Chapter 4 Snowdrops #2
As winter found the town, snow covered the ground and the graves, the trees fell into a deep slumber and the stars looked crisp wrapped up in their cool black blanket.
The black-capped chickadee still called the winter wonderland its home and Eloise would fall asleep in good company as the chick-a-dee dee dee sounded, three blankets and warmed-up magic wrapped around her underneath the large peach tree where she'd made a nighttime home.
Ursula didn't ask her why she slept outside, and Eloise was grateful for the silent understanding.
Two months passed after Bess's sparkling vintage jazz birthday party and everyone seemed to hunker down and find a slower pace inside the warmth of their homes until one morning, halfway through March, the black-capped chickadee welcomed home the Carolina wren whose teakettle song joined the chickadee's chatter in the trees.
Eloise walked in her fleece-lined duck boots along the front porch with her hot coffee mug, a mummy, clasped between her hands and she smiled when she saw the bright snow-drops with their prayer-bent heads and shiny green leaves dotting the front yard in white polka dots.
She sat on the front steps, where Ursula and Casper joined her silently as they watched the world warm in an ushering of sunlit offering so that spring would bless them.
It was one of the most simultaneously fierce and gentle things, watching spring push through winter.
Winter would pull itself back, melting into the earth as spring in its bright audacity breathed life over everything.
Is there anything more optimistic than the green new life that warms up the world after months of frozen repose?
Eloise didn't think so. And she breathed in her steaming coffee as she watched the grey-speckled northern goshawk sit its large, sharp body on a thick branch to look over the world.
The white stripe over her amber eye gave her the fierce look of a hunter.
The white fur of the snowshoe hare was a blur of motion as it sensed danger above.
"I missed this," she said softly.
"What?"
"The seasons. This exchange of cold to warm, stillness to life.
There's something about the restlessness that settles inside of us at the end of a time of frozen absence of movement and then finally, the world wakes.
" She shakes her head and smiles into the steam hazily rising in front of her.
"Florida is all one big glob of hot. And nothing changes.
I don't think I was built for things to never change. "
Ursula made a humming sound of agreement as she leaned her dark head on Eloise's shoulder.
"I think I'm going to sell my cafe," Eloise announced, the words like a flower breaking through the ground.
"Really?" Ursula lifted her head in surprise. "Are you sure?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I can use the cash to do something else. Something here."
Ursula smiled at her friend and linked her arm with hers. "Want to go into town and get a croissant?"
"Yes. The answer to that is always yes," she replied with a laugh. "I can be ready in twenty."
They brought Casper, to his delight, and walked into town. The entrance of spring meant delicious warmth in the sun, the feeling like the color gold dripping through your body which they enjoyed with light jackets and boots. Eloise wore a felt wide-brim hat in tan with a brown leather band.
"I always loved your hair in the sunshine. It turns copper," Ursula mused.
"I can never get rid of the red no matter how hard I try," she replied, her fingers rubbing the ends together. Ursula nudged her shoulder lightly.
"Never get rid of the red. It's perfect."
Casper had his bone that Michelle kept a bag of for him under the counter and Ursula and Eloise ate their almond croissants without any grace. Eloise laughed at the powdered sugar beautifully dusting her friend's upper lip and Ursula reached over to brush off the white speckles from Eloise's chin.
"I think I'm ready to date," Eloise said, the second big announcement for the day.
"Oh yeah? And what kind of male should we be on the lookout for you, my wild, audacious best friend?"
"Ohh are we setting Eloise up? Because I have had this cute guy in my back Gucci pocket for months that I think would be perfect for you," Jen said, the words serving as her hello as she slid into the white chair at their table. "Great hat, by the way."
Eloise smiled around croissant.
"Who?" Ursula asked.
"Graham Bledsoe," she said and Ursula nodded eagerly.
"Oh good choice," she turned bright eyes to Eloise. "He is really cute. And smart. He could keep up with you."
Jen laughed, her white teeth flashing. Eloise got the impression of a she-wolf sometimes with Jen and she loved it. "I love when we say that. Aren't we old enough to admit that no man can keep up with us? We're too evolved."
Eloise laughed, a puff of powdered sugar covering her face making Ursula and Jen laugh. "Okay, so no man can keep up, but this guy Graham is cute, smart, and has potential," she said as she took their offered napkins.
"Yes. How about I call him and set something up? Tomorrow at the Black Hissy Floof?"
Eloise laughed. "I love that you cannot say the word cat. Okay, yeah. Tomorrow around noon would be great. What time are we delivering the plants to the nursery?"
"Mmm, they wanted them sometime before ten tomorrow morning. Jenson is bringing his truck and we're borrowing one of his construction trucks too."
"Noon works then," she said to Jen.
"Oh! You should have Graham bring a red flower so that Eloise knows it's him."
"That's very You've Got Mail," Eloise replied with waggling eyebrows.
"Exactly. If he makes a fuss over it, he's not the one."
"I like it," Jen said as her manicured fingers tapped over her phone.
"Okay, but real question," Eloise's serious face made both women lean in. "Is he an adult? Like, I don't want some Ikea man where I have to interpret the instructions and build it so that it's usable."
"Yeah, and try to use that stupid allen wrench thingy that slips in your hands and makes you curse more than a sailor," Jen said nodding making a wrenching motion with her slender hand.
"Right! That was my twenties. Build your own man. I want an already built man."
"With real wood," Ursula added slyly.
Jen slapped the table and laughed. "Girl! Yes. I mean, dicks freak me out, but yes."
"I think Graham is a fully built man, has been on his own for years, his parents don't live here, and he's been taking care of himself. I think he's in his mid-thirties?" She gave Jen a questioning look.
"Yeah, mid-thirties, he was the lead on my account when I did marketing for my business, and no red flags. I mean, except for being a man, which kind of seems like a built-in red flag but I like women, so what do I know? Actually, women are full of red flags too," she said thoughtfully.
"Am I a red flag?" Eloise asked.
"Well, yeah," Ursula said. "You're independent and outgoing, and you literally have never lowered your standards that I have ever seen for a man, so that's like the red flag for a lot of people. But not the right one."
Jen looked over Eloise with a critical eye. "If you were a lesbian, we could rule the world."
"I'm flattered," she replied with a cheeky grin. "Oh, any news with your one-night stand a couple of months back?"
Jen's hand fluttered as she said, "No. Like, I didn't expect anything, but I sent her a text, you know, feeling it out. She never responded." Her voice sounded nonchalant, but something in her eyes gave away it affected her more than she let on.
"Sorry, J," Ursula said gently.
"Her loss," Eloise added.
"Right?" Jen said with a raised chin, her high cheekbones flashed angular in the sunlight.
"I'm a catch." Her self-confidence was striking.
She waved her hand through the air again, swatting away the feelings.
"But you," she said pointing a finger at Eloise and holding up her phone, "have a date with Graham Bledsoe who will have a red flower which he agreed to without question, tomorrow at The Black Murder Puppy at noon. "
"Great," she said with a laugh, a bubble of anxiety she wouldn't allow them to see settling in her lungs. Still, she kept her secret, the shadow she fled when she traded thick Florida heat for the north-eastern changing seasons.