The Bookish Life of Nina Hill(32)

“Did you have a fancy wedding?”

There was a tiny pause, then Lili nodded. “Pretty fancy.”

“My dad is dead,” piped up Clare.

“Oh,” said Nina. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“No problem,” said the child. “I don’t think it matters anymore.”

“It’s always going to matter, honey, but it’s been a long time.” Lili didn’t look up from her painting, but Nina could hear wistfulness in her voice.

“Sam in my class has no dad, either.” Clare was clearly pursuing this topic.

Lili raised her eyebrows at her daughter. “Sam has two moms.”

“Bethany has no dad.”

“She does; her parents aren’t together anymore, but she still has a dad. Totally different. Divorce is not the same as someone dying, honey.”

“Why not? They’re still gone.” Nina realized Clare must have been very young when her dad died and didn’t have memories of him. She hoped Lili wasn’t finding this difficult to talk about. She busied herself with her ribbons.

“Not really. Even if they aren’t very nice, they’re still around. Once someone has died, that’s it. All gone.”

There was a pause while Clare considered this. Then, “Mom has a new boyfriend now, anyway. Edward. He’s even taller than Richard, and even nicer. He brought me a tiny house for the garden. Do you want to see?”

“When we’re done, sure.” Nina grinned at Clare. “You seem very interested in how tall people are.” Nina was happy to change the subject.

Clare looked at her in surprise. “Of course. I’m forty-three inches tall.”

Then she suddenly got up and walked out of the room. “I’m going to go and write a book now,” she said. “Bye, Nina. See you at the wedding.”

With a thump, Frank the dog jumped off the sofa where he had been sleeping and lazily followed Clare. Perhaps he was going to give notes.

An hour later they were done. Lili had taken Nina’s suggestion and made half a dozen that said Favored Guest, in case her sister invited a few more guests at the last minute and still had twenty packets in her basket.

“The wedding is a week from Saturday, so she’s still got time to add people, and she can’t be trusted.” Lili was leaning back against the sofa, holding a glass of wine. Nina had one, too, and they were feeling pretty full of themselves. The finished seed packets looked beautiful, a rainbow of ribbons and flowers.

“Don’t they need you to lock numbers at some point?”

“We overestimated, in case.”

“What else are you doing for the wedding? Are there center-pieces?”

Lili shook her head. “No, it’s a picnic wedding.”

Nina raised her eyebrows. “What if it rains?”

Lili turned up her hands, “We can go inside the conservatory, I guess, where the ceremony is happening, but it’s the end of May in Los Angeles. The Internet says the chance of rain is about one percent, and Rachel was happy with those odds. She said she wanted people to sprawl at her wedding, and sprawl they will.”

“How will it work?” Nina enjoyed the concept of weddings, although she was getting seriously sick of going to other people’s.

Lili stretched. “We rented a load of big rugs, all different kinds, from a prop house, and we’re going to lay them out on the grass and surround them with the few hundred assorted pillows we also rented.” She looked at Nina. “You really are interested in organization.”

Nina shrugged. “I like pinning things down. I like to know in advance; I like to prepare.”

Lili looked at the younger woman, and her smile was warm. “You know, you can’t always be ready. Life tends toward chaos, sadly. I thought I had my life all planned out nicely, and then my husband died in a car accident and everything changed completely. It’s all very well to have a plan—it’s a good idea—but you have to be able to walk away from it if you need to.”

“And you walked away from yours?”

Lili finished her wine. “I’m not sure ‘walk’ is the right verb, but I left it behind. That version of it, anyway. More wine?”

She got up and went into the kitchen.

When she came back, she was clearly ready to change the subject.

“So, why does Annabel hold such a poor opinion of your flirting?” She handed Nina her refilled wineglass and sat back down on the floor.

Nina blushed. “She and the other girls saw a friend of mine come to the store and decided we were flirting.”

“You weren’t?”

Nina sighed. “Not successfully.”

“But this is someone you like?”

“I don’t know him at all.” Nina paused. “But yes, he’s attractive. I’m not sure he’s very smart; he seems to know a lot about sports but nothing about books.”

Lili frowned. “And that matters? Is book smart the only smart that counts?”

Nina shrugged. “To me, I guess, which I realize isn’t very open-minded. I love books; they’re my job, my main interest . . . I’m not very sporty.”

Lili looked skeptical. “So is the issue that he’s not bookish, or that you’re not sporty? Maybe there’s something you’re both interested in. Movies? Animals? Entomology?”