Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“I don’t know how you do that,” Garrett commented as he pulled to a stop at a red light. Eleanor was touching up her lipstick using the mirror in the passenger seat visor.
“Put on makeup?” she asked absently, checking for smudges.
“In the car,” he explained. “How you don’t end up with lipstick up to your eyeballs is a mystery to me. Have you considered giving up this whole bookstore thing and becoming a surgeon? I think you have the steady hands for it.”
“Oh, bite your tongue,” she said with a laugh. “I’m not giving up the bookstore when we’re this close! And blood makes me squeamish,” she admitted. “Whenever Jeremy came home with scrapes, I had to pretend it was ketchup so I could patch him up without getting queasy.”
“Okay, maybe not surgery, then,” he allowed.
“And if you think this is impressive,” she continued, capping her lipstick so she could blot carefully against a tissue, “you should have seen me when I was young. I would do my eyeliner in the car back then. It makes me shudder now just thinking about it. I’m lucky I didn’t lose an eye!”
“The follies of youth,” he said. “But, to your point, I never want to see that. I would pull over immediately, thank you very much.”
“So responsible,” she teased.
He reached over and squeezed her hand before, responsible as always, putting both hands on the steering wheel as the light turned green.
They were on their way to Anchor Bistro to see June perform at the open mic night.
Eleanor had planned to start getting ready earlier, she really had, but she’d gotten caught up in installing some of the bookshelves that had arrived at the shop the day prior.
She had started out confident that she’d gotten them secured to her walls properly, then promptly second-guessed herself and asked Garrett to come check her work.
He'd been over to her house in a flash, and had confirmed that she had, in fact, secured the bookshelves successfully, but the episode had left Eleanor scrambling to catch up with her evening. She’d raced through her shower and blow-drying her hair, then had grabbed her makeup bag to deal with in the car, since they were running way late.
And she absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent could not be late for June’s big night, not after all the courage June had shown in scheduling this event with all their friends.
But she just hadn’t been able to walk away from getting those shelves installed, not until she knew they were secure.
It wasn’t just about the safety issue of having an unsecured bookshelf either.
The closer she got to her opening day, the more and more excited she felt.
And the more excited she felt, the more she felt drawn to the work to get things up and running.
It was just all so wonderful. This felt like a bright new chapter.
And the man beside her was a big part of what made this new chapter feel so wonderful.
“Hey,” she said, stowing away her makeup bag, “did I say thank you for coming over so quickly today? Because thank you. I appreciate it. Especially because I was just being a nervous Nelly.”
“Of course,” Garrett replied, not taking his eyes off the road. “You’re my girlfriend. You call me for help, I come.”
“Pull over,” Eleanor demanded.
Garrett flicked a surprised glance at her. “What?”
“Pull over,” she repeated firmly.
He did so, brow furrowed with confusion. When they were safely tucked off on the side of the road, she grasped his cheeks and made him look directly at her.
“Did you just call me your girlfriend?” she asked.
Understanding lit his gaze, and a smile spread across his face. Even so, he looked a bit shy as he answered. “I did. Is that okay?”
In lieu of a response, she used her grip on his face to pull him close to her.
And then she laid a big kiss right on his mouth.
When she pulled back, they were both smiling.
“So I guess it’s okay, then,” he mumbled bashfully.
“Yeah, it’s more than okay,” she said. She was definitely grinning like a kid with her first crush, but she didn’t care at all. That was how she felt.
Only better, because now she was old enough and smart enough not to put out her eye by doing her mascara in a moving car.
“Great,” he said, then paused. “Girlfriend.”
“That makes you my boyfriend,” she said gleefully.
He chuckled, briefly dropping his head back against the car seat.
“You know, I never thought I wanted to be anyone’s boyfriend ever again. After Maria left me… I felt that way for a long, long time.”
She waited patiently for him to speak. Though their relationship had gone a long way toward healing Garrett’s emotional wounds, she knew that talking about his former fiancée, who had left him shortly before their wedding, could still be challenging for him.
As someone who had been married before, she understood.
She still often felt conflicted about her past. On one hand, she didn’t regret her marriage at all.
It had given her Jeremy, and she loved her son more than anything.
She could never regret something that had brought Jeremy into the world.
But she did sometimes wonder how she had let herself stay in a loveless marriage for so long.
She knew Garrett felt similarly about his pain. He’d told her that he now felt foolish for being so curmudgeonly when it came to love for so long, but he was also glad that he’d waited, since that had brought them together.
“But you, Eleanor,” he said after a few moments, his voice gruff. “Meeting you. It was…” He chuckled. “Well, you annoyed the pants off of me at the start, don’t get me wrong.”
“So romantic,” she teased.
“Yeah, well, you turned out to be the best annoyance in the world,” he said, his eyes fond. “I’m real lucky to have you. I know that. And you don’t annoy me at all, anymore, if it helps.”
“I can work harder. I’ll up my game,” she promised.
His laughter faded as he pressed his mouth to hers.
Eleanor would have been happy to sit there for a while, just kissing in the car like a pair of teenagers, but she only allowed herself a moment or two before she pulled back.
“We can’t miss June’s performance,” she said, a distinct pout in her voice.
Garrett sighed as he pulled away, but he refastened his seatbelt, flicked on the blinker even though the road was empty, and pulled back onto the main road.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “I take it all back. This right here, having to stop kissing you to go to a restaurant? That is annoying.”
“You like my friends,” she reminded him.
“Yeah,” he grumbled. “I do.” He sounded sour about it, and Eleanor reached over to pat his knee affectionately. That was her curmudgeonly boyfriend.
Her boyfriend.
She stifled a squeak of happiness.
When they arrived at Anchor Bistro, they were…
well, they were very late, actually. As soon as they had parked, Eleanor and Garrett hurried out of the car and crossed the parking lot.
Inside, the restaurant was bustling, a bit more than usual.
This was largely in part due to the big group of their friends, all of whom had shown up to support June.
Miriam and Diana were sitting in a booth, Benjamin between them, looking as though he was about to bounce out of his seat with excitement.
He had an array of comic books, coloring pages, and crayons in front of him, but he was ignoring it all to gaze adoringly at his mom where she was shifting her weight nervously near the side of the makeshift stage that the bistro put up for their open mic events.
Across from them in the booth was Isabelle, who was not ignoring the toys laid out in front of her. She was focusing intently on a picture of a dragon, whose scales she was illustrating in different shades of pink and purple.
And next to her?
Both her parents. Cadence and Tyler. Looking very cozy indeed, if Eleanor did say so herself.
She caught Cadence’s eye as she and Garrett crossed the room to join their friends, giving her eyebrow a significant waggle. Cadence blushed and ducked her head, but there was a smile on her face.
“Hey, all,” Eleanor called.
Miriam made a production of glancing at her watch. “Well, well, well,” she said. “Finally the lovebirds grace us with their presence.”
“Sorry,” Eleanor said, not feeling sorry at all. “My boyfriend and I were just having a little chat in the car about how wonderful everything is.”
“Ooh, boyfriend,” Diana said in the singsong cadence of a middle schooler.
This caught Benjamin’s attention briefly. “Do you have a boyfriend, Ms. Ellie?” he asked in his piping child’s voice.
“I do,” Eleanor confirmed, squeezing Garrett’s arm.
“I would have waited to say it if I had known I was going to get teased by kids,” Garrett grumbled.
“I do not believe you,” Eleanor returned.
Isabelle was not to be left out. “If you’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” she asked, tapping at her chin with a purple crayon, “does that mean you kiss? Does it mean you’re in love? Are you going to get married and have babies?”
Tyler reached around Cadence and playfully put his hand over his daughter’s mouth.
“Sorry,” he said as Izzy giggled behind his palm, using her own hands to clasp his more firmly against her face. “We have not yet managed to instill the lesson about personal questions.”
“You can make it up to me by buying me a beer,” Garrett joked.
“Deal,” Tyler said. The two men headed over to the bar. Eleanor slipped into Tyler’s now vacant seat.
“So…” Eleanor said to Cadence, keeping her voice low so that Izzy didn’t overhear anything.
She didn’t know what her friends had told their daughter.
She didn’t envy them. Her own divorce had taken place after her son was grown, which had left her able to talk with Jeremy as an adult to an adult.
She was still his mother, of course, but it was different.
With little kids, you had to be careful.
“I know,” Cadence said, shooting a glance over at her daughter, who had already gone back to her intent coloring project. The dragon was getting a surprise patch of orange scales, now. It looked great. “It’s still very early days, but… it feels right. I feel good.”
Eleanor wrapped her friend in a quick hug. “Good. You know that all any of us wants for you is happiness.”
“Yeah, I know,” Cadence said.
Just then, the lights dimmed around the restaurant while spotlights that focused on the stage brightened. Tyler and Garrett returned just at the right moment. They each slid a glass of wine in front of their respective partners.
Before either Cadence or Eleanor could say thank you, however, an emcee took the stage.
“Hi, all,” she called exuberantly. “Great crowd tonight! On behalf of the staff of Anchor Bar, we’re very excited to see you.
Now, I know none of you are here to listen to me, so I’ll keep it brief.
First up tonight, we have…” She glanced down the clipboard of signups.
“First up, we have June Caldwell. Give it up for June, everybody!”
The whole restaurant erupted into cheers of excitement, but the loudest hooting and hollering came, of course, from the section of June’s friend. Benjamin briefly stood up on the booth seat, Diana keeping a hand on him to keep him from losing his balance.
“Yay, Mommy!” he called, hands cupped over his mouth.
June paused as she mounted the short stage at the sound of Benjamin’s voice. The anxious look on her face faded, briefly, into softness. She likely couldn’t see him properly, due to the lights, but she blew a kiss in Benjamin’s direction.
“We love you, June!” Miriam called out.
June smiled as she crossed to the mic.
“Hi, everybody,” she said. “I’m June, and, uh… well, it’s been a long time for me, so be gentle.”
The opening notes of a country song from the ‘90s, one that Eleanor faintly recognized, began to play. June opened her mouth, sucked in a breath, and—
And knocked it out of the park.
She’d only been singing for about ten seconds before Eleanor realized that she had her hands pressed to her mouth in astonishment and glee. This was… it was about a million times better than the impromptu performance Eleanor had overheard in the diner.
As she kept singing, the entire room grew silent. Conversations died as everyone turned to watch June, rapt expressions on their faces. She sang and sang, her voice soaring higher and higher.
Eleanor watched, delighted, as June’s confidence grew before her very eyes. She began to get into her performance, moving from side to side in time with the music. She belted out the song’s final crescendo.
When she was done, the room was perfectly silent for a beat, then two.
And then the applause was thunderous.
People, and not even the people in their little group, leapt to their feet. Miriam whooped so loud that Benjamin covered his ears and gave the older lady a betrayed look. She grinned down at the little boy.
And, up on the stage, June’s grin was bright enough to light up the entire restaurant.