Sailing to Capri by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online

seven years, and the age gap was too big for us ever to be really close. My other sister, Vi, also had a busy life, and though we all cared about each other, I knew it wasn’t fair to my sisters to impose myself suddenly on them. And that, as no doubt Bob would have said, left me free to do whatever I wanted.
    “Always look on the positive side,” I could hear him saying now. “You’re not at a dead end, you’re simply at a crossroads. It’s up to you to choose your route.”
    I needed a hug. I picked up my cell phone and dialed the Chicago number of my best friend, Bordelaise Maguire. I know Bordelaise is an odd name but her pregnant mother happened to be taking a French cooking course when she unexpectedly went into labor.
Bordelaise
was the first word she’d uttered after the baby was born. Which is how my friend came to be named after a French sauce.
    Of course, I had called to weep long distance on her shoulder when Bob died and of course she’d said she would get a flight and be with me the next day, but I wouldn’t allow it. I told myself this time I had to stand on my own two feet, I hadto take care of things the way Bob would have expected me to. He had helped me become this new strong woman and this was my time to prove it. Foolish, I know it now, when I could have benefited from the company of my dearest friend, but when we’re under stress we do foolish things.
    Bordelaise had e-mailed me every day since and I told her that I was okay and that I’d soon be leaving Sneadley Hall for good and perhaps I’d be coming back to Chicago after all.
    Now Bordelaise answered on the first ring, and without even asking who it was, as though she’d been expecting me to call, she said, “You okay?”
    “Sort of.”
    “The funeral’s over then.”
    “It’s over,” I agreed mournfully.
    “So what you do now is go to bed with a large glass of hot whiskey and lemon. Just snuggle under those blankets and get some sleep. I’ll bet you haven’t done that in a while.”
    Sleep belonged to the nights before Bob died. “You sound like my mom,” I said.
    “Somebody’s got to look after you, even if it is long distance.”
    “I’m okay, really I am. I’m taking a long hot bath. There’s a storm here, we’re snowed in.”
    “And here too,” she said. “Are you really okay, though?” She sounded doubtful and I assured her I was all right and said I was going downstairs to have dinner with a friend of Bob’s.
    “The roads are closed and he’s stuck here for the night,” I explained. “So you needn’t worry, I’m not alone. I just wanted a hug from you, that’s all.”
    “You’ve got it, girl,” Bordelaise said softly as we rang off with promises to call tomorrow.
    Bordelaise and I had known each other since grade school. Her mom and dad owned the restaurant where my mom worked, and we’d both done teenage stints there as mini-waitresses, washers-up, table clearers, and gossipmongers, speculating about which of the customers we fancied and who was dating whom and which wife was cheating on which husband.
    Bordelaise was a bright-eyed pixie of a girl, petite with rough blond hair hanging over her dazzling blue eyes in a too-long shaggy fringe that drove her mother crazy. She swore her daughter couldn’t see through it. Bordelaise attracted men like bees to the proverbial honeypot; all she had to do was run her hands through that blond hair and give them that flirty upward glance and her impish smile and they were goners. She had a track record to prove it. Two husbands down and one about to go. Not that that fazed her; unlike me she was always game for the next adventure.
    The bathwater was already cooling. I climbed out and wrapped myself in the luxury of a big soft warm towel, and I stood looking at my reflection in the mirrored walls.
    So here I am, I thought, staring at myself, a tall cool drink of water on the outside and still trembling on the inside. I’ve never been a beauty, I was just a