Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set by Gigi Blume (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📕

and Harriet. It was Randall’s first win, and he was so chuffed, he carried his statue around for an hour after he left the engraving room.

It was a fine time although through all the smiles and laughter, my thoughts constantly turned to Jaxson, how I longed to share it with him. I was just imagining his voice in my head telling me to head home before the sun came up when I caught sight of Harriet fall in the corner of my eye. She was properly trolleyed, walking down a carpeted staircase when her heel caught on the hem of her dress. She was two steps away from the bottom and tumbled spectacularly, catching air a ski jumper would envy. Two seconds before hitting the floor, Frank swooped in and caught her. I’d never seen anything like it. Those who witnessed the rescue gasped then applauded, whooping and hollering with awe. Harriet gazed up into Frank’s face, completely transfixed as he cradled her in his arms like an Antonio Canova sculpture. Ha! That was sure to trend on Twitter over the next twenty-four hours. Eat your heart out, Elton Wardlow.

Could there possibly be something there? I dared not hope—especially after swearing off matchmaking forever. Still, I couldn’t help but notice how charmingly paired Harriet and Frank were.

When Harriet and I were having lunch a few days later, I was more than delighted when she brought up the fun time she had with Frank. I didn’t even have to drop subtle hints or anything. After the server delivered our strawberry field greens salads, Harriet took a sip of her iced tea as if she were drinking in some courage and sat perfectly straight in her chair. The spring breeze on the patio of La Vie En Rose Bistro swept through her auburn locks, sending wispy tendrils to dance around her shoulders. She reminded me of the Little Mermaid in her moment of epiphany.

“Emma,” she began on a sigh. “I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?” I asked through a mouthful of salad.

“Ready to let go.” She tapped on her mobile phone screen and slid it across the table. A photo of Elton appeared, barely visible in the glare of the sunlight. “I want you to help me erase him from my life.”

“You mean… symbolically?”

“I had fifty-eight pictures of Elton on my phone—”

“Fifty-eight? Dang, girl.”

“I deleted most of them, but I couldn’t bring myself to let go of the best five… until now.”

I took the phone in my hand and scrolled through to find blurry snapshots of Elton covertly taken from behind objects and people.

“These are the best five?”

Harriet bit her bottom lip and responded with a sorrowful nod. “Will you delete them for me?”

I slid the phone back across the table. “I can’t do that for you. You have to do this yourself, or you’ll never truly let go.”

Harriet’s lip twitched. “I don’t know if I have the strength.”

“Then we’ll do it together. Okay? I’ll press the trash icon and you press the OK button.”

Her eyes welled up with the beginning of tears, but she bent her head in agreement. We went through the photos one by one. I tapped the trash icon, and the device responded with a pop up:

Are you sure you want to delete this photo? CANCEL or OK.

Harriet tapped OK, gaining more courage after each time until all the evidence of Elton was forever erased from her phone.

After a minute, I asked, “Feel better?”

She shrugged, a guilty expression awash on her features.

“Harriet?”

She didn’t say anything for a long interval, ripping a piece of pumpernickel breadstick from the basket in the centre of the table. We resumed our meals, the silence more of an exclamation point than any words she could muster. I let her feelings percolate, deciding she just needed time.

At length, she reached for her purse and dug through it until she found what she was looking for.

“There’s also this. It’s the pencil he used to mark on his sheet music. See his teeth marks? I took it when he wasn’t looking.” She stared at it for a few seconds before setting it on the table.

“And then I kept this, too,” she added, producing a folded tissue from her purse. “I was sneezing, and he was kind enough to give me this tissue from one of those little travel packs he carried in his pocket.”

She held onto it with a sentimental expression and set it down, meticulously lining it up next to the pencil.

“Are you sure you want to put that there right now?” I asked, beginning to lose my appetite.

“And finally, there’s this,” she continued as though she didn’t hear me. I guess she didn’t think twice about chewed-up pencils and used tissue next to the breadsticks. Oh, well.

She dipped into her purse once more, holding a Band Aid between her forefinger and thumb.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Harriet. We’re eating.”

“It’s not dirty. Elton had a paper cut, but he played his guitar through the pain. He said he didn’t need the Band Aid, so I kept it to remind me of his bravery.” She set the offending object in its place to complete her odd collection. “It’s lost its stick, now. Just like Elton isn’t stuck on my heart anymore.”

I sighed and set my fork on my salad dish, pushing my plate aside so I could cover Harriet’s hand to console her. The least I could do was tamp down my squeamish tendencies while my friend confided in me. I wasn’t kidding anybody by eating a salad anyway. What I really wanted was pizza.

There we were, looking upon her most precious treasures in silence, bidding them farewell.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the memory of Harriet’s crush on Elton Wardlow. It had a very short life, but it burned brightly. And now, a sad rendition of Amazing Grace in which I don’t remember the lyrics.

Poor Harriet. My heart broke for her just then.

“I’m so sorry,” I managed to say. “You deserve so much