“Hey, busy’s good. Little girls need to stay busy, right?”
“Sure,” she said, but again with a tone that he couldn’t quite call agreement. “There’s happy, too, you know.”
Happy? Come on, happy wasn’t really on the table for him at the moment. And he certainly wasn’t interested in discussing happiness or its lack in his life with this pushy florist he’d known for fifteen minutes. “Yeah, not so much, lately, if you know what I mean.” She did know what he meant, right? She’d been through it.
“So there’s nothing that makes you happy?”
My wife is dead. What do you think? “Carly.” When she leveled a look at him, he added, “Not much else.” Granted, it was a pouty answer, but Bruce wasn’t volunteering to become anyone’s healing project, not on vacation, or ever.
“Okay,” she said slowly in a “so that’s how you want to play it” tone. “What makes Carly happy?”
“Unicorns.”
Bruce was just the tiniest bit pleased to have surprised her with the answer. “Unicorns?” she asked.
“Long story I’m not going to tell you.”
“Okay,” she replied in the same tone as before. “Unicorns and...?” She whirled her hand, as if cuing a list from him.
“Well, based on our day so far, not hikes or wildlife or waterfalls or sledding or anything outdoors.” In fact, she’d shut down nearly every suggestion he’d had since they arrived. Except for going for ice cream, and look where that had gotten him.
“So what does Carly like?”
She enunciated the words as if he hadn’t heard the question the first time. His urge to up and leave was squelched only by the gleeful conversation Carly was having over at the counter with Lulu. He couldn’t afford to annoy Lulu’s mom if Carly was having so much fun with her daughter, could he? “Pink,” he replied, tamping down his irritation. “Spumoni ice cream. Stickers and coloring books. Kittens. Artsy stuff like beads and those rubber loopy bracelet things.”
Kelly actually nodded after each of those, so maybe Carly’s favorite things were normal despite how foreign girlie arts and crafts felt to him. “And hopscotch,” he went on. It was a wonder he hadn’t listed hopscotch first—the game had saved his life so many dreary afternoons. It was mindless motion. You didn’t have to think or talk playing hopscotch. Bruce had a roll of painter’s tape in his suitcase just so they could put a hopscotch outline on their hotel room carpet if they felt like it.
“Mom?” Kelly’s daughter called from the counter.
“Yes, honey?”
“Can Carly come over and play tomorrow after church?”
Kelly actually smiled as if she’d seen that coming a mile off when it had never occurred to him until this moment that Carly could have playdates while on vacation. “Hey, Lulu,” Kelly said, raising one knowing eyebrow to him, “you know how to play hopscotch, don’t you?”
Lulu spun around on the stool and rolled her eyes. “Of course. Everybody knows how to play hopscotch.”
“I love hopscotch,” Carly gushed. He was cornered now, and he could tell Kelly knew it.
“Pleeeeaaassseee?” both girls pleaded in a singsong chorus Bruce knew wouldn’t let up until he agreed.
“I’d never hear the end of it if I said no,” he admitted. “So sure, why not?”
“Hey, can Carly and her dad come to church with us? We’re frosting Valentine’s cookies at activity time. Miss Yvonne told me.”
“Sometimes being friends with the town baker gets you inside information,” Kelly remarked with a grin. “Are you and Carly a churchgoing family?”
Though he found the question a bit intrusive, Bruce appreciated that she referred to Carly and him as a family. They still were, if barely, but he’d noticed that people stopped using the noun once Sandy had passed, and that always bugged him. “We used to be.”
She didn’t reply, but gave him the politely disappointed look he’d gotten from far too many members of the church he and Sandy used to attend. This woman was clearly pushy about more than just flowers.
“Do you always evangelize people who’ve been in town less than half a day?” It came out sharper than it ought to have, but making peace with the God who’d let Sandy die was a mighty sore subject. People back in Kinston were so cloying about the way they tried to coax him back to church. Rather than supportive, Bruce found the sad sympathy and the trite assurances that Sandy was in “a better place” to be suffocating.
“Hey,” she countered, “my daughter’s just inviting your daughter to something she thinks is fun. No agenda, no pressure. Just cookies.”
Bruce put a hand up. “I admit, I’m a bit...defensive on the subject.”
She cracked a smile and raised an eyebrow. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
He dug into his sundae for a moment, not sure how to smooth over the moment or even sure he wanted to.
“I get it,” she said after a moment. “Everyone’s got an opinion on how you should behave, how you should heal, all that. Most people are trying to be helpful, but not always succeeding.”
“No, not always.” Hardly ever.
Kelly finished her milkshake with a long slurp. “Well, the offer stands. Church is at ten, just down that way.” She pointed down the street, and he could see a quaint white steeple sticking up from a line of trees. “Hopscotch begins at...let’s say one o’clock. Meet us at the flower shop just next door and we’ll walk to my house.” She looked up at the sky. “Tina and Darren wanted snow for the wedding. I think they’re going to get some.”
Bruce had seen the forecast for the coming weekend. “Maybe more than some, huh?”
Kelly’s face dropped. “Let’s hope not. Three or four inches of pretty fluffy snow is great—this place looks like a wonderland in a fresh snowfall. But a big storm...” She sighed, peering at the sky again. “Right now they’re saying the storm will stay west of us. But I expect I don’t need to tell a pilot that a million things could happen between now and Thursday when everyone’s arriving.” She stood and collected her bag. “You may be grateful you came in so early.”
“Surely you all are used to substantial snowfalls. I mean, there’s a ski resort two towns over.” It shouldn’t be like his friends in Atlanta who could be blindsided by a snowstorm because they lacked the experience and equipment to deal with the snow-slicked roads and poor visibility.
“We know what to do with snow,” she defended. “But when you add planes, deliveries, rental cars, travelers and nervous brides into the mix, you can imagine it gets a bit trickier. Your friend’s happiness aside, the valley’s got a lot riding on this wedding. I’d rather not have to pull it off in crisis-management mode.”
Tina had said something about this place being relatively new at the wedding thing,
