Page 82 of Finally Mine
It had been a complicated twenty-four hours.
“Rumor has it, the town council wants to ask you to organize the Christmas festival,” Claire pressed.
She gave a non-committal, “Hmm.” They already had that morning. Gloria had thought about the long hours, the endless meetings, the schmoozing of local business owners for sponsorships…and gave an emphatic yes.
At least Mrs. Diller’s outburst hadn’t completely ruined everything she’d worked toward, she thought. With care, she opened each of the four delivery boxes and smoothed back the tissue paper, double checking the contents against the orders. Satisfied everything was perfect, Gloria stuck the peel-off delivery tags on each box.
Claire chattered on about how much Harper and the kids had enjoyed the fireworks and the festival while Gloria busied herself with the next item on her to do list: snipping the stems of freesia to encourage the tight buds to open for their weekend centerpiece order.
“So, Aldo…” Claire let his name hang in the air between them.
Gloria dunked the freesia into a plastic vase where they would stay until the blooms were ready for their arrangement. “What about him?” she asked innocently. She knew exactly what Claire was asking but decided it would be fun to make her work a little harder for the information.
“You left the festival with him last night, and he came to work with you this morning.”
“Are you snooping on me, Claire?” Gloria asked, more amused than appalled.
“I happened to be perusing this morning’s sales receipts and saw his name on the first one,” Claire said, a picture of innocence.
“Hmm,” Gloria said.
Claire threw herself down onto a stool dramatically. “You’re killing me here. I feel like I’m talking to one of my kids when they were teenagers!”
A reluctant laugh escaped from Gloria. “We’re giving the dating thing a try,” she admitted. “It’s very new—as in not even twelve hours old—and I have no idea what I’m doing. Or how I’m going to screw it up before he does.”
Claire clutched her hands to her heart. “I’m so proud of him and you. The idea of you two together makes me want to sprout wings.”
Gloria laughed. “We haven’t been on an official date yet,” she said, managing expectations like it was her job.
“You forget. I have almost thirty-five years of marriage backing me. I know a real relationship when I see it.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little soon? I mean, I just got out of a train wreck, and Aldo’s still healing.” Didn’t she need more time to be better before she added someone else into the mix? Didn’t she owe it to him to be the best she could be?
“Maybe you’re meant to heal together?” Claire offered. “Maybe you can do a world of good for each other, and now is the perfect time?”
“I don’t know,” Gloria said honestly. She wasn’t sure she was ready to think about that. She had enough trouble wrapping her head around whether or not she should call Aldo Moretta, high school football star and hometown hero, her boyfriend. She wondered what Aldo would think about the appointment she’d scheduled for herself tonight. The appointment that she was equally nervous and Christmas-morning excited for.
“Don’t let one bitter apple make you doubt yourself,” Claire advised.
“Heard about that, too, did you?”
Claire gave a dainty shrug. “I have my sources.”
“What’s this one?” Gloria asked, picking up an order printout next to the register. “It says ‘make it pretty.’”
“Oh, that was a phone order,” Claire said, waving her hand. “They gave us an unlimited budget and said to make it beautiful. Why don’t you work on that while I prep the foam and vases for the freesia?”
“Me?” Gloria blinked. She’d put together the occasional bouquet, small arrangements here and there like Aldo’s order this morning for Jamilah. But she’d never had creative free rein. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Claire lifted her eyebrows. “Make something you’d love. Don’t overthink it.”
Something she would love? What if what she loved no one else would? What if she had horrible taste in floral arrangements?
“I can hear you overthinking it from here,” Claire called from the back room.
“Make something I’d love,” Gloria muttered under her breath. She could do this. And if she screwed it all up, Claire would fix it. Or Claire would be too worried about hurting her feelings and let Gloria send out a terrible arrangement that someone would hate.
“Omg, when’s the last time someone complained about getting flowers?” she asked herself. She was overthinking and over-panicking.
