“Jere’s stuck in city traffic,” she said, blowing her hair out of her face. “I told him to leave earlier. I really needed his help today.”
“What did you need him to do?”
“We were gonna go to Michaels. You know, that craft store?”
Drily, I said, “I can’t say I’ve ever been to a Michaels before.” I hesitated, then added, “But if you want, I’ll go with you.”
“Really? Because I’m picking up some heavy stuff today. The store’s all the way over in Plymouth, though.”
“Sure, no problem,” I said, feeling inexplicably gratified to be lifting heavy stuff.
We took her car because it was bigger. She drove. I’d only ever ridden with her a few times. This side of her was new to me. Assured, confident. She drove fast, but she was still in control. I liked it. I found myself sneaking peeks at her, and I had to force myself to cool it.
“You’re not a bad driver,” I said.
She grinned. “Jeremiah taught me well.”
That’s right. He taught her how to drive. “So what else about you has changed?”
“Hey, I was never not a good driver.”
I snorted, then looked out the window. “I think Steve would disagree.”
“He’ll never let me live down what I did to his precious baby.” She shifted gears as we came to a stoplight. “So what else?”
“You wear heels now. At the garden ceremony, you had on high heels.”
There was a minute hesitation before she said, “Yeah, sometimes. I still trip in them, though.” Ruefully she added, “I’m like a real lady now.”
I reached out to touch her hand, but at the last second I pointed instead. “You still bite your nails.”
She curled her fingers around the steering wheel. With a little smile, she said, “You don’t miss a thing.”
“Okay, so, what are we picking up here? Flower holders?”
Belly laughed. “Yeah. Flower holders. In other words, vases.” She grabbed a cart, and I took it from her and pushed it in front of us. “I think we decided on hurricane vases.”
“What’s a hurricane vase? And how the hell does Jere know what one is?”
“I didn’t mean Jere and I decided, I meant me and Taylor.” She grabbed the cart and walked ahead of me. I followed her to aisle twelve.
“See?” Belly held up a fat glass vase.
I crossed my arms. “Very nice,” I said in a bored voice.
She put down the vase and picked up a skinnier one, and she didn’t look at me as she said, “I’m sorry you’re the one stuck doing this with me. I know it’s lame.”
“It’s not—that lame,” I said. I started grabbing vases off the shelf. “How many do we need?”
“Wait! Should we get the big ones or the medium ones? I’m thinking maybe the medium ones,” she said, lifting one up and checking the price tag. “Yeah, definitely the medium ones. I only see a few left. Can you go ask somebody who works here?”
“The big ones,” I said, because I’d already stacked four of the big ones in the cart. “The big ones are muchnicer. You can fit more flowers or sand or whatever.”
Belly narrowed her eyes. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to go find somebody.”
“Okay, yeah, but seriously, I think the big ones are nicer.”
She shrugged and put another big vase in the cart. “I guess we could just have one big vase on each table instead of two medium-size ones.”
