Read Online The Next Best Thing by Kristan Higgins - Free Book Online
Authors: Kristan Higgins
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something…he’s still with you. True love never dies. And whenever you see a yellow flower next to a red flower, it’s a sign from him, a sign that he loves you.”
The fact that Grinelda walks through Ellington Park to get here, and that the park is planted with dozens and dozens of red and yellow chrysanthemums currently in robust bloom and easily visible from this very shop, is loston little Rose. She clutches her hand to her ample bosom. “Oh, a sign! Larry, honey, I love you, too, sweetheart!”
Well, I can’t help it. My throat feels a little tight. Sure, Grinelda’s full of garbage, but the expression on Rose’s face is probably worth the hundred bucks she just shelled out.
“The man is fading…and now there’s someone else. Another man…tall. Limping. Name starts with a P.”
“Pete! My Pete!” Iris trumpets. “He walked with a limp! Shot in the leg by his idiot brother!”
Grinelda lights a cheroot and sucks on it, nodding wisely, then exhaling a bluish stream of smoke. “Yep. Limping.”
While I don’t believe Grinelda can see the dead, I do believe that those who have died visit us. There are those rogue dimes, for example, found in unusual spots…the exact middle of the kitchen counter, or in my sock drawer. Occasionally I’ll dream that Jimmy’s back on earth for a chat. He always looks gorgeous in those dreams, and is always just checking in. The widows group I’d belonged to assured me that this kind of thing was a fairly common experience.
So it’s not that I don’t believe. I just don’t believe Grinelda.
My latest batch of bread has twenty minutes to go before it’ll be done. A little air would be nice, so I head out for a stroll down Main Street. The trees have lost their deep green summer lushness, and the sunlight has a mellow, golden softness to it. An elderly couple walks slowly across the green, him with a cane, her clinging to his arm. Beautiful. They head into the cemetery, and I look away.
The dark, rich scent of roasting coffee wafts out from Starbucks. I could really use a strong cuppa joe…I was up till 2:00 a.m. this morning watching The Hunt for Red October, and my tired brain yearns for a caffeine fix. I can’t go in, of course. Starbucks is my competitor, and it’s run by the meanest girl in Mackerly—Doral-Anne Driscoll.
Well, she’s not the meanest girl anymore. That’s not fair. She’s the meanest woman . I’ve known her all my life, and she basically lived the cliché of Tough Townie…multiple piercings in her ears, eyebrows, nose and tongue, jeans so tight you could count her pocket change, a surly sneer perpetually spreading across her thin and usually cursing mouth. Tattooed by the time she was fourteen, smoking, drinking, sleeping around…the woiks, as Bugs Bunny would say. And then there was the utter contempt she had for me, a rather meek and shy child who lived to please teachers and sang in St. Bonaventure’s choir.
Unlike most of my graduating class, Doral-Anne never left Mackerly. She sneered and spat with what we all knew was just envy whenever college was mentioned. She waited tables at a diner in Kingstown, and when Gianni’s opened in Mackerly, she got a job there.
Well before I met Ethan or Jimmy, Doral-Anne was talking about Gianni’s. Every time I ran into her when home for the weekend, she’d bring it up. How great it was working there. How much money she made. How fantastic the owners were. College—especially my college—was for pussies. She was in the restaurant business. Probably Gianni’s was going to train her to be manager.
In my “try to be nice to everyone” way, I’d tell her that sounded great, which seemed to make her nastier than ever. “‘That sounds great,’” she’d mimic. “Lang, you’re such a stupid little goody-good.”
When I met Jimmy, Doral-Anne was still a waitress, no management position in sight. She didn’t dare take potshots at me at Gianni’s, not when the chef himself was in
The fact that Grinelda walks through Ellington Park to get here, and that the park is planted with dozens and dozens of red and yellow chrysanthemums currently in robust bloom and easily visible from this very shop, is loston little Rose. She clutches her hand to her ample bosom. “Oh, a sign! Larry, honey, I love you, too, sweetheart!”
Well, I can’t help it. My throat feels a little tight. Sure, Grinelda’s full of garbage, but the expression on Rose’s face is probably worth the hundred bucks she just shelled out.
“The man is fading…and now there’s someone else. Another man…tall. Limping. Name starts with a P.”
“Pete! My Pete!” Iris trumpets. “He walked with a limp! Shot in the leg by his idiot brother!”
Grinelda lights a cheroot and sucks on it, nodding wisely, then exhaling a bluish stream of smoke. “Yep. Limping.”
While I don’t believe Grinelda can see the dead, I do believe that those who have died visit us. There are those rogue dimes, for example, found in unusual spots…the exact middle of the kitchen counter, or in my sock drawer. Occasionally I’ll dream that Jimmy’s back on earth for a chat. He always looks gorgeous in those dreams, and is always just checking in. The widows group I’d belonged to assured me that this kind of thing was a fairly common experience.
So it’s not that I don’t believe. I just don’t believe Grinelda.
My latest batch of bread has twenty minutes to go before it’ll be done. A little air would be nice, so I head out for a stroll down Main Street. The trees have lost their deep green summer lushness, and the sunlight has a mellow, golden softness to it. An elderly couple walks slowly across the green, him with a cane, her clinging to his arm. Beautiful. They head into the cemetery, and I look away.
The dark, rich scent of roasting coffee wafts out from Starbucks. I could really use a strong cuppa joe…I was up till 2:00 a.m. this morning watching The Hunt for Red October, and my tired brain yearns for a caffeine fix. I can’t go in, of course. Starbucks is my competitor, and it’s run by the meanest girl in Mackerly—Doral-Anne Driscoll.
Well, she’s not the meanest girl anymore. That’s not fair. She’s the meanest woman . I’ve known her all my life, and she basically lived the cliché of Tough Townie…multiple piercings in her ears, eyebrows, nose and tongue, jeans so tight you could count her pocket change, a surly sneer perpetually spreading across her thin and usually cursing mouth. Tattooed by the time she was fourteen, smoking, drinking, sleeping around…the woiks, as Bugs Bunny would say. And then there was the utter contempt she had for me, a rather meek and shy child who lived to please teachers and sang in St. Bonaventure’s choir.
Unlike most of my graduating class, Doral-Anne never left Mackerly. She sneered and spat with what we all knew was just envy whenever college was mentioned. She waited tables at a diner in Kingstown, and when Gianni’s opened in Mackerly, she got a job there.
Well before I met Ethan or Jimmy, Doral-Anne was talking about Gianni’s. Every time I ran into her when home for the weekend, she’d bring it up. How great it was working there. How much money she made. How fantastic the owners were. College—especially my college—was for pussies. She was in the restaurant business. Probably Gianni’s was going to train her to be manager.
In my “try to be nice to everyone” way, I’d tell her that sounded great, which seemed to make her nastier than ever. “‘That sounds great,’” she’d mimic. “Lang, you’re such a stupid little goody-good.”
When I met Jimmy, Doral-Anne was still a waitress, no management position in sight. She didn’t dare take potshots at me at Gianni’s, not when the chef himself was in
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