AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And? After that?” he says in his classic manner of perfectly calm pushiness.
“Well I don’t know. I don’t know how long we’re gonna take. I don’t know where we’re gonna go, what we’re gonna buy, what we’re gonna do. I don’t know!”
“Okay Cookie, calm…calm. Deep calming breaths.”
“And second of all, how am I going to eat an early dinner after a late lunch? Huh? Riddle me that, Batman!”
“Okay, I’m gonna let you go…I’ll be back in town later this week. So let’s plan on a couple hours of quality time, say around Wednesday? I’ll let you know when I have my schedule for sure.”
“Okay fine. Sounds good. Lemme know, whatever, whenever—”
“Gotta run. Don’t forget your restorative yoga class Monday. Talk to you soon.” Click.
“Oh sure, I won’t forget. Go ahead and schedule me however you like. My career doesn’t matter at all. What was I ever thinking when I thought my time mattered?” I ask the room, well aware Quade’s no longer on the line.
I step out of the tub with careless haste, splashing the tiles thoroughly with water, then successfully yank a bolt out of the decrepit towel rack sticking out of the ancient wall of my antiquated bathroom. “Shit! I don’t have time for this.” I dry off vigorously for ten seconds, dash the towel to the floor, and stomp toward my dresser to retrieve the hair dryer.
Having thrown on a simple pair of black capris with an oversized white button-up, untucked, I step into my thongs and I’m off. Feeling better, I smile slightly as I sit in my white Jaguar and put on a podcast. An hour of Calmer You ought to make the drive fly by. She’s interviewing a Spiritual Life Coach in this week’s episode. Oh boy.
By the time I reach our designated restaurant, One Twenty Six, I’m almost in a coma from all that excitement. As I approach the patio, I can see Holly waiting for me under a striped umbrella…her long, luxuriant corkscrew curls swaying in the breeze. She’s sipping something that looks remarkably like pinot noir.
“Fiona!” She stands and hugs me with the enthusiasm she always brings to our outings. “Sit, sit. Pick out some wine.” Our waitress comes by and I order the same.
“So,” Holly starts in, twirling her glass and gazing at me through sparkling brown eyes, “how are things in your life this week?”
“Just the usual. A couple more seedy messages from The Beast, and a few conversations that made me wanna reach through the phone and strangle Quade is all.”
“Aww, Fiona, you’re so hard on him. I wish my ex was nice like that.”
“I know, you’re completely right. There’s just a dynamic I can’t put my finger on, and I feel like it’s always been there. He’s an excellent friend but mistake number one was marrying him in the first place.”
“You really think so? If you could get all that time back, do you really think you wouldn’t have spent it with him?”
“Okay…that’s where it gets tricky. See, I would choose to spend time with Quade, just not in a romantic partnership,” I say as though I’ve cleverly solved some confounding riddle.
“So…why is it a problem now? He’s your best friend, right? Besides me of course.” She sticks out her tongue for one playful moment. Holly is always like this when wine is involved. “So why are you always upset with him if you think a friendship is what it was meant to be in the first place?”
Holly’s question leaves me oddly speechless. My problem is that I don’t know what my problem is. “I think…I think… he just…makes me feel like screaming!” I blurt out at an inappropriately loud volume around other diners. Holly looks at me bug-eyed and I feel embarrassed. “I’m sorry…I don’t know why I said that. Quade’s fabulous. He’s actually in town tonight but I told him I was spending the day with you here.”
“Oh! You can make it back in time to see him…I don’t have to take up your entire day—”
“No that’s alright. I wanna be here with you today. This is gonna be so fun.” Thank God, at this moment, the waitress arrives with my wine. “So, anything happening new with you?” I make an executive decision to change the subject.
“Nothing much, just finishing the same project I’ve been on for what…four months now?”
Holly’s life is no simpler than mine, although she somehow makes it seem like it is. Also a divorcee, she works long hours as an architectural drafter before returning home to Levi, her design engineer boyfriend…whom she then gets to launder for and pick up after. I like to make fun of her for keeping a ‘pet’, but allegedly Levi’s perfect in almost every way. To each her own.
She orders chicken linguine, but all I want is a tuna sandwich. We talk about this and that until we finish dining. And then, while peacefully awaiting the check, something possesses Holly to take a stick to the hornet’s nest.
“Um, if you don’t mind me asking…do you ever think about just calling The Beast back anymore?”
“What if I do mind?” I chide, sounding less annoyed than I actually am.
“Come on…you’re a flesh and blood woman and he was hot. There’s gotta be something going on in that head of yours.”
I succumb, with the help of the wine, to giggling at Holly’s persistence. Ulysses wasn’t the worst guy, just your everyday average narcissist. Not to mention he had a lot of loose nuts and bolts rattling between his ears. He was all muscle and no charm. But that’s what you get when you go to a biker bar in a neighboring town and allow yourself to make eye contact with a fit younger man. Big mistake.
“First of all,” I reply, shaking my head, “I’d never go running back to him. I’d just be using him for one thing.”
