A Cosmic Kind of Love(17)
Sea air filled my lungs as I pumped my body as hard as I could, sweat dripping off me.
Then, suddenly, I could hear her as I ran.
Hallie. Hallie Goodman.
I might have googled her.
The search didn’t bring up much. Just that she worked in Manhattan for Lia Zhang Events. There were a couple of articles on the company and the extravagant events they’d organized. If the photographs were anything to go by, Hallie and her colleagues were good at their jobs.
No wonder Darcy had hired her.
While it was clear from Hallie’s video letter—or perhaps I should call it a diary since she was certain that’s what she was using it as—that her life was kind of a mess, she was handling it with more grace than I think she knew. She was funny. I hadn’t laughed like that in a while. Though she really needed to stop being so sweet to people who were trying to take advantage of her.
As Bandit bounded ahead of me at the sight of my aunt’s house, Hallie’s eyes filled my mind. She had the most amazing eyes. They were big and adorable, and so expressive. And that cotton candy–pink hair was growing on me. Having assumed no one was going to see the video, she’d tied her hair up into a messy knot on top of her head, donned wire-rimmed oversized reading glasses, and wore an old sweater. There was a coffee spill on it. If she was anything like Darcy, she’d be mortified to know I’d seen her like that . . . but I thought she was cute.
She was messy but cute. And from what I could tell, her life was messy and not cute. Just like mine. Though my messy was an empty kind of messy, while hers was most definitely because she had too many things going on.
I’d replied to Kate to tell her to bounce Hallie’s email again but to let me know if she sent another.
Smirking to myself as I remembered the way she’d signed off the video, face-planted on the desk, waving at the screen, I jogged up the beach and opened the gate to Aunt Richelle’s backyard. Bandit had been waiting patiently for me to let him in, and he rushed up the lawn toward the house as if he hadn’t seen my aunt in years.
By the time I got inside, Aunt Richelle had rubbed the sand off the dog before allowing him in.
“Morning.” I leaned in to kiss her cheek as I passed. “Just going to take a quick shower.”
“I’ll make waffles!” she called after me.
“You spoil me!” I called back, and heard her answering chuckle. She needed someone to look after. It was in my aunt’s nature to look after people. She’d never left my mom’s side when she was sick. And I hated that Richelle was alone now, in this house.
But it was her choice, I reminded myself.
I swiped my cell off my bedside table where I’d left it and saw I had three missed calls from my father and a voice-mail message that was undoubtedly from him.
Gut churning, I threw the phone on the bed and hurried into the shower. Once washed and dressed, I returned to the kitchen to find warm waffles plated on the island. There was whipped cream, maple syrup, and a bowl of mixed berries beside it.
“I might just move in permanently,” I joked, salivating as I slipped onto the stool.
Aunt Richelle stood on the opposite side of the island, staring at me.
A little intensely.
I paused in my waffle onslaught. “Everything okay?”
She exhaled slowly and then walked across the kitchen to open a drawer. I studied her stiff demeanor as she removed what looked like a cream-colored card. “I should have given this to you last night, but I just wanted you to relax. But it’s yours, so you should have it.”
Curious, I reached for the card and saw the elaborate embossed detail on it.
The words We’re Engaged were scrawled in silver script on the front. A pearl with a loop over it acted as the clasp. Unlooping it, I opened the card.
You are cordially invited to attend an engagement party in honor of Darcy Hawthorne & Matthias Lemieux.
The date followed (in three weeks), along with the location and the RSVP email.
I should probably have felt more emotional impact about it than I did.
“I think she must have sent it here because she wasn’t sure you were back in Manhattan,” Aunt Richelle said. “What is she thinking, sending you an invitation? And who sends actual invitations anymore?” Her voice rose with her agitation. “I thought she was an environmentalist. Hasn’t she heard of an e-invite?”
I laughed at my aunt’s outrage. While she’d never come out and said it to my face, I’d always gotten the impression my aunt didn’t care for Darcy. It had surprised me because, while we were dating, I thought Darcy was a total catch. She was intelligent and strong-willed but compassionate too. Moreover, on a personal level we both knew what it was to feel like we were disappointing our successful families by taking a different path in life from the one they wanted us to take. We’d bonded over the conflict we’d both been through, we understood that we felt disconnected from people in our social circle, though for entirely different reasons, and she was far better at pretending to fit in than I was. There was comfort in our bond. For three years she’d been my sounding board and my friend as well as my lover. But with hindsight, I could see there were things that didn’t work. For a start, we were really bad at communicating with each other. She wasn’t always the first person I thought of when something happened that upset me or excited me, and I realized it was because Darcy didn’t really excite me. Not in the way I realized now she should have. Obviously, she realized that before I did. And I’d genuinely forgiven her and moved on.