Love in Bloom (27 page)

Still, insurance would be good. “A card,” she decided. “I'll get him a card tomorrow and put it in his truck.” But she didn't want to
wait till tomorrow. “I'll write him a letter and go leave it on his doorstep.”

“Or better yet, pretend his friend is invisible.”

That could prove hard to do, but she'd make an effort. Meanwhile, though, she'd inputted her problem into her internal computer and the answer had come up loud and clear: do damage control now.

Okay, damage control. “Have we got any paper?”

“Printer paper.” Hope pointed to where her laptop and printer sat in the corner.

“Perfect.” Bobbi snagged a piece and sat down at the Formica table with paper and pen. She chewed on the pen. “What can I say?”

“That you're sorry,” Hope suggested.

She picked up her book and started for her room, and that made Bobbi panic all the more. “Don't leave me,” she begged. “I already said I was sorry. This has to be something more, you know, poetical.”

“Poetic.” Hope slumped in the loveseat and closed her eyes.

Hopefully she was thinking and not falling asleep. Bobbi held her breath, waiting for magic to happen.

And then her sister, the good fairy of love, spoke. “What about this? Rhythm and music and feet aren't the real dance. The real dance is when two hearts move together.”

Her sister was amazing. “How do you do that?”

Hope opened her eyes and looked at Bobbi. “What?”

“Just close your eyes and be so brilliant. I couldn't do that in a million years. I wish I was smart like you.”

Hope was looking at her earnestly now. “You are smart.”

“Not like you.” Bobbi rested her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. “This is like cheating on a test. I shouldn't be doing this.”

“Well, then, you come up with the last part,” Hope suggested.

“Okay.” Bobbi sat and gnawed on her lip.
Come on, brain. Think of something
.

It was like her inner computer had gotten fried. It just sat there, doing nothing. “I can't,” she moaned.

“Yes, you can. Think about your heart.”

Bobbi heaved a sigh and stared at the paper. Heart, she should write something about her heart. And then it came. “My heart wants to dance with you!”

Hope nodded approvingly. “Only maybe change the
you
to
yours
.”

Bobbi nodded eagerly and scrawled out the sentence. There. She'd done it. She wasn't a fraud. She folded the paper and jumped up from the table. “I'm going to go put this under his windshield wiper so he'll find it first thing tomorrow.”

“You'd better put it in a plastic bag then,” said Hope. “It's still raining out.”

“Oh, good idea.”

Bobbi bagged up her letter and drove to the duplex Jason was renting. She braved the pouring rain and slipped her offering under his windshield. There. Now everything would be fine again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

O
N SUNDAY, BOBBI
was a basket case and the sisters' usual Sunday lunch together was more torture than fun for Hope. Bobbi kept up a constant stream of fretting. “Do you think he got the letter yet?” . . . “Does it sound like I wrote it?” . . . “Should I be doing this?” . . . “I'm a fake” . . . “I need retail therapy. Let's go to the mall.”

Bobbi wasn't the only one who needed therapy. If Hope had to keep talking her sister down from the ledge, she was going to end up in a padded cell before the day was over. Forget the mall. She needed garden therapy.

“I should really run over to the garden for a while. Why don't you see if Anna wants to go?”

Bobbi looked disappointed. “You don't want to go to the mall with me?”

The clouds from the day before had gone and the sun was
shining. The air at the garden would smell fresh and clean. “You know I'd love to,” Hope lied, “but I really need to get over there and check on my cilantro.” Like her cilantro really needed her. It was going gangbusters.

Bobbi slumped in her seat. “Okay.” She sat bolt upright. “I should just go over to Jason's.”

“Good idea,” Hope said. Bobbi would go over and fall into Jason's arms, and then they'd fall into bed. And then they'd live happily ever after. Her little sister would be with the perfect man and everyone would be happy.

Hope shot out of the apartment as soon as Bobbi left and drove ten miles over the speed limit all the way to Grandview Park.
Garden therapy, garden therapy, garden therapy
.

Millie and Amber were both already there by the time she arrived, and busy putting chicken wire around Amber's veggies.

“Welcome to the Bunny Produce Mart,” Amber greeted her grumpily. “That stupid rabbit broke into my garden and ate down my lettuce. I should have listened to you earlier, Millie.”

“Better late than never,” comforted Millie.

Amber looked to where Seth sat by the bunny's favorite camping spot, inching a carrot under the bushes. “I doubt he needs that as well fed as he is. I swear, if I ever catch that animal, we're going to be eating rabbit stew.”

“You couldn't really kill that cute little animal,” said Millie.

“Probably not. I can't even kill spiders, and I hate them almost as much as I hate that rabbit.”

“And the animals have to live, too,” Millie reminded her.

“I don't know why they can't learn to live on things we don't want to grow, like dandelions,” said Amber.

“It's the Murphy's law of gardening,” said Millie.

That made Hope chuckle. Just being here with these women sloughed off her bad mood. The sun was warm and the air smelled of earth and growing things.

“We were just talking about how much fun the Slugfest was,” Millie said to Hope. “It looked like you were having fun. I saw you dancing as my friend and I were leaving.”

Hope felt her stomach clench. Oh, no. No talking about Jason here. That would be pathetically un-Zen.

“Millie's
male
friend,” added Amber, her voice teasing. “He's a hottie, Millie.”

Millie's cheeks suddenly looked sunburned.

Relieved to have the topic turned away from herself, Hope asked, “Who's the friend?”

“Actually, it's the man I met when the flower deliveries got mixed up,” said Millie.

“Is this someone special?” Hope asked. As if they couldn't tell simply by Millie's smile. She looked like a fourteen-year-old with her first boyfriend.

“He is,” Millie admitted. “He's a widower, new to Heart Lake.”

“Millie's the welcoming committee,” Amber teased, then quickly added, “Seriously, I think it's great that you've got a boyfriend.”

Millie suddenly got very busy weeding around her sweet peas. “Well, I am enjoying his company. Life is short, girls. It's foolish not to take advantage of every good thing that comes along.”

Amber grinned wickedly. “Have you taken advantage of Altheus yet?”

Millie shook a gloved finger at her. “You are a naughty thing.” She sat back on her heels, admiring her handiwork, and took in a deep breath of spring. “A garden is such an amazing thing, isn't it? There it is, the whole cycle of life played out for us every year— death, then resurrection, new buds, new life, new beginnings.” She returned her attention to Hope. “And speaking of new beginnings, dear, tell us about that handsome man you were dancing with at the street dance.”

How did they get back to her? “There's nothing to tell, really. I was just having a dance with my sister's boyfriend.”

“Your sister's boyfriend,” Millie said in surprise. “Why wasn't your sister dancing with him?”

Good question. “She was dancing with someone else.”

“You young people do things differently than we did,” Millie said. “In my day, when a girl was trying to hook a man, she didn't send him off to dance with someone else.”

“Bobbi shares,” Hope quipped.

“Maybe if she shares so well, she should keep right on sharing,” Millie suggested. “You two looked like you were meant to be partners.”

Hope shook her head. “Jason wants Bobbi. And that's just as well.”

“Why is that?” asked Amber.

Hope gave a one-shouldered shrug and smoothed out the dirt around her basil. “She's the pretty one. Men love her.”

“You're not exactly an aarf-aarf,” said Amber.

“I am naked.” Hope regretted the words the second they slipped out of her mouth.

“Oh, let's not be going there,” Amber said with a snort. “We can't have sixteen-year-old boobs forever. Mine left after Sethie was born.” She shook her head. “There's nothing like childbirth to mess with your body image.”

“I can think of a few things,” said Millie. “Is it the fallout from the cancer, dear?”

Suddenly, Hope was a watering can. She watched in horror as her tears seeped into the soil.

“But that's gone,” protested Amber.

What it left behind wasn't. “No man wants a woman who's scarred.”

Amber left her garden patch and came into Hope's, sitting next to her and putting an arm around her. “Hey, come on. That's not true. A real man cares more about what's inside than what's outside. And it can't be that bad.”

Hope shook her head and swiped at the corners of her eyes. “It is. Trust me.” She ran a hand through her hair. It was getting longer all the time, the curl slowly loosening its hold as her hair remembered it had once been straight. “This is so embarrassing. I don't know what's wrong with me today.” But, of course, she did. It was the same thing that had been wrong with her since Jason Wells first walked into her shop. She had to get a grip.

Millie joined them now and sat on the other side of Hope, giving her arm a gentle pat.

“You had reconstructive surgery, right?” Amber pressed.

Hope nodded, unable to speak. She supposed if she had it to do over, she'd do it again, in spite of the complications, the second surgery, the scarring. An imperfect fake boob was better than no boob.

But not good enough to parade in front of someone. “It's not the same.” She could barely speak. The words came out as a croak.

“Trust me,” Amber said, giving her a squeeze, “guys don't care if the girls are real or not. They get turned on either way.”

“Think of how many women are walking around with implants and leading perfectly normal lives,” Millie added.

“I am leading a perfectly normal life,” Hope insisted.

“A life where you turn your back on love is not perfectly normal,” Millie gently chided.

“It's better than trying to build a future with someone when I don't even know how much of a future I'll have,” Hope said, her voice barely above a whisper. She'd been trying so hard to look and act normal, and now here she sat, showing her friends her biggest scar of all, the one on her heart. “Getting cancer this young, my chances are so much higher that . . .” She couldn't show any more. Her voice broke, failing her.

“None of us has any guarantee,” Amber said, hugging her fiercely. “You can't just give up and sit on the sidelines.”

“Listen to an old woman and live your life to the fullest,” Millie added. “Take advantage of every good thing that comes into it.”

“Like Millie's taking advantage of Altheus,” cracked Amber, easing them into a lighter mood. “So, when
are
you going to take advantage of Altheus?” she added, waggling her eyebrows.

Millie blushed. “Now, don't be asking nosy questions. Anyway, he's seven years younger than me.”

“Sweet. A boy toy,” said Amber, clapping her hands.

“We're just friends,” Millie said firmly.

Amber cocked an eyebrow. “I hope you're going to practice what you preach. After that lecture you just gave Hope, we don't want to hear you didn't go for it because of a little thing like age.”

“A little thing like age is why I don't have to be in a hurry to go for it,” Millie replied crisply. She gave Hope's shoulder a pat and then used it for balance as she got stiffly to her feet. “I think that's enough serious conversation for one afternoon. But let's take a lesson from our flowers. They seek out the sun. How can we do less than these sweet flowers?”

“I'm going to remember you said that,” Amber warned her.

 

BOBBI ARRIVED AT
Jason's place to find his truck gone. Darn! Now what was she going to do? Leave, of course. She wouldn't stalk him, wouldn't call him on his cell. Sometimes a woman had to back off. This was one of those times. She went back to Plan A: mall therapy.

But the mall wasn't much fun, not without a purse full of tip money to spend, and especially not when, everywhere she looked, she saw women with their boyfriends. By the time she'd wandered through Macy's, Nordstrom, and Anthropologie, she'd had enough. She drove back to the apartment. Still no Hope. She turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. Nothing. With cable TV and a million channels to choose from, you'd think there'd be something.