She shook her head and sipped. Her eyes closed as if she was savoring the dark brew.
“Let’s go out back.” I motioned toward the sunroom with the view of the ocean.
She followed me, putting her purse on the table and pulling out a notepad. “I guess we can start with what you envision for your parents’ anniversary party.
“Because of my dad’s illness, it will be small. Just close friends and family. I’d like to maximize this sunroom and maybe the deck if it’s not too cold. Plus, the living area inside. That’s the largest space.”
“Do you want a sit-down dinner or more of an hors d'oeuvres and drinks thing?”
I hadn’t thought of that. “What’s usual?”
She shrugged. “It depends. If you’re having more than twenty people, perhaps not a sit down unless you have a large dining room.” She looked back at the house. “How many does the dining room sit?”
“Ten or twelve. I’m not sure.” We rarely had dinners at the beach house. In fact, as a family, we hadn’t been out here since I was in high school. I’d made plenty of use of the home when I was in college, but my friends and I didn’t use the dining room either.
“Do you have a theme in mind?”
I shook my head. “What do you recommend?”
“Well, there are a couple of options. Thirty years is pearls so we could work off that. We can have a pearl color scheme. We’re on the beach so seafood would work with that. Oysters.”
“I don’t need my parents getting horny,” I said as a joke.
She quirked a brow at me, but didn’t respond. Instead she said, “Or we can work off your Irish background. The pearl idea is probably more elegant, but the Irish theme might better fit your parents. The goal is to celebrate them and their relationship. We should probably have pictures of them and you to show off thirty years of life together.”
“I’ll ask Bri to get those.”
“Bri?”
“My sister. I’m sure I mentioned her before.”
“Oh yes.”
I leaned forward. “It’s weird how close I felt to you but now I realize, we never met our friends or family.” I felt guilty for not taking a greater interest in her life outside of me back then.
She squirmed slightly and looked out toward the ocean.
“Unless you’ve met my parents through the course of your event planning work,” I said.
She shook her head.
“I can’t remember if you have a brother or sister.” All of a sudden, I felt the need to know her better.
“Just me and my parents.” She turned her attention to her list. “So, the pearl theme, you think?”
I sat back, annoyed that she was going to make this all business. Even if we weren’t going to see if we could rekindle the past, we could be friends.
“Pearl sounds nice.”
“We’ll need to get invites out asap because we don’t have much time.”
I pulled out my phone. “I’ll have my assistant get me a list.” I typed the message to myself.
We continued to hash out ideas about the party, then I showed her the areas of the house that we could use for the party.
Serena walked through each room with the eye of a planner, but every now and then I saw awe, maybe even envy. I realized that in our short time together, I’d never brought her to the beach house.
“If we’d had more time together, I’d have brought you here,” I said.