“Yeah, yeah, okay,” June said. “Go on, tell her about my embarrassing moment. She needs the distraction.”
“It wasn’tembarrassing,” Eleanor said, playfully swatting June with one of Cadence’s throw pillows. “You just had a little nerves attack, that’s all.”
“You make it sound like I’m the annoying mother character in a Regency novel,” June grumbled.
“A lot of my book recommendations have been coming from Miriam recently,” Eleanor said, with an acknowledging nod. “But, to put it in more modern language, you got nervous. It happens.”
Cadence had been listening to their playful banter with only half an ear, the kind of listening she did when Izzy was playing by herself but still needed some low-level supervision. But something suddenly clicked in her brain, and she moved away from the problem of her wardrobe.
There was only one thing she could think of that made June nervous…
“Wait, did you go sing?” she demanded, hands on her hips.
June wobbled her hand in a so-so gesture. “Well, Iwent. But we didn’t make it as far as the singing. Everyone else was too good! I couldn’t follow that kind of performance.”
“You weren’treadyto follow that performance,” Eleanor corrected gently.
June shot Cadence an amused look. “Eleanor has appointed herself my self-confidence fairy godmother,” she confided.
“Somebody’s gotta do it,” Eleanor said cheerfully.
Eleanor and June explained the full story to Cadence with a kind of rapport that would have made for a great two-man show… or two-woman show, Cadence supposed. By the end, she was cracking up and even June was smiling sheepishly.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “I might have let my nerves get the best of me.”
“No!” Eleanor gasped, feigning shock. June took this opportunity to make her own throw pillow missile, which Eleanor caught with a laugh.
“Listen,” Cadence said. “I cannot say anything about getting nerves, given my current state of…”
“Dithering?” June supplied.
“Yeah, let’s call it that,” Cadence agreed with a chuckle. “But my point is that I know as a point of fact that you are a stellar singer and that nobody would have anything but good things to say if they heard you sing.”
June gave a grumbly sort of face that said she didn’t want to agree but had run out of arguments.
“I love having an ally,” Eleanor said contentedly.
“Okay,” June said pointedly, “I think we have now officially crossed into stalling territory. Pick something to wear.”
As if in direct defiance of this order, Cadence chose that moment to toss aside an airy, summery dress that she loved and wore all the time.
“I don’t know why I’m acting like this,” she admitted with a sigh. “It’s just a meeting.”
She could not miss the glance that her two friends exchanged.
“What?” she demanded.
“Ameeting?” June echoed skeptically.
“It does seem that the two of you have… been more understanding of one another during your last few exchanges,” Eleanor said a bit more gently. “Perhaps this isn’t a meeting and more like…”
Cadence’s wince said she knew what Eleanor had left off.
More like a date.
The thing was… shedidfeel like she was going on a first date, which was silly! She and Tyler had been on too many dates to count over the years, for one thing.
For another, this wasn’t a date… was it?
