Page 4 of Wishes at Water's Edge
CHAPTER THREE
Hazel stepped inside The Lighthouse Grill, taking a deep breath of the familiar smells of garlic and fresh bread. She always felt extra sleepy on Monday mornings, and she’d decided to stop by her family’s restaurant on her way to work to get some coffee.
She looked around the bustling dining room, hoping to spot her mother. A moment later she saw Vivian standing behind the counter, pouring coffee for customers.
Perfect,Hazel thought with a chuckle.Coffee and Mom in the same spot.
She sat down at the counter and grinned at her mother.
“Good morning, Mom.”
“Hazel!” Vivian’s face lit up in surprise. “I didn’t know you were going to drop by this morning.”
“I didn’t know it myself until a few minutes ago.” Hazel laughed. “I’m feeling extra sleepy this morning, so I decided to stop here for a cup of coffee. Besides…” She began to rummage eagerly in her large purse. “I wanted to show you something.”
“Yeah?” Vivian said curiously. “Show me what?”
As Vivian poured Hazel a cup of coffee and pushed a basket of creamers toward her, Hazel laid a home décor magazine down on the counter.
“I wanted to show you some of these designs,” she said eagerly. “I was looking at them last night, and I think they’re absolutely darling. I want to try to incorporate some of them in my house. What do you think?”
“Ooh.” Vivian leaned over the counter and took a look at the pages that Hazel was showing her. She was clearly excited to give her input. “These look adorable, Hazel.”
“Don’t they?” Hazel beamed at her mother. “I was thinking I could do a tile backsplash like that behind the stove. Aren’t those colorful tiles just the cutest thing? They look so cottage-y.”
“I think that would be perfect.” Vivian nodded. “Your home already looks cottage-y.”
“So true,” Hazel sang out cheerfully before taking a sip of her coffee. “What about this picture here? What if I rearranged the picture frames in the living room like this and added a mirror or two? I love that look, where they’re arranged in a kind of circle. It’s like the whole wall is turned into art.”
“Yes! I have a mirror I could give you—that one with the gold frame that we used to have hanging in the upstairs bathroom before we remodeled it. It’s still sitting up in the attic.”
Hazel lit up. “I remember that! Oh, I would love that, Mom. Then I would have part of my childhood home in my house.”
Hazel continued to show Vivian the pictures in the magazine that she liked, and Vivian was delighted by all of her ideas.
“I think that’s thrilling, dear,” Vivian said warmly. “These sound like fantastic renovations for your house.”
Hazel laughed. “Thanks, Mom—but you’re thrilled with everything these days because you’re in love,” she teased gently.
Vivian blushed a bright shade of pink. “Love does have a way of giving a person a more positive outlook on all sorts of things in life.” She laughed.
Vivian had been dating her good friend Terrence Rawlins, the health inspector, for a few months. Long before a romancehad officially blossomed between the two of them, the Owens children had suspected that there was a chemistry between their mother and Terrence, and they had been hoping that the friendship between them would eventually blossom to love. Now that it had, Vivian was often teased by her children, but she seemed to love it. Any mention of Terrence made her eyes light up.
“If you want help with any of these projects, just let me know.” Vivian tapped her finger on one of the pictures. “This idea of hanging twinkling lights around the bathroom mirror is just adorable. I bet you’d need someone’s help for that.”
Hazel grinned. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll definitely need some help with all these things, but I’ll ask Jacob to help me with some of them too. I don’t want to take up too much of your free time. I know you want to spend that with Terrence.”
Vivian waved her hand through the air. “Terrence can come with me to help with your house. We love doing projects together.”
Hazel chuckled. She had a feeling that there wasn’t anything her mother and Terrence didn’t like to do together. Since they’d started dating, they’d played tennis, gone kayaking, started a two-person book club, gone to see foreign movies at the movie theater, and experimented with recipes neither of them had ever tried before. She loved to see how much of an unexpectedly adventurous side her mother was able to bring out of the straightlaced, no-nonsense health inspector.
“Oh look!” Vivian said eagerly, looking toward the front doors of the pub. “It’s Sally.”
Sally was the owner of Ocean Breeze Café, and a long-time friend of Vivian’s. Hazel was always happy to see the older woman, since she was a beacon of fun and optimism. She hadn’t let her age stop her from wearing bright colors and whimsical hair pieces, and that morning Sally was wearing a sparklingpurple butterfly clip in her hair and her signature bubblegum pink lipstick.
“Hey, cuties!” Sally called out eagerly as Vivian waved her over. “You got any food here that I could eat?”
Hazel laughed. Sally was always trying to make everyone’s day better, and her sense of humor was well-exercised for that reason.
