“A rash decision, which I regret.”
“And then,” he continued, “at the Egg, you just jumped in and started working, even though you knew nothing about waitressing or restaurants.”
“It was that obvious?”
“You did it, though. Not the act of a person who is wishy-washy.”
Put this way, I could kind of agree. Amazing, the change in view from someone else’s eyes. It made me wonder, fleetingly, what else he saw.
“Actually,” I said, “I hate cherry.”
“Me too.” He smiled, then reached out, taking an eight pack and tossing it into the cart. “Mint, it is.”
“Basically, it’s living in the moment.”
“Yeah. But radically so. Like, it’s a new mindset.”
Liz passed another plate down to Anne from the cabinet. “Do you really want to be messing with your mindset, though? With the wedding so close?”
“It’s not…” Anne sighed, turning to look at me. “You understand, right, Finley? Radical mindfulness? Only living in the now?”
“How do you meal plan, though?” Liz wondered, picking up another plate.
Apparently, Anne did not only read books about relationships. Since sharing the Mastodon Theory—as I’d come to think of it—she’d also referenced one about the life-changing power of vitamins and using crafts to process trauma. Now, radical mindfulness.
Lana, across the porch from me, snorted. I said to Anne, “I just got dumped. Being fully in this particular moment is not exactly appealing.”
“Yes, but,” she said, “remember: It’s a test.”
“What test?” Lana asked.
Just then, there was a thunk from the stairs, followed by a groan. “You got it?” I heard Kasey say.
“Yeah. Just slipped for a sec,” Ben replied. “Which way we taking this?”
“Outside!” my mom and Liz said in unison.
Ben and I had returned from Bly Supply to find all hands on deck getting ready for the estate sale. He’d been enlisted to haul furniture, while I got the longer straw, sorting stuff on the porch. Now I peered down the hall just in time to see him walking backward, carrying one end of a bookshelf turned sideways. Kasey was at the other end. There was a damp spot on the back of his shirt, right between his shoulder blades. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal his tanned arms.
“What about this?” Lana asked Liz, indicating a table with a flat pillow on top of it by the windows.
“Oh God,” Liz said. She came over, putting her hands on her hips. “The piano bench! I forgot that was even there.”
“We have a piano?” Anne asked.
“No. Just a bench,” my mom, who was taking books off a shelf, said.
“We actually did have a piano,” Liz said. “In the old house.”
I was confused. “I thought this was the old house.”
“It’s the same house,” Liz explained. “But originally, thepart my grandfather built was only the kitchen, porch, and one bedroom. It was only later, when they decided to live here year-round, that Mom and the Judge added on.”
“I can’t believe you still refer to him that way,” my mom said, her voice annoyed. “You can’t just say Dad?”
“Momcalled him the Judge,” Liz replied.
“And that wasn’t weird?”
