Chapter Twenty-Six
Lissa
“Where the hell did I stick those?” Lissa muttered to herself, opening and closing her cabinets.
She could have sworn she put the box of glassblown ornaments in a cupboard to hide them from Ria, but now she couldn’t find them anywhere.
She was trying to get as much packed up before the realtor arrived tomorrow, since she didn’t want any of her glasswork getting knocked over when lookie-loos started traipsing through her beloved cottage.
Not that it was going to be hers for much longer.
Slamming the last cabinet shut, she abandoned the search and plopped down at the table to open her laptop.
She kept hoping each time she opened it there might be an email from Art, Inc.
saying they realized what a huge mistake they made, but alas, there was nothing.
Just a few responses from studios up near Seattle that might have an opening for her to lease a space.
The contracts they were offering were tragic, but it was better than the alternative—returning to Ohio.
She wondered if Ria knew how lucky she was to have a good relationship with her mom.
Stop, her brain argued. You can’t keep tying everything back to thoughts of Ria.
But I miss her so much, her heart wailed.
Absently rubbing her chest, Lissa shut the laptop and dragged her ass into the living room.
Collapsing face-first onto the couch, she wrapped herself in her grandma’s blanket.
Ria’s scent was starting to fade, and soon she would have nothing left to cling to.
The witch had even stopped posting to her social media, leaving Lissa with nothing but old videos and bittersweet memories.
The back door banged open, and Lissa grimaced, preparing herself for another useless attempt by Daria to cheer her up.
“Damn, you’re pathetic,” her bestie said, draping her long body over the top of Lissa like a second blanket.
“Oof! If you’re just here to make me feel worse, can you at least get off me first?” Lissa grunted, trying to buck her friend’s weight from atop her back.
“Nope,” Daria replied, wrapping her arms around Lissa to hold on tight. “And I’m not here to make you feel worse. I’m here to make you feel better.”
“Really?” Lissa asked cautiously. “Does this mean you changed your mind, and you’ll move with me up north?”
Daria laughed into the back of Lissa’s head. “Oh, hell no. Winters in Seacliff are cold enough. Hard pass. I’m planning to stay right here, thank you very much. And you should too.”
Lissa rolled to the side in another futile attempt to shake off Daria, but she wasn’t budging.
“And what would I even do here?” Lissa asked, surrendering to her new life with a bestie barnacle.
“Give up glassblowing so I can work in a grocery store? Or worse, some nine to five office job? My soul is already broken, Dar. Let’s not stomp on the pieces, okay? ”
“I wasn’t planning on it. Like I said, I’m here to cheer you up.”
Lissa sighed. As much as she loved Daria, the only woman who could cheer her up wanted nothing to do with her.
Unfortunately, trying to fight off Daria was like the Titanic trying to fight off that damn iceberg.
Might as well surrender to your fate and get it over with.
No point in dragging it out into a three-hour movie.
“Okay.” Lissa huffed. “Let’s hear it. How do you plan to cheer me up?”
“By dragging your butt out of this cottage and taking you to the studio,” Daria answered with a level of giddiness Lissa usually only witnessed in her after six cups of coffee.
Lissa smushed her face deeper into the throw pillow.
The last place she wanted to be today was the studio.
The Art, Inc. guys were showing up to finalize the sales paperwork and pick up the keys.
Lissa had cleaned her stuff out yesterday and asked Daria to handle the transfer.
She couldn’t bring herself to watch Marge gloat about how badly she’d failed everyone.
“I thought you said you would handle that?” Lissa whined as she twisted to look at Daria, not even caring how pathetic she sounded. Her days of keeping up a strong front were over.
“I know I did, and I will,” Daria replied. “But there’s something you need to see first.”
“Can’t you just let me wallow in peace?” she asked, her voice muffled by the pillow she shoved her face back into.
“Hmmm…let me think,” Daria mused. “Nope. Can’t do it. Come on, get up and get dressed. You’re coming with me.” She placed a sloppy wet kiss on Lissa’s cheek and hopped off the couch, her bony knee digging into Lissa’s right butt cheek in the process.
“Ouch,” Lissa grumbled, rubbing her ass and glaring up at her friend. “Was that necessary?”
“Necessary?” Daria mused. “Probably not. But there’s more where that came from if you don’t get your sorry booty off that couch. Trust me when I say you’re going to like this surprise.”
Lissa briefly let herself wonder if there was a slight chance the studio had somehow been saved. Maybe the Art, Inc. guys had a change of heart? That was highly unlikely. Ria said Lissa didn’t have a heart, but she’d clearly never met those corporate jagweeds.
What did I say about tying everything back to Ria? her brain demanded.
I don’t care what you think, her heart shot back. If you had listened to me in the first place, this never would have happened.
With a long-suffering groan, Lissa dragged her butt off the couch. She gave herself a quick sniff, wrinkled her nose, then headed for the bathroom. “Let me shower first. Then we can go.”
“I am in full support of this plan,” Daria called after her. “Maybe do something with that stringy hair too. Oh, and put on some makeup while you’re at it. If you have time you should also…”
Lissa slammed her bathroom door shut, effectively cutting off Daria’s litany of advice.
She knew she looked and smelled tragic; she didn’t need the running commentary.
Ultimately, her lack of basic hygiene was how she knew Ria had been the one for her.
No other breakup even came close to hitting this hard.
Even if the studio had been saved by some eleventh-hour miracle, Lissa didn’t know if she wanted to return.
Everything about Seacliff reminded her of Ria, and it just wasn’t home anymore without the witch.
“Why are we parking all the way back here?” Lissa asked when Daria pulled her car into a public parking lot three streets away from the main drag.
“Hmm?” Daria asked, her attention focused on rapidly typing out a text message.
“Earth to Daria,” Lissa shouted, waving her hand in Daria’s face. “I thought we were going to the studio? Are you implying I need some exercise on top of everything else?”
“Oh, please,” Daria scoffed. “You should never go near a treadmill. When women lose weight, the tits are the first thing to shrink, and it would be a crime against nature if you lost those beauties.” Daria leaned over and tugged on the zipper of Lissa’s sleeveless hoodie.
“In fact, let’s show them off a little more. ”
“Funny,” Lissa replied dryly, yanking her zipper back up. “Now, why are we parked all the way back here? I guarantee the lot by the studio will be empty. It always is.”
Daria shrugged, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “You never know. Now let’s move it.”
Following Daria at a sedate pace, Lissa headed toward the alley that would dip between two buildings and pop them out on Main Street.
The buzzing clamor of a crowd reached her ears before she was even halfway there. “Oh great,” Lissa groaned. “Is there an event today I forgot about?”
“I don’t think so,” Daria replied, hooking her arm under Lissa’s elbow and pulling them along faster. “Must be something exciting though.”
“Doubt it,” Lissa mumbled, but walked a little faster so Daria wouldn’t try to physically drag her through the alley.
They emerged out onto Main Street, and Lissa stopped in her tracks, frozen by the sight around her.
“What is all this?” she asked, taking in the multicolored string lights hanging from the store fronts, and the thick evergreen garlands wrapped around each light pole.
“Carol of the Bells” floated on the wind from unseen speakers, mingling with scents of kettle corn and roasted sugar almonds.
Looking down the strip, Lissa spotted three different cart vendors passing out bags of treats to excited children.
Mixie’s had a slate sandwich board propped up advertising “Free Gingerscone Man with every Blended Peppermint Mocha.”
Pulling free of Daria’s grip, she took a few steps into the blocked-off section of Main Street.
A huge banner stretched from one side of the road to the other, loudly proclaiming, ‘Seacliff Presents: Christmas in July!’ And then in smaller letters below that, ‘Sponsored by Smooth Expressions Art Studio, located on the corner of Driftwood and Main.’
A loud squeal erupted behind Lissa, followed by a screech of “I found one!”
Whipping her head around, Lissa noticed a teenage girl clutching a glass blown ornament and bouncing up and down like a kid at Christmas, her prize held high as she waved it back and forth with glee.
Lissa walked over to the girl who was proudly showing the ornament off to her parents and anyone else who happened to be nearby. It looked so familiar…
“Is that…?” As she got closer, Lissa could see it was, in fact, one of her ornaments—she’d recognize that signature swirl on top anywhere. So why was it out here and not nestled in a box with all the other ones that had gone missing?
“Can we go check out the studio, Mom?” the girl asked. “I want to see if they have any more. These would make great souvenirs for my friends.”
“Of course,” the middle-aged woman replied, and the family meandered off down the sidewalk in the direction of Smooth Expressions.