Anne raised her eyebrows and waited.
“To write halfway decent poetry,” Sadie continued, “you have to pay close attention to detail first. Details give poems oxygen; clichés suffocate them. ‘My love is like a red, red rose’? After three centuries, it’s beige wallpaper.”
Unbidden, a memory flashed behind Anne’s eyes: Sadie’s ruddy, miserable face two weeks ago, when she’d been fighting a bad cold. “I take it you’d prefer ‘My love is like a red, red nose’?”
“Yes,” Sadie exclaimed. “Good God, that’s delightful. Can I steal it?” She was already fishing out a small notebook and pen from her vintage Bottega tote.
“Be my guest.” Anne didn’t see what was so appealing, but if it made Sadie happy, she could steal every sentence Anne had ever spoken.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Sadie jotted down a quick note, then unceremoniously shoved the book and pen back into her bag. “Like a good poem, you, my friend, are anything but clichéd. Absolutely everything with you is detailed. Precise. Gorgeously sharp.”
She’d been calledsharpbefore, but never at the same time she’d been calledfriend. “You’re saying that’s good?”
“I’m saying,” Sadie told her, “that you’re what I spend my life looking for.”
The Santa Ana winds had been blowing all day, assaulting innocent people with dry air, dust, and pollen. So, obviously, that was why Anne’s eyes felt suddenly hot and full.
Her entire life, she’d been lookedat. But that was very different from being lookedfor.
She remembered, suddenly, that awful day last year when one of her daughters had been rushed to the emergency room following a sudden seizure. After hours at Brooke’s side, Anne had wandered back into the waiting area, planning on a granola bar from the vending machine. Instead, she’d seen Sadie sitting there, an insulated lunch bag on the chair next to her.
It was Sadie’s face Anne remembered most. The way her gaze had flickered up to the opened doors. How her expression opened, too, when Sadie realized it was the person she’d been looking for.
She’d been waiting there for hours, without expectation or hurry. Waiting for Anne.
Good grief. The Santa Anas really were awful today.
“Take that little bit of extra cartilage sticking out of the top of your left ear.” Sadie didn’t seem to notice Anne’s allergies, or that she’d gone silent again. “Even that’s sharp, like you couldn’t just let your helix be curved like everyone else’s. Look, it’s a completely necessary imperfection. Otherwise, you’d be flawless. And that’s just unsportsmanlike, given the rest of us commoners.”
Sadie always made specific observations about Anne. Compliments, really. She threw them out like Mardi Gras beads, pretty things that seemed to cost her nothing at all to give. It was a rare day when Sadie didn’t point out at least two or three very specific details about Anne that clearly charmed her.
Giving praise didn’t come easily to Anne. It never had. Whatever thoughts she had about her best friend usually remained stuck between Anne’s teeth. But she could try, couldn’t she? For Sadie, who deserved it?
She cleared her throat. “I like your, ah—”Your apple cheeks. Those long, long eyelashes. The way the corner of your right central incisor slants just a tiny bit over the left one, like it’s curtseying.All true. Why couldn’t Anne get any of it out? “Uh, how you—”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Sadie said wryly. “Stretch first. ‘You look nice today, Sadie.’”
Well, she wouldn’t saythat. Compliments didn’t count if the recipient handed them to you first. And generic praise wasn’t worth the effort it took to give. For crying out loud, any number of people ‘looked nice today.’ But none of them looked like Sadie. None of them had dark and perceptive eyes that took immediate, meticulous inventory of everything and everyone.
Of course, Anne noticed plenty about Sadie, too. It was impossible not to pay attention to her. Even after all this time—four whole years of late-night talks and strolls by the nearby creek and raucous dinner parties with the strangest compendium of humans in LA—she found herself watching Sadie at odd moments. The way Sadie threw her head back and exposed that long neck when Anne made her roar with laughter. Her slender, ink-stained hands, their skin the color of a pale peach rose, that always moved in the air when she talked. The faint parentheses that bracketed her wide, full mouth.
Discomfort prickled faintly inside Anne. “Let’s just order the flowers and get out of here, all right? We’ve got a lot of other stops to make.”
“I want to grab ten of those moss-scented goat milk soaps.” Sadie was already striding toward the local artisan craft display on the other side of the shop. “They’d be ideal hostess gifts for your party, especially if I wrap them in calico cotton. Oh!” She gasped and spun around. “I know where to get calico cotton with a gold foil pattern. There’s this terrific print on sale at that fabric store in Beverly Grove—”
“Absolutely not. We’re keeping this one simple. But feel free to get the calico cotton for your next shindig.”
Sadie pouted. “A gold foil pattern would complement those gray eyes of yours.”
“All I want,” Anne said firmly, “are four perfectly arranged bouquets, my new Kim Seybert tablecloth, and Nobu catering. No fuss.”
“Fine. I’m nothing if not accommodating. Let’s compromise. One goat milk soap in your guest bathroom, and I’ll even put it on a kicky little zircon-encrusted tungsten stand I rescued from Mitzi Gaynor’s estate sale.”
Despite herself, Anne smiled. Sadie’s design tastes were aesthetically aggressive—her home was a Jackson Pollock drippainting come to life—but her eye, despite its occasional myopia, could find real potential in the strangest combinations. “All right, go ahead. Get the soap; tungsten stand contingent upon inspection.”
The concession earned a delighted grin from Sadie that lit up her eyes. Without pushing her luck further, she bolted to retrieve the soap.
She’s really a very pretty woman, Anne thought,I should tell her that at some point.For some reason, her stomach fluttered.