Page 38 of Back for Seconds

And she wasn’t texting. Fucking called it.

Her dark hair was twisted up in a complicated pile on the top of her head, a pair of big black-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of her nose. She was leaning back against the cinder block wall, gaze fixed on the floor. Something was off. Even the other day, when I’d intercepted her on the boardwalk, she’d looked tired—a little annoyed, maybe—but not like this. If looks could start fires, this place would be burning.

I hung back, resisting the urge to rush over and ask what was wrong, what had happened, where had she gone?

I stayed toward the back of the room, easily able to see over everyone’s heads to focus on June, wishing I could shove my way through the growing crowd to comfort her. Say something to make her laugh.

What did I know about women? Realistically, almost nothing. I’d had one girlfriend in my life and apparently had not done any part of that relationship correctly.

Bruce Jenkins, commissioner of the Evergreen something-or-other, came in through double doors behind the podium, wire frame glasses sitting ridiculously low on the tip of his nose, the sparse white hairs left on the top of his red, bald head sticking up perfectly straight. Somehow, both of his shoes were untied. He made his way over to June and, I swear to god, she cocked her fist like she might hit him.

They were practically the same height, and he kept talking to her in a feverish tone, his face turning redder and redder. Every muscle in June’s jaw was tensed. She whispered back, barely opening her lips.

I eased my way through the crowd, inching closer to her. Something was going on.

Bruce broke away from June and made his way over to the podium, clapping his hands together.

“Hello! Ok, ok! Hello! Good evening.” He yanked a stack of papers off the surface and began paging through them. “We all love lights. We all love to win. We all want to win. There’s a big prize, yes. Sure, sure. But um… Ok, before we get started.” He extended a hand out to the front row. “We have some serious matters to discuss that have been brought forth by valuable members of our community—”

A collective groan rippled through the crowd. Bruce pumped his hands, acquiescing to the gentle heckling. “Alright, alright, alright. I’ll save my spiel, but remember! Valuable community members are building blocks of the Downtown Evergreen Neighborhood Association, everyone! Ok? So. You know…” He cleared his throat and turned his clouded, bespeckled gaze back to the front row. “Mr. Mahoney, the floor is yours.”

Another ripple of noise traveled through the room. Everyone shifted in their folding chairs, trading quick smiles and knowing looks.

What the hell was going on?

A man stepped forward from his place in the front row. He was tallish, somewhere just south of six feet, with an impressive head of russet hair. He was wearing a pair of chino khakis and a fleece half-zip jacket—two items I’d never be caught dead in. They were status symbols, in a way. Nonverbal signals that he had a corporate job where he told a lot of people, like the ones in this room, what to do.

He squared his shoulders, clutching a stack of rolled up papers in his hands. He waited for us all to settle with a managerial, tempered patience.

Almost no one noticed as June recoiled, physically turning in on herself, shrinking against the cinder block wall as she was forced to look at the man who had once been her husband.

Chapter 13 June

In my memories, Brian was hotter.

When we’d first met, I hadn’t thought he was gorgeous or anything. His face hadn’t made me feel like I could write poetry about his ocean eyes and red-brown hair. His subscription to LinkedIn Premium and his Ben Folds Five T-shirt collection hadn’t stolen my breath and replaced it with music.

But he had this way of smiling. It turned his entire face into sunshine.

In my memories, Brian was taller. Less disheveled. Cooler. If I’d closed my eyes and pictured Brian, I could have recalled how he once made me laugh the hardest I’d ever laughed in my life. I would have felt a flutter of the initial, undeniable spark that had drawn me to him. I could have invoked the memory of how his love felt in those early days, when it was full on and hot like a halogen light.

But now, under the actual halogen lights of the Evergreen Municipal Parks & Recreation Center, Brian just looked dehydrated. And tired. And like someone I really, really wanted to punch.

“Erm, good evening, everyone.” And his voice was extremely grating. Somehow both too wet and too dry.

A year apart had broken his hold on me. I no longer felt like I was looking at the greatest loss of my life. I just felt hollow, shamed, and vaguely icked out by his chinos.

About an hour ago Bruce Jenkins had shown up at my house, pounding on the door and ringing the bell repeatedly, demanding my presence at this meeting. He refused to give me any information, probably out of a misguided fear that more detail would have deterred me from coming here.

Wrong. If I had known I was being summoned for something Brian-related, I would have put on a real bra and some lipstick and maybe even pulled my hair down from the messy bun on the top of my head.

I scanned the room again for an empty chair I could easily slip into. Nope. As usual, the first three rows of folding chairs were occupied by the most pedantic and irritating full-time residents of the island, and the back of the room had slowly filled in to almost capacity.

Did everyone but me know what was going on tonight?

“My name is Brian Mahoney. I recently moved back into the Evergreen community after a year or so away.”

An involuntary hiccup of rage jumped out of me, loud enough to make his cheeks flame with color. What an asinine way to describe torpedoing your marriage.