“Eloise Whitaker, are you reading in the dark back there?” Anthony interjected.
“Um, no?” It was an obvious lie. Diana ducked her head. “It’s not even that dark yet?” Eloise hazarded.
“Not a chance, El,” Anthony said. “You’re going to wreck your eyesight trying to read in the dark.”
“But—”
“Or the half-dark,” he added, clearly predicting where this argument was going to go.
“But Anne isfloating in the river!”
“Hey Eloise,” Diana said in a faux-whisper over her shoulder. “There will be light at the bookstore, and we’ll be there in just a few minutes.”
There was a contemplative pause from the back seat.
“Yeah, okay,” Eloise said.
Diana and Anthony shared a look. As they did, Diana felt a rush of warmth. Perhaps she and Anthony hadn’t yet pulled off a successful solo date, but the connection she was building with the man and his daughter felt so much morerealthan any fancy dinner or romantic night out.
Not that she would say no to those things with Anthony, of course. She hoped they managed their real date soon.
But these moments, as they drove to a party with her friends, chatting about books and arguing about what point in the evening that sundown counted as ‘too dark to read… ’
Well, that was pretty much perfect, as far as Diana was concerned.
Light was spilling merrily out of the windows of the bookstore when they pulled up, and Diana could already see people moving around inside, their silhouettes bustling back and forth past the windows.
“Ready to go in?” she called back to Eloise.
The little girl demanded that Diana be the one who helped her out of the car. She hopped down, her copy ofAnne of Green Gablestucked under her arm. With the other hand, she clung to Diana’s arm. She skipped up the path, clearly happy as a clam.
The look Anthony gave them was so fond that it made Diana want to skip too.
“Well, hello, hello, who is this fine young lady?” Miriam asked as soon as they entered the shop. She had a plate of food in one hand, a glass of wine in the other, but she leaned in to kiss the air right next to Diana’s cheek.
“Hello, I am Eloise Whitaker,” Eloise said proudly. “I’m Diana’s friend.”
Miriam looked delighted at this. “Well, don’t you know, I’m Diana’s friend too. And anyone who is friends with Diana is someone who I can get along with… especially if that someone also happens to like to read,” she added, nodding to the book that Eloise had in her hand. “That’s one of my favorites.”
“Anne is in the river,” the girl told Miriam solemnly.
Miriam’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s a very important part of the book. If you’d like, you can go curl up in one of the chairs over there. They are perfectly comfy places for reading. I’ve used them plenty, so I can guarantee it.”
Eloise looked over at the chairs, where June’s son Benjamin was sounding out the sounds in an early reader book. She grinned.
“Yeah, that sounds cool. Thanks!”
She skipped off.
“We won’t be seeing her for the rest of the night, I assume,” Diana commented to Anthony.
“Not unless she’s finished the book,” he agreed.
They turned back to Miriam, who was looking at them with a dangerous sort of gleam in her eye.
“Well, well, well, Diana Madsen,” she said, clearly delighted. “Are you going to introduce me to your young man or not?”
Although Diana felt her cheeks warm with a blush, Anthony just grinned, clearly pleased.
