“Maybe we should try, though,” Sophia said. “I wish I had a little bit of that young Teddy spirit.”
Teddy frowned. “So do you really not want to be a lawyer? Seriously?”
Sophia shook her head vigorously. “No. Craig keeps telling me I should quit and go back to school, that we have money saved up. He always says you shouldn’t spend your life following someone else’s dream.”
“Craig said that, huh?” Teddy asked, nodding slowly. Apparently he held hidden depths when he wasn’t shoveling food into his mouth. “So what do you want to do?”
“I want to be a teacher,” Sophia said. “A high school teacher. Is that ridiculous?”
Teddy smiled. “No, Sophia. It’s not ridiculous at all.”
Sophia sighed. “You don’t want to run a toy store, do you? I’ve never once heard you say that was your dream.”
Teddy could feel herself getting defensive, but willed herself to push her shoulders down and take a deep breath. “Maybe life isn’t always about dreams, though. Maybe it’s about making the best of what’s in front of you.”
Sophia chewed on her lip. “Yeah. You’re right; sometimes it is. But I don’t think that’s the situation you’re in, and I don’t think you want to do this. Rarely is there a situation where your only choice is to run a vintage toy store.”
Despite herself, Teddy smiled. “Well, thanks for the advice.”
Sophia groaned. “I’m sorry. I’m being annoying. It’s just . . . I care about you, okay? And while I’m on a roll . . . what happened to that guy?”
“Everett?” Teddy asked. “Well . . . I kind of broke up with him.”
Sophia frowned. “Why?”
Teddy sighed. “He has a big life, you know? Big dreams. Big goals. And I don’t know if I can handle that again. I don’t want to lose myself in someone else.”
Sophia thought about it for so long that Teddy thought she wasn’t going to respond, but then she said, “Yeah, but you only lost yourself in Richard because he sucked. When it’s really love, you don’t have to lose yourself. Falling in love should make you more yourself.”
“Maybe instead of becoming a teacher, you should start writing self-help books,” Teddy joked, and Sophia elbowed her. But Teddy’s mind snagged on her words. Was Sophia right? Was there a way she could be with Everett without losing herself in the process?
But then she realized where they were and stopped walking. “Did you see that we’re right in front of Jeni’s?”
Sophia glanced up at the sign and her face looked exactly the same as it had when they were kids and she saw ice cream. “Well, we have to go in, right?”
Teddy nodded. “I don’t see any other option.”
* * *
—
AFTER SHE GOT back home, Teddy spent the rest of her afternoon cleaning up. She still needed to keep busy to avoid thinking about Everett, but luckily going through the boxes of clothes she had brought from the town house kept her occupied.
When her phone rang that evening, just as it was getting dark, she frowned. It was an unknown number, so she answered it, reasonably sure it wouldn’t be Everett or Richard.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me.”
Teddy paused for a moment, running through the list of male voices that could be calling her from a number she didn’t recognize. “Um . . . I’m sorry, who is this?”
“Carlos!”
“Oh,” Teddy said.
And then she realized that Carlos wasn’t calling her to shoot the breeze, because he didn’t shoot any breezes that weren’t vintage toy related. “Carlos, what’s wrong?”
“Josie’s in the hospital,” he said. “I’m here now. Can you—”
“I’m coming,” Teddy said, then hung up.
61
After calling Carlos back to get details about which hospital and how to find Josie (seriously, how did people in movies always end these conversations so dramatically? Didn’t they need to clarify anything?), Teddy drove there in record time. She hadn’t asked Carlos how Josie was doing—it seemed silly to waste time on the phone when Josie needed her now—and when she burst into the room to see Carlos sitting at her bedside, Josie laughing and talking, relief hit her so hard that she thought she might cry.
“Josie!” she croaked, unable to think of anything else to say.
Carlos stood up and gave Josie a kiss on the forehead. “Since you have company, I’ll be getting home.”
“Thank you for coming here, sweetheart,” Josie said with a gentle smile, her voice slightly hoarse.
Carlos nodded, then gave Teddy a hug. She froze, then relaxed into it and hugged him back. “I’m glad you’re here with her,” he said, meeting her eyes, before he left.
Teddy watched him go, shocked.
“He might not have much to say most of the time,” Josie said, prompting Teddy to turn around. “But he knows what to say when it matters.”
“Josie, what happened?” Teddy asked, sitting down on the chair at Josie’s bedside.
Josie rolled her eyes. “It’s stupid. A heart attack.”
Teddy opened her mouth and Josie held up a hand. “A minor one. Very minor. The most minor thing that could be considered a heart attack, really. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Perfectly fine people don’t have heart attacks,” Teddy insisted.
Josie sighed. “I’m seventy years old. If a minor heart attack is the worst thing to happen to me, I feel pretty lucky.”
Teddy swallowed, looking at her hands. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Honey.” Josie reached out and grabbed Teddy’s hands, then waited until Teddy met her eyes. “I’ve had a good long life.”
“Stop it!” Teddy said, tears springing to her eyes. “What are you saying?”
“Oh, shut up and listen,” Josie said. “I was so lucky to meet John, and you know we never had children.”
Teddy nodded. Josie had had such a packed-full schedule that Teddy always assumed she’d never wanted kids, that taking care of someone else would have slowed her down.
“We tried. For a long time. And when it became clear that it wasn’t gonna happen for us . . . well, I figured maybe it wasn’t meant to be. John and I always loved spending time together, just the two of us, and we thought it might be for the best. We could be together, uninterrupted. We could travel.”