Elliot: Now that I know the value of Norm’s urinal marketing, I’m wondering if a restaurant I saw advertised there is very good or very bad.
Lainey: Placement in Norm’s bathroom more often correlates to a business’s desperation than its quality.
Lainey: What’s the restaurant?
Elliot: Jörg’s Schnitzel Emporium.
Lainey: Jörg’s name is actually Justin.
Elliot: Does Justin make a good schnitzel?
Lainey: Don’t know about the schnitzel, but his “German” meatballs are from IKEA.
Elliot: Back to the drawing board then.
Elliot: I think we can do better than Jörg’s/Justin’s. My only requirement is no TVs. I don’t do restaurants with TVs.
Bree lowered the magazine. “I can’t tell if I want to look like Sabrina Carpenter or date her.”
In an effort to stop fidgeting, Lainey stood up. “You know you’re pregnant with Colin’s baby. Your husband.”
“Did you know that you can smell everything when you’re pregnant? Likeeverything. And men are always sweating and eating cheese and onion chips. It’s disgusting.”
Lainey frowned. “Can you ask him to stop eating chips?”
“It’s not just the chips.” Bree rolled her eyes, flipping her magazine pages with a flourish. Lainey waited for her friend to offer some explanation to her latent rage at the invocation of Colin, the perfectly nice-seeming British man she married the instant he impregnated her because her only earthly fear was disappointing her parents, but she didn’t.
Bree had always fancied herself a protagonist in a zany romantic comedy. When she met her now husband in London while completing a high-end hospitality certificate—in her latest attempt at impressing her eternally unimpressible parents—she’d sought out aNotting Hill–style ending. Despite her best efforts, she’d unwittingly been cast in the lesser-known Hugh Grant filmNine Months.
Lainey hardly knew Colin—apart from the way his UK fashion sensibilities made him stick out in Timber Creek like animpeccably well-appointed sore thumb. Though she believed him to be faithful, Bree was early in her pregnancy anddeepwithin whatever phase produced vivid dreams of her brand-new husband cheating on her. Repeatedly and ambitiously.
Naturally, Bree was seeking counsel from life coaches, sound bath practitioners, and other mystics of variable repute. Despite multiple interventionists, Colin remained relegated to the guest room and Bree managed her cortisol levels by donating outfits he wore while philandering in her imagination to Goodwill. The newly minted Foyle family was entirely responsible for the unusual uptick in Barbour among rural Wisconsin thrift shops.
Several more minutes passed. Lainey paced the waiting room nervously while clawing at the plastic wrapper of a cheese stick like an industrious raccoon.
“Where is this guy?” she asked no one in particular. No one was listening. Bree had become riveted by an article on Mariah Carey, and Gran was lightly sucking on a Rolo.
Somewhere on the other side of eighty Gran had taken to shoplifting “in protest” of either ageism or sexism. It didn’t make sense, but Gran was old and Lainey figured she’d earned the right to be a little intellectually inconsistent. Lainey had convinced Gran to attend this meeting only after agreeing to drive her to the pharmacy first to steal Rolos.
Unfortunately for Lainey, the Rolos had not been quite enough to get Gran through the door after all. Gran was even more wary of lawyers than Lainey was, as she was also a bit ethically wobbly—exhibit A, the chocolate-caramel loot she was currently savoring. So Lainey had upped the ante and now owed Gran an afternoon of bingo at the VFW where Gran had once directed an all-male revue.
Gran was an “old-fashioned broad.” She’d been born and raised in Timber Creek but left sometime in her early twenties for New York City in search of stardom. According to her stories, before she’d even settled on a place to stay, she’d charmed a Greek shipping heir and convinced him to whisk her away to his private island off the coast of Santorini. Then she promptly ditched the rich stiff, but only after he’d gifted her enough extravagant jewelry to pay her way to Paris, where she’d spent the next fifteen years as a dancer.
Gran loved to hold court at a dinner party, telling tales from the past. She’d never had it easy, but she had a way of romanticizing the life she’d lived. Each time she told a story, it became more vibrant than the last, like colorizing an old black-and-white screwball comedy. She knew how to light up a room.
But sometimes, when she and Lainey were alone, she’d tell the real story, with all its dark shadows and blemishes. Lainey suspected it was her way of preparing her only granddaughter for the world and how unkind it could be to bold women. How it was really the Greek shipping heir who had drawn Gran in, but once they’d landed in Santorini, he’d turned volatile and controlling. How the ocean views on his extravagant private island suffocated her, pressing in on all sides like prison walls. Eventually, she found a little cash in one of the guest room chests and bribed a maid to get her off the island.
I didn’t even stop to breathe until I could see the lights on the Eiffel Tower, she’d said once. But that wasn’t the version of the story Gran liked best.
Lainey always imagined she’d find herself in France someday, but life had taken other turns.
“I think Mark must be running behind,” Bree answered.
Lainey choked on a bite of cheddar. “I’m sorry. MarkSheffieldis your ‘lawyer friend’ who’s going to save my house?”
“Who did you think it would be?” Bree inquired, a little annoyed.
“Maybe not your ex-boyfriend who’s still convinced I tried to kill him?”
