Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Diana might not have loved much about her condo, but she loved her couch.
It was a great couch, overstuffed, oversized, worn in all the right places.
She had the perfect arrangement of throw pillows for lounging and reading a book or propping her feet up while she watched tv or a movie.
It hadn’t been outrageously expensive, but it had been an investment, and she’d bought it at a time when her business was still new, meaning that she’d scrimped, saved, and budgeted in order to buy the couch of her dreams. She sat on it every day.
She wasn’t sitting on it now. Instead, she was sitting in the chair across from it, the one that she’d always found just the slightest bit too firm to be comfortable.
She just could not stop staring at that darn painting.
She supposed that she saw why Cadence found it beautiful. The colors were striking. But it was just too much for Diana. She felt her eye constantly drawn to the art, and not in a way she found she liked.
“Being a good friend is for the birds,” she grumbled, surging to her feet.
She stood briefly on her beloved couch and hooked the painting off the wall.
It simply could not stay there. Not if it was going to distract her from one of her favorite places in her home.
She held it up against the far wall, testing that idea out.
No, that wouldn’t work either. It would constantly catch her eye while she was trying to watch cooking shows, a hobby that relaxed her immensely.
She couldn’t lose the peace she got from watching someone else make a recipe she planned to recreate later. No way.
“Where do you belong?” she muttered. “Dining room? Kitchen? No, that won’t work… and now I’m talking to a painting,” she said, dropping her head back against her shoulders.
Diana had still not come up with an answer to her question when she glanced at her watch and saw that it was time to head out.
She was meeting her friends at Captain’s Crest for dinner, a fancier restaurant than what they usually frequented, but then again, tonight was a special occasion.
Eleanor had told them that she was officially committed to turning the bottom floor of her house into a bookstore, so the rest of the group was taking her out to celebrate her new venture and to wish her all the luck in the world.
Plus, it was a chance to dress up, and Diana never passed up the opportunity to put on a gorgeous dress and some fun lipstick. She did own a boutique, after all.
She might have fussed over choosing accessories for a little bit longer than was advisable, for when she arrived at the restaurant, all her friends were already seated.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, kissing cheeks and giving hugs. “I got caught up getting fancy.”
“Well, you do look gorgeous, darling, so we’ll forgive it this once,” Miriam said with a playful wink.
“How terribly benevolent of you,” Diana drawled, just as teasingly.
“All right,” Cadence said, clapping her hands together like she was calling them to order. “We’re all here. First things first. Let’s order something delicious for drinks, because we absolutely must celebrate Eleanor as she deserves.”
Their newest friend blushed.
“Oh, stop it,” she said, although she looked pleased. “I want to celebrate what everyone has going on, not just me.”
“In that case,” Miriam said grandly, “we will order a bottle of champagne to toast Eleanor and the rest of us, yes?”
Eleanor squinted at the older lady, like she knew Miriam was trying to get something over on her. And knowing Miriam, that was almost certainly true.
“Fine,” Eleanor said. “But I want it on the record that I could not have gotten this far in my plans without all of you, so my success truly is your success.”
“Well, I’ll toast to that,” June said cheerfully.
The waiter, with that kind of highly efficient service that always seemed to transpire at high-end restaurants, had already poured flutes of champagne around the table.
“To friendship, to lifting one another up, and to celebrating the wins when we have them.”
“Hear, hear!” Cadence said approvingly.
Dutifully, they all reached toward the middle of the table and clinked their glasses together.
When they’d all oohed and aahed over the bubbles and had placed their orders for their dinners, they returned to their discussion about how things were going for each of them.
Eleanor, naturally, was first.
“It’s going to be a lot of work,” she said, although not in a tone that suggested that this work would stop her from making her bookstore dream a reality.
“But the more I break it down into tiny pieces, the more it seems doable. I painted some of the walls this week. That was one thing, in terms of house improvement, that I actually know how to do.”
“Ooh, what colors?” Diana asked, her design brain kicking in.
“Well,” Eleanor said, brightening as she described her progress, “there’s a cozy sort of sage green for the main room, and I did a rosy pink color for the room where I think I’ll do genre fiction—the mysteries and the romances and whatnot.
Plus, I’m doing a blue for a kids’ corner.
The event room will be a cool gray so that we can decorate it easily for different things. ”
Diana pictured the color palate in her mind.
“Love it,” she said decisively.
“The next thing will be thinking about shelves,” Eleanor stated. “Lots and lots and lots of shelves. Too many shelves to think about right now. Somebody else tell me what’s going on before I start muttering about wood types and dimensions.”
Everyone laughed. Cadence dutifully kept up the report.
“I am forging boldly ahead,” she declared, spreading her arms wide. “This week, I took a pottery class.”
“How did it go?” June asked.
“Terribly!” Cadence said with a laugh. “I was trying to make a flowerpot, and it was more like a flower blob.”
“Goodness, Cadence, show some imagination,” Miriam joked. “You work at an art gallery. Don’t you know an abstract representation when you see one?”
“That’s exactly what I meant,” Cadence said without missing a beat. “I made an abstract flower blob inspired by Dadaism and Brutalist Architecture and I expect to be in a magazine any day now.”
“That’s my girl,” Miriam praised.
“Even so, I think this might not be the hobby for me.” Cadence pulled a face. “Goodness knows I love Izzy more than anything, but kids bring a lot of mess along with them. I don’t need another messy activity in my free time! I’m going to try a hot yoga class next time.”
“I used to love hot yoga,” June said wistfully.
“I’m so busy recently that I don’t tend to get around to it.
Maybe if you decide you like it, we can grab a class together,” she told Cadence, infusing cheer back into her voice, which had taken on a hint of sadness as she had no doubt been thinking about how much her life had changed after Keith’s passing.
“Absolutely,” Cadence agreed. “Just let me try a few classes on my own first so that I know if I’m going to flop over like a fish in the middle from the heat and the sweat. Just to, you know, set expectations.”
“Deal.” June laughed.
“Okay,” Cadence said, turning to Diana. “How about you?”
Diana found a pleased little smile creeping across her face.
“Well,” she said, drawing out the word and the anticipation. “I maybe found somebody that I’m interested in? On that dating app, I mean.”
Anything else she might have wanted to say was lost in exclamations of delight from her friends.
“Hush up, you lot!” Miriam commanded. “I want to hear from Diana. We can get excited after she gives us all the details.”
June, it seemed, could not quite resist asking a few questions despite Miriam’s strict orders.
“What’s he like? What’s his name? How long have you been talking? Is he cute?”
“Slow down!” Diana said on a laugh. “His name is Kendrick, Kendrick Chandler. We haven’t talked yet, so I don’t know much about him. I just… liked the look of him, and we matched.”
“Is he cute?” June repeated, punctuating each word.
Diana blushed. “Yes, okay! He’s very cute.”
She pulled out her phone to show them the photo, earning nods of appreciation from each of her friends.
“You know,” Miriam said, proving herself highly adept with technology despite her age, “it says he’s online right now. You should message him.”
“It does?” Diana asked, flipping her phone back to face her. And sure enough there was a tiny, green icon that said online.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Cadence said, flapping her hands almost frantically. “We have to pick out the right thing to say to him.”
“We?” Diana asked teasingly, although privately she was glad to have the emotional support.
“I’ve never done the online dating thing,” Eleanor said, nibbling at her lip. “Are you supposed to be casual, like if you were approaching them at a bar or something?”
“I think you want to do a mix of, oh, we’re just strangers meeting, and oh, I read your profile,” June said.
Diana scrolled through Kendrick’s page. “He’s a lawyer,” she said, “and, oh wait, it says he likes running on the beach. Maybe I can ask him if he’s run at Magnolia Shore?”
“Nice,” Cadence said approvingly. “It’s something that links you two.”
“As long as he doesn’t think I’m going running at sunrise with him,” Diana said, earning a laugh.
Even so, she typed a message accordingly.
DIANA: Hi! I saw we matched, and I see that you like beach runs. I’m not a runner, but I live in Magnolia Shore, and there’s a great beach here for joggers. Have you ever been?
“I like it,” Miriam said when Diana showed the message. “Casual, but interested. And it gives an avenue for conversation.”
“And sets the non-runner expectation,” June said dryly, looking pointedly down at the high heels Diana was wearing for fashion, not function. Diana elbowed her friend playfully.
Eleanor was glancing over the message when she let out a little squeak.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, thrusting the phone back at Diana. “He’s responding!”
And sure enough, at the bottom of their chat, there were three little dancing dots to let her know he was typing. A surge of nervous excitement coursed through Diana.
KENDRICK: Hey, Diana! I’m so glad you messaged me. I do like beach runs. But will you judge me if I say I don’t run very much when it’s cold? I’m not as devoted as some others are, I admit.
KENDRICK: I haven’t gone running in Magnolia Shore, though! I live about half an hour away, so I should give it a try. If I made the trip out, what else do you think I should see?
“Ooh, do you think he means he should see you?” June asked, clearly thrilled. “This whole flirting thing is complicated. When Keith and I started dating, he just asked me if he could carry my books to math class.”
June and her late husband had been together since high school, so their romance was a bit different than what Diana expected to find in her late thirties.
Over the course of the dinner, Diana and Kendrick messaged back and forth. Diana worried that she was being rude by being on her phone so much during a meal with her friends, but they assured her that they were having fun.
“We’re living vicariously,” Eleanor teased her. “Don’t take this away from us, huh?”
By the end of the meal, Diana and Kendrick had a date planned for later in the week. They were going to grab a casual meal at Anchor Bistro after work one evening.
“You excited?” June asked quietly as the women paid the bill and got ready to head home.
Diana considered this. She had definitely found playing with the dating app more fun when she had her friends’ excitement and support to bolster her. But it was fun. And Kendrick seemed nice, even if she wasn’t sure yet if he was her forever person.
Still, it was a start. A good, fresh start.
“Yeah,” she said, slinging an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “I think I actually am excited.”
June stuck out her tongue. “Told you so,” she bragged, then darted away to join Miriam before Diana could respond.