Feeling put in her place by her wise little sister, Emery crossed over to hug Ava. “Your new year is off to a good start.”
“I owe it all to you.” Ava lingered in their embrace. “You invited him home.”
“What choice did I have? He looked like a lost puppy working that bitcoin case. His parents lived all the way down in Portsmouth. I felt sorry for him.” She made a face at Jamie, and he laughed.
“Happy New Year, Em,” Jamie said. “Free legal advice for life. You introduced me to my future wife.”
“Whoa, wait until you’re married a few years. I may not want any credit for this.”
“Let’s hope we never need legal help.” Dad had a look that saidLet’sall follow the lawas he poured another round of champagne and gathered everyone for his traditional New Year’s toast. “Here’s to finally getting some additional manpower around here. Welcome to the family, Jamie.”
“To my wedding,” Ava said with a quick glance at her fiancé. “I mean,ourwedding.” She fell against him, and he buried his face in her hair.
“To a good basketball season,” Blakely said. She was a star freshman on and off the court at an exclusive all-girls high school.
“To Mom and me finding a location for our next Sophisticated Sips café,” Elianna said.
“What Elianna said.” Joanna clinked their glasses.
“Emery?” Dad drew everyone’s attention to her. “What are your plans for the new year?”
She smiled through her embarrassment over being the older, unemployed sister, thirty-two with zero prospects in career or love. Except one. And she was hesitant to accept it.
“To something new and exciting,” she said with too much umph as she raised her glass. “Don’t ask what because I don’t know.”
This year had to be better than the last. Her belovedCleveland’s Free Voicefolded. Her boss and mentor, Lou Lennon, the paper’s founder, had refused to sell any assets to the corporate fat cats he’d exposed for sixty years. Then the lease on her downtown loft expired and she had no choice but to move home. Most of her friends were married, having children, buying houses. She’d not been on a date since, well, was it the Governor’s Ball ...? No, she went with Tonya, so it had to be the art gallery opening in ... ? Good grief. Five years. She’d not been on a date in five years?
But she hadn’t cared then. Her professional life had been in full swing, running theFree Voiceunder Lou’s tutelage. When he closed the doors, she’d not felt so lost since Mom died.
She’d scoured the internet for jobs, called all of her contacts from J-school and beyond, managed to land articles inMarie ClaireandGlamour, wrote a piece on the new downtown development forThePlain Dealer, and published a four-part political series for an online outlet.
But full-time employment evaded her.
Until this past month. A friend of Lou’s, a man named Elliot Kirby, called her with an editor-in-chief position. But saying yes was unthinkable. A yes meant going back to the saddest place and time in her life. She felt like a square peg facing a round hole.
Yet refusing the job seemed like holing up and hiding.
Elianna snuggled next to Emery. “I think Ava will ask you to be maid of honor.”
“Me? Naw, it’ll be you. And it should. You’re her sister.”
“And you’re her sister too.” Elianna’s voice had a slight edge. “I mean, you didn’t kill her when she spilled purple nail polish all over your shoes just as you were heading out to prom. If that’s not sisterly love, I don’t know what is.”
Emery laughed. “I still think she broke a law of physics when that happened.”
Over the years, she’d warmed to Ava, Elianna, and especially Blakely—who looked just like Dad—but the older two felt more like cousins than siblings.
“Dad,” Ava’s said, “in six or seven months, you’ll be walking me down the aisle.” She planted a kiss on his cheek. “Your first trip.”
“I’ll be crying the whole time.” Dad hugged her close with a side glance at Emery. She knew he felt caught in the middle sometimes, between his only daughter for seventeen years and his new daughters for the last fifteen.
She nodded.It’s okay.
“You know she’ll ask to borrow your pearls,” Elianna whispered.
“Not again. She knows better.”
“Since we’re talking about walking down the aisle...” Joanna held up the calendar she pinned to the kitchen wall every year. “Let’s talk dates. Ava, Jamie, summer or fall?”
