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I texted my mom to let her know I was safe and sound at the condo. Things at work must have been going poorly because she didn’t even hassle me about not calling her.
After my brainstorming session, I considered lounging on the sofa with Pickles and some ice cream. But then I thought about Dorothy and how since the broken ankle, our schedule had been disrupted. I decided to pop by and see if she was up for some company.
I took the elevator and then clinked down the hallway to 113, knocking lightly. I heard Marvin meowing wildly at the door and Dorothy quieting him.
“Oh, hi, Dear!” Dorothy exclaimed, happy to see me. She ushered me in and helped situate me in my spot, pulling out a chair for me to rest my foot on.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, rushing to prepare drinks despite my argument that she didn’t have to.
“Okay. The doctor said everything is looking good, all things considered. I still have at least a month in this clunky thing, but at least it’s healing I suppose.”
“Well, I’m sure having Leo Turner to escort you about isn’t hurting anything. How are things? Your mother said you’ve been out and about a lot, which I think is wonderful." She slid a mimosa across the table to me, and I didn’t argue.
“Things are going okay, I guess. We’ve been having fun,” I said.
“But?” Dorothy asked, taking a seat across from me. Marvin jumped on her lap and settled in as if also listening to the story.
I sighed. “But, well, it’s complicated. We’re so different. I don’t know how it could possibly work. I don’t know if I want it to work.”
“Oh geez, what is there to work out? I saw how you two eyed each other from that first day. The rest will handle itself.”
“Does anything ever handle itself?” I asked.
“It does if it’s right, if it makes you happy,” she said. “Did I ever tell you about how Harry and I met?”
I shook my head, realizing I hadn’t heard the story of her late husband. Their wedding portrait was prominently displayed in the living room, so a piece of me felt like I knew him. But as Dorothy settled back into her chair, I realized I knew so little.
“So many years ago,” Dorothy said, a dreamy quality in her voice intermingling with melancholy. “I was twenty and had just started a waitressing job at the local diner to help my parents pay bills. I wasn’t very good.” She laughed, and I smiled, too, able to connect with that sentiment and thinking of all the disasters I’d had already at Tino’s.
“Well, there was this handsome blond who started coming in every Wednesday. There was something about those blue eyes, about the way he would get out of the booth to help me carry the tray when it was ready to topple. He was kind and good looking, too.”
“Sounds like love at first sight,” I said.
“It was. Except there was a big problem,” she said. Marvin meowed, as if he had heard the story before.
“He came in every Wednesday with his girlfriend. The two were serious. Lucy Higgins, a gorgeous black-haired girl. She didn’t come from a lot, but her family was hardworking, and the town all knew them. She was the girl tutoring the neighborhood kids on the weekends and making baked goods for the hospital patients. A saint, essentially. The two were going steady for years at that point. It was a matter of time until they got married.”
“So, what happened?”
“Well, it felt impossible. My parents wanted me to marry Oliver Grove. His family was close with mine. He was a doctor, and my parents saw it as a way out of a life of poverty. It was a life of stability, my mother would tell me,” Dorothy said. “Harry was a coal miner. And, of course, he was taken. My mother was furious when I refused to go out with Oliver because I was already in love with a man I saw once a week when he was on a date.”
“Ugh,” I replied. I was beginning to hate the word stability.
“I didn’t listen, though. Something told me that if I had faith, it would work out. One day, when Harry came without Lucy because she was sick, I just made my move.”
My jaw dropped. “Really? Weren’t you afraid of the risk?”
“Yes, but really, what was the worst he could say? No?”
“Did he?”
She smiled and shook her head. “When I sat at that booth and told him the truth about how I felt, even though it was ridiculous, he didn’t laugh. He didn’t say I was crazy. Do you know what he did?”
I was hanging on every word. I leaned in closer.
“He kissed me.”
I shrieked at that. “What? Really?”
