Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“Hi, hi, sorry I’m late,” Eleanor said rapidly as she approached Diana at Juniper Café. “I want to say that I have a good reason, but actually, I just got distracted looking at my beautiful bookshop-to-be.”
Diana laughed. “That’s a very good reason!” she said. “And you’re completely fine. I just got here maybe two minutes ago.”
“Okay, phew,” Eleanor said. She headed up to the counter and quickly ordered herself an iced honeycomb latte, a drink she’d recently become enamored with due to how it was very possibly the most delicious thing she had ever drank in her whole life.
Whoever came up with the drinks at Juniper Café was a bona fide genius.
“Anyway,” she said to Diana when she returned to her seat, delicious beverage clutched happily between her hands, “how is everything? How have you been in the… five days since we’ve seen one another?” she ended with a laugh.
“Well, you’re going to be proud of me,” Diana boasted. “Because I went and talked to that accountant!”
Eleanor couldn’t resist the flicker of mischief that went through her.
“Sorry,” she said, frowning. “Which accountant was that?”
“Oh!” Diana shook her head as if to clear it. “The guy Cadence and I met at Anchor Bistro.”
Eleanor put her hand to her head. “I’ve been so scattered with the store recently… remind me a little bit more?”
“Oh, you know,” Diana said. “The guy! Cadence and I went to go see June, and there was the thing with the mixed-up appetizers, and then this handsome guy…”
The instant Diana said handsome, Eleanor let the smile spread across her face.
“You knew who I was talking about,” Diana said.
“I did,” Eleanor admitted.
“You just wanted me to say he was attractive,” Diana went on.
“Pretty much.”
“I walked right into that one,” Diana sighed.
“You totally did.”
“Okay, okay.” Diana rolled her eye in a joking sort of way. “Fine. Yes, he is very handsome. And he has a very cute daughter! But we are going to be working together professionally.”
“I had a professional relationship with Garrett once,” Eleanor said innocently.
“You,” Diana said, pointing at her friend, “are a menace. Is Miriam giving you lessons?”
They both laughed at this.
“Seriously, though,” Eleanor said. “I’m glad you’re getting the help you need with the paperwork. I feel like that’s been weighing heavily on you.”
“It really has,” Diana said. “Plus, turns out that his daughter, Eloise, is a huge bookworm, so they are very excited about your store.”
“Ugh, them and me both,” Eleanor said. “Things are so close that it’s starting to feel like it will be this way forever.”
“I remember that feeling with the boutique,” Diana said, reaching out to pat Eleanor’s hand comfortingly. “I promise, it passes.”
Eleanor held up both hands to show her double set of crossed fingers.
“I actually feel really lucky,” she said as Diana chuckled. “I was just talking to my brother, and he’s having a tough time at work.”
“Oh no,” Diana said, face creasing in sympathy. “Is everything okay?”
Eleanor wobbled her hand in a so-so gesture.
“I think so. I mean, he’s not worried about losing his job or anything scary like that, thank goodness.
He’s just… well, a little burned out, I think.
I’m trying to convince him to come visit, get some rest, look out at the ocean until he feels chilled out, and hang out with his best ever sister. ”
“Yes! That would be so much fun! He should do that,” Diana said encouragingly.
“Well, it’s not me who needs convincing. But, you know. If you see a shooting star or come across a wishbone, feel free to put it in the ‘convincing Shane to visit’ column.”
“Noted,” Diana said, pretending to jot it down.
They chatted for another few minutes before realizing that the perfect weather was calling to them. They took their drinks to go and strolled back in the direction of their respective businesses. They did both have to get back to work eventually, but neither was in any rush to do so.
They meandered, stopping every now and again to look at some window display or another.
Eventually, they approached a small day spa that had, according to Diana, opened up a few years prior.
It was cute, and Eleanor made a mental note to check it out sometime.
She might like to get her nails done sometime, once she was no longer caught up in all the home improvement work that went along with renovating her house into part-home, part-business.
A trio of women stood in front of the spa; as she and Diana approached, Eleanor realized that one of them was Winnie.
And the other two, she realized a beat later, were total jerks.
“Oh my gosh, look,” one of them said in the kind of sly, mean voices that Eleanor associated with high school bullies. “It’s little Winnie again.”
Motivated by some kind of mutual instinct, Diana and Eleanor both froze.
“Good afternoon,” Winnie said, sounding as though she was already exhausted by this conversation.
Eleanor had never felt such immediate kinship with Winnie Burnett.
“Is it?” the other woman asked. “Maybe this is what passes for a good afternoon, in this little hamlet of yours, but I am about to positively keel over from boredom. I’m going to be a medical history case. The first person to ever perish due to small town syndrome.”
When Eleanor glanced over at Diana, Diana’s eyebrows were so far up her forehead they nearly touched her hairline.
“Well,” Winnie said, “it’s a nice spa. I’m sure you’ll have a good time.”
“Oh, sweetie,” said the first woman. “We’re on our way out. We already tried it there. Has nobody in this place even visited a city? Is culture illegal here?”
And then she let out a high, trilling laugh as if that made all her mean comments just fine.
“Maybe you’re just not looking in the right places,” Winnie said. It was only the smallest spark of defiance, but Eleanor wanted to cheer her on.
The next laugh the women let out was decidedly mean, and Eleanor decided that enough was enough.
“Winnie!” she said brightly. “Oh my gosh, I’m so glad I ran into you.”
She approached with a broad smile. Surprise crossed Winnie’s face.
Just go with it, she telegraphed with her eyes.
“Whoa,” one of the mean girls whispered to the other. “Apparently little Winnie finally made a friend.”
Eleanor was firmly against using violence to solve her conflicts, but a small, mean part of her really wanted to kick that lady right in the shins.
Jeremy had played soccer as a child, so Eleanor had taken quite a few accidental blows like that when they’d practiced together.
Getting kicked in the shins hurt, but then it faded.
It would probably fade a lot faster than the flicker of hurt on Winnie’s face, that was for sure.
“Seriously,” Eleanor said. Instead of giving the two rude women the dressing-down of the century, she decided to ignore them completely. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere, babe!”
Diana, fortunately, was quick on the uptake.
“Yeah, honey, there you are,” she said. She deftly looped her arm through Winnie’s. “We have a permit thing to deal with and, let’s be real, you’re the one who gets stuff done down at city hall. Can we pick your brain?”
“Sorry, ladies,” Eleanor said to the two other women, not bothering to look all that sorry at all. “You’ll have to excuse us.”
She grabbed Winnie’s other arm. Between her and Diana, they practically dragged Winnie down the street.
None of them said anything until they were out of earshot. Then Eleanor chanced a glance behind her. The two women were gone, thank goodness.
Eleanor pulled both Winnie and Diana to a stop.
“What in the blazes did we just overhear, Winnie?” she demanded. “Who were those awful people?”
Winnie tried to summon a smile, but it was strained.
“I’m sorry that you had to hear them be so mean about Magnolia Shore,” she said tersely.
“What?” Diana’s question burst out of her. “Winnie, we don’t care that they were mean about the town.”
“I—you don’t?” Winnie asked.
Eleanor remembered all the times she’d had doubts about Winnie, had thought that maybe, beneath everything, Winnie was misguided, not unkind.
Now, those doubts came back to the fore, stronger than ever, tinged with embarrassment.
She should always trust the instinct to be kinder, she reminded herself.
After all, if Winnie expected that Diana and Eleanor cared more about the town than they did about her… well, Eleanor had the sinking worry that too many people had been unkind to Winnie, and that not enough of them had been kind.
“No, sweetie,” Eleanor said, wrapping her arm around Winnie’s shoulders on instinct. “We care that those horrible people were mean to you.”
Winnie blinked at Eleanor once, her eyes going a bit glassy. She looked down quickly and blinked rapidly a few more times, a telltale sign of someone fighting back tears.
“That’s… that’s really nice,” she said quietly.
Eleanor and Diana exchanged a look.
“Let’s have a seat, huh?” Diana said, ushering them all toward a nearby bench. She directed Winnie to sit between her and Eleanor. Winnie, seeming a bit shocked by this whole situation, went along compliantly.
“Winnie,” Eleanor said softly, “I think I owe you an apology. I might have been a touch judgmental about the whole ‘your fence is illegal’ thing. I thought you were trying to be difficult just to… I don’t know, just to stick your nose in my business. But that was unfair of me, and I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” Winnie said softly, then sniffed.
“And I haven’t exactly extended the warmest hand of friendship either,” Diana admitted. “But Winnie, hon. It was not okay the way those women were speaking to you!”
Winnie let out a humorless laugh that sounded more than a little bit watery.
“Yeah, that’s Britt and Whit.”
“Wait, what?” Diana said. “That’s… those are their names?” She sounded genuinely confused.
Winnie’s laugh was a little more sincere that time. “Yeah, it was a middle school thing, I guess. Best friends with rhyming names.”
“So,” Eleanor said, putting the pieces together. “These two women have been friends since middle school, and I’m guessing they didn’t actually do that much growing up in that time, based on what we saw today. Did you actually know them in middle school, then?”
Winnie managed a smile that was half grimace.
“Unfortunately, yes. They were… pretty much the same way back then as they are now,” she said. “I want to say they were meaner, but I’m honestly not sure. I might just have had more fragile self-esteem as a tween.”
“No kidding, with those two in your ear!” Diana said, sympathetically. “But wait, aren’t you from Magnolia Shore? Those two aren’t from here.”
“Oh, yeah, I moved here in high school,” Winnie explained. “Not that I was a huge social success after I moved here, either.”
Years of honed maternal instincts had Eleanor rubbing Winnie’s back soothingly.
“And I guess that kind of just kept going,” Winnie said, shaking her head. Her shoulders were hunched. “I focused on school, and that was okay. Adults made sense to me. The historical society became my passion. And the historical conservation angle. Rules are way easier than people, it turns out.”
“Yeah, but rules won’t hang out with you,” Eleanor countered. “You always seemed a little… cold and aloof, like the only thing you cared about was the rules. Why didn’t you just tell us straight how you were feeling?”
Winnie’s expression was defensive. “That’s a lot easier to say from your perspective!” she protested. “You have a great group of friends and a boyfriend.”
“And before that,” Eleanor pointed out, “I went out to what I thought was my anniversary dinner and got served divorce papers.” Winnie’s mouth dropped open.
“Yeah, and when I moved here, I didn’t know anybody.
” She reached out and squeezed Winnie’s hands.
“Listen, I get that it’s hard. And I have a lot more perspective on the matter, after what I saw today.
So how about we agree to both wipe the slate clean and try again? ”
Winnie gave her a shy smile. “I would like that,” she said. “And I’ll try to be a little more open. That’s good advice, even if I do think it’s easier said than done.”
“You should join our book club!” Diana piped up.
Eleanor felt a flicker of apprehension go through her. Burying the hatchet with Winnie was one thing, but inviting her into their special, tight-knit group of friends?
Then again, Eleanor needed to put her money where her mouth was. If she said that she and Winnie were going to have a blank slate, then she really needed to go into this new chapter between them without any old baggage.
Besides, Eleanor didn’t know where she would be now if her friends hadn’t welcomed her when she’d first come to Magnolia Shore.
She was pretty sure she wouldn’t be opening her book store without them, and working on the store was what had led her to Garrett.
If taking a little bit of a risk on friendship could potentially bring as many good things into Winnie’s life, as well, that was a risk that Eleanor would have to take.
“Are… are you sure?” Winnie asked, risking a glance at Eleanor.
Eleanor made herself smile encouragingly and nod at the younger woman. A cautious hope lit up Winnie’s face.
“You should come,” Diana urged again, giving warm looks to both Winnie and Eleanor.
Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Eleanor reflected that she was very lucky to have her wonderful friends.
Diana was pushing Eleanor to be generous, which was the exact kind of thing a good friend would do for you.
“You should really come,” Eleanor agreed.
Winnie bit the corner of her lip for a moment, looking uncertain. She looked so different from the bossy town official that Eleanor had first met outside her store that it was hard to see many similarities between the two versions of Winnie.
This was, she told herself, a good reminder that it was always worth giving people the benefit of the doubt. Garrett had told her as much whenever they’d spoken about Winnie, but Eleanor hadn’t listened. Next time, she promised herself, she would do better.
“Yeah, okay,” Winnie said, a tentative smile growing across her face, like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. “Yeah. I’ll come to the book club. That sounds really nice. Thank you.”
“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Eleanor promised her. She would make certain that it was so. This was going to be a fresh start for her and Winnie, and she was going to make certain that she did things right.