Eleanor gave her a look that said precisely what she thought ofthatidea.
“Well, for what it’s worth, Brian and I are divorced, and I recently saw on social media that the working wife from that party went on a fifteenth anniversary cruise with her husband. They seemed so fond of one another in the pictures that it was, ahem, borderline not the kind of thing you’d want to post online. There was a great deal of kissing. Not very chaste kissing either.”
“Okay,” Diana said, blinking. “Wow.”
“Wow, indeed.” Eleanor laughed. “The right guy will love you for all that you are, for all that is important to you. And it wasn’t just Kendrick rejecting you either. Did you really want to keep dating a guy who felt that way about his future partner?”
Diana considered this. “No, I suppose not,” she said.
“Of course not,” Eleanor said with greater conviction. “The only thing that Kendrick’s comments say about you is that the two of you are not the right match. And he knew that too. You both knew it. But just because there’s one lawyer who is a bad fit doesn’t mean you give up entirely.” She gave Diana another meaningful look. “I speak, of course, of the lawyer who dumped me on our anniversary, lest you think I’m not practicing what I preach.”
“Yes, I did see that parallel,” Diana said, teasingly dry. “Okay, give me a cookie. I think I will be better after a cookie.”
Eleanor handed her two cookies. Diana consumed them happily.
“Okay,” she said when she’d brushed the last crumbs from her fingers. “Enough about my dreadful dating life. Let’s move on to yours. Do you think that the person who will loveyoufor all that you are might be our very own Garrett Wilder?” She wiggled her eyebrows jokingly at Eleanor, making her laugh.
“Right now,” Eleanor said patiently, “he is just helping me with a project. We’ve talked a little bit about our stances on relationships, but he hasn’t given any strong indication that he wants such a thing with me.”
“Boo,” Diana said.
Eleanor laughed. “Oh, hush, you,” she chided gently. “It’s too early to tell anything.”
“But you’re not writing anything off?” Diana asked, finding herself pleased that her new friend might be open to loving again. She wasn’t sure why, but something about Eleanor’s potential romance made Diana feel optimistic about her own future.
“I’m not writing anything off, but I’m not rushing anything, either,” Eleanor clarified. “Right now, all my rushing is going toward getting this bookstore open! Speaking of which, I have been meaning to pick your designer’s brain about a few things…”
Their conversation drifted into other topics, and Diana felt the stress she’d carried so heavily earlier melt away. She might not have a romance on her horizon, she reflected with a bittersweet note as she chatted, but she had the best of friends, and that wasn’t something to be discounted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
If Eleanor was taking just atouchmore care than usual with her appearance, it wasnotbecause Garrett was on his way over to help her install her new oven. It was… it was a celebration of the oven! Yes, that was it. Eleanor had always been a good cook, and it had taken mere weeks for the ancient oven in her new kitchen to drive her to distraction. She was putting on lipstick because she was excited about the oven!
“Don’t take up lying,” she advised her reflection. “You’re not any good at it, not even when you’re doing it inside your head.”
Before she could get any deeper into conversations with herself, which were probably not a good sign about her roiling nerves, she was saved by her phone buzzing happily on the countertop. She looked over and beamed when she saw that it was Jeremy calling her.
“Hey, honey,” she said as she answered. “This is a pleasant surprise!”
She and her son communicated regularly, but she didn’t often get calls from him on weekday mornings.
“One of my classes got cancelled, so I thought I’d give you a buzz,” Jeremy said. “I’m glad I caught you. You’ve been so busy with all your cool new friends lately that there’s no guarantee.”His words were teasing, but his tone was warm. “Anyway, how is everything?”
Eleanor bit her lip. She had spent recent phone calls regaling Jeremy with tales of her new friend group. He especially found Miriam’s antics hilarious, as she’d known he would. But, in the spirit of giving up lying to herself, she had to admit that this had been a distraction from therealnews, which she was nervous about sharing.
“Well,” she said hesitantly. “I actually have something to tell you.”
There was a pause during which Eleanor could picture the way his face would grow serious as he concentrated. Jeremy looked a lot like his father when he got that look, and it was those moments that reminded Eleanor that she could never hate Brian, no matter how shabbily he’d treated her at the end of their marriage. She’d always be able to see the good in her ex-husband by seeing the qualities that he shared with their son who, in Eleanor’s not at all biased opinion, was the greatest young man ever to live.
“Is everything okay, Mom?” Jeremy asked cautiously.
“Oh yes! Yes!” she said hastily, tearing herself out of her ruminations to reassure him. “Yes, sorry, I didn’t mean to spook you!”
“Phew,” he said, lightness reentering his tone. “Okay, what’s up?”
“Well…” She took a deep breath. “I’m opening a bookstore.”
A tiny pause and then. “Wait,that’syour news? Mom, that’s so cool!” He sounded genuinely excited.
