Chapter 20 #2
His expression was sad, although he was trying to hide it, and Cadence found herself suddenly filled with the intense desire to wrap him in her arms, to pull him close to her and tell him that everything would be okay.
To tell him to come home, where the walls were a testimony to their family together, not a bleak indictment of how everything had fallen apart.
She couldn’t, of course, no matter how much she wanted to. That wouldn’t fix their problems, and it would only confuse poor Isabelle.
But goodness, how she missed the way the two of them used to be able to lean on one another.
And maybe that was the whole issue, she mused sadly. They’d stopped leaning on one another for too long, had retreated into themselves. And their marriage had paid the price.
She couldn’t comfort him as she wanted, so she did the only thing she could.
“Well, you know the gallery is always there,” she said, the brightness too bright, the cheer too cheery.
But she either had to act happy or let her grief over her lost love overtake her.
“If you’re looking for something specific, let me know, and I’ll keep an eye out.
I just found this great painting for Diana, so I’m sure I can find something that will brighten up your space. ”
Tyler smiled, but he looked as heartbroken as Cadence felt.
“Sure,” he said. “That sounds great.”
The easy moment between them was gone, replaced by an awkwardness so thick you could cut it with a knife. It was, for all its unpleasantness, a good reminder, she told herself. This feeling was why they couldn’t be together. There was too much unsaid.
“Okay,” she said. “Well, I’m going to go grab something to eat. I’m starving after that exercise in torture.”
“Oh.” Tyler blinked like he was surprised. She wished she could still read him. “Oh, yeah, of course.”
“I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah, of course. Bye, Cadence.”
It was horrible, horrible the way things were between them.
As she continued past, walking down the street, Cadence’s muscles were wound twice as tight as they were before that wretched yoga class.
Why was it, no matter how she interacted with Tyler these days, her body responded by screaming wrong, wrong, wrong!
Despite what she’d told him, she no longer had any appetite for a pastry or otherwise. But the nervous energy that coursed through her wouldn’t let her feet stop, nor did she feel ready to turn toward home, where a whole different set of memory minefields awaited her.
Something had to change.
Just as that thought crossed Cadence’s mind, she passed the upscale hair salon that she’d never ventured inside, although it had been here in the downtown area for years.
Cadence had always gone for the same haircut, with a few variations.
A couple of layers here, a few inches there.
Her long, strawberry blonde hair had been with her all her life, and the braid she wore was practically a uniform at this point.
But in the window was a woman with a bouncing head of spiraling curls. She was laughing, like her energy was a reflection of her hairdo. Beneath the picture, the words Perm services available—inquire within were written in a bold, black font.
Bold. Happy. Energetic. Those were things Cadence wanted to feel.
It was crazy to get a perm on a whim, right? But… she wanted change. That would be a really big change. Maybe a little bit of crazy was exactly what she needed to feel so she could pull herself out of the rut that her separation had dumped her in.
The decision was made before she even realized it. Excited, and with a new energy to her movements, Cadence crossed the street and skipped happily into the hair salon.
“Why?” Eleanor asked her oven, fully aware that she would have way bigger problems than a malfunctioning appliance if the oven actually answered her.
Still, after nearly an hour of trying to figure out why the heck, out of nowhere, this darn thing had stopped working, her options were to put her hands on her hips and scold it or kick it, and the latter seemed likely to cause more problems.
“Why?” she demanded again. “Why are you suddenly not working? You’re a big metal box that gets hot. Get hot!”
Just in case this reprimand had worked, she tried the dial again. The electric coil at the bottom of the oven remained dull and inert.
“At least it’s electric, not gas,” she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. “So the only thing I’m risking is a cold dinner, not blowing myself up.”
Small mercies, she supposed.
Even though she knew, that now that she was in her forties, her back would not thank her for it later, she slumped on the kitchen floor, defeated, glaring at the appliance.
“I don’t like you,” she told it sullenly. It sat there, unmoved… because it was an oven.
Living alone, Eleanor was learning, was an adjustment.
She spent a few more minutes scrolling through her phone, trying to see if any new tips and tricks would appear to magically solve her problem.
As she had continued her work getting the bookstore in order, she’d found that there were certain websites that were a lot more reliable and useful when it came to home improvement advice, but she’d already tried everything they’d recommended.
If all that fails, one of the top commenters had written, call a professional.
It was time to admit defeat, Eleanor decided. She had to call in the cavalry, so to speak.
She tried to ignore the little trill of excitement that accompanied that decision. There was only one person in Magnolia Shore who she knew to ask about this kind of problem.
Not, she told herself, just because I want to see Garrett.
Or, at least, not that she wanted to see him for any other reason than because he would likely know exactly how to fix her problem.
She definitely did not want to seek him out because he’d been intriguingly vulnerable the last time they’d spoken.
She wasn’t eager to see him because he was ruggedly handsome…
and she suspected, even more so beneath that beard.
Nope. Not a chance. No sirree.
The denials weren’t convincing even in her own head.
Even so, Eleanor decided that she would ask for his help.
She wanted to get the bookstore up and running as soon as possible, didn’t she?
And if it occurred to her that technically the oven was part of her apartment, not part of the bookstore, well, that didn’t matter that much, did it?
She couldn’t have customers in a building where something was on the fritz.
What if it turned into a more robust electrical problem and she had to close up shop?
No, it was far more reasonable to deal with the potential issue now, before she got any further.
And if she fluffed her hair twice in front of the mirror and made sure that she didn’t look too sweaty after her exertions before she left the house?
That was just common behavior, to be sure.
Nobody wanted to go out and about looking less than their best. It had nothing to do, nothing at all, with her desire to peel back the layers of the mysterious hardware store owner.