Chapter 1
Four years later.
“I hate ranunculus,” Anne muttered. “Too structured. Too many layers. No flower should be that stiff.”
Sadie, her face buried in a display bouquet of purple ranunculus and pink cymbidium orchids, was apparently too transported to respond. She inhaled through her nose, long and loud, then sighed happily.
Anne sighed, too—much less happily. Normally, she’d be glad to kill an hour or more in Purple Poppy, hands down the best florist shop within a thirty-minute drive, but today’s errand schedule was packed.
At this rate, they’d never get out of Calabasas.
“If you nuzzle that bouquet for much longer, you’ll have to buy it dinner.
Did you hear what I said? About the flowers? ”
Sadie straightened up, her hair quickly settling.
Today’s wig—they were all deliberate fashion choices—was a straight, dark, chin-length bob that made her vaguely resemble Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago.
“Oh, I’m very aware you hate ranunculus,” she said, amusement in her voice.
“You made that extremely clear the first forty-seven times you mentioned it.”
No one could ever accuse Anne of being wishy-washy. “I just can’t figure out the right arrangement. Every combination I can think of is—”
“—too obvious or too chaotic, I know,” Sadie finished. “Don’t you worry, sunshine. We’ll find the perfect flowers for your birthday party. Maybe—oh, I’ve got a real soft spot for calla lilies.” She pointed at an overstuffed white arrangement on a nearby table.
Calla lilies were for funerals. “I’m turning sixty, not dying, Sadie. Actually, I was thinking about a waterfall design, with some baker fern or eucalyptus.”
“If you don’t want your flowers to remind people of death, then I’d say we shouldn’t pick an arrangement that’s drooping out of the vase and onto the table.”
Fair. But Anne, who hated admitting she was wrong, would concede the point silently.
She looked around the small shop, stuffed to the brim with color and scent and greenery, until her gaze fell on an asymmetrical, loose bouquet near one corner.
White hyacinth and blush roses weren’t exactly reinventing the wheel as far as floral arrangements went, but Anne, always ready to spot an unusual bloom, immediately seized on the—
“Amaranths!” Sadie cried out.
Anne turned to see her best friend staring at the same corner.
“Oh, those are beauties. You know, I have a lipstick that’s the exact same color. Spitfire Scarlet.”
“Honestly, that combination really might work,” Anne said slowly, “if we balanced it with a few snowflake flowers.”
“And sweet pea.” Sadie’s eyes were wide and bright. “In lavender. Or maybe salmon, if we want to play off the blush roses?”
Anne could already see the bouquets arrayed on her dining room table, the light through the deck’s French doors shining through the rose petals. Her immediate satisfaction left no room for argument. She smiled at Sadie. “Salmon it is, then. Done.”
“If you wear that gold column dress for the party,” Sadie continued, still on a roll, “the one you got last year from The Row, then you’d complement the flowers perfectly.
But I’m guessing you’ll pick some black silk thing to offset that hair of yours.
” Her eyes were bright; Sadie loved talking fashion.
“Do me a favor? Don’t add jewelry. The only accessory you need is contrast.”
“I mean, all right, but—” The accuracy of Sadie’s guess startled Anne, who’d purchased an obsidian silk crepe dress just the previous week. “How the hell did you know what I was planning to wear?”
“I pay attention,” Sadie said sweetly and pushed her oversized aviator glasses—no lenses—up her nose. “So do you. And that’s why I like you so much. Perspicacity is power, beloved.” She lifted her full eyebrows, grinning.
Beloved. Sadie called her that every once in a while, always breezily; other endearments, too, names like dear heart, dollface, and sunshine. But, embarrassingly, beloved always made Anne’s cheeks warm, as did the occasional reference Sadie made to her feelings for Anne.
Sure, Anne knew Sadie liked her. Liked her a lot, in fact.
She’d made no secret of that over the last four years.
Two or three times—no, it was definitely three—Sadie had even told Anne she loved her.
Which was nice. Very nice. In fact, after the first time it happened, Anne had hummed under her breath for the rest of the day.
But it was still shocking to Anne that Sadie could just—say how she felt. So easily.
She needed to fill the silence, which was getting louder by the second. “You like me because I pay attention? Elaborate.”
“I’m a poet,” Sadie said, as if that explained it.
Anne raised her eyebrows and waited.
“To write halfway decent poetry,” Sadie continued, “you have to pay close attention to detail first. Details give poems oxygen; clichés suffocate them. ‘My love is like a red, red rose’? After three centuries, it’s beige wallpaper.”
Unbidden, a memory flashed behind Anne’s eyes: Sadie’s ruddy, miserable face two weeks ago, when she’d been fighting a bad cold. “I take it you’d prefer ‘My love is like a red, red nose’?”
“Yes,” Sadie exclaimed. “Good God, that’s delightful. Can I steal it?” She was already fishing out a small notebook and pen from her vintage Bottega tote.
“Be my guest.” Anne didn’t see what was so appealing, but if it made Sadie happy, she could steal every sentence Anne had ever spoken.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Sadie jotted down a quick note, then unceremoniously shoved the book and pen back into her bag. “Like a good poem, you, my friend, are anything but clichéd. Absolutely everything with you is detailed. Precise. Gorgeously sharp.”
She’d been called sharp before, but never at the same time she’d been called friend. “You’re saying that’s good?”
“I’m saying,” Sadie told her, “that you’re what I spend my life looking for.”
The Santa Ana winds had been blowing all day, assaulting innocent people with dry air, dust, and pollen. So, obviously, that was why Anne’s eyes felt suddenly hot and full.
Her entire life, she’d been looked at. But that was very different from being looked for.
She remembered, suddenly, that awful day last year when one of her daughters had been rushed to the emergency room following a sudden seizure.
After hours at Brooke’s side, Anne had wandered back into the waiting area, planning on a granola bar from the vending machine.
Instead, she’d seen Sadie sitting there, an insulated lunch bag on the chair next to her.
It was Sadie’s face Anne remembered most. The way her gaze had flickered up to the opened doors. How her expression opened, too, when Sadie realized it was the person she’d been looking for.
She’d been waiting there for hours, without expectation or hurry. Waiting for Anne.
Good grief. The Santa Anas really were awful today.
“Take that little bit of extra cartilage sticking out of the top of your left ear.” Sadie didn’t seem to notice Anne’s allergies, or that she’d gone silent again.
“Even that’s sharp, like you couldn’t just let your helix be curved like everyone else’s.
Look, it’s a completely necessary imperfection.
Otherwise, you’d be flawless. And that’s just unsportsmanlike, given the rest of us commoners. ”
Sadie always made specific observations about Anne.
Compliments, really. She threw them out like Mardi Gras beads, pretty things that seemed to cost her nothing at all to give.
It was a rare day when Sadie didn’t point out at least two or three very specific details about Anne that clearly charmed her.
Giving praise didn’t come easily to Anne. It never had. Whatever thoughts she had about her best friend usually remained stuck between Anne’s teeth. But she could try, couldn’t she? For Sadie, who deserved it?
She cleared her throat. “I like your, ah—” Your apple cheeks. Those long, long eyelashes. The way the corner of your right central incisor slants just a tiny bit over the left one, like it’s curtseying. All true. Why couldn’t Anne get any of it out? “Uh, how you—”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Sadie said wryly. “Stretch first. ‘You look nice today, Sadie.’”
Well, she wouldn’t say that. Compliments didn’t count if the recipient handed them to you first. And generic praise wasn’t worth the effort it took to give.
For crying out loud, any number of people ‘looked nice today.’ But none of them looked like Sadie.
None of them had dark and perceptive eyes that took immediate, meticulous inventory of everything and everyone.
Of course, Anne noticed plenty about Sadie, too.
It was impossible not to pay attention to her.
Even after all this time—four whole years of late-night talks and strolls by the nearby creek and raucous dinner parties with the strangest compendium of humans in LA—she found herself watching Sadie at odd moments.
The way Sadie threw her head back and exposed that long neck when Anne made her roar with laughter.
Her slender, ink-stained hands, their skin the color of a pale peach rose, that always moved in the air when she talked.
The faint parentheses that bracketed her wide, full mouth.
Discomfort prickled faintly inside Anne. “Let’s just order the flowers and get out of here, all right? We’ve got a lot of other stops to make.”
“I want to grab ten of those moss-scented goat milk soaps.” Sadie was already striding toward the local artisan craft display on the other side of the shop.
“They’d be ideal hostess gifts for your party, especially if I wrap them in calico cotton.
Oh!” She gasped and spun around. “I know where to get calico cotton with a gold foil pattern. There’s this terrific print on sale at that fabric store in Beverly Grove—”
“Absolutely not. We’re keeping this one simple. But feel free to get the calico cotton for your next shindig.”