“It’s amazing how perspective can change when you try looking at a situation from the other person’s shoes. In Charlotte’s case, her size-seven daffodil-suede Milano pumps.”
“Is there a reconciliation on the near horizon?” Boone threw his arm out in front of me when I went to step into the next crosswalk, just to make sure the car that had stopped to wait for us was really stopped and waiting.
“I launched a couple of juicy berries at her fiancé’s face at breakfast in front of a bunch of close friends and family. Right before ripping open the back of the bridesmaid dress I’d been suctioned inside of for close to twenty-four hours.” I winced as I replayed the more stand-out scenes from the morning. “I think distant horizon is more likely.”
Boone waved at the car once we’d made it through the crosswalk. “Well, good for you. I might never be convinced that Charlotte isn’t the seed of Satan, but I’m not surprised you see things differently.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’ve always had a way of seeing the best in people. That’s just what makes you so great, Clara Abbott.”
A laugh spilled out of my mouth. “Oh yeah. I’m totally awesome.”
I hadn’t realized we’d reached the edge of the commercial part of the street and were about to head into a residential area until Boone stopped and looked around. I thought we were both realizing where we were for the first time since we’d started walking.
“Do you want to just keep going until we hit Georgia, or did you have something else in mind?” he asked, sounding like he was up for either.
“I want to see the kids’ center you started,” I said, checking his face to gauge his reaction. I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about discussing, let alone seeing, his hard work gone away. “If that’s okay with you.”
His brows pinched together as he studied me. “Why would you want to see that?”
“Because I think I need a reminder that there are still good people doing good things.”
“You mean you need a reminder of what happens when people of questionably good origin attempt to do something good and all of it winds up going belly up?”
I backed up down the sidewalk we’d just ventured down, heading toward the bridal shop where my dad’s old Chrysler was parked. I didn’t know where Boone had opened up his place, but I guessed it wasn’t within walking distance. The area we were in was so upper-class uppity, they would have staged a revolt had anyone suggested someone had applied to open a kids’ center in the area.
“Come on, I want to see what you’ve been up to since graduating high school.”
“Since narrowly graduating high school.” He sighed as I continued down the sidewalk. After another moment, he followed me.
“Is that a yes?”
“I like how you ask that like there’s a hint of me still having a choice.” He gave me a look before ringing an arm around the back of my neck and pulling me along. “You were always good at that.”
I flashed my hands up at my sides. “It’s the Abbott in me.”
I smiled at him as we continued down the sidewalk. It might not have hit him the way it was hitting me, but Boone and I had walked these streets what felt like hundreds of times just the way we were now: side by side, his arm hanging around some part of me, both of us so in our own world that the one we were actually inhabiting faded away. Without knowing I’d been missing it for all of these years, my heart seemed to sigh with contentment.
As we got closer to the Chrysler, Boone pulled the keys out of his back pocket and swung them around on his index finger. “I gotta say, I was kind of expecting a repeat of the last time I ‘borrowed’ your dad’s car during winter formal.”
“Are you talking about me getting grounded for the rest of my natural life? Or my dad calling the cops and them finding us at Peach Point, steaming up the windows?”
Boone’s eyes changed when he stared at the car, his smile going higher. “I’m talking about the sheriff rapping on the back window when my head was buried under eighteen layers of taffeta.”
I felt my face go flat as heat shot up my neck. I’d remembered that night . . . without remembering the night detail-by-detail. Now that I was remembering it that way, I felt like I was reliving it by the way certain parts of my body were contracting.
“Memories,” I said, my voice high. And why couldn’t I make eye contact with him like he could with me?
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . you know, bring up the past again,” he said as he unlocked the door for me. His fingers brushed the metal of the door handle and lingered there.
“It’s okay. It’s not like that memory is one of the many we can file in the Forget and Move On box.”