I didn’t ask.
Then she was hugging me—tight, and with no hesitation, the way you’d hug a dear friend, even though we’d never met before.
I wasn’t a fan of hugging, but I held still and endured it, anyway.
She let go but kept smiling at me. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a hugger.”
“You’re good at it,” I said. “I can see why.”
Then she hugged me again.
I didn’t protest—even mentally. Who could resist all that enthusiasm and warmth? Plus I loved her style. She had a polka-dot bandana and blouse with a Peter Pan collar. Big, bangly bracelets, too.
She was, in a word, adorable.
“I love your shirt,” I said.
Her smile got bigger. “I made it,” she said.
“You made it?” I said. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a piece of homemade clothing.
“She’s very crafty,” Diana said from the table.
Josie was still standing very close to me. On impulse she grabbed my hands and squeezed them. “I’m just so happy to meet you,” she said.
It was off-putting in a way. Growing up with my dad, who was not exactly a talker, life was pretty quiet. We each spoke mostly when spoken to, in a kind of negative feedback loop. He was not a person you’d describe as effusive, unless he was watching sports. In everyday conversation? A minimalist, for sure.
Maybe I’d absorbed too much of his reserve, without ever intending to.
But I already liked Josie.
“Josie’s heard a lot about you,” Diana said, taking a sip of her coffee.
I looked at Josie. “That’s worrying.”
“We’re in crochet club together,” Diana said, “so, as you can imagine, we chat a lot.”
Nope. I could not imagine a crochet club.
“We’re actually the only two people in the crochet club,” Josie added.
“Co-founders and co-presidents,” Diana chimed in.
“Unless you’d like to join,” Josie offered.
“No, thanks,” I said.
Diana went on. “I’ve told her about the time you yanked out your tooth on the playground at school and tried to sell it to another kid in your class.”
Oh God. I’d forgotten that.
“So resourceful,” Josie said.
“And the time you got lost at the zoo and we found you, an hour later, all the way on the other side, at the lion cages. Perfectly happy. No sense at all that we’d shut down the entire zoo to look for you.”
I’d forgotten that, too.
“Adventurous,” Josie added.
