Page 42 of The Do-Over

“But it’s true, I swear.”

I fiddled with the logbook on the counter, wondering what this was all about and why it felt like I’d just walked into a weirdly intimate discussion. Finally, I couldn’t take the tension. “Sounds like that little guy liked you.”

“She.” Lilah grinned.

“She?”

“I know who that bird was.”

I frowned, remembering how she’d whispered that cardinals were visitors from Heaven. “Who do you think it was?”

She turned to me, dark eyes shining. “It was my mommy.”

SEVENTEEN

“A gentleman never kisses and tells,

his lady’s smile does all the talking.”

—MIMI

“Would you help me with something?” Mathias said.

“That depends,” I said into the phone on my walk home from work. Skipping around a mud puddle from a storm last night, I paused in front of the little boutique and stared longingly at The Dress in its window. I bet New Perci would work up the courage to try it on.

“I’m giving a series of talks at Hope House and—”

“What’s Hope House?” I plopped on a bench in front of a bakery. The wind had picked up in the last few minutes, bringing a patch of ominous clouds with it.

“It’s a non-profit. They support women getting back on their feet with classes and help with jobs and interview skills. Stuff like that.”

“That sounds interesting.” A bird perched on the bed of a pickup truck parked on the street in front of me. Its red feathers ruffled in the wind—another cardinal. Lilah’s dark eyes as she’d announced that the cardinal she’d seen was her mother flashed in my head. My chest tightened to think of the hope in her voice.

“I’m glad you said that. I need you to teach a class for me there tomorrow night.”

“Teach a class?” I pulled out a package of peanut butter crackers from my purse and tossed one on the sidewalk, then took one for myself. The cardinal side-eyed me before hopping to the ground and snatching it up.

His voice took on an impatient tone. In the background, I heard an announcer give updated flight information. “Yes, a class.”

“Like, in front of people?” The cracker I’d started eating congealed in my throat.

“It’s not a big deal. When I presented last month, there were three women. I have a PowerPoint presentation. You show up and talk them through it and you’re done.”

On my list of Things I Never Wanted to Repeat, number two was public speaking. The last time had been in college in a required communications class. I had dropped my notes, crawled on all fours to pick them up, couldn’t figure out how to reorder them, and started crying in the middle of explaining the benefits of conflict management to a class of fifty people. I scraped by with a C in that class, probably because the professor felt sorry for me.

“It’s a couple of women, four at the most. You don’t even need to answer questions. Just be a warm body who knows how to run a computer and read stuff off a screen.”

The sun dipped behind angry gray clouds and the branches on the oak tree across the street bowed under the increasing strength of the wind. A gully-washer, as Mimi called them, was imminent. My cardinal tilted its head and took off for safety.

“That’s all?” Standing, I slung my purse on my shoulder and hurried toward my apartment.

“That’s it.”

The background noise grew louder and now I was certain I heard an announcement for a Tallahassee flight. “Are you headed to Florida?”

“Something came up.” He lowered his voice. “A photo surfaced of a Miss Florida contestant from a couple of years ago and we have to go do some damage control.”

“How bad is it?”