Page 155 of You've Got Hate Mail
“Is that a new dress?” Cricket asks her while I straighten and get back to torturing myself by parting Cricket’s hair and starting her braids, this time without being able to kiss her.
“Elizabeth gave it to me,” Lav says. “I don’t like dresses, but I like this one. It has pockets.”
“Pockets are key for dresses,” Cricket says. “Do you slay dishes too? Or just dragons?”
Lav giggles, then heads to the sink and starts loading the dishwasher.
I pause.
This is new.
“Don’t act so shocked, Dad,” Lav says. “Girls can do dishes too.”
Cricket chokes on her coffee.
“I— Yes. Of course. Thank you,” I say to my daughter.
Without sarcasm, for the record.
Not easy.
“Elizabeth taught me to load the dishwasher too,” Lav says. “I’m sad she’s leaving. Do you think she’ll still send me a birthday present?”
“Whether she does or doesn’t, we’ve been fortunate to get to know her this month,” I say.
“Cricket, when you leave, will you send me birthday presents?” Lav asks.
My heart thuds and falls out of my chest.
And I realize the other problem with dating Cricket.
I can’t date anyone when the winery overall is on such tenuous ground.
If we don’t make enough putting on this wedding, if we can’t find the right investor, if something else breaks—then we’re all scattering to the wind again.
It’s naïve at best to think that this thing with Cricket would continue if we all had to move.
“I’m not thinking of leaving anytime soon,” Cricket says. “I just asked Ginny for a job with the grapes.”
That has my heart picking itself back up off the floor. “You did?”
She nods, catches herself moving her head, and goes still again for me as her hairdresser.
Whoops.
Gonna have to redo that braid.
How terrible to have to keep touching her hair.
“I did,” she says. “I’ve liked working in the garden so much that I asked her if I could learn to manage the grapes too. It’s…a little uncertain right now…but we’re talking to Mabel about it today.”
If she’s taking on the grapes?—
One day at a time, dummy, I remind myself.
But Cricket talking about taking over the grapes means she wants to stay.
If we get an investor.
