I frowned.
He hadn’t made me laugh last night.
Last night he’d made me cry. This morning he’d made me cry.
Melancholy washed over me suddenly and I began hurrying along the boards to my inn. To my solace. To the place I could just bury my feelings in work for now.
Two Weeks Later
The entire north end of Hartwell’s mile-long boardwalk was considered prime commercial real estate. My inn sat at the top of the northern end and was a large version of a typical Hartwell home. It had white-painted shingle siding, a wraparound porch, blue-painted shutters on the windows, and a widow’s walk at the top. It was one of the least architecturally commercial buildings on the boards, even down to my hand-painted sign in my well-manicured garden. A bright neon sign, like the ones so many of the buildings here had, would have clashed with my beautiful inn.
My best friend, Dahlia McGuire, owned the building next door, Hart’s Gift Shop, a much smaller structure than the inn, but architecturally similar down to the white-painted shingles. It even had a porch, although not a wraparound.
Beside Dahlia’s was a candy store, next to that an arcade, and from there the boards ran along the main thoroughfare. There was a large bandstand at the top of Main Street—our longest and widest avenue, with parking spaces in the middle to accommodate all the visitors to not only the beach and boardwalk but to the commercial buildings on the street. Trees lined Main Street, where restaurants, gift shops, clothing boutiques, retailers, fast-food joints, spas, coffeehouses, pubs, and markets were neighbors.
Back on the boardwalk were the ice cream shack, a surf shop, and then Antonio’s, the Italian restaurant owned by an older couple, my good friends, Iris and Ira. Iris was currently frantic because the building next to hers, once a tourist gift store, was under renovation to be transformed into a restaurant by some fancy French chef currently living in Boston.
Just down from Antonio’s was the largest building on the boards. A behemoth. Paradise Sands Hotel and Conference Center. There were no neon signs for that place, I’ll tell you.
It was neighbor to the ever-so-popular bar Cooper’s, and Cooper did have a neon sign because it was that kind of place. It was the boardwalk. And just down from Cooper’s was Emery’s Bookstore & Coffeehouse.
For the most part I enjoyed small-town life. I enjoyed my place in small-town life. People generally liked me, they saw me as an established pillar of society since I was the founder’s descendant, and the majority of folks in my town were wonderful.
However, it wasn’t the first time I’d had to suffer through the downside of small-town life. During the past two weeks I’d had to put up with people making trips to the inn to offer me their sympathy but also to try to find out for themselves if the rumor that I found Tom screwing a younger woman in his apartment was true. I almost called a town meeting at the bandstand to give them a step-by-step account of what happened just so the nosy bastards would leave me alone. However, Jessica talked me out of it.
It was hard enough getting over a breakup, and coming to terms with the realization that I was actually okay with the breakup, when there were a ton of people around to tell me I couldn’t possibly be okay since I was a victim.
But I was okay! I was not a victim.
Only Jess and my boardwalk buddies seemed to believe me.
Iris had said, “You getting rid of him didn’t surprise me. Just sorry it took you this long.”
Thanks, Iris.
Emery was surprised but once I explained what had been going on she believed me when I said I was fine. Jess was glad I was moving on with my life in the hopes of meeting someone I deserved. Dahlia had always liked Tom but she was mad at him for cheating on me and understood why I didn’t want to give him another shot.
How was I feeling other than okay?
Guilty. I felt guilty because I didn’t feel as bad as I should. I missed my friend but I didn’t miss my lover. And worse, I realized that things had become so complacent and distant between us that I’d actually been missing my friend for a really long time, so the missing him part wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be.
In fact, I felt like this huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
Of course that weight had been replaced by the weight of crippling fear that I would end up alone, unmarried, and childless for the rest of my life.
“I’m considering online dating,” I announced.
Cooper looked up from making two Long Island iced teas and a club soda but refrained from responding.
He left that to Jess and Dahlia, who had joined me for my first night out as a single woman. Unfortunately, we couldn’t coax Emery to join us just yet but I was working on it. One day she’d be sitting that cute butt of hers on a stool next to me.
Jess shared a look with Cooper. “Well, if you think you’re ready to start dating.”
Dahlia grinned. “Of course she’s ready. Internet dating is fun, FYI.”
“That’s not the whole story.” Jess smirked. “You have told us some pretty hairy tales of your online dating life, Dahlia McGuire.”
I chuckled as Dahlia shrugged, laughing. “Either you go out on a date and it’s fun, or you go out on a date that is so epically horrifying it becomes an entertaining story to tell your friends. Either way it’s a win-win.”
I laughed along with them, but I was a little nervous about the whole thing. Not just because Dahlia really had been on dates worthy of episodes of Sex and the City, but because I hadn’t dated in so long. Yeah, I was a pretty outgoing person and I had never suffered from shyness, but I was worried I was a little rusty.