“Yes, this is my natural color,” I say. “But when I was a teenager I did let my friend put highlights on my hair once.”
“I like the color it is. You shouldn’t mess with what Mother Nature gave you.” Her gaze moves from me to Leo. “You look good beside Leo. You’ll make pretty babies.”
My cheeks warm. “Thank you. About the color, I mean.” Grandma Lulu is either ornery or set on matchmaking. Or both.
I look to Leo for some help. He ignores me and takes her walker to put into the trunk of his car.
At my extended hand, Grandma Lulu scoffs. “I don’t need help sitting down, honey. It’s the getting up that’s the problem. That’s the way of life and love. Falling is easy. Getting up is the hard part.”
She maneuvers into the front passenger seat, and I get into the back. While I’m buckling my seatbelt, she whips around in the seat. “How old are you? You look too young for Leo.”
I should be accustomed to elderly ladies like Grandma Lulu. Our church was full of the ones who’d passed the age of conversational filtering. I’m out of practice.
“Twenty-two.” I fold my hands in my lap, waiting for the next question.
“Leo’s twenty-four,” she says. “Time for people to be settling down. I’d like to have some great-grandbabies before I’m dead. My grandchildren are scattered from New York to Alaska. Do they ever visit me? No. Leo and Josie are my only hope for holding some babies.”
I’ve given up on denying dating Leo.
Leo starts the car and glances at Grandma Lulu. “Harper lived in Texas. Didn’t you live there for a while?”
“When I was married to my second husband,” she says. “You don’t remember him. You were but a spark in your daddy’s eye back then. Those were the days.”
“Mm hm,” Leo says. He glances up at the rearview mirror and grins.
“I miss home,” I say and turn to the window. “I miss the heat and the wildflowers. There’s nothing more beautiful than bluebonnets in the spring.” My throat tightens at the fullness of the statement. For a brief, silly moment, I’m afraid I might cry so I dig my nails into my palms and inhale.
We’re at a red traffic light. Our gazes meet in the rearview mirror. His eyes are so blue and knowing. It’s as if he felt a shift in my emotions from the front seat. He’ll never let me tag along again if I act all crazy.
Grandma Lulu sighs. “We should take a trip there. You and Harper and I could pack up and go. We’re all single. Or at least I am.”
I’m glad when he looks back to the road. After another ten minutes, we reach our destination.
The Talbot Seniors’ Center is a large building with limestone walls and beautiful flowers in planters. Grandma Lulu allows Leo to help her out of the car and we walk her inside. Once we enter the building, we take an immediate left to a room full of elderly ladies and a couple of men. Some have chosen their seats already and a few stand near a table with desserts and coffee. A couple of the women immediately walk over to hug Leo.
Grandma Lulu makes her way over to a chair next to one of the few men.
I follow her and quietly place the canvas bag on the floor beside her chair. She turns to me and grabs my arm to pull me closer to her side. “William, this is Leo’s girlfriend, Harper.”
The man leans in to offer his hand. “Leo’s girl. How nice.”
This Leo’s girlfriend thing won’t die. Sometimes you just have to go with it. “Hi.” I place my hand in his and he squeezes.
He winks at me. “Sure picked a pretty one.” He looks past me.
Across the room, Leo politely listens as an older woman talks to him. He points at me and then strolls my way.
“Grandma Lulu, we’ll be back in an hour. Harper and I have errands to run.”
She’s waves a hand at us, signaling that we should go on. I walk with Leo to the door and outside. “Errands?”
“I’m sorry. That was a lie. If it would make you feel better, I could definitely make up some errands. Want to take a walk?”
I laugh at him. “Sure. The lady you were talking to looked very disappointed when we left.”
He smirks. “I swear. Some of those ladies flirt worse than a sixteen-year-old looking for a prom date. They’ll do a little quilting in the next room, but they mostly talk.”
“It seems like fun. I’m sure they’re lonely. It’s very sweet of you and Josie to bring Ms. Lulu here.”
We duck our heads as we walk under a low hanging tree branch. Baskets of begonias hang along the wooden fence and litter flower petals across sidewalk.
“I don’t mind. It’s not like I have to set work hours, so it’s no trouble.” He slows his pace.
“What are you writing now?” I peer up at him. Maybe he’s never mentioned the Mr. Expose blog because he’s embarrassed or thinks I won’t know about it. He published a new post today. I check it constantly to ensure my postcard isn’t the image at the top of the page.
He stops in front of a gift shop and folds his arms while looking at the window decor. “I have to tell you something. As a writer, I’m constantly trying to analyze why people do the things they do. I watch them and look for clues. I listen to what they say. And then I listen more carefully to what they don’t say.”
“Uh huh.” I’m not a people watcher, but even I can read the discomfort rolling off him in tense waves.
He changes subjects like a racecar changing lanes. “Why didn’t you move back to Texas instead of coming here?”
“No reason. I like Nashville.”
He is not deterred by my short answer. “I visited Hawaii, once. Really liked it, but I’m not moving there.”
Maybe if I give him something—a real answer—he’ll open up about his writing and his blog.
We turn to follow the sidewalk past another block of shops. “My parents love me. But they’d try to run my life if I went home, because they didn’t want me to marry Wesley. I eloped and didn’t give them a chance to talk me out of it. At eighteen, I thought I knew everything. I just left a note and it really hurt both of them. I’m an only child and it took a while before we made amends over the phone. I don’t want them to think I can’t make it on my own.”
I’ve been wrong about so much; I can’t stand another person judging me. Wrong about love, about my ability to give, about being a kind person. But for some reason, his opinion is important to me. I want him to think I’m a good person.
The answer satisfies Leo and he glances at his watch. “We can head back and wait in the air-conditioning until she’s ready to leave.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, disappointed that the time has passed so quickly.
“Thanks for coming along today. And for what it’s worth, I see you as strong and capable. You’re hardly a failure.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t tell if he’s trying to make me feel better by giving me a compliment, or if he really believes what he’s saying.
Leo puts a hand on the back of my bare neck and squeezes lightly. “We all need time to find ourselves.”
His words do something weird to my chest. He doesn’t know how terrible I am. How much I wanted Wesley to pay for what he’d done to me.
How careless I was with my thoughts and prayers and words.
From: isabellawarren@iconic.net
To: angelgirl@me.com
Dear Harper,
Thank you for taking my call last night. It’s funny—the bond we’ve discovered through tragedy. I lie awake at night with no one to talk to about what’s happened. I’d been married twelve years when Warren died—sorry, does it feel odd for me to use the name Warren? I wonder what he called himself and if he ever got confused.
That’s not funny in the least, yet I cannot stop laughing at the thought. I may need to visit with a counselor, but somehow, right now talking with you does the trick.
The other night, I watched a show about sister wives. I wonder if they feel like we do. But that’s all wrong. At least, they know about each other. It’s easy to be bitter, but it’s never directed at you. You’ve been hurt by his double life as much as I.