four
Late Saturday morning, Candace was helping Zoe find some furniture to rent for Sean’s old apartment, which only had a broken-down couch and scarred kitchen table. Araceli had caught a plane back to Haiti. Preston and Daniel had both texted their wives and taken Abbie and Mandy to various places. After purchasing a new bed to be delivered this afternoon, Zoe only needed a couple more items.
Candace ran her hand over a bookcase in the next store. “I still can’t believe everyone is moving on so fast. I didn’t see Abbie ever getting married. I thought she was a safe roommate.”
“I’ll be back.” Zoe turned over a price tag.
“I bet you a semester’s rent Scott & Ricks hires you as soon as you get your diploma in December. You won’t be back.” Everyone was moving on, letting their lives ebb and flow, but Candace felt as if hers was stuck behind a giant dam and she had nowhere to go. But then again, the corner Dr. C had talked about required a choice.
Zoe’s face lit up. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Scott & Ricks is the kind of place every freshman hopes to work when they graduate. But this place is not Indiana. I am not naive enough to think living in the city will be easy. I am such a country mouse.”
“The old song says, if you can make it here you can make it anywhere.” Candace sat in a chair and wished she could buy it for her own place. “Oh, try this one.”
Zoe tried the upholstered recliner. “What are you going to do since you turned down the teaching job?”
“I have some commissions lined up, though not as many as I would like. But I have enough work for now.” It was a lie. She had a book cover and some Valentine’s day illustrations for a card company.
“Have you considered selling Art House?”
“Why? Where would I go? I have an amazing studio space and everything I need.” Everything but friends. When had the freshmen gotten so young? She had taught half the grad students and hadn’t really connected with them. If she kept getting roommates from the local college, it wouldn’t be long before she felt like some dorm mom.
“Including two empty bedrooms? Three, if you count mine.” Zoe raised her brow. “I think I’ll take this chair.”
“Mandy comes down regularly.”
“Do you think she will close up her little house now that they have a mansion under construction closer to Chicago? She already travels less because of Joy.” Zoe wrote down the ID number of the chair on an order form.
Candace didn’t answer. Married friends were great, but they were married, and no matter how much they said it didn’t change things, it did. No more 2:00 a.m. chats over ice cream and only half the secrets because husbands became best friends.
Zoe interrupted her thoughts. “You had your ten-year plan and bucket list. Check, check and double check. It’s time for a new plan. You know as well as the rest of us that Colin wants more than friendship.”
Her cousin knew more about Candace’s plans and condition than anyone. Why couldn’t Zoe understand that more than friendship just wasn’t possible? “No. I can’t. You and I may have different reasons for remaining single, but mine are just as valid.”
“A decade has shown your reasons may be wrong.” Zoe opened a dresser drawer.
“Just because I am here having this discussion with you doesn’t mean my reasons have changed. And what about yours? Not every man in the world is a selfish jerk. Perhaps your reasons need to change too.” Candace knew it was low to change the point of the conversation, but she wasn’t the only one who needed to move on. Zoe needed a push more than she did.
Zoe glared. “My reasons are never going to change.”
“Mine can’t.” A tear formed near the corner of Candace’s eye. No way was she going to cry here. That was reserved for the privacy of her own room.
“You don’t know that, things are already different.” Zoe crossed her arms just like she did when she was three.
Candace rushed out of the store before the tears could come and hailed the first cab she saw. Only after the driver asked her a destination did she realize she had no idea where she was going.
Colin hadn’t planned on leaving until Sunday, but after nailing down some plans with Nick, he decided to return to Chicago early. Having booked a first-class seat to the Windy City, Colin found himself on the two o’clock flight. He took advantage of the plane’s Wi-Fi to catch up on neglected emails. Candace’s IM popped up.
—What are you doing this evening? Still at Nick’s?
No, I caught a flight back to Chicago.
—I thought you were going with us tomorrow.
Something important came up.
One article advised that he should make himself less available if he wanted to move out of the friend zone. That hadn’t been his entire reason for leaving early, but it had played a part. There had been no definite plans for the evening, and he didn’t want to be a backup plan if Candace got bored.
—K. Have a good flight.
Thanks, see you later.
Part of him wanted to chat more. But that would be making himself available. And she was with her cousin and friends, so it wasn’t like she needed him.
Candace never needed him. Not really. She had too many friends. Maybe if she lived in his building she would at least need him as a neighbor—borrow a cup of sugar or something. Did he even have sugar?
Colin had no idea what most of the cupboards in his penthouse held. His housekeeper, Janie, made meals and froze them so he could eat whenever he wanted. If he didn’t go through them fast enough, she would give him a piece of her mind, telling him that man couldn’t live off electricity and that he needed to get out of his brain more. Only when he claimed to have been on a date did she soften her approach. Janie had worked for his parents for years before taking the job with him. He speculated his mother was paying Janie a bonus to spy on him. Considering that working for him full-time probably amounted to less than fifteen hours a week, Janie probably made more per hour than the city’s top executives. She deserved it. He wouldn’t trust anyone else not to interfere with the projects that lay strewn throughout the place.
Candace probably wouldn’t want to borrow sugar anyway. More likely he should keep ice cream in the freezer. Or not. Then he could take her out.
He turned his attention back to his computer, studying the variables in the line of code. It was one problem he knew he could solve by the time they landed. Then his afternoon would be clear to prepare for project Merry-Go-Round.