“I think it’s lovely to be optimistic. Optimists are like Christmas lights. They brighten everything around them. Are you really a twin? That’s very cool.”
Today’s challenge had been Don’t be reserved with strangers. She was fine when she got to know someone, but often she didn’t even make it past those first excruciatingly awkward stages. She was determined to change that.
Given that she and Natalie had met precisely thirty minutes earlier when she’d served her a delicious-looking shrimp salad, she was satisfied she’d made at least some progress. She hadn’t clammed up or responded in monosyllables as she frequently did with people she didn’t know. Most important of all she hadn’t stammered, which she took as evidence that she’d finally learned to control the speech fluency issues that had blighted her life until her twenties. It had been years now since she’d stumbled her way through a sentence and even stressful situations didn’t seem to trigger it, so there was no excuse for being so cautious with strangers.
All in all, a good result. And part of that was down to the support of her sister.
“It is cool being a twin. Very cool.”
Nat gave a wistful sigh. “She’s your best friend, right? You share everything? Confidences. Shoes…”
“Most things.” The truth was that, until recently, she’d been the one to do most of the sharing. Fliss found it hard to open up, even to Harriet, but lately she’d been trying hard to change.
And Harriet was trying to change too. She’d told her twin she didn’t need protecting, and now she had to prove it to herself.
Being a twin had many advantages, but one of the disadvantages was that it made you lazy. Or maybe complacent would be a better word. She’d never had to worry too much about navigating the stormy waters of the friendship pool because her best friend had always been right there by her side. Whatever life had thrown at them, and it had thrown plenty, she and Fliss had been a unit. Other people had good friendships but nothing, nothing, came close to the wonder of having a twin.
When it came to sisters, she’d won the lottery.
Nat tucked Harriet’s purse under her arm. “So you share an apartment?”
“We did. Not anymore.” Harriet wondered how it was some people could talk and talk without stopping. How long before the man sitting inside the restaurant came looking for her? “She’s living in the Hamptons now.” Not a million miles away, but it might as well have been a million miles. “She fell in love.”
“Great for her I guess, but you must miss her like crazy.”
That was an understatement.
The impact on Harriet had been huge, and her emotions were conflicted. She was thrilled to see her twin so happy but, for the first time in her life, she was now living alone. Waking up alone. Doing everything alone.
At first it had felt strange and a little scary, like the first time you rode a bike without training wheels. It also made her feel a little vulnerable, like going out for a walk in a blizzard and realizing you’d left your coat behind.
But this was now the reality of her life.
She woke in the mornings to silence instead of Fliss’s off-key singing. She missed her sister’s energy, her fierce loyalty, her dependability. She even missed tripping over her shoes, which had been habitually strewn across the floor.
Most of all she missed the easy camaraderie of being with someone who knew you. Someone you trusted implicitly.
A lump formed in her throat. “I should go before he comes looking for me. I cannot believe I’m climbing out of a window to get away from a man I only met thirty minutes ago. This is not the kind of thing I do.”
Neither was online dating, which was why she’d forced herself to try it.
This was her third date, and the other two had been almost as bad.
The first man had reminded her of her father. He’d been loud, opinionated and in love with the sound of his own voice. Overwhelmed, Harriet had retreated into herself, but in this instance it hadn’t mattered because it had been clear he had no interest in her opinions. The second man had taken her to an expensive restaurant and then disappeared after dessert, leaving her with a check big enough to ensure she would always remember him, and as for the third—well, he was currently sitting at the table in the window waiting for her to return from the bathroom so they could fall in love and live happily ever after. And in his case “ever after” wasn’t likely to be long because despite his claim that he was in his prime, it was clear he was already long past retirement age.
She would have called time on the date and walked out of the front door if she hadn’t had a feeling he would follow her. Something about him made her feel uneasy. And anyway, climbing out of the window of a ladies’ room was definitely something she would never do.
In terms of Challenge Harriet, it had been a successful evening.
In terms of romance, not so much.
Right now, dying surrounded by dogs and cats was looking like the better option.
“Go.” Nat opened the window wider and her expression brightened. “It’s snowing! We’re going to have a white Christmas.”
Snowing?
Harriet stared at the lazy swirl of snowflakes. “It’s not Christmas for another month.”
“But it’s going to be a white Christmas, I feel it. There is nowhere more magical than New York in the snow. I love the holidays, don’t you?”
Harriet opened her mouth and closed it again. Normally her answer would have been yes. She adored the holidays and the emphasis on family, even if hers was restricted to siblings. But this year she’d decided she was going to spend Christmas without them. And that was going to be the biggest challenge of all. She had the best part of a month of practice to build up to the big one.
“I really should be going.”
“You should. I don’t want your body to be discovered frozen to the sidewalk. Go. And don’t fall in the Dumpster.”
“Falling into the Dumpster would be a step up from everything else that has happened this evening.” Harriet glanced down. It wasn’t far and anyway, how much further could she fall? She felt as if she’d already hit rock bottom. “Maybe I should go back and explain that he wasn’t what I was expecting. Then I could walk out the front door and not risk walking home with a twisted ankle and food wrappers stuck to my new coat.”
“No.” Nat shook her head. “Don’t even think about it. The guy is creepy. I’ve told you, you’re the third woman he’s brought here this week. And there’s something not quite right about the way he looked at you. As if you were going to be dessert.”
She’d thought the same thing.
Her instincts had been shrieking at her, but part of Challenge Harriet was learning to ignore her instincts.
“It seems rude.”
“This is New York. You have to be street-smart. I’m going
