift her spirits. “Maybe you have a point.”
With no more children left in line, Emilia turned and gave Ally her full attention. “So then, maybe quit fretting about the what-ifs and talk to Chip? You’ll have no answers until you do, so do it today before your doubts fester into something bigger.” Emilia gave an unfazed shrug paired with a quick smile. “And in the meantime, I have some news that will keep you fretting over something else entirely.”
“I’m not sure I like that idea of more fretting, but I’ll take any distraction you can offer.”
Emilia clapped her hands in a fast and excited manner, her shoulders bouncing in unison with her claps. “Remember how I wanted to find a wholesale buyer for your pots? Well, I did. I found someone.”
“What?” Ally slapped a hand over her mouth, her sudden loud and high-pitched tone a surprise even to her. She peered around at the nearby children, but no one really looked her way, maybe because loud and high-pitched was normal background noise to this lot.
“Now, don’t get too excited.” Emilia held both hands up in a gesture for Ally to slow down. “It’s still early days, but we have a foot in with Wanda and Stephanie Argyle.”
“No way.” Ally slipped her hand from her lips, regretting she hadn’t taken Emilia’s offer to find a distributor for her work more seriously, her voice now a rough whisper. “The Argyles? As in, the chain of boutique nurseries along the East Coast? I’ve seen their ads, but I’ve never had a chance to go far enough to visit one of their stores.”
“Yep, same Argyles, and they liked the initial photos I sent. They’ve asked for some physical samples of your work to assess quality and suitability to their brand.”
Emilia’s words were slow to filter through Ally’s excitement. She no doubt wore a wacky smile while her pulse maintained a steady thunder in her ears. “I mean, yah, of course! Take your pick from the pottery studio out back. Just let me wrap things up here, and I’ll show you.”
Ally stood and called time on the class, allowing the children to go find their parents. Almost as quickly, Emilia slung her purse strap over her shoulder and let loose with one final declaration. “Just so you know, I’ve decided I’m inviting Chip to the wedding after all. I’m sure it’ll be a real hoot if he can make it.”