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“Let’s spend the day together,” he said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
Wiping under her eyes with a paper napkin, some of her dreams were coming true. After ten years of marriage, her husband had left her to raise their two boys alone. They were grown now, ages twenty-two and eighteen. The older one just graduated college and was working at an IT job in New Jersey, and the younger was stationed in Okinawa with the Marine Corps. For the first time in nearly ten years, she could make a decision based only on what was good for her. Now Jake was asking her to change her life based on what he needed. Was she still in love with him?
“I’ll spend it with you,” she said. “I’ll spend a day with you. The other, I have to think about it. I’ve been at that job for twenty years. You’re asking me to start all over again somewhere.”
“Can you commute from my place?”
She burst out laughing. “I could. It’s about thirty minutes if the traffic isn’t too bad.”
“How many days a week do you work now?”
“Still three twelves,” she answered.
“Please consider it,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “I’ll pay your rent if you don’t want to give up your place.”
“That’s okay, Jake. If I decide to do it, I won’t mind giving up my place. It’s the same bug-infested dive I lived in after Al left me.”
“Good old Al,” Jake said, grinning. “He never spoke to me again after we dated.”
“Good. I gave him a taste of his own medicine.”
“Because he dated a friend of yours?”
“Dated! He married her! Bitch.”
“Oh jeez, I must have blocked that part out.”
After getting over the tough stuff, they comfortably made small talk, and then when the band started to play, they got up to dance. She wasn’t Pam, but she enjoyed herself, and that made it fun for Jake. After the first set, they sat down again, and that was when Pam came looking for him.
“Oh boy, the woman I just told you about is here. Do you mind if I go out there and clear things up?”
“No, go before she comes in here and makes a scene.”
Jake got up and ran after Pam. Looking around the restaurant, Dawn looked at her watch. He hadn’t even been gone a minute.
“Chill, woman,” she muttered.
He came back, looking flushed and apologetic. “She’s been trying to reach me, and I haven’t answered. On Friday afternoon I collapsed at her house, and they had to call the squad, so she was just worried. She asked if you knew CPR.”
“Oh god, so that’s how the conversation went,” Dawn said, feeling bad for the woman since she’d once been the recipient of Jake’s method of breakup. She imagined how Pam felt.
“Yes, but she knows now it’s over. It’s better for her. She doesn’t have to pretend I’m going to live forever.”
“Is that her MO?”
“I think so. She’s probably gotten through some of the worst crap a person can go through, coming out the other side intact because she stays in denial.”
“I wish I had a little bit of that.”
“No, you don’t,” he said. The music started up again. “You wanna dance?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” she said, grinning.
Now, two days later while Jake sat waiting for his radiation, he just happened to look up as Dawn came rushing through the door, all flying red hair and peaches and cream skin, a white sleeveless top over denim capris. She looked like a teenager and was the first thing he saw that day that made him smile.
“I’m so glad I got here before you went in,” she said, bending over to kiss him.
“My appointment was at nine. They’re running behind today. Were you off?”
