Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Diana Madsen, owner and proprietress of Magnolia Boutique, took a careful step back from the table she was about to cover with new inventory.
This was Diana’s ritual, when it came to putting new displays in her carefully curated shop.
She looked at the whole picture first, then built and image in her mind about how the display would fit into the overall flow of the store.
Then she laid out the pieces, considered how they looked individually, and took another step back to check to see if what she’d done matched her mental image.
After that, she would adjust the items until they looked just right, both as individual pieces and as an overall, cohesive effect.
Some people, such as her sisters—to name a totally random example—called this “excessive” and “a little obsessive, don’t you think, Diana?”
But Diana called it sophisticated, polished, ambitious. You didn’t get to earn those attributes by chucking everything on a shelf and calling it a day.
Besides, she liked the ritual of it all, the feeling that she could tweak and shape her store until this little slice of the universe, at least, was as perfect as she could make it.
She tucked a strand of her long, black hair behind her ear and rolled up the sleeves of the emerald blazer she was wearing today.
The color was bright, and, if not correctly matched to the rest of her outfit, could have come off as garish.
But Diana had gone for muted colors for the rest of her ensemble: slate gray slacks, black loafers, and a dreamy, almost gray blue silk shell.
Whenever she got dressed in the morning, she liked to think about how she would advise her customers, were they considering buying the blazer…
which yes, of course, she sold in her boutique.
“You’ll be tempted to pair it with black and white, since they’re neutral,” she imagined herself advising. “But they’re also stark. Go for something a little more muted, so that the green can really pop.”
It was good advice, if she did say so herself. Every time she caught a glimpse of herself in one of her boutique’s full-size mirrors, she’d felt impressed with how she looked.
Style, to Diana, was more than mere clothes. It was how she presented herself to the world. It was how she built her mental image of herself. That was more than triviality, no matter what some naysayers might think.
She started hanging some shirts that were styled almost like t-shirts, except for the layer of lace atop the base fabric of the shirt, each in matching hues.
The effect was subtly upscale, leading to an item that could be dressed up for a night out, paired with a jacket for work, or matched with cute jeans and shoes for a casual day of running errands.
She added accessories to the display, placing chunky gold necklaces with a set of bangles that came in silver, gold, and rose gold.
People were often hesitant to mix metals, Diana had learned, until they saw how good different metallics looked together.
Diana was debating how she wanted to showcase a set of simply gorgeous silk scarves she’d recently found on a buyer’s trip to New York City when her phone rang. Her younger sister’s name lit up the screen. With her hands busy, Diana decided to put the phone on speaker.
“Hey, Kylie,” she greeted. “Just a heads up, you’re on speaker, but I’m alone in the store.”
“I’m kind of surprised you answered, actually,” her younger sister said. At thirty-five, Kylie couldn’t properly be considered Diana’s little sister any longer… but Diana was pretty sure she’d always think of Kylie that way. “I know it’s working time for you.”
Kylie didn’t mean any harm by that comment, Diana knew, but she still had to bite her lip against the grimace that wanted to appear on her face.
She valued her business and her career, of course.
But sometimes she wished her family didn’t act so much like they thought a businesswoman was the only part of Diana worth recognizing.
Kylie, clearly happy, kept chattering along. “I couldn’t resist calling, just in case you were free, because…” She let out a little giggle as she trailed off.
“Because?” Diana prompted, finally deciding to drape the scarves around some of the mannequins, while leaving others folded on the table.
It was the best of both worlds, she decided.
It let customers see how the scarves could be paired with the shirts while still giving them an easy look at the scarves’ ornate, beautiful patterns.
“Because I think Doyle is going to propose!” Kylie burst out on an excited squeal.
Diana felt a slight lurch in her chest, but she sounded cheerful when she responded to her sister.
“Oh my goodness, that’s amazing!” she said. “Tell me everything.”
Diana felt a little guilty for half tuning out as Kylie explained that she’d noticed one of her rings was missing for a day or so last week.
At first, she’d assumed she had just left it somewhere, or missed it in her jewelry box, but then her long-term boyfriend, Doyle, had asked about her plans for a Friday night three weeks in advance.
“I wondered if he had a business dinner or something, one of those social-slash-work things where partners are invited. So I told him I was free, but asked where we were going. He got super evasive, like, ‘Oh, no place in particular, I just wanted to know about our schedule coming up. Maybe we’ll go out to dinner.’” Kylie laughed. “It wasn’t really subtle.”
Kylie’s boyfriend was a kind, sweet man, but he was not good at secrecy. Every time he’d bought Kylie a present, whether for her birthday, anniversary, or Christmas, he’d managed to spill the beans before she opened it. Diana smiled at the running family joke that had emerged around this.
“Poor Doyle,” Diana teased. “It’s good that he never wanted to be a spy.” Her soon-to-be brother-in-law, if Kylie’s suspicions were correct, was a high school teacher. His students probably teased him for his total lack of a poker face too.
“Seriously,” Kylie agreed. “Anyway, that’s all the information I have, so I’ll let you get back to work, but I just needed to do the little shriek of excitement bit.”
Diana dutifully made some excited sounds alongside her sister before saying goodbye and hanging up the phone.
Without her sister’s joyful voice permeating the space, however, Diana felt a little sadness creep in. She felt guilty feeling anything but happiness at her sister’s good fortune, but Kylie was likely getting married. Diana’s older sister, Astrid, was already married, she and her husband had a son.
And Diana was single. Again.
Or, actually, she wasn’t sure she could even call it “again” when she’d barely gone on three dates in the past year. Maybe “still” was the right word.
Diana Madsen, still single. Maybe forever, she thought glumly.
Fortunately, before she could get too deep into her malaise, the door to her shop opened, triggering the motion sensor on the light chime that Diana had installed in lieu of one of those old-fashioned bells above the door.
As someone who often worked alone in her shop, since she only had part time help, Diana needed to know when someone came in or out, especially if she was working in the back room.
But she didn’t want a clanging sound ruining the carefully curated ambiance of her beloved boutique.
She looked up at the delicate sound and immediately broke into a smile, her sadness banished.
“Hey, there!” she greeted her best friend, Cadence Meadows, and Cadence’s adorable, totally perfect six-year-old daughter, Isabelle.
“Hey, sweetie,” Cadence greeted, giving Diana a peck on the cheek.
“Hi, Aunt Diana,” Isabelle added, hugging Diana tight around her legs.
Isabelle was the only person whose hugs didn’t even make Diana worry that her pristine outfit would get rumpled. She still accepted hugs from her friends, of course, but the thought did cross her mind. With Izzy, Diana was too busy soaking up the affection.
“How are my two favorite ladies today?” Diana asked.
Cadence blew out a breath, causing a strand of strawberry blonde hair that had escaped her customary loose braid to flutter.
“It’s been a day,” she said, cutting her eyes toward Isabelle, who was looking at Diana’s new display with interest. She was holding her hands behind her back, in accordance with her mom’s rule that “in Aunt Diana’s store, no touching without permission.
” Just the sight made Diana smile. Isabelle was such a responsible, sweet kid.
But the darting gaze from Izzy’s mother meant that today’s stressors were about Tyler, Isabelle’s father, and Cadence’s…
maybe husband? Diana wasn’t sure where things were heading.
Cadence and Tyler were in the midst of a separation, but Diana wasn’t sure if her friend wanted that separation to be permanent or not.
She was even less sure how Tyler felt about things, since Diana was far closer to Cadence than she was to her spouse.
One thing on which neither parent wavered, however?
They adored Izzy more than anything and were determined to never bad-mouth the other in front of her.
Which meant that Diana was left uncertain if Cadence was annoyed with her daughter’s father or merely feeling some kind of way about the situation.
Since they couldn’t discuss it now, she just reached out a comforting hand to squeeze Cadence’s shoulder and went for a topic change.
“Work okay, though?”
Cadence’s expression eased. “Yeah, all good,” she said. “Just gearing up for the summer showcase, but even that’s moving at a good pace.”