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ELIZABETH
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EVERY NOW AND THEN, Khalid and I would drive to Copper Ridge or Red Cliffs, for coffee or lunch. Several times I went by myself, to shop or simply to observe the people. The inhabitants and their interactions, I believed, were the key to understanding what was going on here. Khalid, always determined to spend every available moment with me, didn’t seem to mind my little excursions.
Both towns had many cute little shops, boutiques, hair salons, cafes, patisseries, bakeries, bookstores, you name it.
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ONE MORNING I’D DECIDED to extend my lunch hour and go to Copper Ridge to buy something for Jacob and Lottie. Khalid had said he needed to talk to Azem about the Baker Block.
In a small toy shop, I found a lovely wooden train set and a puppet theater with miniature characters from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, one of Jacob’s best loved books: a mischievous boy in a wolf suit, a ship and his wild friends. In the jewelry store, I bought a beautiful silver brooch for Lottie – a stylized Celtic rose surrounded by eight tiny moons in different phases around the rim. In the place next door, I treated myself to a sapphire blue raw-silk scarf. A pearly pink nail polish and some hair accessories for Zana completed my shopping list.
Across the street, I saw Lani Blackwell. She smiled and waved to me. “Do you have time for coffee?” I asked, crossing the street.
“Sure. There is a coffee shop around the corner. It’s my favorite place.”
We passed by a flower shop and a hair salon called Moonflower and Moon Waves, so it didn’t surprise me when I read the silver and blue sign above the café: Waxing Crescent.
We ordered a cappuccino for Lani and a double espresso for me.
“So, how do you like it here?” Lani asked as we sat at a table beside a window overlooking the street.
For a moment I considered telling her all about my confusion with this place and its people. She was also a relative newcomer to Copper Ridge; she’d understand. Then I changed my mind. What was strange for me might be normal for her.
“I have limited experience with small town life,” I said instead. “So far I like it. I’m going to be here for a few more weeks, and then—back to Rosenthal.”
“Oh, I see.”
“How do you like it here?” I asked. “You were also a big city girl.”
“It took me a while to adapt, but now I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. This is home.”
“Do you have a family?”
“My parents are dead,” she said. “No siblings, no relatives. I have friends, and luckily, all of them live in either Copper Ridge or Red Cliffs.”
“You live alone?”
“Alone, and I love it. This is also new for me.” She hesitated for a moment, but then continued, “My ex-husband was abusive. I’m not ready for a relationship.”
I looked at her beautiful, expressive topaz brown eyes and saw in them the same shadow that had once lurked in my own. “I understand,” I said quietly.
“I thought you might.”
I looked up at her. “I wasn’t in an abusive relationship. I had the bad luck to briefly come across an extremely violent person.”
“I figured out that much. You are not a person who’d stay in such a relationship.”
No, I wasn’t. My parents had loved me and had taught me how to love and respect myself. I’d grown into a person with a healthy measure of self-awareness and self-confidence, regardless of my little insecurities and occasional doubts.
“You didn’t stay either,” I said softly.
“He’s out of my life, and that’s all that matters. I’ve changed, and I like who I’ve become. I have a job I like, friends, a house.” She paused. “And no man to fret about. Perfect. I rarely talk about my life before Copper Ridge, especially not to ... I almost said ‘to a stranger’ but you don’t fit into that category.”
“Thank you for telling me about yourself.”
“Took me a long time to start talking about myself. It’s also something I’ve recently learned.” She smiled. “Now, you tell me about yourself. There is an ongoing debate here if you are a countess by title or only by blood. Let me be the first to know the truth.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “I’m not a countess,” I said. “My mother was, but she married a commoner. She didn’t give two figs about it anyway, and my father didn’t consider adopting her last name and the title with it. I hope that won’t disappoint anyone.”
“It’s irrelevant,” Lani said with a lopsided smile. “As far as Copper Ridge is concerned, your blue blood is indisputable.”
“I’m flattered, but I’m nobility as much as Dr. Falkenstein is royalty. He looks to me like the twin brother of the Holy Roman Emperor Josef II but that doesn’t make him a crown prince in exile.”
Lani gave me a strange look—or I just imagined it—but didn’t comment. Instead, she asked me about my studies, my first jobs, places I’d lived. She talked about her schooling, from being a straight-A student in junior high to a high school dropout, her broken family and her later decision to study nursing. “I graduated third in my class. I worked to support myself, mostly in restaurants and bars, so that I could go to classes during the day. I’ve always been capable, I suppose. I was told I wasn’t. Unfortunately, I believed it. I even studied music theory for a year along with nursing, but I had to stop. It was too much.”
“Those are huge achievements. It’s much easier to do something when you have stable family conditions and secure finances. You didn’t have these benefits, yet you did so much. And fast. How old are you, if I may ask?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Really? You look younger.”
“Everybody here looks younger, didn’t you notice?” she said laughing. “That’s why I like this place.”
Was it an opening? Once more I considered asking her about this place and its oddities, and once more I changed my mind.
I wasn’t ready for the answers.
Lani invited me to visit her sometime, told me about a fancy shoe store in Red Cliffs and promised to ask her hair stylist if she could take me in the next week.
We hugged, like old friends, before parting. Her touch made me wince and shoot her an inquiring look.
“Your skin’s warmish,” I said. “Are you feeling okay?”
She smiled reassuringly. “Oh, yes. My body temperature is naturally a bit higher.” She shrugged. “My unique genetic makeup.”
My brain recollected a detail I hadn’t paid attention to. The smooth warmth of Lani’s hand when Brian introduced us. And not only hers. Tristan’s and Livia’s touches felt the same.
Not knowing what to make out of this latest mystery, I pushed it into some dark alley of my mind.
As I drove home, I thought about this unexpected friendship at first sight between Lani and me. On the surface, our life paths had been very different, almost opposite: parental love versus lack of it, endless opportunities versus limited opportunities, financial stability versus financial insecurity, and so on. Yet, the deeper parts of our souls easily recognized each other. She felt it, too, I was sure of it.
I didn’t know how to explain our instant connection, but I decided to leave it to the future to resolve this latest enigma, together with the other mysteries surrounding Copper Ridge and Red Cliffs.