Chapter 6 Girl Talk and Peaches
As Eloise was walking up the winding, wooded drive to the house she got the text from Jen letting her know Graham had to leave town for a family emergency and he didn't have Eloise's phone number. She sighed.
The front yard was covered in a field of tulips, the sudden riot of color taking over the grass drawing out her smile at this funky house's sudden additions and moods. She picked a few, wandering through thick patches of them, running her fingertips lovingly over the velvet petals.
"What are you doing home? The date go that horribly?" Ursula asked from where she was hunched over her laptop at the island. Eloise held up the bright bunch of flowers. "Aww, he got you flowers! Not bad. And they're apricot parrot tulips; very classy."
"He didn't get me tulips and the date didn't happen," she said pulling down a flowered vase from where Ursula had started collecting them. "The front yard is now covered in these, by the way," she slid the vibrant vase to the center of the island. "He had a family emergency."
"Oh bummer," her friend's mouth slid down into a frown and she closed her laptop. "Think he lied?"
"Mmm maybe. I don't know. But I do know that I didn't know that he had a family emergency and he left a red flower on a table where a different man was sitting and I sat down and was...well, me," she said gesturing to herself.
"Strangely beautiful and wickedly funny, go on," Ursula said.
"Exactly," Eloise pointed to Ursula. She took out the bow from her hair and then the elastic as she shook out the thick, wavy strands that took on a reddish hue in the late afternoon sun coming in from the large kitchen windows.
"And so I'm thinking this guy is my date.
Because he has a flower and doesn't identify himself as not Graham Bledsoe. "
"Well, sure. When anyone I don't know approaches me I immediately tell them who I am not."
Eloise speared her with a look and Ursula laughed then apologized as she gestured for her to continue.
"And somewhere about a half an hour into this date with an imposter, we finally realize that he's not Graham,"
"He probably already knew he's not Graham."
"And I'm mortified," she said ignoring her.
"Have you ever been mortified? I would bet all of the apricot parrot tulips in the front yard you were shocked and maybe slightly embarrassed but mostly miffed."
Eloise's eyebrows pinched in thought as she chewed on her lip. "Well, anyway, first try at dating after a while and this is my luck."
"Why haven't you dated in a while, again?"
Eloise turned away, reaching up to get a glass and fill it with water, taking the time to gather her thoughts before she turned back toward Ursula and shrugged easily.
"New life, new business, keeping a business running.
Running away from my emotions," she said airily.
"It was all kind of consuming. I just wasn't interested. "
"Yeah, I get that," Ursula said gently. "Your peach tree has a few ready. I had this odd hankering for bourbon brown butter peaches-"
"And creme fraiche?"
"Yes! With tea in bone china and southern vanilla bean biscuits?"
Their phones both lit up with their text group and they quickly invited the women over.
"Hey, I'm going to invite Bess. The owner of The Black Cat is unexpectedly out of town for some family thing and the poor girl served radioactive coffee."
"Yikes. Hey, you should help her out."
She nodded. "Yeah, I offered. We'll see if the persnickety teen takes it."
Hours later as the sun was blazing by, dipping low and leaving behind bright golden spring light, the women were gathered on the back patio with bowls of peaches swimming in browned butter and a hint of bourbon, freshly made creme fraiche and small butter drop biscuits made with scraped out vanilla beans.
Tilly had turned on the bobbing string lights above them, and they had their enchanting bubble of warmth that was exactly fourteen degrees above the cool spring evening air outside of The Lost Souls House.
One of the greenhouses, the one with the large panes of stained glass with a depiction of Ursula and Casper, was glowing from the touch of the sun as it dropped.
That was where Ursula and Eloise often found a lost soul or two, hanging in the glass-paneled structure with the smell of soil and life.
Eloise had been slowly getting to know each of the ten women who were no longer anonymous, hanging around the property and leaving behind pieces of themselves.
A young girl named Violet, nine years old and one of the unfortunate casualties of that time long ago, liked to leave behind smiley faces in the spilled dirt on the potting table.
The sound of chickadees chirping and the soft meows of the grey catbird home for the warming spring mixed with the crackling bonfire as the women ate and talked.
"That girl called me," Jen said. "The one-night stand? She's in town for something and thought she'd reach out."
"Ohhh spill," Tilly urged.
And she did. The women listened and responded exactly how Jen needed them to. They made jokes and gave advice. Then moved on to Tilly's tense visit with her family; parents with strict expectations she could never quite meet, an older sister who exceeded them all.
Bess helped Eloise make rose and peppermint tea for everyone and soon enough time had passed that the sun was quite done as that soft spring darkness took over.
"Okay, so who was the actual guy you were not on a blind date with?"
"Uh, a detective Taylor White? Very handsome," Eloise said.
"He is handsome! He has one of those dimples." Tilly pressed her finger to her cheek.
"Oh yeah! The one man in law enforcement that Tilly thinks is hot," Kelsea joked. "And he is hot. Would you go on a real date with him?"
"He said he doesn't date," Eloise replied, looking into the fire, remembering his strangely familiar smell. "And I don't know. I tried. Dating isn't for me right now."
"Oh, pish posh!" Crystal said. She was wearing a wide, floppy-brim black hat with a leather bow around it. "You didn't try. You almost tried."
"You're perfectly happy without a man," Jen said pointing to Crystal.
"Who said I am without a man? I have many men."
"Damn it, you're so cool," Eloise whispered.
The women laughed and Jen smiled shaking her head, a look of respect on her face. "I do not doubt that. But, you don't make them the point. I mean, you don't center yourself around a relationship, is what I mean."
Crystal put a small foot up on the wide ledge of the stone bonfire as she sipped her tea.
"What women need to learn, and at a young age," she pointed to Bess who smiled, "is that you don't center your life around a romantic relationship.
If you're lucky and it's a once-in-a-lifetime relationship, you naturally put each other first and whatever you take care of lasts.
It's so much more simple than we are led to believe. "
"And none of these many men in your life are your once-in-a-lifetime relationships?" Ursula asked. She and Eloise's chairs were turned so that they could put their feet in each other's laps under a thick flannel blanket.
"Oh, I already had my once-in-a-lifetime. Story for another time, but that was enough for me. The memories of him and me," she leaned her head back and smiled the kind of smile that spoke of starlight and love, "they still fill me up when I need."
"I want to be you when I grow up," Kelsea said.
"Oh fucking cheers to that, ladies," Jen said raising her mug of tea into the air.
"But like, what if you really like a guy and he makes you feel.
..you know, like special. And then you think you have this special thing and then when he loses interest in you he makes you feel not special?
" Bess's question was exactly the question sixteen-year-old girls started wondering and asking, but rarely did they have the kind of audience of sage understanding that Bess did here underneath the sparkling northeastern sky with the smell of sugared peaches, growing grass and the promise of acceptance.
This was a unique space, the kind all women should search their world to find: a handful of women who think you're magnificent and let you know it unequivocally.
Before these kinds of women gather together they fill their pockets with gentle words and reminders of each other's worth.
And usually, there is fantastic food involved.
Ursula and Eloise shared a smile knowing exactly what Bess was asking.
Can you give pieces of yourself without losing too much? How do you protect yourself from the uncertainty of another person, who may not have been taught to handle a heart with delicate hands and intention?
"If someone ever makes you question your worth, my dear," Crystal was leaning forward, a stern but open look on her face.
"You lift your beautiful head up and you walk away.
Relationships are an investment. If you look down one day and realize you're the only one investing, cash out your portion and leave. "
Eloise watched Ursula swallow a lump, knowing what her friend was thinking. When she caught her thoughtful eye she winked pulling a sad smile from her.
"Is there a jerk jerking you around?" Jen asked.
"Yeah," Eloise said with a raised eyebrow. "You let us know and we'll hex him."
"I thought you weren't hexing anymore?"
"Well, we're definitely not drinking Crystal's margaritas anymore," Ursula said to a groaning Jen, Tilly and Kelsea.
"You're all wimps. My margaritas are basically medicinal," she defended with a lilt in her voice.
"If by medicinal you mean they are a gut cleanse and train you to not eat or move or breathe too quickly," Jen said with a look of pained memory on her face.
"Or open your eyes or hear any sound above a whisper without your whole head exploding," Tilly added, her face taking on a slight pale hue at the memory.