Page 24 of A Place for Daydreams

“Oh my gosh, yes!” Samantha clapped her hands together, looking thrilled. “That sounds like so much fun. I bet we’ll both feel like total princesses.”

“I bet we will too,” Hazel said, beaming at her daughter. She suddenly felt even more excited about the spa day than she hadbefore. “What about Thursday night? You don’t have any after-school clubs then, right?”

“Nope, not on Thursdays. That sounds perfect.” Samantha grinned gleefully. “So what do we do first? Looks like you want to do a foot soak, huh? We’re going to need some buckets for that.”

Hazel laughed. “Aye aye, Captain, you read my mind. Do we already have buckets that would work, or do we need to go out and buy some?”

“I think we’ve got some plastic buckets in the basement where we’re storing craft supplies. We could always put the craft stuff in a box for now and use the buckets. What do you think?”

“Sounds good to me.” Hazel grinned, struck by how having a teammate made her plans not feel overwhelming anymore.

“Cool, I’ll go make sure they’re a good size!” Samantha darted away, and Hazel turned back to the magazine with a chuckle. She turned the page, feeling excited, and then got the idea of doing her and Samantha’s nails together.

That would be so fun,she thought eagerly.I still have that manicure kit that Alexis gave me for Christmas. We can file our nails and use cuticle oil, and then I can help her paint hers whatever shade she wants. I have a lot of different colors, and a lot of them are sparkly, which I know she’d love.

Hazel grinned as she started to picture all of the fun and relaxing things that she and Samantha could do together on their spa day. She had a pencil tucked into her ponytail, and she pulled it out and started to jot down a list on the back of the magazine. She kept glancing down at the supplies that were on the bathroom floor, making sure that they had everything they needed to create her ideas.

“Here are the buckets!” Samantha appeared suddenly in the bathroom, and Hazel laughed.

“You scared me! Oh yes, those should be perfect. Great idea, honey.”

“You’re welcome!” Samantha set the buckets down on the floor next to the rest of the supplies with a flourish. “You know what else we need?”

“What?” Hazel pursed her lips as she looked at her daughter. She felt a surge of affection for the clever, cheerful girl who always managed to brighten her days.

“Squishy socks.” Samantha nodded emphatically and disappeared again.

“Socks?” Hazel called back.

Samantha didn’t reply, and Hazel chuckled and went back to making her list. Within a minute, her daughter was back, triumphantly holding up two pairs of very soft polyester socks.

“So that we can have the foot soak, put lotion on our feet, and then put our feet in these socks.” Samantha added the socks to their stash on the bathroom floor. “It’s going to feel amazing.”

Hazel laughed. “You’re right. That’s a brilliant idea. You want to hear this list I’ve written up? You can tell me what you think.”

“Yeah!”

Hazel read her list aloud to her daughter, who grinned as she listened.

“That all sounds great to me,” Samantha said. “What should we get ready next? How about we pick a relaxing music playlist?”

“We could—or we could create our own?”

“Yeah! I’ll go make us some popcorn. We can sit in the living room and listen to Zen music all night.”

Hazel laughed, feeling grateful that she had someone planning with her, and that she got to bless someone else with the fun day that she’d been wanting to plan.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Noelle parked her car in the outdoor parking lot of her apartment building and sat quietly for a moment, listening to the sound of the wind rustling in the trees around her. It was a slightly blustery but still fairly warm evening, and she was looking forward to making dinner after work and sitting out on her balcony for a while to enjoy the evening.

She tapped the steering wheel of her car affectionately before getting out. She was enjoying driving more than ever now that Dean had fixed up her car so well. She kept noticing things that he’d fixed or spruced up for free. He’d vacuumed the interior, polished the outside, and she could see by the sticker on the top left corner of her windshield that he’d changed her oil for free as well.

She opened the door to her car and got out. At that moment, a gust of wind rushed against her suddenly, causing a paper to fly out of her purse and begin to skuttle across the parking lot. She let out a short yelp and chased after it, managing to snatch it as it blew in front of her car.

As she was straightening, she noticed that her headlights were clearer than usual, and gleaming in the sunlight.

Oh my goodness, he polished my headlights too,she thought, letting out a giggle.I can’t believe how sweet he was about that whole thing. What a great car shop—I’ve never even heard of such stellar service.

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