“That you discovered in Morag’s lost and found? Because I’ve been through that box, and there were not any size-fourteen extra-short jackets with plenty of room in the bust.”
“I ordered it.” Cosima put her pencil down.
“You bought me a jacket? You don’t even eat meals with me. You walked me down a village lane, disappeared for days, and then reappeared to be Indiana Jones with me after several arguments in the middle of the night. I’m supposed to believe you bought me a jacket?”
“Yours doesn’t fit.” Cosima said this with one of her Arch of Hadrian eyebrows lifted, as if it were an answer rather than the kind of statement that inspired countless questions.
Edie felt a strange, fluttery buzz directly under her sternum.
“I realized I hadn’t returned the courtesy of asking you for a walk.” Cosima’s posture was perfectly straight, her shoulders back.
“That is true.” Edie bit her lip to hold back the impulse to tease Cosima, whose perfect posture was a warning.
“However, when I thought to ask you, I remembered your jacket.”
“My brother’s rain jacket. The green one.”
“No color green I’ve ever seen.” Morag contributed thisfrom the kitchen, folding parchment into her baking tins. “I started needing my glasses when I drive after seeing that jacket.”
“Yes,” Cosima confirmed. “It’s terrible, and you look terrible in it.” She folded her hands on top of the open guest book and gazed at Edie with a frank, unperturbed expression. This was the way Cosima looked at Edie when she’d said something she considered outrageous.
Edie had no intention of calling Cosima out. The jacketwasterrible, and she did look terrible in it. Hearing these facts spoken aloud did not bother her. She was more interested in knowing why her looking unsightly in a jacket was a problem Cosima had decided to solve.
“So you thought about walking with me, but then you remembered you’d have to walk with me wearing my jacket, and the horror sent you straight to curvy girls jackets dot com.”
Cosima cast her eyes at the ceiling. “To Paul Smith’s, but yes.”
“Oh,quiteposh,” Morag called out cheerfully.
“And so you took it upon yourself—”
“—to fix it. Yes. To make you look as you should look.”
“According to…?” She knew the answer. She just wanted to hear Cosima say it.
“Me.” Cosima crossed her arms. “But notme. It’s about you. A grown woman. You’re a chef. You’ve owned a business. You’re an intelligent and attractive woman with dramatic features. You don’t have to wear it.” She added this last statement as she started to grow pink. “But no one like you should have to wear a hand-me-down poorly fitting windbreaker from their brother. Unless you want to.”
Edie bit back her smile. “Unless I want to.”
Cosima gave a very tiny nod.
“Take the jacket, lovey!” Morag shouted. “It’s a Paul Smith. Pawn it when you get back to Wisconsin for a bit of seed money.”
Edie studied her companion at the table, still trying to work out all the pieces of this puzzle. Cosima looked perfect, of course, in a starchy rose-colored linen shirt and high-waisted pants. She wore her hair parted down the middle, slicked into two tortoise-shell barrettes clipped above her ears, her curls smoothed into long coils. But Edie didn’t feel at all lesser in her jeans (which were the really-let’s-call-them-leggings kind) and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College sweatshirt.
Cosima didn’t work like that. Cosima was very muchforherself. She wasn’t Cosimaatanyone.
What Edie found herself hung up on was Cosima sayingno one like youandan intelligent and attractive woman with dramatic features. Edie had never had anyone suggest she deserved more. Or even that she wear clothes that fit her, or weren’t castoffs or from Kohl’s.
“I haven’t said I wouldn’t wear it.” Edie smiled. “Is it a shooting jacket?”
“No. The shoulders of a shooting jacket wouldn’t properly frame the line of your bust. It’s a walking jacket.” Her cheeks lit with slashes of red across the cheekbones.
“It’s good you’ve considered my assets.” Edie bit her lip, watching the slashes go maroon. “And what color is it?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Cosima closed her eyes. “It’s only a jacket.”
“A Paul Smith!” Morag called.
