“Do you break down a lot?” Mr. Woodhouse asked in alarm, hugging the salad bowl Emma had been passing around.
Harriet laughed. “Any car, new or not, can get a flat tire.”
Mr. Woodhouse still looked concerned, but Emma distracted him by asking him to pass the salad bowl and offering him dressing.
“Emma,” Harriet said, putting down her fork. “Since you’re so good with fashion and all that, I wanted to ask what you thought about my hair. I’ve been wanting to dye it red for oh, so long, but I’m too scared to do it. Do you think I should?”
George focused on his salad, knowing Emma wouldn’t brush it off with a vague ‘you go girl’ type answer. He wasn’t wrong.
“Um, so there are a couple problems with blondes going red. Sometimes it turns out pinkish or orangey, so it’s important to tell the stylist exactly what type of red you mean and make sure she knows what she’s doing. Also, it’s very light sensitive, so there’s a whole regimen for keeping it brilliant between colorings.”
They continued to discuss it in detail, with Emma giving her expert advice and Harriet eating it up like a late-night bowl of ice cream.
George took it upon himself to serve up the roast, and then read off the newspaper Mr. Woodhouse insisted on keeping by his plate at dinner. It was a habit Emma had unsuccessfully tried to break him of.
Harriet left right after they ate, and shortly thereafter, Mr. Woodhouse got ready for bed. He usually fell asleep to CNN, which Emma would shut off later.
Emma turned her bright eyes on George as soon as the two of them were alone. “So, what did you think of Harriet?”
He turned on the water to start the dishes. “I think she’s great. She seems like a very happy person.” He didn’t want to say it, but the way Harriet had skipped out the door with her phone to her ear, told him a lot of that happiness came from the guy on the other end. And for someone who worked one-on-one in caregiving, outside relationships were important.
Emma scraped the plates and handed them to him one by one, occasionally flicking him with water and clearly enjoying his exasperation.
“What does your sister think of her?” he asked.
“Isabella hasn’t met her yet, but she and the kids are coming over Thursday to visit with Granddad.” Emma dropped her head. “I hope it goes better than last time.”
“Good luck with that.” Granddad was not great with children, especially ones as free-spirited and boisterous as Isabella’s. It didn’t help that he had a lot of breakable things on display. Their last visit resulted in the demise of his rose-glass candy dish. “Hide the breakables this time.”
Emma stuck her hand under the faucet and flicked him with water again. “Johnny climbed up on my desk and spider-monkeyed his way to the top of the bookshelf. How was I to know three-year-old’s could do that?”
“I think a good rule would be to assume nothing is impossible with that kid.” George wiped his wet hand down her arm as she set the roast pan into the sink, and she squealed and backed away.
She rubbed off her arm and made a face at him. “I almost forgot to tell you. I’ve decided on my first matchmaking candidate. Do you want to hear who it is?”
“Nope.” He turned up the water to full blast and made as much noise as he could scrubbing the roast pan until she ducked under his arm and wrapped herself around him. It was a good technique. She was very hard to ignore when she did things like that.
Batting her eyelashes up at him, she said, “Come on, George. Humor me.”
He tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “The roast turned out good.”
“Thank you. I’m just glad nobody died from eating it.”
“Yet.”
That earned him a soft punch in the ribs.
“Please, George. This is important to me.”
His shoulders dropped, and he reluctantly turned off the water. “All right. Tell me about your matchmaking.” It was the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about. As far as he was concerned, matchmaking was a polite term for being a meddling busybody.
Unleashing herself from him, she bounced on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands. “Be excited for me. So, I was thinking I’d start with Elton. He spends so much time researching and writing, holed up in his house, but he’s so good at flirting and compliments. He’s even sort of handsome with all that chestnut hair and his slim, scholarly build. He just needs someone to coax him out a little more.”
“Nope.” He picked up a hand towel and threw it in the air. “Nope. Nope. Nope.”
Emma smothered a giggle. “You can’t throw in the towel, George. You promised to listen to me.”
“When? I don’t remember promising anything of the sort.”
