Page 8 of This Is Who I Am

“Honestly, the inventiveness of your dishes floors me every time. How do you even think of putting certain flavors together? Things like that are just so completely beyond me. I don’t have a creative bone in my body so I really respect that.” Her smile lingers.

My pulse stutters, just once, before the heat rushes in like a slap. I’ve never had a hot flash triggered by a lovely compliment from an incredibly attractive lady before, quite possibly because I haven’t been on the receiving end of those for a long time, but here we go. The blush on my cheeks spreads to my neck and, just like that, it feels like my entire body is on fire.

“Please excuse me,” I mumble, jumping out of my chair as though I’m trying to escape an actual fire. How much more embarrassing can it get?

I duck around the building’s corner, grateful for the ocean breeze against my burning skin. I try to breathe through it, but slowing down my breathing can only do so much.

Experience has taught me one thing: there’s nothing to do but ride it out. The only small mercy of a hot flash is that it never takes long. It embarrasses the hell out of you. It makes you feel as though you’ve lost all control over your body. You feel sticky and sweaty and dirty. It’s as though your insides are burning and trying to find a way out but your skin is already aflame as well.

But it doesn’t last very long. Afterward, there’s plenty of time and opportunity to face whomever you had to flee from.

At work, my staff know how to deal with it. It’s just a thing that happens now. But it’s different in a social situation like this. I certainly wasn’t flirting with Estelle—I’m in no condition to be doing anything silly like that—but we were having a nice conversation.

“Hey, Cass. Are you okay?” It’s my ex-mother-in-law, which is a blessing but also very much not.

“Hot flash,” I manage to say, wanting to rip this too-thick pair of jeans off my sweaty legs.

“Do you want some ice? A wet towel?” Julianne has been where I am. I know because she told me all about it.

“It’ll be over in a few minutes.” I expel a few deep breaths and try to catch more of the chill in the air. But then another image of Estelle pops up in my head, of how her lips moved so sensuously while she said those wonderful things about my food, and another wave of heat crashes through me. I’m so overheated, I have to stop myself from sprinting into the ocean.

And then, as though it never even happened, as though it was all just a figment of my imagination, it’s all over—except for my wrinkled blouse and the wet hair clinging to my forehead.

“Could you do me a favor, Julianne?” I manage a grin. “Could you get my purse from the deck? I can’t go back there, and I just want to go home.”

“Come on, Cass. You don’t have to hide from us. Suzy was just talking about a support group for women going through this very thing.”

“I know I don’t have to hide, but… I don’t have the energy to argue about this right now. Could you just do me this small favor, please?”

“Of course. I’ll be right back.”

Maybe it’s silly and, according to Suzy, certainly giving in to internalized misogyny because of the patriarchy and whatnot, but I simply can’t face Estelle after that.

“Hey.” Oh, no. Damn you, Julianne. “Here’s your bag,” Estelle says. “Are you okay?”

“God, I’m sorry.” I take my purse from her. “Thanks. You didn’t have to, um, do that.”

“I wanted to make sure you were all right.” She pulls those damned luscious lips of hers into the smoothest grin. “Hot flash?”

“Yeah. Serves me right for talking about it so brazenly.” What a stupid thing to say.

Estelle just shakes her head. “Can I walk you home? Make sure you don’t have another on the way?”

This gorgeous woman wants to walk me home?Me.Really?

It doesn’t mean anything, Cass, I tell myself. She’s just trying to make some friends in the town she left behind all those years ago.

“That would be very nice of you,” I hear myself say, because why the hell not?

CHAPTER6

ESTELLE

Cass and I walk along the boardwalk to the house on the cliff where Savor is located. We fall into an easy rhythm, the ocean to our left, the sky blushing with the very last streaks of sunset.

“I hope this doesn’t sound insensitive after what you’ve just been through, but I’ve yet to experience my first hot flash,” I say.

Cass runs her fingers through her matted hair, swiping it away from her face.

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