Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Oh my gosh, amazing. I’ll tell them. Thank you!”
She walked Muriel to the door and confirmed that she had a ride. When her ride pulled up, Muriel cupped Greta’s face in her hands.
“You can’t know this yet. In fact, we rarely know it until it’s too late to need to know it. But you are going to be just fine.”
Then she was gone, waving a final time from the car window, and Greta stood at the curb, watching her drive away and trying to remember everything she’d just said. But it slipped from her tipsy mind one sentence at a time.
Chapter 23
Truman
When Truman and Ash walked through the ornate wooden doors of Sunflower Seed, a small white woman with wild platinum curls was smoking out the tiny side window. She knelt on a stool and sucked hard on her cigarette.
“Hey, Ash,” she said through a mouthful of smoke as they entered. Then she looked at her cigarette. “Hey! Ash.” She pointed at the glowing tip.
“Rayanne,” Ash said. “Got a sec?”
She waved them in, then waved them over, clearly unwilling to put out the cigarette.
“Day won’t let me smoke in the kitchen anymore,” she said with a roll of heavily kohl-lined blue eyes.
“Yeah, well. Food and all that,” Ash said. “This is Truman. Rayanne owns the place.”
“Guilty,” Rayanne said. But whereas someone else might’ve said it as a quip, Rayanne seemed legitimately burdened.
Truman shook the hand not holding the cigarette and let go with the strong sense that his hand would smell of smoke anyway.
“She around?” Ash asked, looking toward the back of the restaurant.
It was cozy inside, with dark wood walls and flooring, a dark wood bar, gold chandeliers over the tables, and dark green tablecloths. Somber paintings of ships, gulls, lighthouses, and snowy farm scenes hung on the walls, and there were antler coat hangers near the front door. It looked nothing at all like the woman standing before them, who, Truman could see once she stabbed her cigarette out and uncrouched from her perch, wore a wildly printed jumpsuit so voluminous it swallowed her small frame and Doc Martens with a thick sole, even with which Truman still towered over her.
“Yeah,” Rayanne said, then yelled, “Day!”
From the back of the restaurant strode a woman who looked straight out of Le Cordon Bleu. She wore a white chef’s jacket, her hair was swept back into a tight bun, and she gave the impression she would be perfectly capable of spatchcocking anything you put in front of her. Truman took a tiny step back.
Ash, on the other hand, smiled wider than Truman had seen him smile at anyone else they’d encountered.
“Day, hi,” he greeted her enthusiastically. “This is Truman. He’s staying in Greta’s place for a while. From New Orleans.”
Day turned calm gray eyes on Truman and held out her hand.
“New Orleans. Excellent,” she said and shook Truman’s hand firmly.
“Thanks. I mean, I can’t take credit. Obviously.” Truman willed himself to shut up.
Day simply raised one perfectly arched eyebrow and stood, calm, silent, and intimidating. She seemed utterly at ease, which flustered Truman.
“So what’s up?” Rayanne asked, lighting another cigarette.
Day reached over, slid it from her hand, and put it out between her fingers. Then she tucked it, filter side down, into the pocket of her chef’s coat.
Ash outlined what they wanted to do, and Truman chimed in every now and then to add a detail. When they were done, Rayanne nodded. “Sounds great to me. As long as I don’t have to make a bouquet.”
“No flower arranging required,” Ash assured her. “Day?”
Day hadn’t given any response while they’d spoken, and now she simply nodded once and said, “I’ll prepare a suitable menu.”
Ash nodded back, and Truman had a vision of them hanging out, sitting in total silence except that each would say one sentence every couple of hours and the other would nod one time in acknowledgment.
He snorted a laugh.
Rayanne regarded him. “So you’re the one Greta did the house swap with. What do you think so far?”
“Of Owl Island? I love it. It’s really beautiful. I’m not used to the cold, but now that I’ve got the whole jacket thing down, it’s great.”
Rayanne narrowed her eyes, like she wasn’t sure she could believe him.
“And what do you think of Ash?”
“Of…Ash?”
“Yeah.”
“Rayanne,” Ash said. “Don’t mess with him.”
“Fine,” she grumbled.
Silence fell.
“Dolphins only close one eye when they sleep,” Rayanne blurted.
“Oh,” Truman said politely.
Day nodded.
“I’m doing this new thing where when I want to say something that’s none of my business, I say a fact instead,” Rayanne said. “I wanted to hear about how your relationship with Ash is going.” She darted a look at Day. “But…”
“It rather mitigates the effect if you go on to report the thing you wanted to say, darling,” Day said.
“Oh wow, are you guys a couple?”