“I just think she’d be happier if she’d stop clinging quite so tightly to the past,” Ella said. “And that’s what that braid represents. Hopefully, this stylist in Charlotte will talk her into not just a new color, but a new cut.”
Finnie lifted a shoulder, seeing it differently. “The braid’s a bit of a comfort to her, I’m thinkin’. Every time she braids it, she’s with him again.”
Ella sighed. “I get that, but it’s not the same hair it was twenty years ago when Dad was alive. She’s still young, Gramma Finnie. She could still love again and—”
“Sorry I’m late!” The door swung open, and a chilly rush of late November air wafted in along with Agnes Santorini, who waved her hands to fend off their complaints. But the only noise came from the two doxies who tore across the store to greet Agnes.
Well, Gala tore. Pyggie, true to form and name, sort of waddled, but they both were always happy to see their owner, even though they loved Finnie almost as much.
“I’m glad you’re still here, Ella. I wanted to get here before you and Colleen left so Finnie wouldn’t have to mind your store alone, but…” Eyes the color of her beloved kalamata olives twinkled as she loosened the festive holiday scarf wrapped under her jacket. “I met a man! A wonderful, handsome, kind, perfectly perfect man who was in line behind me at Linda May’s bakery. He was simply dee-vine. And he bought me a croissant, dear thing.”
“Yiayia, really?” Ella’s voice rose with the question, but Finnie couldn’t even form a word as a scowl pulled at her features.
“Yes, really.” Agnes shook out of her jacket and looked at Finnie. “You’re giving yourself wrinkles, Finola. Unfurrow those brows or live with the consequences.”
“But…but…a man?” Finnie ignored the reprimand, never as concerned about wrinkles as Agnes. “You have a man. You love Aldo Fiore.”
“I didn’t mean a man for me!” she scoffed, flipping holiday red nails at her. “I do have a man, and I wouldn’t trade him for anything. Next month is our one-year anniversary of meeting at the mall. Remember, Finn?”
“As if I could forget.” Of course, when she and Finnie first met Aldo on Christmas Eve, they’d thought he was a hardened criminal running from the law. The truth was he was merely a grandfather, gardener, and part-time Santa Claus with a heart of gold. “So who is this man at the bakery?”
“I didn’t get his name, but I just know he’s ripe for some Dogmothers matchmaking magic. He said he was single.”
Ella stepped forward and pointed a finger right in the face of the woman who’d become almost as much of a grandmother to her as Finnie was. “For crying out loud, Yiayia, what’s it going to take for you to understand that I don’t—”
“Not for you, either.” Agnes launched a brow north, as much as she could, considering the amount of Botox she insisted on getting injected into her forehead. “You’re a lost cause, right, Finn?”
Finnie sighed and didn’t argue. Ella was a fair lass with more personality than ought to be allowed, yet she was stubbornly still single. And that was despite the Dogmothers’ frequent and fervent attempts to get her down the aisle.
“Never a lost cause, my sweet lass. Donchya be worryin’ ’bout that,” Finnie assured her granddaughter.
Then she turned to Yiayia, her best friend, roommate, and “partner in crime” as their big, blended Irish-Greek family liked to refer to the two old ladies. “Who is this wonderful man for, then, pray tell?”
Agnes leaned over the counter, sliding the cardboard sign promoting the Christmas dog fostering program that Bone Appetit was sponsoring. She took a slow and dramatic breath, then looked left and right as if someone might hear her. “Colleen Mahoney, that’s who.”
Ella and Finnie just stared at her.
“And don’t you try and tell me she wouldn’t benefit from the love of a good man.” Agnes stood straight, as if she expected an argument.
“Are you kidding?” Ella choked. “I was just saying that! Why do you think I’ve made her makeover my personal pet project all these months?”
Agnes tipped her head and considered the comment. “I have wondered that.”
“Because I want my mother to live before she dies,” she admitted. “Sixty-two isn’t old.”
Finnie and Agnes shared a look that only ladies in their eighties would understand.
“What I wouldn’t give to be sixty-two again,” Agnes groaned. “God knows I spend enough money to turn back time.”
“You’re wastin’ your dollars, lass,” Finnie said to her. “Spending time with Aldo makes you prettier than any needle you could stick in your face.”
Agnes opened her mouth to respond, her eyes flashing as she wound up a classic biting comeback that had been her signature for so many years, but then she stopped herself. She closed her mouth and smiled. “You’re right, Finola. He does.”
Finnie smiled back, always grateful when Agnes chose kindness over sarcasm. Teaching her that had been Finnie’s pet project these past few years.
“Enough about Aldo,” Ella insisted, nudging Agnes in the shoulder. “Who is this guy, and why is he perfect for my mother?”
“All I know is he’s very charming and quite handsome, with silver hair and one of those beard-but-not-beard things…” She fluttered her fingers over her chin.
“Goatee?” Ella guessed.
“Yes. And pretty green eyes and picture-perfect teeth. I like good teeth in a man, don’t you?”
“But who is he?” Ella insisted, impatience making her voice rise.
“I told you I didn’t get his name, but I did ask if he’s single, and he said yes, so I told him to come in here sometime and meet Colleen. He seemed keen on the idea, too. Asked me her name three times, in fact.”
“Nice work, Agnes.” Finnie held up her hand for a high five. “I couldn’t agree more with—”
“Oh, hey, Yiayia.” Colleen came out from the back room, a bag on one arm, her jacket on the other. “I’m so glad you could come and help today. I hate leaving the store with just one person during the busy Thanksgiving week.”
The three of them exchanged a quick look and a secret pact of silence. If they knew anything about Colleen Mahoney, it was that she did not want to meet a man. But Finnie and Agnes had faced far more reluctant participants, and had a string of successes to prove that even the most walled-in heart could be opened to love.
“We shouldn’t be gone all day, right, El?” Colleen asked as she slipped into the jacket.
“I don’t know,” Ella replied. “I want to do some serious Christmas shopping in Charlotte.”
“We can run Bone Appetit, ladies,” Finnie assured them. “Colleen, ’tis your birthday, and you deserve a day with your daughter.”
Colleen considered that, not quite convinced. “It can get busy here. And what if someone wants to sign up for Peppermint Bark? There are no foster dogs left.”
“Then we’ll tell them better luck next year,” Agnes said wryly. “In fact, we can just take down the sign.”