Page 103 of Brewbies
Gemma and Cady exchanged an oddly pleased look.
“Of course,” Cady said. “I just got some got some brand-new lavender soaps from Secret Garden. You should definitely try them.”
“Oh! And the vanilla-blueberry sandalwood,” Gemma added. “If my mom had had that soap growing up, my language would be even worse.”
“There’s an alarming thought,” Cady said, elbowing her friend.
“I’ll just have to wash one hand with each,” Darby said, wanting to throw them a bone to soften the sting of her departure, even one as ridiculous as this.
In the small, moody, maximalist, subway-tiled and sumptuously wallpapered bathroom, Darby quickly set an alarm on her phone using her very recognizable ringtone as the notification sound. She then washed her hands using the aforementioned soaps and returned to the foyer.
Gemma and Cady pasted twin overzealous smiles on their faces as she approached, causing Darby’s antenna to twitch. She made a show of returning to the process of opening her gifts. Exactly three minutes later, her phone began to tinkle out “The Java Jive.”
“I love coffee, I love tea.”
I love…Ethan Townsend.
No the fuck you don’t,Darby warned her Judas of a brain. She couldn’t afford to give that line of logic even one inch of space.
She quickly opened her handbag and glanced down in it, hoping the expression of dismay was more convincing than Gemma and Cady’s respective performances.
“Oh, shoot,” she said. “That’s Mr. Whatshissack from the Mountain Thunder Coffee Farm. I’m going to have to take this on road.”
Gemma and Cady finally seemed to catch on to her haste.
Darby held out her arms, and they both squished in for a quick group hug before helping to restuff the gift bag while Darby faked the beginning of a phone call. Phone sandwiched between her chin and shoulder, she stepped out into the spring air and waved before climbing up into the camper and closing the door. She made sure she was down the block before transferring it to the apparatus mounted on the dash.
“Thank God,” she said with a sigh when she finally reached the roundabout at the end of Water Street.
Taking a long, slow breath, she indulged in a long, slow look at the quaint assembly of shops in the rearview mirror.
“This is for the best,” she said, her eyes misting over as she watched Nevermore’s gothic shingle swing in a gust of air off the water.
Darby let her foot off the brake and turned into the roundabout.
And nearly ran over Caryn Townsend.
The former first lady had materialized out of nowhere, and was now waving to Darby and miming rolling down her window.
“Son of a bitch,” Darby muttered without moving her lips and teeth.
Still.
She couldn’t ruin her son’s lifeandleave without so much as a goodbye.
With effort that made her sorely regret not getting the upgraded power windows, Darby pulled back out of the roundabout and cranked the old metal handle to roll down the foggy sheet of glass.
“Hello there,” Caryn said brightly. “I was hoping I would see you before you departed.”
Tempted to point out that Caryn could have seen her any time in the two weeks leading up to her imminent departure right this fucking second, Darby bit her tongue. “I guess you’re in luck,” she said. “I’m just on my way out of town right now. In fact—”
“I just wanted to thank you.” Caryn’s lacquered fingernails folded over the window.
“For what?”
“I’m… That is, my son and I—”
“You really don’t have to tell me,” Darby said. “I’m so glad you two have been able to patch things up.”
