“Oh, perfect,” Diana said. “Tell me you’ve got something going on that can distract from my romantic trials. Even I’m getting sick of talking about my problems.”
Eleanor bobbled her head from side to side noncommittally.
“It’s not aproblem, really,” she clarified. “It’s just that Jeremy is coming to visit.”
Cadence and June let out twin sounds of delight, while Miriam raised a finger imperiously.
“Point of order,” she said, “but that sounds like it’s not a problem at all. It sounds like it’s a very good thing.”
“Itis,” Eleanor said fervently.
“And yet,” Miriam observed, “you do not seem happy.”
“I am happy,” Eleanor insisted, then sighed when Miriam shot her a skeptical look. “Yes, I’m happy. Obviously, I’m happy. I understood, but I was also disappointed when he spent Christmas with his father.”
“But?” Diana prompted.
Eleanor held up her fingers in a pinching motion. “I might be the teeniest, tiniest bit worried about Jeremy meeting Garrett. What if they don’t like one another?”
“Oh.” Cadence nodded sagely. “It’s like having your new boyfriend meet your parents, but it’s actually more complicated, because it’s yourkid.”
“You know…” Eleanor pointed at Cadence as she thought it through. “It’s almost exactly like that. It’s been so long since I did the ‘meet the parents’ thing that I didn’t think of it in those terms. Because Jeremy will always be in my life, and I love Garrett and want him to be in my life always too. And it’s not like if Jeremy was a little kid… that would be different. But I want them to like one another. Man to man.”
“I know what’s really wrong here,” Miriam said in that tone she got when she was going to lord her greater age and experience over her friends. She always did it lovingly, and her friends were always amused by the smug delight their older friend got in doing so. “You are experiencing what we in the business call ‘having an adult child.’”
“Bestow unto me your wisdom, Miriam,” Eleanor said, clasping her hands beneath her chin like a penitent. “How do I solve this worry inside of me?”
Miriam grinned at Eleanor’s silly performance.
“Ah, well, here is the bad news: you don’t.”
“Boo!” Cadence cried from behind her hand.
Miriam swatted Cadence’s knee.
“The problem with adult kids is that they don’t need you anymore,” Miriam said consolingly to Eleanor. “It means that you did your job as a parent well, but it still stinks. And that means that you don’t have very much control over things.”
Eleanor took a long sip of her wine for fortitude.
“So what you’re telling me,” she said, “is that I just have to accept my powerlessness in this situation?”
“Yup,” Miriam said.
“You are right,” Eleanor said. “That explanation stinks. Anybody got anything else in the advice department?”
“I can offer reassurance,” June said, raising her hand like a student. “Garrett is great and he loves you. I don’t know Jeremy, but he’s your kid, so I can only assume that he is great. And he definitely loves you. If nothing else, they’ll have ‘we love Eleanor’ to connect over.”
“I like that one better,” Eleanor said.
Miriam was unperturbed. “Age and experience, my friends. It cannot be denied.”
Cadence rubbed her hands together happily. “I love the part where we stop pretending that we’re talking about the book and get to gossiping,” she said. “Who else has got something?”
Nobody answered in words… but June blushed bright red.
Miriam, who could sniff out potential romance at a mile’s distance, leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees.
“Is there something you wish to contribute, Ms. Caldwell?” she asked eagerly.
