“Oh, you are a sweetheart. Thank you.” Sandra’s eyes brightened. “Tell you what, you start your shop and I’ll be your first and best customer.”
Allie nodded her thanks, making a mental note to send her that blue gown she’d looked so spectacular in. “I wasn’t expecting you up today. Is Erik here, too?”
“He’s coming tomorrow. I just couldn’t wait to hang out here. It’s so fabulous, isn’t it?” She touched Allie’s shoulder. “You staying the week?”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. No way could she stay among so many memories of her days and nights with Jonas. It was time to go back to New York and start fresh. Learn from her mistakes with him and do better going forward. Wasn’t that what dating was about? Finding who was right, who was wrong, what kind of partner you were and what kind of partner you needed.
It was just that at twenty-eight, she was obviously a slow learner. And Jonas had seemed so promising...
Maybe there was still hope, still issues they could work out together. Except they’d always come up against the geographical distance. And his money would always be an issue. Allie hadn’t realized how much work she still had to do to come to terms with her father’s desertion of the family for a better life. It would be easier to date someone who didn’t represent everything she always felt she wasn’t.
“You’re staying at least tonight, though?”
“Actually, I was planning to catch a bus in a couple of hours.” The second she spoke she realized she’d much rather hang out there with Sandra.
“Nonsense. I’m here now. I brought us dinner. There is enough alcohol in this house to float the U.S. Navy, and I think we should put a dent in it. You with me?”
Allie wiped her dusty hands on her jeans, smiling. She’d just figured out what was different about Sandra. She looked happy. Really happy. Sparkles-shooting-out-of-her happy.
Erik. Things must be going well for them.
“You’re on. Let me shower off the grime and I’ll join you. On the beach?”
Sandra shuddered. “I don’t do bugs. In the nice screened-in porch, maybe.”
“See you in ten.”
She showered and threw on tight pink shorts and an outrageously busy floral top, feeling much more human. Sandra was the kind of woman who could listen and offer advice. She’d grown up poor, and seemed to be doing fine with Erik. Plus she knew Jonas.
Downstairs, out on the porch, Sandra was spreading one of the painted white tables with a picnic of chicken wings, pasta salad, marinated broccoli, peaches and miniature cupcakes in various flavors.
“Yum. That looks fabulous.”
“You think that looks fabulous, look at this.” She held up a bottle of champagne. “Taittinger Comtes de Champagne, 1995. This stuff goes for beaucoup bucks, baby. We are so having it.”
“Do you think we should?” Allie was more surprised that Sandra knew the bottle was a good one—even the year?—than that she was suggesting they drink it.
“Erik said to help ourselves to whatever.” She untwisted the wire cage. “This was in the refrigerator, therefore I am doing so.”
“How did you know about the vintage?”
“My parents loved Taittinger champagne.”
“In Southie?” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry, that burst out. I know you—”
“In Greens Farms, Connecticut. An exquisitely wealthy community on Long Island Sound. I grew up there, the daughter of gazillionaires.”
Allie’s heart sank. So Sandra and Erik were cut from the same cloth. “But you said...”
“I lied.” She poured the bubbly into two flutes, tipping them so the foam would settle faster.
“Why?”
Sandra handed her a glass, her smile tinged with sympathy. “Honey, I think you know.”
Allie gaped at her, feeling betrayed. “Jonas told you.”
“Cheers.” Sandra took a sip and closed her eyes ecstatically. “Oh baby, that is almost better than sex.”
Allie followed suit, hardly tasting a thing.
“He told me in general terms under intense pressure. And only after I finally told him my story, which has more details you get to hear later.” She pulled out a chair. “Have a seat.”
Allie sat numbly. “You hadn’t told Jonas before?”
“Nope. Now I’ve told him and Erik and you. Because I have discovered something important that everyone should know, but which took me over thirty years to figure out. And I am passing this wisdom along to you, my sister.” She passed Allie a plate. “Have a chicken wing.”
“That’s it?” she said incredulously. “‘Have a chicken wing’?”
Sandra snorted. “It is that I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks of me except the people I love.”
“The people you love.” Allie was slowly starting to get what Sandra was saying. “Because those are the people—”
“Who must accept me as I am. If they don’t...” She hoisted her champagne glass. “Screw ’em. You and I, my darling Allie, have cared too much what the wrong people think. If we want to be happy, we have to go out there and grab our men by the balls and yank until they...what the hell am I saying?”
Allie giggled and reached for the bottle. “I have no idea, but it sounded intriguing. More champagne?”
“Absolutely. You know what’s so ironic?”
Allie finished pouring. “No, Sandra, what is so ironic?”
“I started this whole thing just wanting Erik for his money.”
“But you grew up with tons.”
“My parents cut me off when I was seventeen.”
“No kidding.” Allie sat there, astounded. She’d spent her whole life making sure she never prized a man for his wealth, and here was Sandra, whom she liked and respected, saying exactly the opposite. “Were you trying to get money from Jonas, too?”
“Yes, but I actually liked Jonas.”
Allie nearly snorted champagne. Since she didn’t, she drank more. “You know, this keeps tasting better.”
“Doesn’t it?” Sandra topped off their glasses. “I have a great idea. Let’s see how long that keeps happening.”