AllFreeNovel
Share Us
––––––––
PAULINE TAKES A BITEout of her meatball grinder, though she’s hanging on my every word. We’ve got the corner table, but I try to keep my voice down. This town has ears in the walls, I think.
“He’s just trying to protect his heart. He’s striking out at you,” she explains, “hoping that you’ll get mad and either break things off for good or say something he’ll be able to pin all the blame on when things don’t work out. It’s classic.”
“Well, that makes no sense at all.”
“Did you think it was going to?”
I contemplate my potato chip, but the answer isn’t there. “But there is nothing to work out. We aren’t involved. There’s nothing to break off between us.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Trust me. It was a fling.”
Pauline nods. “Sure, it was.”
“We have nothing in common. He resents my very presence. He doesn’t like my dog or my ideas.”
“Honey, he loves that damn dog. Have you looked at him with her? And if you could see the way he looks at you when you’re not paying attention, you’d see what the rest of us do.”
I sit back, unable to eat another bite, but knowing I’ll somehow find the room to put the whole sandwich away before this lunch is over. “So you’ve only met him a handful of times. What are you basing this knowledge on?”
She blushes. Which I’m sure she doesn’t do very often. “Brandon talks about him a lot.”
“Brandon, huh?”
“I’m not sleeping with him, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she quickly interjects, her features frozen in an almost stoic expression.
“Why not?” I cover her hand with my own. “Pauline, I wouldn’t judge you if you were. You know that, right?”
A secret smile crosses over her features. “Sorry...I just...people are used to making rash judgments about me. But I’m not. We’re friends. For now, we’re friends.”
“Do you have feelings for him? More than friend feelings?”
She lifts one shoulder. “I feel like I should take my time. I don’t want to get burned again.”
It feels really good to have a friend, a girl friend, to talk to about crushes and men. Nobody has ever filled this role for me before, and now I have Pauline and Stella. But I can’t talk to Stella about Nash. Our talks are more general...what kind of sex toy is best, which wine goes with Sara Lee Cheesecake...that kind of thing.
But my ex-husband’s wife? I feel like she’s my sister somehow. Sister wives is the wrong vibe, but sister friends is pretty close.
“Brandon is a nice man.” Despite raising such a dimwitted buffoon. That was unkind. Despite raising anintelligentbuffoon. I can honestly say that Nash isn’t dimwitted in the least, though he is content to let others believe he is simpler than he is.
“Brandon wants to take me on a real date. I keep putting him off.”
“Why?”
“I have to think of Danny. I don’t know...following my heart has led me to some trouble in my life. And I’m not always sure it’s my heart I followed when all is said and done. My ovaries make horrible life decisions, so I’m trying to pay more attention to my brain, I guess.”
“That makes sense. Except I can tell you that following your brain sometimes leads you astray too.” My heart wasn’t involved when I married Richard. For sure not my ovaries. I guess it wasn’t my brain either. It was fear. Fear of being completely alone in a world where I was already so lonely.
We get quiet after that. “I think you should seduce him,” she says as if we were still talking about Nash.
“I don’t think that’s a great idea. Why don’t you seduce Brandon instead?
“I think with Brandon, it would be best if I let him work for it a little longer. Make sure this is what we both want. I think the problem with Nash is he’s thinking too much. You both are. Seduce him.”
I look at her, all made up, dressed to slay from her sexy hair to her red-clawed hands to the stiletto heels. “I think the world works a little differently for someone like me, Pauline. I don’t have your skills at seduction.”
