“If you get a green light. Isn’t that what they say in the television biz? Or even if it falls through, but especially if it happens, promise me you will come talk to the group.”
“The writers’ group?” Wendy repeated, thinking of Bill there.
“Yes,” Linette said firmly. “It would be soveryheartening for everybody. Everyone who matters,” she amended. “It would also counter some of the bad advice slung out by people whose names we will not mention, but who rhyme with Pill.”
Wendy’s first instinct was to cringe internally, bracing against Bill’s retaliation. But she reminded herself that what Bill thought no longer mattered. She would probably still get nasty notes, and whatever other poisonous jabs Bill decided to throw her way, but she no longer had to deal with those alone.
And she could always keep her back to Bill at the writers’ group.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
“Great! I suspect Godiva will be very pleased when she gets back, even if she’s not in time to hear it. It drives her crazy when Bill mansplains the publishing industry, as if owns all of New York. Oh, wow!” Linette stopped in the middle of the floor, a half-twisted cruller in her plastic-gloved hands. “I just realized!Godivais going to be yourmother-in-law. You lucky puppy! You two are going to have so much fun!” Linette frowned. “In-laws. I’m afraid to ask what Bill’s mother was like.”
Wendy shuddered. “You know the saying, the poison apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Linette snorted. “I guess I’m lucky I never had in-laws.”
“None?”
“None. Tom was completely alone in the world by the time we got together.”
Wendy nodded. She knew what that was like. Only apparently Tom had not been lucky enough to be adopted, the way she had been.
Linette gave another dab at her eyes, and Wendy said softly, “You okay?” Linette was a widow—and here she was, blabbering on about her own happiness!
Linette waved a hand, her smile brighter. “I know that look. This isnotgrief! I’m no Victorian widow, pretending my life is over. It was very hard at first. The shock was the worst. But it’s been long enough since Tom died that the grief is gone, leaving mostly fond memories. And some that are poignant. But no regrets. And I know I’m lucky, because not everyone can say that, even if their spouse is still alive.”
Wendy nodded encouragingly. She’d never met Tom—until her divorce, she had avoided the bakery. She’d had her first donut two days after she left Bill, at Godiva’s invitation. Insistence, really.Celebrate, Godiva had said.
“Tom and I had a perfectly fine marriage. He was a good man, and I was left with the kids, who I adore, and this shop, which is doing just fine.” Linette squared her shoulders, her smile wry. “It’s just that there’s that tiny part of me that is wistful, because no matter how old we get, we don’t want to think that our chance for romance is over. Even if what faces us in the bathroom mirror each day is not exactly the material of romance.” She gave a breathless laugh, pitched Wendy’s apron to her, and began discussing the day’s baking, making it clear that the subject of romance had dropped.
Instead, Linette asked about Wendy’s plans, as they got the cooled donuts frosted.
“It’s going to be very small,” Wendy said. “I had the big hoopla to make my mother happy, and to try to please Mrs. Champlain. Looking back,thatwas about as stressful as—well, let’s leave it there. This wedding will be small and informal. In fact, most of it has been planned by the kids. They want to hold it on the beach, next to my house. Which will be done by then, or almost done. When Godiva returns, we’ll move in down there. The kids are excited.”
“Kids, plural. That would be Oriane?” Linette asked. “Sam mentioned her once or twice.”
“Yes,” Wendy said.
“I take it her mother is Alejo’s ex?”
“In a sense. They weren’t together, except over a weekend, when both were rebounding. Roxane’s job requires her to move a lot, and Oriane seems to be a homebody at heart. So, for now, she’s living with us.” The best part of this explanation was that it was all true, which relieved Wendy’s conscience, and yet she managed to avoid the subject of shifters.
Before Linette left for her errands, they discussed the details of the wedding food. Linette offered to make a cake as her gift, and she knew an excellent caterer, whose number Wendy took down.
After school that Monday, Wendy took Oriane out, just the two of them, to do some clothes shopping. She did not believe that places of origin somehow made natives into cookie cutters—not all Germans were engineers, for example—and yet she soon discovered that Oriane, young as she was, had an eye for style that Wendy kept thinking of as very French.
“No! Not that one,” she said with a lift to her chin.
“But it’s on sale, practical, and this is a pretty, soft shade.”
“Eh, soft, yes, but it looks fi—no, how is it, ah! Faded. My mother, she would say, washed off, no, out? Wash out?” Oriane waved at Wendy’s complexion. “Whereas this one, ah!” She dove into the racks, then emerged, triumphantly holding up a very stylish tunic top up to Wendy in a jewel-toned green, the neckline a sharp vee.
“I can’t wear that,” Wendy said, but on a question, for she liked it very much when she saw herself in the mirror. She was happy with her body as it was. It had served her well, and Alejo very much liked it. And yet the green outfit, with flowing pants, somehow made her seem taller, less dumpling-shaped.
“You have a good balcony.” Oriane patted her chest. “Show it off!”
Wendy bought the green outfit. But then her old dress sandals looked especially rundown below those floating pants, so she got a pretty new pair of sandals.
