These simple moments brought her so much peace.
“Is that all you’re going to eat?” Lucy’s friend Haley had asked with a glance at Charlotte’s plate. “Fruit and an egg white omelet? Do you know how good the cinnamon rolls here are?”
Charlotte’s eyes meandered to Haley’s plate, where one giant, frosted cinnamon roll waited to be eaten. She could smell it from across the table.
But that was not breakfast. Breakfast was about fuel. Eggs were fuel. Cinnamon rolls were not.
“So you and Julianna were pen pals?” Quinn Collins asked. Quinn’s Forget-Me-Not flower shop was just a few doors down from the diner. Jules sometimes wrote about her too. Apparently, Quinn had a hunky Olympian husband, and Julianna had shared all the details of that saga with Charlotte last year.
It was sort of surreal sitting here at the same table with people she’d imagined through Jules’s letters.
“Julianna and I met at a summer dance intensive when we were kids,” Charlotte said. “We were roommates. I remember being so annoyed they stuck me with this girl who was obviously not serious about ballet. She was there to make friends.”
The others laughed.
“Sounds like Jules,” Lucy said.
“I think Julianna enrolled in the intensive thinking it would be like a sleepaway camp. Not intense training for up-and-coming prima ballerinas.” Charlotte smiled at the memory. While thirteen-year-old Charlotte was passing up the dinner rolls, Julianna was sneaking Twix bars after lights-out.
“I didn’t know everything was going to be so intense,” Jules had said on their third day there.
“Then why did you come?” Charlotte had asked.
Jules swallowed her bite of chocolate and caramel with a shrug. “I came to have fun. To make friends. To do something different for a change. And, honestly, to get out of my house. My parents fight all the time.”
“So you don’t even want to be a professional dancer?” Charlotte asked, thinking that it was best if she didn’t—the less competition, the better. And while Julianna may not be serious about it—she was good. Really good.
“I love dancing,” Jules said. “But not with people hollering at me all day. Takes all the fun out of it.”
Charlotte rolled over in her bed, annoyed that she’d been paired with someone who so obviously didn’t belong there. But in the end, it had been the biggest blessing of her life.
And also in the end, Julianna’s mindset changed. While Charlotte was driven by regimen and order, Julianna was driven by passion. And the passion ended up taking her pretty far. She became a beautiful, accomplished dancer.
There really was no telling how far Jules would’ve gone if she’d chosen to pursue ballet instead of the life she ended up with. If fate—or Charlotte—hadn’t intervened.
“Charlotte is the youngest principal dancer in the Chicago City Ballet,” Lucy said.
Oohs and aahs circled the table.
“Well, I was,” Charlotte said, her laugh nervous and awkward. “I quit.”
“You quit and moved to Harbor Pointe?” Haley said in disbelief. “You had the life girls everywhere dream of and you gave it up to move here?”
A tickle of concern scurried down Charlotte’s back, kicking up that familiar self-doubt she’d been trying to ignore. Leaving the ballet hadn’t been a completely rash decision. She’d taken a good four weeks of entertaining the idea before handing in her notice.
The artistic director, Martin DuBois, never one to show emotion, said she’d be missed, thanked her for her years in the ballet, and then basically dismissed her with a flick of his wrist. Charlotte had never felt more irrelevant in her life.
Of course, that was his way. He had an ego to protect, and he certainly wasn’t going to beg her to stay. He would send the message that she was replaceable, that she was nothing special, confirming all of her insecurities.
Without dance, she was nothing.
Lucy eyed her. “You gave up a lot, Charlotte. It’s normal if you’re having regrets.” Then, after a pause, “Are you having regrets?”
“Not exactly.” Charlotte turned her mug of lukewarm coffee around in her hands. “I feel okay. I mean, it was the first real decision I ever made for myself, so I suppose it’s natural to doubt it was the right one.”
They all reassured her it was, in fact, natural.
“I just hope you aren’t disappointed,” Quinn said. “Life in Harbor Pointe is very different from life in Chicago.”
“And so far, I’m not making a great impression,” Charlotte said.
“She crashed into Cole Turner’s truck,” Lucy said with a knowing glance across the table.
Collective eye-widening happened around the table.
“You crashed the vintage Chevy?” Haley asked.
“Not a crash, exactly,” Charlotte said. “But he seemed pretty mad.”
“Cole is kind of—” Quinn started.
“Cranky,” Haley interrupted.
“Moody,” Lucy added.
“Terrifying,” Quinn said.
All three of them laughed.
“Should I be worried? I mean, I smashed the headlight, tried to correct my mistake, and smashed into it again.” She grimaced. “I heard metal crunching.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Haley said. “He just doesn’t like to talk to people, is all.”
“He’s had a few hard years,” Quinn said. “I mean, it’s not like his crankiness isn’t justified, especially after Jules.”
Betsy walked over and tapped the table. “Need you behind the counter, Haley.”
Haley gave her boss a mock salute. “Hear you loud and clear, boss.”
Betsy smiled, shook her head, and walked away.
“Duty calls,” Haley said.
And then the conversation shifted back to Charlotte’s plans for the recital and the dance studio, and she didn’t get any of the dirt on the man whose truck she’d crashed into the day before.
Getting the flowers had been a sort of spur-of-the-moment idea, and one, it turned out, that seemed to have flopped. Ballet boys were always getting flowers, but she had a feeling it was different in the real world.
She drove across town now toward Lucy’s cottage, wishing she’d had the good sense to stay away from Cole Turner the Super Grouch in the first place.
7
Sunday morning, Charlotte woke up early because Lucy Fitzgerald didn’t seem to know how to get ready quietly.
Music blared from the bathroom while a slightly tone deaf Lucy sang along at the top of her lungs. Charlotte rolled over with a groan, but then, seconds later, the door to her bedroom opened.
“Sorry, Cee, I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t invite you to church this morning.”
“Cee?” Charlotte opened her eyes, but her hair was covering the one that wasn’t covered by the pillow.
“Should I not call you that? I’m big into nicknames.”
“It’s fine,” Charlotte said.
“Good,” Lucy said. “So . . . do you want to come?”
“To church?” She rolled onto her back.
“Stupid idea? Forget I asked. Go back to sleep.” She started to close the bedroom door.