With No Reservations

“I didn’t know you read my website.” Sloane crossed her arms, pulling the ends of her cardigan tighter around her waist. As if that was going to help her feel any less exposed.

“Yes. Ever since Mitzi Mason from the country club told us about a feature they did on you in the Sunday paper. So about—” Mrs. Melone’s eyes shifted in thought “—two years or more.”

“And you’re just now saying something to me?”

“It never came up!” Her expression went from stubborn to sly. “Are all the stories about him true?”

“No.” This had to stop right there. “And to be honest, I don’t want to hear the stories about him.” Grace and Levi had told her enough. At every opportunity.

Mrs. Melone nodded and took another bite as if it was no big thing. “This is divine. You’ll have to make this for my Bunco club. You’re all they talk about, you know.”

Mise en Place had page views from countries all over the world. But somehow knowing her neighbor’s inner circle of socialites were among those readers pried open the tight disparity Sloane had created between her real life and her website.

“Do you want to take a picture of me for your website?” Mrs. Melone had already put down her fork and was applying a raspberry lipstick that only she could have pulled off. “You know, so your mother won’t worry?”

“I...” She stood and busied herself with packing up the salad leftovers to mask her shock. What, was the woman combing through her website comments or something? “What do you mean?”

“I may not have children, but I had a mother once. It’s weird what they turn into with a daughter living in a strange city by herself.”

“You’ve got me on that one,” was Sloane’s weak offering as her mind pictured a younger Mrs. Melone with curls tied in a handkerchief and hat boxes stacked in the back of a classic convertible moving to Hollywood by herself. “But I’m afraid the lighting’s all wrong for a photo now.”

Mrs. Melone’s nose turned up. “Well, I wouldn’t want my internet debut to take place in bad lighting. I’d never hear the end of it from the girls.”

Without ceremony, the older woman stood and took the container of salad leftovers, quicker and more agile than Sloane had ever seen her. Maybe it wasn’t just the bacon putting a fresh spring in her step as she walked down the hallway. “I think even my husband will enjoy this when he gets in tonight. And he doesn’t do salads, no matter how I spin ’em.”

“You’ll have to let me know.” Sloane watched her neighbor walk toward her apartment. Mrs. Melone usually moved at a much more snaillike pace, leaning against her signature silver-adorned cane. Now she didn’t even have a limp. “Hey, Mrs. Melone.”

Mrs. Melone turned around, fists framing her waist.

“I noticed you’re not using your cane anymore.”

She cracked a genuine smile. “Yeah, I’ve been doing yoga for the past few months, and I’m a new woman.” She whirled around in a little circle. “I’ve been sleeping through the night for the first time in years. I guess I must have done something right when I was younger to deserve this.”

Sloane’s laugh sounded counterfeit. “You don’t really think it was something you did right that took the pain away, do you? Besides the yoga, I mean.”

Mrs. Melone shrugged, one cheek dimpling. “All that matters is that I’m pain-free.”

“I’m glad.” Sloane stifled her unspoken questions with a smile. She wasn’t going to even begin to go there with Mrs. Melone.

Sloane’s mind had been swirling with theories on healing for over twelve years. The silent bleed in Aaron’s brain that killed him. Her own guilt and broken thought processes and everything else that had all but imprisoned her. If some quota of right was what it took, Sloane would be a prisoner forever.