CHAPTER ONE
“Weneed a catchy saying about turning thirty-five.”
The fluorescentlights of B&H Diner suddenly feel like a spotlight as threesets of eyes turn to focus on me. My friends seem confused by mynon-sequitur, which I suppose makes sense considering we were justtalking about autumn decor not two minutes ago.
I wave a hand asif inviting them to hop aboard my train of thought. “You know,similar to ‘thirty and flirty’ or ‘forty and fabulous’.”
“Evie,I’ve never been flirty,” Louisa says, picking up her cup of tea andmaking a face before taking a sip. “‘Thirty, anxious, and sociallyawkward’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, though, doesit?”
I nearly choke ona bite of toast. “No, Lulu, it doesn’t.”
Lips twitching,Hollie rests a hand briefly on Louisa’s shoulder. “Well, we’realready fabulous, so I guess we’re five years ahead of thecurve.”
“Hear,hear.” I toast her with my coffee cup and glance beside me atStella, who’s been strangely quiet for the last few minutes. Iquickly discover her silence is a result of her scarfing down herscrambled eggs with one hand while spreading raspberry jam on apiece of toast with the other. Huh. That’s some impressivedexterity.
“Howabout…thirty-five and feelin’ alive,” Hollie suggests.
“Thirty-five and I will thrive,” Louisa says.
Hollie and I nodenthusiastically.
Beside me, Stellahunches further over her plate and mutters, “Thirty-five and takin’a dive.”
“A diveinto what?” I ask, shifting to face her as much as I can in thetight diner booth.
The way shefreezes makes me think she didn’t mean to say that out loud. As ifsimultaneously realizing she’s been doing a stellar impression of astarving gremlin, she sets down her utensils and sits up straight.“A dive into…bottomless glasses of prosecco at your birthdayparty?”
I narrow my eyes,silently communicating that, despite the nice save, we’ll be havinga conversation about her weird behavior later. After all, we livetogether, so she can’t avoid me. Her wry grin and one-shoulderedshrug tell me she understands and isn’t put off by my flinty-eyedlook.
“Speaking of the upcoming party,” Hollie says. “Are we readyfor Birthday Palooza?”
“Ithought we agreed Birthday Palooza doesn’t officially beginuntilaftertheparty my mom throws for me,” I remind her.
“I moveto change those rules,” Hollie says, her brown eyes gleaming. “Iknow your mom’s Emily Gilmore-esque gatherings aren’t your idealbirthday celebration, but you can’t deny Eleanor Hathaway knows howto throw a party. I think we should consider it the officialkick-off of our birthday season this year.”
Stella, Hollie,Louisa, and I were born between October and the end of December ofthe same year. Our moms were friends, which means we’ve known eachother practically since birth. We may be approaching ourmid-thirties, but we still love celebrating each other and the factwe’ve remained lifelong friends.
“Isecond that,” Stella says around another bite of food. “We’ll haveplenty of chances to celebrate our birthdays howwewant, but Evie, yourmom’s parties are one of the few times a year the rest of us get toeat fancy food and drink prosecco that costs more than twelvedollars a bottle.”
She has a point.Fancy parties have lost the appeal they once had for me, between mymom trotting me out at various fundraisers and dinner parties, plusthe events I attend as one of Bellevue’s highest-ranking realestate agents. It doesn’t help that my mom uses any excuse to playmatchmaker, which means I spend the majority of time at her partiesavoiding her by ducking into other rooms, striking up conversationswith random people, or pretending I’m getting an importantwork-related call.
With me turningthirty-five next weekend, I have a feeling Mom’s efforts willdouble. Despite the very thought of it exhausting me, I know myfriends enjoy the parties, so I can suck it up for onenight.
“We’lltake you out later that weekend for dinner somewhere you can wearjeans and flat shoes,” Louisa promises.
“Or dopizza, wine, and movies at home,” Stella says. “Whatever youwant.”
“Youguys are the best,” I say. “I don’t care what we do, as long aswe’re together.”
We finish ourbreakfasts, and then it’s time for Hollie and Louisa to leave forthe animal shelter, where they’re volunteering at a Thanksgivingweekend adoption drive.
“I havean idea,” Hollie says to me as she climbs from the booth and wrapsa lightweight scarf around her neck. “Have you met FergusMacKinnon?”
“No…”I’m always wary when someone starts a sentence that way since it’soften followed by a matchmaking attempt. “Is he related to HughMacKinnon?”
Hollie snaps herfingers. “Yes! How could I forget you know Hugh?”
At thispoint, I think most of Bellevue knows about my connection to Hugh,or more accurately, to the MacKinnon Group. Hugh is a well-knownbusinessman and philanthropist, and the owner of Bellevue Village,the city’s enormous amusement park. The MacKinnon Group recentlybought a Victorian mansion and its vast grounds in the center oftown, and it made the news for several reasons. The property, whichwas used as a funeral home since the mid-1800s, had been on themarket for over three years with little to no interest. TheMacKinnon Group purchased it for a whopping two million dollars, afigure that’s almost unheard of in this area. And sinceIwas the realtor whofacilitated the deal, I made the news too.
