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“What wieners are we talking about?” I asked.
“On your date the other night. The Oscar Meyer ones.”
“She means the food trucks,” Isaac said, rubbing his temples.
“Ah. In that case, the wieners were excellent.” I’d eaten a loaded baked potato before my chocolate lava cake, and both had been scrumptious.
The woman put her arm around me and led me to the couch, where another lady, slightly smaller and with a snowier puff of white hair, was intent on her show.I Love Lucyfrom the looks of it.
“My doctor says I can’t eat hotdogs anymore. But good for you, sweetheart. I’m glad they were excellent. I’m Beebee, by the way.”
“Carmen.”
She sat, so I did as well, which left only a little bit of room on the end. Older couches were tiny things, and we were not tiny people. I gave a small shake of my head, but Isaac had that darned devious look on his face I was growing to both love and hate, and instead of taking the armchair across from us, he went ahead and squeezed in next to me. It was stay put or snuggle up next to Beebee, which he knew full well I wouldn’t do. So, I stared at the TV, ignoring the tingles giving me a tour of everywhere the two of us touched.And here we have your thigh pressed up nicely against his. Notice the way it feels? Pretty amazing, am I right? Up next, he’s tapping the side of your foot, which shouldn’t be exciting, but attraction is a weird thing.
“Mimi, you’ve seen this episode a hundred times. Say hi to Isaac’s girl. He’s brought her to see you.”
“What?” Mimi turned and looked at us as if she hadn’t realized we were in the room. Maybe she hadn’t. “Oh, hello there. You must be Carmen.”
“I am.” I put a hand on Isaac’s knee and gave a light squeeze, curious as to how this woman whose eyes hadn’t strayed from the TV immediately knew who I was. “Has Isaac said a lot about me?”
Mimi smiled. “Oh yes. He tried not to, but we pestered him good. He said you two were friends as kids. Beebee wanted to know what you looked like, of course, and he admitted you’re very pretty, with dark hair and big brown eyes, and only about yay tall,” she put her arm up to demonstrate, “And you’re the kindest, most fun, and best person to be around, but he doesn’t know if you like flowers. You should tell him what you like. Did you know this young man brings us flowers every day? He mows our lawn, too. We used to wait on my grandson to do it whenever he’s in town, but now it looks nice all the time.”
Isaac was a hunched over statue next to me, his gaze trained on the floor, but I wasn’t tempted to laugh at him this time.
Chapter 24 - Isaac
As glad as I was to have Carmen see this glimpse into my life, letting Beebee and Mimi talk to her was like having a flashing billboard above my head with ‘BESOTTED IDIOT’ in big red lights, not to mention all the obvious hints they dropped about what a catch I was, like I needed a full marketing campaign to sell myself. It would have been better if Carmen laughed, but she was quiet and wide-eyed, and I fully expected her to make her excuses and leave the moment we left.
As I’d predicted earlier, five minutes into our visit whenI Love Lucyended, Mimi gave a big yawn, and Beebee eased herself up from the couch to distribute their nightly medication. I took their trash out and came back in just as Carmen was asking them about bingo. They promised to consider it, but it was like asking Calvin and Hobbes to not torment the babysitter. Or not to throw snowballs at Susie. Never gonna happen.
Once we were outside, Carmen reached her arms out and stared up at the night sky. “It’s Carmen and Isaac time,” she stage-whispered, turning to skip backwards and wiggling her fingers at me. Apparently, I hadn’t scared her off.
“Is this about seeing my lair?” I asked, laughing and jogging to keep up with her.
“Yes, Isaac. Show me your lair.” She said it in a flirty voice, oblivious to the power she wielded over me. Oh, yes. I would absolutely be the Tarzan to her Jane. I might have teased her about wanting to get me all to herself, but I was the one giddy at the thought.
I unlocked my front door and went in first to flip on the living room lights. Then I stepped out of the way so she could see in. “This is it.”
Carmen walked in slowly and perused with her hands behind her back, like this was a museum tour with no touching signs everywhere.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m gathering facts.”
There wasn’t a whole lot to gather. My walls were beige, and I had exactly one piece of art on the living room wall, a desert landscape one of my neighbors painted. Her daughter’s fingerprint smudges were in the upper left corner. Rather than fix it, my neighbor thought I might like the painting as is. I did. It made me smile every time I looked at it.
I had bought pretty much everything else with Grace at a going-out-of-business sale at a furniture store, immediately donating the throw pillows from the tan couch set because anything floral patterned gave me hives after spending my entire day with flowers. I had a big screen TV, a couch and loveseat, an oversized navy throw rug, and two long end tables to make the space look less bare.
Carmen stopped to examine the picture frames on top of the end tables.
“Grace and Piper?” she asked, pointing to a picture of them from Knott’s Berry Farm a few years back.
“Yep.”
“Who are these guys with you in this one?”
She was studying my college graduation photo. “That’s Dean and his dad Henry. Longtime family friends.” There was a lot more I could say about that, but I hesitated, and she moved on, looking at a picture of my mom and me at Thanksgiving, and a picture of my dad and stepmom with their three dogs.
