Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Eleanor hummed to herself absently as she went into the kitchen to grab a plate of the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies that she’d baked for that night’s book club.
The snacks didn’t have a theme this week, since the book didn’t necessarily lend itself to such a thing, but Eleanor had decided that the group needed some comfort food, since they were currently reading a deeply tense thriller.
It was a good book, for sure. Eleanor had struggled to make herself stop at the section they were scheduled to read before this meeting, since she feared that any information about the novel’s endless twists and turns would show up on her face.
But still. She really wanted to know if the protagonist’s husband had secretly committed a murder when he was a high schooler. Because if it wasn’t him, did that mean that it was the neighbor? But she was so sweet! Surely it couldn’t be the neighbor!
Her mind was so caught up in the twistiness of the novel that she ignored her surroundings until a flicker of movement caught her eye. She looked up at her kitchen window—
And screamed when she saw a face looking back in at her.
She barely managed to stop herself from dumping the entire plate of cookies on the floor, and she only managed that because she recognized the face.
“What the heck, Shane!” she cried as her brother winced on the other side of the window. She put down the cookies and then opened the window, letting in the cool evening air. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Sorry,” he said, twisting his mouth to the side apologetically. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Certainly not,” she said sarcastically. “Why would you be trying to scare me when you came creeping outside my kitchen window in the dead of night?”
“Well, it’s only six in the evening,” Shane reasoned. “I don’t know if that’s the dead of night. Not at this point in the year, anyway.”
“Shane,” she groaned. “Why are you standing outside my kitchen window?”
“Oh!” He grinned. “I finally thought of a movie.”
“And you…” She gestured at him. “You thought you should stand in the middle of my flowers to tell me about it?”
He glanced down at his feet in confirmation. “I am standing on zero flowers, thank you very much. Also, I know I’m not allowed inside on book club nights! I was respecting your boundaries!”
This whole thing was so silly, and Eleanor’s heart was still racing. She could no longer determine for certain if this was reasonable or absurd. She decided just to ride along with whatever her brother had going on. An important lesson in big sisterhood was sometimes just picking your battles.
“Okay, okay.” She blew out a breath. As her pulse slowed, she even laughed a little about it. “Tell me what you thought of that was so urgent that you had to race over here right away.”
“Well,” he said, with the air of someone who was really ramping themselves up for a big reveal.
It charmed Eleanor, how seriously her brother was taking their little bet.
Somehow, in the years that they’d spent living in different parts of the country, she’d forgotten how competitive he could get over the littlest thing.
Games of Uno in their childhood had often devolved into all-out war between the two.
“I was sitting at home. Since Winnie is here for book club, I was by myself and thought I’d watch a movie. ”
Eleanor smiled at the reference to Winnie. Shane and his girlfriend didn’t live together, but they did spend nearly every evening together. She wouldn’t be surprised if they moved onto the next step in their relationship rather soon.
“I flicked on the television,” Shane continued grandly, “and…” He paused dramatically. “Shrek was playing.”
Eleanor opened her mouth, but Shane raised a hand.
“Now, I know what you’re going to say. ‘Is Shrek a classic?’ And while it is something of an unorthodox classic, I would argue that it is sufficiently beloved to enough children as to count it as a children’s classic.
Not to mention that it is an extremely enjoyable film.
So. I reject your rejection of it as a classic. ”
Eleanor waited for his grand conclusion.
“I wasn’t going to say it wasn’t a classic,” she said.
“You weren’t?” Hope lit his gaze.
“I was not.” Eleanor had seen Shrek enough times with Jeremy to have faith in its power as a film that entranced children.
For years, it had been her son’s pick whenever he was home sick for school, an event that was always marked by getting to watch a movie on the couch.
She could probably recite half the movie from rote, even all these years later.
“I was,” she continued, “going to tell you that it’s actually based on a book.”
The series of expressions that crossed her brother’s face was downright comical. He looked shocked, then dismayed, then distrustful.
“No, it isn’t,” he accused… but he didn’t sound convinced.
She nodded grimly. “Indeed, it is. A picture book. It was written maybe fifteen or so years before the movie came out?”
“No!” he exclaimed, his tone suggesting that he was in denial. “No, that simply cannot be right.”
“I’m afraid so,” she said. “I looked it up after Jeremy made me watch it five hundred thousand times. The movie is better, I’ll grant you that, but that wasn’t the bet.”
“Why?” Shane asked, looking up at the sky as though the clouds could offer him answers. “Why do I never google this before I come over to ask you about it?”
“Well, that part is honestly a good question,” she said. “Maybe you’re just a huge luddite?”
Shane, who was a highly accomplished computer programmer, made a face at the implication that it was his lack of facility with technology that had led him to this moment.
Because she couldn’t resist needling him a little further, Eleanor added, “Say, how many of these rounds are we going to do before we decide I’m the winner, huh?”
He pulled a face in her direction, then began to retreat from her window, carefully making sure that he didn’t step on her newly planted flowers on the way back.
“Never!” he cried when he was out of the garden bed. “I will prevail!”
She gave him a double thumbs up and a look that she hoped conveyed her doubt. Judging by the way he stuck his tongue out at her, she was successful.
Eleanor was laughing as she closed the window and returned to her previous task of laying out snacks for book club.
She didn’t think that she would ever stop being pleased that her brother had decided to stay in Magnolia Shore permanently.
It felt great to be able to drop by for a little chat, rather than trying to coordinate phone calls across time zones.
It also helped that Shane had a much healthier work-life balance than he’d possessed when he lived in San Francisco, where he had apparently spent nearly every waking moment in the office.
During the time she’d spent in the kitchen, Eleanor had heard several of the book club members come into the shop. When she got back to the small event space they used for their meetings, she saw that Hope, Winnie, and Diana were sharing a conversation.
“Hey, everybody,” she said as she laid down the plate of cookies alongside the snacks that the others had brought. “Guess who just scared about ten years off my life?”
She shared the tale of Shane’s unexpected appearance with the women, and explained the terms of the bet to Hope and Diana. By the end of the relaying, all four of them were giggling uncontrollably.
“Oh, man, I would have fallen right on my behind,” Diana said, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear in a way that made her engagement ring sparkle. “Cookies, gone. Bottom, bruised. Pride, annihilated.”
“I want you to know that I can actually think of several wonderful movies that aren’t based on books,” Winnie said. “But I am a neutral third party who actually gets to enjoy dinner either way, so I’m not helping.”
“Wise,” Hope commended. “You never want to stick your nose in between siblings.”
“I’m an only child,” Winnie said, “but even I know that.”
Cadence and June arrived over the next few minutes, and soon, everyone had a plate of snacks in hand and a glass of wine sitting nearby. Before they began talking about the book, however, they had their standard social chat. Eleanor turned to Hope.
“How’s our Miriam doing?” she asked the younger woman. “Obviously, we’re happy to have you here with us, but we would be even happier if we could have you both here.”
Hope smiled prettily. “She’s doing better,” she said. “She’s getting a little frustrated with the slow pace of her recovery, but she listens when I remind her that rushing things is far more likely to set her back and make it take longer overall than it is to actually speed things up.”
“Good advice, but hard to follow,” June said in commiseration with their absent friend.
“I had a bad muscle strain in my shoulder when Benji was little, and I had a devil of a time keeping myself from making it worse by trying to take on too much too soon. I drove poor Keith nuts. I know Miriam’s situation isn’t exactly the same, but it’s not easy being the one constantly cautioning the other to slow down either. ”
“I do sometimes feel a little bit like a scold,” Hope admitted with a little laugh. “But Miriam understands. So, we are muddling along.”
“How about things outside the house?” Winnie asked, reaching forward to snag her glass of wine off the table. “Are you enjoying your time in Magnolia Shore? Or are you bored half to death?”
“Well, actually,” Hope said, a flush coming to grace her cheeks, “I was recently offered a job at Riverstone Kitchen.”
This pronouncement was met with exclamations of interest and surprise.
“How did that happen?” Diana asked brightly.
Hope quickly recounted helping out at the restaurant during the rush, and how this had led to the offer.
“Jared was honestly really nice about it,” she said, and her blush intensified.
Eleanor traded a knowing glance with Cadence, who looked delighted as she watched Hope begin to look rather smitten at the reference to the handsome chef.
“He would have been within his rights to be annoyed that I stuck my nose in. But he wasn’t. So now I’m the backup waitress.”
“I feel like the two of you will really hit it off,” Eleanor said, thinking about it. She wasn’t certain why, but the idea of the pair just… worked. “I just—I think that Jared could use someone like you around the place.”
“Someone like me?” Hope asked, scrunching her nose.
Eleanor winked at her. “Well, you came into his restaurant, saw a problem, and solved it without making a fuss. Who wouldn’t want to work with someone so competent and skilled?
Such a go-getter?” She let her tone go more teasing.
“Besides, you can get Miriam to stay at home when she needs to but doesn’t want to.
If you can do that, you’re obviously incredibly skilled in customer service. ”
“Mimi does sometimes require a gentle touch,” Hope agreed with a laugh. “She truly believes that she can do anything and everything, and she is not a fan of the reminder that she is a mere human like the rest of us.”
“Plus,” Eleanor added, “I think you and Jared would make good friends.”
“Or more!” Cadence piped up, before clapping her hands over her mouth like she hadn’t meant for the words to escape. Everyone laughed, and, after a moment, Cadence dropped her hands so that she could join in the mirth.
“Okay, okay, enough about me,” Hope said, her expression turning bashful. “What’s going on with everyone else?”
“Yeah, Winnie, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Eleanor said, turning to her friend, who paused in the middle of taking a healthy bite of cookie, “how is the planning going for the community bazaar?”
Winnie held a hand over her lips while she finished chewing her bite of food.
“It’s going well,” she said after a moment.
“I mean, there are about a million moving pieces, and it’s my job to wrangle them all, but aside from the total chaos, it is going well.
We’ve almost reached our target for the number of local businesses we want to sign on to participate, and our permits are almost all ready.
Fortunately that part is easy,” she added, “because the permit office is in the same building as the historical society, so I can just pop over there any time.”
“Handy,” Diana mused.
“Extremely,” Winnie agreed. “And Shane is being the best. I’m waist-deep in the planning, and sometimes I kind of lose perspective on what is a good idea or not. He helpfully brings me back to earth when I come up with something too zany.”
“Like what?” Cadence asked, eyes bright with curiosity.
Winnie held up her hand in a gesture of innocence.
“I absolutely cannot tell you any of them,” she said.
“They were all the product of late-night brainstorming sessions and, I am happy to tell you, are completely bonkers. I am remaining silent to protect the innocent.” She paused. “The innocent is me.”
Cadence pouted, crossing her arms. “Fine, be that way. I’ll imagine something zany instead.” She closed her eyes briefly. “I’m picturing unicorns.”
“I can safely confirm that my ideas were less wild than magically creating fictional creatures,” Winnie said dryly, which made everyone crack into another laugh.
Eleanor shook her head at their antics and took a sip of her wine as they prepared to finally discuss their exciting read for that week.
She loved how fun and animated Winnie had become in the past few months.
It was a far cry from the shy, icy woman she’d been before, back when Eleanor had thought Winnie was unkind instead of just a bit socially awkward when she felt uncomfortable.
Now, though, her friend practically glowed with happiness… a happiness that Eleanor saw reflected in her brother just as much. She was so lucky that Winnie and Shane had found one another… even if Shane could be a total knucklehead every now and again.