Free Wave Good-Bye by Lila Dare

historicpreservation situation, I don’t even know what to do first. Or whether I need to do anything at all. Things are just happening so quickly.”
    She let me go and ran nervous fingers through her hair with its cute spikes held in place by a generous application of gel. When she finished, she quickly tucked her hand under the desk. “You see, this thing with the historical society isn’t the only thing on my mind. Something else has come up. Recently. Just last night, in fact.”
    “What?” I couldn’t imagine any more on our plate.
    With her right hand, Mom neatened the edges of a stack of papers. “While we were at dinner, Walter told me he’s planning on selling out. Seems he’s got a buyer who’s interested in his whole inventory. A collector. Then a friend called, another Civil War reenactor, and offered him a great deal on his Winnebago. Walter always teased him about wanting to buy it from him one day—and last week the man decided he wanted to sell. The upshot is that Walter wants to travel all around the country. He’s planning to go from historic battlefield to battlefield.”
    “I’ll be sorry to see him go. It’s kind of nice how he’s been popping in all the time lately.”
    A small smile played at her lips. “Yes, that has been nice. Actually, I’ve grown quite fond of Walter. Really fond. Um, he asked if I’d like to come along with.”
    “And what? Fly back from some of those places? Sure. I can hold down the fort. It’s not like we’re overrun with customers.”
    “No, honey.” She positioned her left hand on the desk so I could see the sparkle of her new ring. “He’s asked me to marry him.”
    It’s always hard to imagine your parents did “it.” Harder still for me, after all these years without a dad, to realize that my mother was still interested in “it.” But the blush onher cheeks told me everything I needed to know. She might be sixty-something years old, but my mom was still a girl at heart. Anything else would be too much information, or TMI as Rachel put it.
    “Where are my manners? Congratulations!” Now I reached across the desk and hugged her hard. She giggled as I did. “Does Alice Rose know? Or Althea?”
    “No. You’re my firstborn, so I wanted you to hear it first. Walter even asked if he needed to get down on his knees and propose to you, too, but I told him I thought you might take a pass. Seeing the commotion his proposal caused at Pizza Hut, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through that again.”
    I would have liked to have seen that but I wasn’t about to spoil the moment by saying so.
    “When’s the date? I mean, have you set a day for the wedding yet?”
    She shrugged. “Everything’s up in the air.”
    I sank back into my seat. “What do you mean? You are going to marry him, right? You’re wearing the ring.”
    “I’ve accepted his proposal, but we have a lot of details to iron out. Of course, I also have to tell Alice Rose and Althea. Stella and Rachel, too.”
    “Althea’ll want to be your matron of honor. Or would it be your maid of honor, since she’s a widow?”
    “I don’t know! I figure she’ll let me know what she wants to be and I’ll go along with it!” She paused, acting unsure what to say next. “Grace Ann, Marty is coming down Tuesday night for sure, right? I guess as a reporter, he works odd hours. Kind of hard to get used to, isn’t it?”
    “He promised me that he’ll be here.”
    “Have you given any more thought to his suggestion that you move up to DC with him? Go work in a salon up there?”
    A hailstorm of emotions battered me. Did I want tomove in with Marty? Was I willing to make that commitment? Had he been serious when he suggested that it would be easy for me to find work in a DC salon? Was that the same as an invitation to move in together? Or was he simply pointing out that it would be a lot less hassle if we didn’t live a half day away from each other?
    Other than the two years I lived in