There was a pause. “This is your time with your friends. Enjoy your lunch and your book chat, Anna. We can talk when you’re home.”
She waited, expectant, but then realized that he’d ended the call. Pete had ended the call without saying those words back to her.When had he ever not said them back?
She paced to the window, trying to calm herself by looking at the snow that coated the world outside,but all she could think of was Pete.
Pete was hurting, which was bad. Worse was the fact that she was the one who had hurt him.
Her mind ran back over the conversations they’d had recently. The things she’d said. She’d thought only of herself, and how she felt about the twins leaving. The sense of impending loss had enveloped her like a fog obscuring her future.
Because she trusted him implicitly, because they’d been close for so long, had she committed that ultimate and clichéd sin of taking him for granted? Unintentionally, maybe, but yes, she had.
We were the priority.
They should be the priority again. Pete was right that instead of thinking about what they were losing, she should think about what they were gaining. She should think about all the things they would be able to do as a couple. Guilt shot through her along with a clarity that had been missing until now. He was right that lately she’d prioritized the kids over their relationship, even when the twins’ needs had been less important. It had been the easy thing to do. And now she wished that she’d said yes to his suggestion of a weekend away, if only because it would have shown him how much he meant to her.
She took a slow breath and tried to calm herself.
They weathered everything together. There was nothing they couldn’t handle. They’d sort this out.
Everything would be fine.
But why hadn’t he saidI love you, too?
Had he forgotten? No, Pete never forgot.
She grabbed her phone and called him,but he didn’t pick up and her call went to voice mail.
She left a message. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I love you. Call me back when you get this.”
She sat there, holding her phone until there was a tap on the door and she realized that it was Erica, and that it was time for lunch. For a wild moment she considered saying that she couldn’t join them, but she knew that was ridiculous.
Pete was cooking lunch, too, which was why he hadn’t answered his phone. Or maybe he’d left his phone in a different room and forgotten about it, as he sometimes did.
He’d call her later, she reasoned, and when he did she’d apologize and find a way to make it up to him.
TWENTY
Hattie
Hattie stared at the dress in the mirror. It was black, well-cut and—safe? She’d bought it when she was in college and had found it useful in all kinds of situations. But was it right for her evening with Noah?
Just dinner, he’d said. As if it was nothing. And maybe to him it was nothing. But to her? She didn’t know exactly what it was, but it certainly wasn’t nothing.
She’d pushed it to the back of her mind while she was dealing with the fallout of Stephanie’s and Chef Tucker’s departures, but now she needed to deal with it.
Was it a date? If it was a date she should be dressing up. But if she dressed up and he was thinking of it as a casual evening with a friend, then she’d be wearing the wrong thing. And she had no idea what the right thing was. She lived in her “uniform” of a short skirt worn over thick tights, and her favorite pair of boots. She hoped she looked businesslike, but also friendly and approachable. On Christmas Day the year before,she’d added a sparkly sweater, but that was as close as she got to dressing up.
She rifled through her clothes, rejecting everything she touched. This was ridiculous. There had to besomethingshe could wear.
She needed a girlfriend’s opinion, but she didn’t have any girlfriends. She thought about Erica, Anna and Claudia and felt a stab of envy. They were so comfortable with each other. Supportive. They’d all been willing to check out if that had been what Erica wanted. They teased each other in that way that only people who knew each other really well could get away with. No doubt if one of them needed a second opinion on what to wear, they wouldn’t hesitate to call each other.
Hattie didn’t have a close girlfriend she could call. She’d had plenty of support from the local community and she knew lots of good people, but there was no one she could talk to about something like this. Brent had been her closest friend, and since his accident she hadn’t had time to cultivate friendships.
There was Lynda, but she could hardly ask Lynda what she should be wearing for a night out—she still couldn’t think of it as a date—with her son. And of course there was Noah himself, who had been an excellent friend to her—but that simply raised the stakes. If she made a mistake, she might damage a friendship and she’d rather have something than nothing.
Delphi wandered into the room with Rufus at her heels and her dinosaur tucked under her arm. “Why are you wearing a dress?”
“Because I’m going to dinner with Noah on Thursday and I need something to wear.”
