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Mr. Oinks sighed, one hoof waving in the air as I rubbed his tummy. I stretched out my legs, my body deliciously worn out. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. I slept with Declan Moss. If I had a guardian angel advisor, she was no doubt up in heaven, screaming at me with a giant megaphone and finding a thunderbolt to smite me with.
The bad news was, I’d been completely at fault in all of this. Sure, I’d started off right. Outside of the sports bar, when he’d bent down to kiss me, his eyes full of smolders and sweetness, I’d pushed him away. Ranted and raved and successfully changed the subject until, ten minutes later, when I lost all sense and took a hard right-turn into Hoochieville. I blamed a combination of alcohol, abstinence, and that damn audiobook. What normal, slightly drunk, sexually deprived woman would be able to resist Declan Moss with bedroom eyes, shirt sleeves rolled up, massaging her feet?
No woman. NONE. I leaned back against the back porch post and absentmindedly scratched Mr. Oinks, his contented grunts adding to the chorus of frogs from my koi pond. I let my gaze wander over my yard’s azalea-lined border, the faint smell of my orange trees in the air. I worked hard on this yard. Prior to Mom’s passing, I’d rented one bedroom of it from Mr. Clevepepper, a sixty-three-year-old piano teacher. This yard had been a giant mess of weeds and grass tall enough to hit my knees. I cleared the bulk of it with a machete, unearthing two water moccasins before I invested in a pair of snake boots, the thick leather boots suffocating my poor feet as I hauled away the cuttings. Mr. Clevepepper’s ancient lawnmower had bad gas, and it’d taken the help of the two high school boys to get it running. Mr. Clevepepper had watched me struggle from the air-conditioned comfort of the living room, grunting in disapproval when I would come in, sweaty and covered in dust, his eyes critically watching to make sure that I removed my boots before stepping off the front mat.
I teared up briefly at the memory of Mom seeing this yard for the first time, after all of my hard work. She’d hugged me and nodded in approval, then told me the hibiscus by the fence would never survive. I smiled. She’d been right. They’d wilted and died with the first cold snap, despite my ragged attempts to keep them warm.
A few months after she passed, I got approval from the trust to buy this house. Mr. C hadn’t hesitated, picking out a Villages condo before the ink had dried on the contract, his heavy oak furniture loaded in a U-Haul and rattling down the driveway without a backward glance. He didn’t even let his students know. For two weeks after he left, I’d answered the doorbell to expectant clients, their sheet music in hand, confusion clouding their features when I told them Mr. Clevepepper didn’t live here anymore. The first kid I told stood there for a long moment as he absorbed the news, then he literally threw the sheet music in the air and jumped up, his tiny fists punching the air, whooping with glee as he all but cartwheeled down the front steps to tell his mother, his lined pages left behind, littering my freshly-painted porch.
My second visitor took the news much more somberly, her face falling, liver-spotted hands plucking at the expensive string of pearls around her neck. “He just left?” she cried, her voice wobbling on the question. “Without saying goodbye?” I’d hugged her, unsure of what else to do, and had to hold my breath at the heavy scent of her perfume. Mr. Clevepepper, sneaky man, seemed to have broken a heart in his hasty exit.
I was properly concerned. The history books are full of untimely deaths, caused by broken hearts. Sometimes it’s a heart attack or body shutdown. But there are more interesting side effects of separation. Take Kurt Godel, who would only eat food that had been cooked by his wife. When she was unexpectedly hospitalized for an extended period of time, he starved to death.
Ms. Clutch-Her-Pearls didn’t die. I made sure to get her phone number and connected her with a younger, much more handsome, new piano teacher. We had lunch a few weeks later where she met a baby Mr. Oinks and lectured me on the dangers of sugar on my body. She was unhappy with her new instructor and planning a move to the Villages. She had already found Mr. Clevepepper on “the Facebook” and had a seduction plan in place that involved a pair of hot pink spandex pants and some fuzzy heels.
I was happy for her and hopeful of her plan, though I couldn’t imagine anyone intentionally choosing to spend the rest of her life with a man who read National Geographic with his morning oatmeal. But c’est la vie. Everyone should find their person. Ideally, Declan’s soulmate would be an emergency room doctor who enjoyed hanging out in padded rooms with a bland diet of non-chokeable, hypoallergenic food. I could be their gardener and nanny, hovering on the edge of their perfect life and popping in whenever my spidey sense went haywire.
