Sounds great, I type. I’ll bring the wine.

CHAPTER
25

WALKING TO LISA’S condo takes about twenty minutes. The night air is crisp, and there’s a hint of what promises to be snow infiltrating it. The wine bottles clink together in my shoulder bag as I pass by the Fraze Pavilion, its fountains dry now. A handful of workers are putting up Christmas lights. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.

Lisa takes the wine with a happy giggle as she lets me through the front door, but her laugh becomes boisterous when she peeks inside the brightly patterned gift bag I also hand her. “What the …?”

WINE MOM is patterned all over the leggings, along with red and white wine bottles and glasses and grapes. They should be cute, but they’re hideous. Still, the aesthetic is one I hope Lisa will appreciate. I picked them up from my storage unit earlier today. I have an entire bin of stretchy clothes in ugly patterns. Handing over the leggings isn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be. In fact, it feels good. If only I could do that with the rest of the stuff in that storage unit.

“I got them from one of those home parties a few years ago.” I shrug, no big deal. Super casual. She’ll never know how long I sat clutching them to my chest, working to convince myself I didn’t need to hang on to something I was never going to wear. “I thought you might get a kick out of them.”

“Come into the living room.” She leads me there and holds up the leggings in front of herself. “Am I that obvious? Never mind. Thanks. They’re perfect.”

Her hug surprises me, but I squeeze her in return as she gestures for me to settle into her soft beige couch. She lights the gas fireplace and clears the coffee table of the stack of vintage hardcover books and a wooden tray laden with carved bowls containing decorative balls. Her condo’s decorated in shades of cream and brown and hints of gold, understated and minimalist, but there are hints of her personality here and there. A vintage Santa doll high on one bookshelf, legs dangling. A horse made from costume jewelry on the wall.

“I love your place.”

“Thanks. You’re sweet.” Lisa puts two wineglasses on the coffee table. I’m glad she opens the bottle of white instead of the red. Now I won’t have to be afraid I’ll spill and stain her shaggy cream rug. “After Gary died and I had to put my house on the market, I vowed to myself I would never make it hard on myself to sell a place again. When I moved in here, I decorated it like it came out of a magazine. Ready at any moment to show up in a real estate listing. I look at those house sale websites every day. I thought I’d move out of here pretty fast, but I confess, I like that someone else handles the repairs and the landscaping and all of that. Owning a house is so much work. On the other hand, I have no emotional attachments to this place.”