Seer by Robin Roseau Read Free Book Online

I decided it was okay, and I also thought she needed this, based on what she’d said earlier in the week.
    “Thank you for inviting me,” she said into my ear. “I was so nervous. I changed clothes a half dozen times.”
    I pulled away and looked her up and down. “You look good, Dolores,” I assured her.
    “I’m trying to figure out who I am,” she admitted. “I don’t like who I became while I was married. I feel like this is an opportunity to reinvent myself.” She gestured. “This is part of it.” But then she looked away for a moment. “I don’t know if I can stop being so nervous, though.”
    Those statements seemed like non sequiturs, but I decided somehow they weren’t.
    “Dolores, you’re a smart, attractive woman,” I said. I linked arms. “Come on. We can open a bottle of wine and get the food started.”
    “I brought wine,” she said. “And I made a dessert.”
    “Oh?”
    “It has to go in the fridge. I should have asked. Maybe you don’t have room.”
    “Dolores, I love to entertain, and so I have a second fridge downstairs. I keep it full of beverages, and it serves as overflow when I’m having a big crowd.” I pulled her to the kitchen. “Set that there. I’ll give you the tour, and we can put your dessert away.” I smiled. “What did you make?”
    “Tiramisu,” she said. As usual, she looked nervous. “It’s an experiment. I used different flavors with this one.”
    “Tiramisu?” I asked. “Really? You might be my new, best friend! Do we really have to share?”
    She laughed then unpacked her bag. She had two bottles of wine, a cake pan, presumably filled with nummy tiramisu goodness, and two Tuperware containers full of cut up vegetables.
    She looked at me apologetically. “You said I didn’t have to bring anything if I came to help, but I just couldn’t show up empty-handed, and I didn’t know what you might want.”
    “This is great,” I said. I grabbed the cake pan. “We’ll start in the basement. It’s just a basement, but we can put the dessert away, then I’ll show you the rest.”
    My house wasn’t that big. The basement was unfinished, so there wasn’t much down there to show her. We returned to the main floor, which is set up for entertaining. The second floor held three bedrooms. One was equipped as a guest room, and one was my home office. I was thinking of creating one in the basement, as it would be cooler in the summer, but I wasn’t handy that way, and I hadn’t gotten around to hiring someone to do it for me.
    “It’s lovely,” she said when we arrived at my bedroom. She looked at some of the pictures. “Who is this?”
    I stepped over to her. “Mom and me. I think I was seven.” I pointed to another. “That’s my dad. I’m an only. They spoiled me rotten.”
    “How are they now?”
    “Both gone,” I said. “They died young.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I bet that was hard.”
    “I miss them,” I admitted.
    “There are no pictures of old boyfriends.” She was looking between the photos.
    I thought carefully before answering. “I’ve never had a boyfriend, Dolores.”
    She glanced at me. “I wondered. I don’t see any pictures of girlfriends, either.”
    “I’m still friends with a few,” I admitted, “but when I let someone new see this room, I don’t want her wondering if I’m holding a candle for an ex.”
    “ I burned all the photos I had of Dusty,” she said. “Is that terrible?”
    “No,” I said. “No kids?”
    “No,” she said. “No kids.”
    We headed back downstairs. I pointed to the wine opener and glasses. But then I held out my hand.
    “What?”
    “Access to the wine glasses means I get your keys. You get them back later if you’ve gone at least two hours with no alcohol. Otherwise you get a ride or take a cab.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yep.”
    She didn’t argue but instead pulled them out of her purse and handed them to me.
    “Thank you,” I said. I walked to the door leading to