“Oh, I love tacos,” she said.
“Do you want those tonight?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, because one of Battie’s favorite things is lasagna.”
“Then lasagna it is,” I decided, seeing the bubbles forming on the pancakes so I flipped them. “You can turn the bacon over,” I told her.
She started turning.
“You like him loads, don’t you?” she asked the bacon with more than a small amount of hope in her voice.
“He’s infuriating.”
She looked to me.
“And maybe the most interesting, kind, thoughtful, generous man I’ve ever met,” I finished.
She smiled.
And this time, it wasn’t teeny.
God, I’d never seen that come from her like that. So easy.
And free.
Could her quiet reflection and Battle and Tempie’s not-so-gentle-anymore nudging be working?
We cooked in silence—or stared at the food cooking and did it in silence, because there was nothing more to do.
After I set the pancakes on a plate and put them in a warming oven, she waited for the inopportune time when I was pouring more batter to share, “Tempie has a boyfriend. Oh no!”
The “oh no!” part of that was me pouring a stream of batter across the hot griddle.
“What did you say?” I asked her.
She was staring at the griddle. “That streak is cooking, Vivi.”
I scraped it off, re-oiled, and poured four more pancakes.
Then I looked to her. “Tempie has a boyfriend?”
“She doesn’t want anyone to know. But I hear her talking to him on the phone. I’ve talked to Prue about it, and she’s heard it too.”
“Do you know who he is?”
She shook her head. “No. I think he’s from London. Or at least, the conversation I overheard yesterday, he seemed mad she was in London and he didn’t see her.”
Oh boy.
“She has a flat there,” she told me. “She isn’t there as much as Battie because…”
Because she was at The Downs with Prue and Chassie.
“Battle told me how much responsibility she has here,” I remarked.
Her head snapped to the side to look at me.
Shit.
