Between Us Girls (30 page)

Sam blinked and sniffed discreetly.

And Jasmyn. On the floor, leaning against the couch near Liv, she seemed calmer than yesterday when they had cried. Later that afternoon they had gone for a run, but it hadn't—as she put it—cured her of the weepies. She'd spent the evening alone in her cottage, and Sam had not seen her on Sunday until she came over for the party. Evidently she had gotten through the crying period. Or, more likely, she held it all in as she had been doing that first day Sam met her.

Sam had hoped they would get a chance to talk. She wanted to tell her about the phone call with her mother and what she had learned about her grandmother, things too personal to bring up with her neighbors, who seemed in no hurry to leave.

It was odd how the women seemed so comfortable, so at home in her place. Chad, Keagan, Noah, Louis, and Beau had stopped by for pizza and a quick goodbye to Jasmyn. Chad had been his dramatic self, but that was Chad, waxing eloquent about his broken heart over her departure.

The ladies were a different story.

Sam said to no one in particular, “Is it my imagination, or did the dynamics change after the guys left?”

Piper snorted. “You think?”

The giggles started with Riley, setting off a ripple effect that went round the circle.

Coco's eyes opened and she smiled, her small, aged face suddenly animated. “But of course the dynamics changed. Men simply can't engage as we do. Between us girls, you know, we get down to business. We address what life is truly all about.”

The giggles erupted into bursts of laughter. Tears streamed down Inez's cheeks. Liv hooted. Jasmyn doubled over on the floor. Sam was surprised that the racket did not wake up Tasha.

Even Déja laughed long and hard. “ ‘What life is truly all about.' Absolutely. I am so happy that I now know, thanks to Piper, the correct way to apply nail polish and that ‘burnt sienna' is this fall's to-die-for color.”

Inez wiggled her fingers, the reddish-brown polish still drying.

Piper lifted her chin and struck a pose. “Don't forget dusky ocher is good too. And I'm serious. It will match your, ahem, style.”

Déja reached over to give her a high five.

Riley said, “But we did talk serious things too, like about Tasha's new class and how hard it is for her.”

Liv said, “How we'll all love on her extra and hope that will help ease her adjustments.”

Inez added, “And we talk how Louis is so grumpy with his walker.”

Sam said, “And we promised to encourage him to use it in the courtyard.”

Jasmyn said, “And, Sam, you told us about your project in the desert.”

Sam nodded. She had actually described her project, even the new ideas she had offered.

There had been other topics, deep-down, heart-tugging sorts of concerns that flowed between them.

The hardest was Jasmyn's departure and her future plans, of which she
had none. All she knew was that she had to go home to figure them out and come visit again as soon as possible.

The clock chimed its ten-thirty piece before they all meandered out to the courtyard to hug Jasmyn goodbye. Tears mixed with soft laughter. The hugs spread from one to another. Even Tasha woke up enough to join in. As usual she hugged everyone, including Sam, to whom she whispered, “Night, Sammi.”

There was not an opportunity for Sam to tell Jasmyn about her earlier phone call. Now, as she watched the women drift toward their own cottages, that conversation did not seem to matter much at all anymore.

What seemed to matter— No, not
seemed
. What in fact
did
matter was everything that had happened that evening in her cottage between the girls.

Fifty

Early Monday morning, after an obscenely short night—thanks to post-party hyper mental activity—Sam attempted three times to get out the door. First she forgot to put coffee in her travel mug, then she forgot the mug, then she forgot her briefcase.

The brain fog did not bode well for a productive workday.

“This is why we don't make friends, Sam,” she muttered to herself. But the party had been nice.

Except now her final goodbye to Jasmyn would have to be cut short. Which was probably for the best. Getting all emotional was way too exhausting.

She pulled the door shut and stepped into the courtyard shrouded in coastal mist.

Jasmyn waited under the jacaranda tree, her dimples lighting up her face. “Good morning, Sam!”

“You look way too perky for saying goodbye.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry. You can be as perky as you want.”

“It's not that I want it exactly.”

“You just are, naturally. Don't apologize for it.”

“I'm going to miss you, Sammi.”

She heaved a quiet sigh. They should have skipped this meeting altogether. The paper towel bawling session should have been their final hoo-ha.

“You're running late,” Jasmyn said. “Come on, I'll walk you to your
car.” She led the way toward the back gate. “Seriously, I am sorry for keeping you up so late last night. But I really, I mean really, really appreciated the party. Thank you.”

Sam decided not to tell her how many times she had already thanked her. “You're welcome.”
Again.

“I got the sense that you wanted to tell me something in private.”

Sam rolled her eyes. Liv's clone was alive and well. “I did. I was just going to mention that I talked to my mom yesterday.”

“Whoa. I thought you only did that on Christmas and Easter.”

Winter and spring
, Sam silently corrected. The holidays had nothing to do with her calls.

Jasmyn pulled open the tall privacy gate and they walked out into the alley. “This sounds significant. Can you give me the short version?”

“There's never a short version when it comes to my mom. Except that I survived the conversation.” She stopped beside her Jeep and reached into her jacket pocket for the keys. They weren't there. She shifted mug, handbag, and briefcase to her right arm and dug into the other pocket. She muttered a word that sweet, perky Jasmyn would never say, opened her purse with one hand, and continued the search. “I don't have my keys. I don't have my keys!”

“Well, we'd better go get them.”

They walked back to the gate.

“My mind should be in a drainage ditch behind a community center, not focused on getting out the door.”

“It was the party on a school night. Throw your next one on a Saturday.”

Next party.
Right.

They stopped in front of the gate. And then looked at each other.

Jasmyn patted the pockets of her sweatshirt and scrunched her nose. “Oops.”

Sam groaned and they headed down the alley toward the front gate. Jasmyn trotted to keep up with her long strides.

Sam slowed. “You're all set to go?”

“Yeah. I'm going to finish up some things in the office for Liv and then we plan to walk the pier. She wants to go the whole way, out and back. Keagan said he'd stand by with the guy who drives that little Gator out there for doing odd jobs. I used to have a Gator on the farm. One of those things I did not replace.”

In spite of herself, Sam smiled. “I bet Liv's ready to walk the whole way.”

“I do too. So why did you call your mom before Christmas?”

They rounded the next corner, their half circle to the front of the Casa almost complete.

Sam shrugged. “It's too complicated for my brain to put into words.”

“That's okay. You probably just needed a family touch.”

A family touch? Hardly. More like information. “I was wondering why my Swedish grandmother ended up on the rez.”

“Hannah Carlson. Did your mom know?”

Sam opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She felt on the verge of tears.

“Good or bad?”

Sam croaked, “Good. Apparently she helped take care of me when I was born.”

“Wow. That's beautiful, isn't it? And you never knew this before?”

Sam shook her head at Jasmyn's back as her friend punched in the code. They entered the courtyard and walked toward Sam's cottage. “No. Mom said she came from Illinois. No town name, though.”

“Hey, maybe we're related after all.”

“Sure. How big is the state?” Sam reached her front door, the yellow one. The goldenrod one. She thought about her keys on the other side of that door. They sat on the little table just inside. They were all on one ring: the Jeep key, the back gate key, the key to her office building, the key to her desk, the key to her locker at the gym, and the cottage door key.

She dropped her things, sank onto the yellow Adirondack chair, leaned over, and buried her face in her hands.
Forget on the verge
.

Jasmyn patted her shoulder. “I'll go in the office and get the extra key. You want to skip work and walk the pier with us?”

Sam burst into tears.

Fifty-One

Jasmyn rested her head on the back of the passenger seat in Liv's minivan, grateful for once for Keagan's dead silence. She shut her eyes to shut out the freeway traffic, shut out Liv's tearful goodbye, and shut out Sam's surprising meltdown.

Liv had made the long pier walk, her arm linked through Jasmyn's for much of the way, more for sweet contact than support. She was a strong woman, physically and otherwise.

“Jasmyn, dear,” she had said in her low, confident tone, “I truly believe you will be back here to live someday. I only wish it were today.”

Jasmyn listened politely, weary of the question of her future. She had a plane ticket. She would go home because it was her home, she would work because she needed to work, she would pick up where she had left off, perhaps with the in-your-face tornado memory by now a thing of the past.

She would figure out what to do with Danno's offer or with new owners. She would vacation regularly in Seaside Village.

Liv had said, “From almost the very moment we met, I knew the cottage was for you and not just temporarily. It sounds crazy, but God put that thought in my heart. I've heard wrong at times, and I wonder now if I have because why would you be leaving…”

At that point Liv had been unable to hold the blubbering at bay. At least they had reached the Casa and she was able to rest on her own couch instead of on a bench on the pier, waiting for Keagan to come to the rescue with that guy's cart.

Vacationing in Seaside Village was not going to work.

Vacationing in Seaside Village was not going to work.

The thought struck Jasmyn now like a sudden onset of stomach flu. What she had experienced these past eight weeks was a mere blip in her life. So many forces had come together to create it, from tornado to car theft to Casa residents and where they were in their lives at that point in time. How could that be repeated?

Things like Sam's success at work and her slow warming to others and Beau's flirting. Like Tasha starting a new school year and telling Jasmyn about it almost daily. Like Piper's quiet example of moving through each day after a great loss. Like Coco's stories that would soon fade away because the woman was ancient already.

Like meeting Nova in the desert mission church. Like Jasmyn herself taking baby steps in prayer and then in sensing the presence of what Liv called Other, with a capital
O
.

“Jasmyn?” Keagan said. “Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes and sat up straighter. “Probably not.”

“Probably not.” He threw her his quarter smile. “Nope. Probably not.”

She took comfort in his words. In him.

The feather in her throat had begun its tickle a short while ago when he had come to carry her luggage out to the van. It continued through the last goodbyes to Liv and Inez, who had walked with her to the alley. It continued while her eyes were shut.

She reminded herself that, as Quinn had said, it was natural to be attracted to the guy. He made her feel safe. He was single. He had nice eyes. Gorgeous eyes, actually. She'd have to tell Quinn about them.

At the airport, Keagan pulled behind a shuttle van and parked at the curb. “Are you sure you don't want me to come inside?”

She shook her head and they got out. He unloaded her bags, the purple one and the beach bag carry-on, and set them on the sidewalk.

The next moment passed quickly. She had been unable to imagine a goodbye with Keagan.

The night before, she had exchanged hugs with everyone except him. After weeks of living at the Casa, she easily embraced the women, cuddled with Tasha, kissed Coco's downy cheek, stepped into brief hugs with Louis, Noah, and Beau, and laughed in Chad's bear hug. Keagan slipped away when she wasn't looking. But she would be seeing him the next day.