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“No.” Jan, my housekeeper, did all the food shopping. I wouldn’t know where to begin.
“Okay, well, text me if you think of anything later.” Then, after directing a, “Nice to meet you both,” at Laurel and Ryan, she walked out.
The silence didn’t last long.
“I like her!” Laurel jumped in as per her usual, her face lighting up as if she just hit triple diamonds on a slot machine. Whether her opinion was wanted or not didn’t factor. “She’s real sweet and pretty.” An examining, squinty look came my way. “You didn’t say anything about her being so pretty.”
“She’s gorgeous,” Ryan spat out around a mouthful of doughnut. Sinking onto the couch, he exhaled longingly. That earned him a glare. “What? She is. And don’t pretend you don’t agree. If you two weren’t married, you’d be all over her.”
And wasn’t that a kick in the head. Because Ryan was right. Had I not been forced into marriage I could’ve maybe dated Sydney. Explored this attraction. It was a moot point now though. She was my father’s accomplice in this injustice done to me.
“That woman’s a shark,” I told them in no uncertain terms. “My father says she’s the best legal mind he’s ever known. You know want that means? That she’s a master manipulator. Don’t let her fool you.”
“Damn, you’re worse than Tiny.” Ryan shook his head with an expression that said he pitied me. He could keep his pity and I would keep my dignity. “If you don’t want her, I’m happy to take her off your hands. She can manipulate me all she wants.”
Another uncomfortable feeling. This one crawled over my skin, but I schooled my reaction. Any evidence that I was feeling even the smallest amount of possessiveness over my wife would only incite more taunting. “We’re not keeping this one. I’m sending her back to where she came from.”
“For ef’s sake, she isn’t a rescue dog.” Laurel was back to glaring at me.
“I don’t wanna know what you’re cooking up,” Ryan jumped in. “Keep me out of it.”
Picking up the phone on my desk, I dialed my sister’s number. While it rang, I placed a hand over the mouthpiece and fixed Laurel with a pointed stare. “Don’t get attached.”
Chapter Seven
Sydney
As I drove through town, passing the famed elk antler arch on my way to the grocery store, a splash of color in a store window caught my eye. Something about Jackson Hole pushed my boundaries. Back in Manhattan, my life was structured down to the minute. My position at Blackstone, with its immense responsibilities, required it. Even my spare time was carefully planned down to the minute. Exercise, bills, grocery shopping. There wasn’t much room for anything else. But for once, in this place that seemed both foreign and familiar, I didn’t ignore the urge to drift, to indulge. To just be.
I parked the pickup and wandered around, window shopping the art galleries on E. Broadway. My eyes reveled in the colorful large-scale abstract paintings, the impressionistic depictions of classic cowboy culture, the statues, and handblown chandeliers.
My old friends guilt and shame followed me around. I could always count on them to show up whenever I didn’t have my nose to the grindstone. I doubted they would ever go away. Having been trained at such an early age to believe that anything that made you feel good was inherently evil was impossible to completely root out. About as easy as straightening a bone that had grown crooked. Any attempt to fix it was unlikely to succeed and with the trying would come a lot of pain.
“Would you like to come in and take a closer look?” a man in his mid-fifties with a bushy red beard and a happy twinkle in his hazel eyes said to me. He stood in the doorway of one of the galleries, hands in the pockets of his khakis leaning against the doorframe. Either the owner or manager, I assumed.
My eyes drifted back to the surrealist painting in the window. It was large, spanning the entire storefront. The background was a collection of scenes painted in sparkling jewel tones––a jungle scene, a city, a beach, and more. The naked female figure, however––the one in the middle suspended amongst the colors––was painted in shades of gray. The skin on my arms broke out in goose bumps. The image hit way too close to home.
Most of my life up until the day I left Pennsylvania had been a black hole of anything that remotely resembled pleasure. The food my grandmother cooked was purposely bland and tasteless. Boiled chicken with no seasoning. White rice with no seasoning. She made sure to only buy the pieces of beef at the local supermarket that nobody wanted even though we could afford better; my grandfather owned a local car dealership. She’d then cook it until it was as tough as shoe leather and serve it up with a smile as if it were Michelin-rated fare.
