“Everyone in that dining room is going to wonder what you are trying to prove,” he said, stepping closer to me on the narrow sidewalk. “At your age, wearing something that bright. It is embarrassing.”
Two people at a small table on the fenced patio of the restaurant turned their heads toward us. I did not recognize them, but the older woman adjusted her reading glasses to get a clearer view of us standing near the low boxwood hedge.
“It is my fifty-first year starting today,” I said, keeping my hands at my sides. “I wanted to wear something that was not black or navy.”
“This is not about the color,” Damon said, his eyes scanning my face, searching for the familiar dip of my chin that usually signaled my surrender. “This is about you thinking you can just change who you are because of a number on a calendar.”
I stepped back, my heel catching slightly on the edge of a concrete planter filled with dying marigolds.
