Page 60 of Kiss the Girl
We took a seat beside her parents on one of the sofas and settled in for drinks and conversation as everyone began to catch up on town business, their polite way to describe gossiping.
Mostly, the conversation flowed among Miss Lily, the Greenes, the Winters, and the Boones. After a few minutes, I asked Grace in a low voice, “Do you feel like the rest of us should be sitting at the kids’ table right now?”
She smiled. “Maybe a little.”
Brooke and Ian didn’t seem to mind, speaking to each other in quiet tones, their faces glowing, even Ian’s. I wasn’t sure they even noticed the rest of us were there.
“They are one hair shy of being nauseating,” Grace said. “I shouldn’t like it, but it’s pretty cute.”
Paige and Landon had fallen into conversation, Landon talking with his hands, Paige listening intently and asking questions.
For a minute, a pang rippled through my chest as I felt the absence of my parents. Our Thanksgivings had always been small and simple, nothing as fancy as this one in Miss Lily’s house already felt. But there had been something about coming together around our kitchen table, dressed in church clothes, to eat a meal in our plain kitchen that had elevated Thanksgiving every year anyway.
“You okay?” Grace asked, looking up at me.
“Yeah, great.”
“You seem far away.”
I gave a small shake of my head. “Just remembering some old Thanksgivings.”
She slipped her hand into mine and looked up at me, her eyes soft. “Are they making you sad?”
“Yes and no,” I said. “I’m happy to be here, but I’m missing the small dinners we used to do with our family.”
“I’m sorry.” She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “Can I do anything?”
“Normally, I try to distract myself but today, I don’t want to. I want to feel it. Is that weird?”
She smiled. “No. I get it. Do you think it would help to go walk through Miss Lily’s gardens while there’s still some daylight? It’ll be quiet out there.”
I glanced at the pockets of people around us, the parents, Miss Lily’s canasta friends, her pastor. I wasn’t ready to merge into the stream of easy conversation and leave my past Thanksgiving memories behind. Soon, but not yet. For the moment, I wanted to wallow.
“That sounds good.”
“Go ahead,” she said, letting go of my hand. “I’ll run interference with Miss Lily.”
I took her hand back. “I want you to come with me.”
Her mouth parted the tiniest bit, like she’d given a gasp of surprise so soft I couldn’t hear it. But she nodded and stood, turning toward Miss Lily.
“Miss Lily, would it be all right with you if Noah and I walk around the grounds? We want to sneak a peek at your garden before it gets dark.”
“Of course, honey,” Miss Lily said. “Go right ahead. I’ll send one of the boys to get you when it’s time to eat.”
We thanked her, and I followed Grace through the French doors, stepping out onto the flagstone terrace and into the chill of the late November as dusk began to mute the early sunset. She let me lead, and I drifted east in the direction of Brooke’s house, Grace staying close beside me. That led us to the garden that Brooke and Miss Lily worked together.
Two rows of dried-up cornstalks stood next to a couple of rows of empty bean stakes. But next to them, the whole left side of the garden was full of squash vines, their big, green leaves almost hiding the soil completely.
“Five bucks if you can guess what one of our sides will be tonight,” Grace teased.
“I’d love some squash,” I said as I almost tripped over one. “Too bad it’s so hard to find.”
“Brooke sure loves working out here,” she said.
“The kids love the community garden at school too. They had to do a lottery system to see who would get to take stuff home from the harvest on Friday. Luckily, there was a lot of squash, and a lot of winners.”
We fell into quiet and kept walking, drifting around the front of the house with its manicured shrubs to the other side where a path wound toward the bridal garden.
