Lily bounces up and down in her chair. “Yay!”
The moment the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve said the wrong thing, because Quinn’s face freezes over. Too late, I realize I should have asked before I mentioned it to Lily. “If that’s okay with Quinn, that is.”
Her face looks kind of tight. “We’ll have to see how Miss Margaret is doing. And I want to get Lily reenrolled in preschool.” She puts her plastic spoon in her ice cream, then looks up. “Besides, what about your wife?”
“Oh... Jessica will still be on the West Coast. She’s visiting some hotels in her new region, so she’ll be going to Portland and San Francisco. She won’t be back until next weekend.”
“Wow, she goes a lot of places,” Lily says.
“Right now, she does,” I agree. “She works for a hotel chain.”
“I didn’t realize she’d already started the new job,” Quinn says.
“She hasn’t—at least not officially. But corporate wants her to visit some of the larger properties before she starts the regional position, and the hotel here can’t very well tell the corporate office no.”
“Does she live in a hotel like Eloise?” Lily asks.
I smile at her. “No. She’s staying with her parents right now, but she’s looking for a house. We’ll be moving out there in a month or so.”
Lily takes a big bite of ice cream. “Do you have any pets?”
“No. I love dogs, but we both work too many hours to care for one.”
“Quinn has a doggy door,” Lily says. “That way Ruffles can go outside whenever she needs to.”
“That’s a good solution,” I say.
“It won’ work for a baby, though,” Lily says.
Quinn laughs and I smile, but the comment hits more nerve than funny bone. Jessica mentioned a donor egg again when I talked to her last night.
“So can we go to the zoo tomorrow?” Lily asks.
Quinn gives me a quizzical look. “How did you know my shop’s closed on Mondays?”
“I saw it online.”
“Can we go?” Lily turns pleading eyes on Quinn. “Can we?”
“I don’t know yet, sweetie,” Quinn says. “As I said, I have to check on Miss Margaret and get you enrolled in school, and I need to touch base with Miss Terri about client appointments.”
I pull out my phone and scroll through my schedule. “I can move things around for any afternoon this week.”
“Put it on your calendar,” Lily tells Quinn in an officious tone.
Quinn’s eyebrows rise.
“Put it on your calendar to check with Miss Terri an’ give him a call. If you schedule it, you won’ forget.”
I laugh at her precocious efficiency, but Quinn’s eyes fill with tears.
“Hey, Lily,” I say, “would you go get me another napkin from the counter, please?”
“Sure!” She hops up and heads to the front of the shop.
I lean over the table toward Quinn. “What’s wrong?”
She wipes away a tear with her napkin. “What she just said—she sounded just like her mother. Brooke scheduled everything.” Quinn dabs her face again. “Can you watch her for a moment while I run to the ladies’ room and pull myself together?”
