“Chloe said you’ll need dessert, so I brought some things and figured we could bake together like the good old days? Ooh…nasty,” she adds, looking up at the ceiling. “Let me get that.” She grabs the cobweb duster from my hands and gets to work right where Elsbeth was. I look at Kiara attentively. She’s not seeing her, right? Was I hallucinating? Yet she must be seeingsomething, because I just got rid of all the cobwebs.
“There, that should do it,” Kiara says, moving onto the next angle. “What the fuck?” she cries.
I look at where she’s staring—on the floor, next to the bed, expecting to see Elsbeth wriggling on the carpet. “Oh, that’s Rosalie,” I say as I shake the bedspread out the window.
“I almost tripped over that mother fucker. You gave it a name?” She says as she tackles another cobweb-free angle.Elsbeth better not scare her away. This is a Callaway secret, dammit!
“We have to, for the apps. We have one per floor. This one’s the silent model. You should try it for your store.”
Calla starts barking and runs downstairs, seeming content to have a reason to leave the dreaded bedroom. We barely have time to hear Beck’s voice in the hallway, when the bedroom door slams again. “Let’s make the bed, then we can move onto the next room.”
“You guys need cute little aprons and short skirts,” Beck jokes as he barges in, holding Muffin in his arms. The pup’s legs dangle as he sets his head on Beck’s forearm. “Why are these little guys locked up?”
The little guys are now as tall as a Border Collie and close to the weight of a Lab, but I get where he’s coming from. They’ll always be babies to us.
“They still have accidents,” I say as Kiara and I adjust the fitted sheet. “Here,” I tell Beck, handing him the pillow covers. “Make yourself useful.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He sets Muffin down, then punches the pillows inside the pillow covers. “I’ll get Griff’s room,” he tells us once we’re done in Gail’s. “You guys go do your thing.”
“You look happy,” Kiara says as she carefully folds the ingredients for a genoise. “Like,reallyhappy.” We decided on a pear and almond cake—simple enough to make yet impressive to look at and always delicious.
I look at my friend. “I am. Truly am. Sorry to say, but you were wrong,” I tease.
“And so fucking glad about it.” She pours the batter into a baking dish. “Though I will say, I deserve some credit.”
I open the oven for her. “Pff…” She all but made me swear I wouldn’t fall in love with Noah. Might have called me an idiot when I confessed it was too late. “Excuse me?”
“Remember that argument we had, when we moved you out?”
Ah. So theywerearguing. “What about it?” I never clarified that with Noah.
“I may have told him to tell you how he felt about you.”
Wait. Backtrack. This was before we slept together. My palms moist, I ask, “And how did he feel about me?”
“Oh, he flat out told me he loved you and to fuck off.”
“That’s a lie. Noah wouldn’t have told you to fuck off.”
“True. But he did say, and I quote, ‘I’m in love with her.’ Also admitted he didn’t see it coming. That’s how I knew it was true. The kind of love he has for you, it’s bigger than anything.”
forty-nine
Lilyvale
The girls are the first to assemble, but they gather in the kitchen, where they spent most of their physical lives. It amuses them to see how much easier things are now, yet how louder people complain.
They compare their outfits, the quality of lace in their respective lifetimes, then move onto petty arguing—their way to gauge each other’s state of mind. Finally the oldest one acknowledges the live women in the room and says, “I like this one.”
“The pastry chef? She uses foul language,” the more coquettish of the girls says.
“She has a good heart,” her elder by fifty years says—although by her perfect figure and lineless face, no one can tell.
“I like her for our Willow,” the one who spoke first explains. “She’s a reliable friend. One needs friends like these, especially with what the world has come to.”
A faint chorus agrees with her.
“I’m worried about Lane. What can we do to help?”
