The Selling Point Page 13

  Looking at old buildings was one of the few activities that allowed Taylor’s tough exterior to slip. The excitement she felt examining the structures overshadowed her unconscious need to protect herself. She was like the proverbial kid in a candy store whenever she got to look at crumbling architecture. Seeing her focus on architecture without the usual personal distance she kept around her was refreshing.

  As they headed down a path toward the structure, Taylor talked about brick and masonry and some other shit Darby didn’t understand. She didn’t think Jade understood it either, but she was great at asking questions and seeming like she was actually interested. She did that with Darby too. No doubt Jade had no idea about, or interest in, French seams or ladder stitching, but she always listened when Darby rambled as they sat together by the cove at the end of the day. That was one of the things that made Jade such a good friend. She listened.

  That was something Darby needed to work on. She tended to get swept up in her own overblown problems and dramas. The habit was likely because she’d spent so much time alone through her formative years. She’d had no one but herself to help her resolve problems.

  That wasn’t the case any longer, and she needed to learn from Jade and Taylor. They needed to learn from one another so they could all grow and heal from the traumas that had damaged them. Wasn’t that what friendship was really about?

  Though the three of them tended to get off-balance from time to time, the foundation of their friendship was strong. Like the lighthouse. They weathered their fair share of storms and kept standing. Whether that was Jade’s divorce, Taylor’s insecurities, or Darby’s…everything, they were strong enough to keep going.

  Darby needed that kind of security in her life. She needed that kind of resilient and ongoing love that she’d found in her friends. Most of her family was still in Mexico City. Without her mom, Darby had been on her own for too long. She needed Jade and Taylor and their bond like she needed air and fashionable clothing.

  “Do you see how the astragals create a pattern?” Taylor asked with her head rolled back and a hand pressed above her eyes to shield them from the sun.

  “The what?” Darby asked.

  Dropping her hand, Taylor eyed Darby. “The… See the pretty panes of glass?”

  Turning her focus to the big room at the top of the lighthouse, Darby nodded. “Neat.”

  “Neat?” Taylor asked. “Do you have any idea the time that must have gone into framing and placing the panes? How much thought had to go into the structural integrity?”

  “Uh. No.” Darby shrugged. “I really don’t know, and I’m not so sure I care.”

  Taylor looked offended for a split second before huffing and rolling her eyes. “Whatever. Come on. You’ll appreciate it once we get to the top.”

  “Remember when we went to Mount Vernon?” Jade asked as Taylor rushed them along the path leading to the tall red and white structure.

  “Give me a break,” Taylor said, but the smile on her lips let them know she wasn’t offended.

  Darby put her hand to her heart. “It was like Christmas morning for her,” she said with a wistful grin like a proud mama reliving one of her favorite memories. “She didn’t know what to gawk at first—the cup of cola or the view from the pizza.”

  Taylor laughed loudly. “You wanna try saying that again?”

  “You know what I mean,” Darby said with a wink, happy that her intentional mispronunciations had given them another moment of normalcy. She had a habit of playing dumb to get laughs from her friends. The truth was, she lived for fancy design and extravagance. She knew exactly what she meant—the cupola and the piazza had been her favorites too. “You were the one drooling over them.”

  “She’s not wrong,” Jade chimed in. “I was afraid you might get arrested, the way you were fawning over George Washington’s Central Passage.”

  Darby giggled. “That was nothing compared to the way she was eying his Lower Garden.”

  “All right,” Taylor said before any more bad puns could be made. “So I’m an architectural and history nerd. Like you guys aren’t weird in your own ways. And you call me a jerk.”

  Laughter filled the air for a few moments before quiet fell over them as they walked, slightly faster than usual, toward the lighthouse. The silence between them was companionable as they listened to the birds chirping and the wind rustling the trees. This was a peaceful kind of quiet.

  They all seemed to be contemplating something. Jade was likely considering her relationship with Liam, Taylor was probably thinking about her business struggles, and Darby’s mind was racing round and round about all that had happened to her since opening The Un-Do Wedding Boutique.

  Who knew one business decision could turn someone’s life on its head so damn quickly?

  And not just her life. Her entire perception of herself had shifted so quickly, she was still feeling the aftershocks. The confidence she’d worked so hard to find had been far too easily shattered. Meaning, it hadn’t been real. None of what Darby had come to believe about herself was real.

  Even though she’d apologized and changed the site, she still felt lost and confused about what she’d done and why. Worse than that, she felt uncertain about who she really was.

  Jennifer had called her a fake, as had so many people in the posts on Un-Do’s website. Darby couldn’t shake the feeling they were right. She’d been using her retro style to force herself into a station in life where she hadn’t belonged, and she’d been caught.

  She felt like the kid trying to sit at the grown-up table. The nerd trying to join the cheerleading team. The outcast trying to fit in where she never would. None of those things felt good, but they all felt far too familiar. She wished she had some kind of fairy godmother who could come down and guide her through this mess—this mess being her life.

  Darby was more than halfway through her thirties. Shouldn’t she have a better grasp on life by now? Shouldn’t she have a clearer idea of who she wanted to be and how to actually become that person?

  Other people her age had careers, families, schedules that held them accountable. Darby had two slightly dysfunctional best friends and a disaster of an online business.

  Damn it. Her life was a joke.

  She was a joke.

  All those people, including Jennifer Williams, had been right. And that stung.

  “What are you thinking?” Jade asked, disrupting Darby’s ugly spiral into self-loathing.

  Darby looked up at the azure sky. A few puffy white clouds slowly drifted inland, and the incessant squawking from seagulls grew louder as they neared the lighthouse.

  The scene should have been picturesque. Perfect.

  But Darby felt like crap all the way down to her soul. “It was all fake,” she said softly.

  “What?”

  “The hair, the clothes, the no-fucks-to-give attitude. It was all a facade that I put on to hide what a loser I am. And now it’s falling apart.”

  Jade strolled quietly next to her before finally heaving a sigh. “First thing, you absolutely are not a loser, Darby. You’re amazingly kind and considerate. And you’re fun. You are so much fun. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much as I have in the year since I met you. Which says a lot because I didn’t have a lot to laugh about a year ago. Second thing, everybody’s outer layer is a facade. Whether it’s bright red hair, bold and colorful fashion, or a fuck-it-all attitude. We’re all faking it to an extent, but that doesn’t mean it is fake.”

  While Jade was easily the smartest person Darby knew, in that moment, she wasn’t making much sense. “Isn’t that exactly what it means?”

  “No,” Jade said. She nodded toward Taylor, who had moved quite a bit ahead of them as her excitement grew. “Look at her. Do you see how happy she is when we go on these little road trips? How…unguarded she is when she’s taking it all in? That’s Taylor. The real Taylor. That’s the reason we tolerate her tough act when she gets triggered by her past. Because we know beneath h
er attitude, she’s an excited little kid who can’t wait to touch old, crumbling bricks and tell us all about how they were made, even if we don’t care. I spent decades building a career that ultimately destroyed my marriage because of my need to present myself as successful to the world. I needed people to see me as someone who had made a good life for herself. That was my facade, Darby. But underneath the calm, cool, and collected executive act, I was terrified of failing. Your facade is so carefree because inside all you want is to be accepted. We all wear masks to protect ourselves. But the people we care about, the ones who really matter, they get to see what’s behind them. You’re not fake, Darby. You’re protecting a precious part of yourself, and that’s okay. You’re allowed to decide who you let into your life based on how they treat the person you present to them.”

  “But you’re doing so much better,” Darby said, surprised by the swell of emotion that hit her.

  “Am I?” Jade asked with a slight laugh. “I have a wonderful man standing right in front of me waiting to embrace him, and I’m too scared to have my heart broken again to let him in. That doesn’t seem so great to me.”

  “At least you have a man,” Darby said with a scoff. “I haven’t dated in years. And now that I’m a social pariah, I doubt that will ever happen again.”

  Jade ran a soothing hand down Darby’s back. “Honey, this won’t last forever. I know it seems that way, but it won’t.”

  “I guess,” she said and heaved a sigh. “Having people hate me without even knowing me is the story of my life. I’d hoped to have outgrown that bad habit by now.”

  “Darby,” Jade said with her understanding mama tone, “there will always be people who choose to not like you. No matter what you do or how hard you try, you cannot please everyone. None of us can. Please don’t take that personally. Sometimes people simply don’t mesh. Sometimes they don’t want to. That’s not your problem to solve. You have to be happy with yourself and live a life that makes you happy. As long as you aren’t intentionally hurting someone else, that’s really all you owe anyone. Don’t get caught up in this misconception that everyone has to like or agree with you. That will never happen.”

  “I know,” Darby said with a frown. “I have a hard time remembering, that’s all.”

  “Nobody is good at remembering that,” Jade said with a sweet smile. “That’s why we have friends to remind us as needed.”

  “Come on,” Taylor called as she opened the door to the lighthouse. “You guys are so slow!”

  Darby moaned miserably. “She really is going to make us climb to the top, isn’t she?”

  “Yep.”

  And they did, step by agonizing step, until they reached the top and could view the world through the lantern pane. The glass-enclosed space made Darby feel like she was in a fishbowl. Rather than being a part of the world around her, she felt trapped, seeing the world from afar. Another feeling she knew all too well.

  As much as her instinct was telling her to hide, to blend in and not be seen, her heart was telling her that wasn’t the way. She had to face the storm brewing outside her proverbial lighthouse. She had to face her mistakes or her fears would win. Darby wasn’t going to let that happen.

  As she looked out at the world below them, watching the trees sway and the birds pivot toward the cresting waves, another feeling came over her. Guilt and shame for the role she’d played in hurting people.

  Darby had posted her apology online, but that wasn’t enough. Not really. She needed to offer Sue a face-to-face apology for dragging her story onto The Noah Joplin Show.

  Darby had always been better at hiding in the shadows and running when accountability came into play. She’d never been great at owning up when she should, and she certainly hadn’t ever mastered the art of facing her demons. But Sue deserved the chance to tell Darby to her face what she thought of her.

  That wouldn’t be easy or comfortable, but this was a pivotal moment for Darby, and as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t run from it. Just like she’d had to accept the hits and acknowledge her mistakes after Noah’s show, she had to face the heartache she’d caused for Sue Berdynski—even if Darby hadn’t done so maliciously.

  Time to grow up, Darbs, she said to herself. Time to face the music and be an adult. Yuck.

  “Guys,” Darby said quietly since they were all standing in the same small glass room. She considered her words for a few seconds before turning from the glass panes and the astragals that had so captivated Taylor. After eying both her friends, she swallowed hard and then said, “I need your help.”

  Darby grinned when, later that evening, Taylor held a peach bridesmaid dress to her chest and winced.

  “Who would choose this color for a wedding?” Taylor asked.

  “What was your wedding like?” Darby asked. Taylor had only ever mentioned her marriage a handful of times, but Darby was curious. Mostly because she couldn’t picture Taylor as anybody’s wife. She was too set in her ways.

  Taylor tossed the dress aside. “Too much whiskey and a lot of bad decisions.”

  As she carefully added tissue paper to the box she was packing, Darby pictured Taylor as a happy bride. The image didn’t fit, but neither did Taylor jumping into marriage on a drunken whim. “I’m serious.”

  “Me too.”

  “Taylor,” she pressed.

  Sinking onto Darby’s couch, Taylor shrugged. “We got married at the courthouse. Nothing fancy. We couldn’t afford fancy.”

  “What’d you wear?”

  “Jeans and a blouse.”

  Darby stopped moving. “You wore jeans to your wedding?”

  “What else would I wear? Shit like that?” Taylor gestured toward the dresses they were packing to ship. “You wouldn’t catch me dead in ruffles and sequins.”

  “What’d you wear to your prom?”

  A big eye roll told Darby the answer before Taylor spoke. “I didn’t go to prom. I barely went to school. The only reason I did was because the principal called Grandpa one day and told him if I skipped one more time, I was going to be expelled.”

  Darby smiled, mostly because she wasn’t at all surprised that Taylor hadn’t wanted to go to school. “You skipped a lot, then?”

  “Almost every day. I’m pretty sure the only reason I graduated was because they didn’t want to hold me back and deal with me one more year.”

  “Well, you went on to college, so it couldn’t have been that bad.”

  “Community college,” Taylor said. “And I did that for my grandpa. He needed to think I was going to make something out of my life. What about you? Did you go to prom?”

  “Nah,” Darby said, closing the box. “Nobody asked me.”

  “You could have gone on your own. You don’t have to have a date for those things. The requirement of an escort is a lie society has been telling women for centuries.”

  “Right. That’s what every high school girl wants to do. Go to prom alone. Besides, Mom couldn’t afford a dress, and I would have been laughed out of the gym if I’d made something on my own. I wasn’t that great at sewing back then. People could tell I stitched my own clothes.”

  Taylor taped the box shut as Darby held the flaps in place. “Sounds like that old Molly Ringwald movie. I’m pretty sure that worked out for her.”

  “I was never as cool as Molly Ringwald,” Darby said.

  “Molly Ringwald was cool?” Taylor asked and then smiled.

  Darby grabbed the last dress she needed to send—the peach bridesmaid dress—and carefully folded it. “Even if I’d been able to buy a dress, I wouldn’t have gone without a date. That would have been embarrassing back then. Nowadays, I’d never let that stop me from having a good time.”

  “So you didn’t date much in high school?”

  Shaking her head, Darby thought back on those miserable years. “I didn’t have my first date until I was in my twenties. But I was still awkward and weird. We dated for a little while, but he was even more awkward and weird than I was, if
you can believe it. I didn’t start really dating until I transformed from Wallflower Darby to Rockabilly Darby. Rockabilly Darby is so much more fun.”

  Taylor tilted her head. “Don’t label yourself like that, Darbs. Wallflower Darby is as much you as this version. You always had this fun side. It just took some time to find it. That’s all.”

  “When are you going to find your fun side?” Darby deadpanned and then laughed when Taylor threw a makeup brush at her.

  “Screw off,” Taylor said. “When are you going to go back to your other boutique?”

  “I don’t know,” Darby said, putting the dress inside a box. “I am waiting to see if my apology is accepted and people forgive me.”

  “I’m sure they will, but you have to give it some time. Don’t you?”

  “I guess. If they continue trying to cancel me, I might have to find something new altogether.”

  “Cancel you?” Taylor asked.

  Despite the heaviness in her heart, Darby chuckled. “You really do have to start paying attention to the world around you, Tay. Cancel culture is a thing, and I fear it’s coming for me.”

  Taylor held the box top closed so Darby could run a long bit of tape across it. “Yeah, you have to fill me in on this because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Cancel culture is when the world finds a target and dumps on them until they’re blasted into oblivion. Bullying, blacklisting, threats… It’s sadistic and ugly, and I’m ninety percent certain that’s what’s about to happen to me if people don’t understand that I really am sorry for the pain I caused.”

  Taylor was quiet as she watched Darby stack boxes next to her door to take to the post office. “Was your apology sincere?”

  Darby smiled slightly. “Yes. I didn’t… I didn’t tell you this before, but I ran into Jennifer at the store yesterday. We got into it a little bit in the cosmetics aisle.”