She texted again: Do you want to come over? I won’t make you fix my wall. :)
He responded: Sorry, Libby. I’m really busy.
Was there something wrong with Pop? He would’ve said. It wasn’t Pop. And now she’d texted so much that she’d seem weird if she pressed further. She sat on the floor, holding her phone. What’s wrong? she wondered. Maybe he just felt the same way she did about being friends… that it’s too hard. A waste of time.
It was clear that Pete was frustrated with her. As she thought about why he had responded the way he had, she realized that she’d been very selfish. She was so busy trying to convince him that she was someone different, that she hadn’t stopped to consider how different he may have become. She didn’t really have the right to send him such a casual text. It wasn’t her place. She was stuck again in that empty space between the past and the present, and she needed to grasp the fact that they were two different people and she couldn’t just expect him to drop everything and respond to her. The realization made her feel awful.
* * *
Catherine had offered to have Libby over to her house for dinner. In the back of the rental car, she had two gallons of canary yellow paint for the kitchen and a bottle of white wine. She’d spent a total of an hour and forty minutes in town with no sign of Pete. Only about ten minutes remained before she needed to be at her friend’s house, so the prospect of running into him wasn’t looking good.
Libby had asked Catherine if Celia could tag along. She thought perhaps her mother may like to do something with her friends for a change. So Catherine had planned a ladies’ night, inviting her own mother and grandmother as well. Catherine and her husband, Scott, lived just a few minutes away from town, down a narrow, winding road that allowed snippets of the water through the woods every so often. Catherine lived close enough to the water to allow the humid sea breeze to rush in through the open car windows. Libby pulled the rental onto the gravel drive to Catherine’s house, the bottle of wine tinkling against the paint cans in the back.
Catherine had been one of the few people Libby had kept in touch with sporadically over the years. She never seemed to judge her, she never questioned why Libby had moved to New York, and she seemed to completely accept who Libby was now. Since their lives had moved in different directions, they hadn’t ever initiated more than the correspondence they had, but there was a mutual fondness and respect there that Libby really loved. She always thought how nice it would be to spend time with her, so she was glad to be visiting for dinner.
When the car slowed to a stop, Catherine’s thin frame came into view. She was on her porch, barefoot, waving with one hand, a glass of wine in the other. Celia was already there, getting out of her car. Libby reached into the back and pulled the bottle of wine from the floorboard. As she got out, she held it up. “Just in case you didn’t have enough,” she smiled.
“One can never have too much,” Catherine said.
“Hi, Mom,” she said as Celia pattered up to her, an enormous grin on her face. She was wearing a matching silk tank and trousers set with sandals, clearly spruced up.
“Hi, honey,” she said, kissing her cheek. The smell of musk perfume nearly overwhelmed her. “Hello, Catherine! It’s been so long since we’ve had a chance to chat! How’s your mom?”
“She’s well! She’s inside,” Catherine said, opening the door and allowing Libby and her mother to enter. Catherine’s home was the type of house that made her want to curl up with a mug of hot chocolate, even in the summer. Two large denim sofas flanked the room, a whitewashed table in between them, and everything sitting on a shaggy area rug. Her mother and grandmother were already chatting and both looked up to wave at her.
Esther Mullins was Catherine’s grandmother. She was a hefty woman with white hair that was pinned back on each side, and large, jade earrings that matched a ring on the ring finger of her right hand. On the other hand, she wore a single gold band. She looked exactly the same as she had so many years ago when she would visit Catherine. Esther was chatting with Catherine’s mother, Leanne.
Leanne stood up to say hello, her long, thin arms reaching out toward Celia. “How are you?” she said, her cheeks naturally rosy and her eyes almost squinting as she smiled. Celia embraced her and said hello.
“Want a glass of wine?” Catherine asked Libby and Celia. “It’s from the winery.” The winery meant Sandy Grove Winery down the road. It was the only one in town. It was also the one in which Pete had invested quite a bit of his money.