One Mountain Away. Emilie Richards
glad to hear it. I think you might be the first person to try out the mattress.”
“It’s new?”
Charlotte hesitated just a moment. “Just unused. I don’t have many guests.” She held up a coffeepot. “Ready for some of this?”
Harmony shook her head. “I…I don’t drink coffee. I mean, at least not right now.”
Charlotte nodded. “Tea?”
Harmony wasn’t sure that she should have tea, either. In fact, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to drink. “I…” She shook her head.
“Orange juice, then?”
“Oh, that would be perfect. But I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“Now if you’d been here yesterday morning, you might have been. My refrigerator was practically empty. But not today, so I’m delighted to share. Let’s figure out what we should eat. I have bread for toast, fresh berries, yogurt. I almost never cook anymore, but I can do that much.”
“This kitchen never gets used?” Harmony couldn’t believe it. She was a Food Network groupie, and she was pretty sure Giada, Rachel and Paula had never seen a kitchen better equipped than this.
“I know. It hardly seems fair, but I’m afraid it’s used only rarely,” Charlotte said. “And then mostly by caterers if I’m putting on a dinner party. The rest of the time I eat out or snack.”
Harmony realized she was actually hungry. In fact, she tried to remember when she’d last eaten. Yesterday afternoon, she thought. A Cuppa wrap purchased with her employee discount. She was going to have to do better—and fast.
“Everything sounds good,” she said.
“Wonderful. It sounds good to me, too. Let’s eat everything in one fell swoop.”
“Have you ever wondered what that means? Have you ever seen any swooping fells?”
Charlotte’s laugh was low, almost sultry, and somehow didn’t fit with her uptown bearing. “Not lately. Swooping fellows, maybe, in singles’ bars, but I haven’t seen any of those in decades.”
“They’re still there, only now they come with their latest blood test clutched in one hand and industrial-strength condoms in the other.” Harmony realized what she’d said and wondered if she ought to just take a vow of silence.
“Then I’m guessing that’s not how you got pregnant,” Charlotte said, after a brief pause.
Harmony hung her head. “How did you guess?”
“Well, I have a daughter. And while I had her a long time ago, I’ve never forgotten the thrill of morning sickness all day long. I figured it out last night.”
“No, I didn’t meet the father in a singles’ bar.” Harmony cleared her throat. “We were living together, but I moved out when I realized I wasn’t the only woman he was sleeping with.”
“And I’m guessing this was recent, and the reason you’re sleeping on a girlfriend’s sofa?”
Harmony nodded. “Three weeks ago. I…I didn’t know I was pregnant until last week, at least not for sure.”
“This must be a confusing time for you. And it probably doesn’t help that you don’t have your own place.”
“One of the baristas at Cuppa might know of a room for rent. She promised she’d check for me.”
“Networking, huh?”
Harmony looked up and made a wry face. “She’s not very reliable, but Jennifer’s lease runs out at the end of June, and she said if I haven’t found something else by then, maybe we can rent something bigger together.”
“So you’re making plans.”
“It will work out.”
Charlotte didn’t answer. She got food out of the refrigerator and turned down Harmony’s offer of help. She put bread in the toaster, then dished yogurt into bowls and washed berries to go with it, setting things on the island as she worked.
Harmony watched closely. Charlotte Hale was a stranger, but there were clues as to what kind of woman she was. She was middle-age, with hands that were well-cared for and hair that was probably touched up but naturally that deep shade of red, since it fit so perfectly with the creamy tones of her skin. Jennifer worked at an expensive salon, and she was always pointing out things like that.
Charlotte was probably around the age of Harmony’s own mother, but she looked much younger because she had time and money to take care of herself, and a belief that she had the right, something Harmony’s own mother lacked. She was probably from somewhere in the South, although Harmony guessed her educated drawl hadn’t come from here, but perhaps from someplace less “mountain,” like Atlanta or Charlotte. The latter would even explain her name. She moved with grace, but slowly, as if she wasn’t certain her body was up to the tasks she’d set for it this morning.
She was clearly rich. Unless she was the housekeeper for the real owner. Harmony smiled, because she was pretty sure that was not the case.
Charlotte closed the refrigerator. “Would you like to eat here? In the breakfast room?”
“Here’s great,” Harmony said. Her stomach was rumbling now, and the breakfast looked perfect.
“Oh, good. My choice, too.” Charlotte slid everything closer to her guest, and motioned for her to take a plate and dish up.
“When we finish, I’ll leave,” Harmony said, in case that hadn’t been clear. “And I’ll find a way back to my car. You don’t have to worry. Jennifer can—”
“There’s no hurry. Unless you have an early shift at Cuppa?”
“No, I go on at four. I just need to go back to Jennifer’s and change clothes before I go in.” Harmony dug into her breakfast, which couldn’t have tasted better.
“This is none of my business…” Charlotte had settled beside her and was dishing berries over a small dollop of yogurt as she spoke.
“You want to know about the baby, right?”
“Only what you want to tell me.”
Harmony wondered if Charlotte was part of one of those organizations that made it their mission to talk girls like Harmony out of abortion. She wondered if that was why Charlotte had invited her here, because she had guessed Harmony was pregnant and possibly alone.
That all made sense, although Charlotte wasn’t pushy, the way Harmony had imagined someone with that agenda would be. Somehow it didn’t really fit, because she didn’t seem to be selling anything.
“I wasn’t planning to get pregnant,” Harmony said. “I was pretty careful. I guess pretty careful wasn’t careful enough.”
“I’ve been there. I understand.”
Harmony thought maybe there was a sisterhood of “pretty careful” women who had been faced with decisions like hers. She was afraid to ask Charlotte’s story, although she wished she knew.
“Davis doesn’t know. I haven’t told him yet.”
“I’m sure you have a good reason.”
Harmony found herself relaxing again. “I guess I don’t want him telling me what to do. He likes to do that. When I lived with him, I let him. His place, his rules. But all my life, other people have told me what I should do, and now, well, I need to figure this out myself. Because this baby won’t matter nearly as much to anybody else as it will to me. So that means I have to be the one to decide things.”
“That makes sense to me, although you sound pretty certain the baby won’t matter as much to Davis.”
“He doesn’t like children.”