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“Hi, Katie.”
Now I’d been called out and it would be crazy not to turn around.
I turned my head, looking at Eli’s face, but didn’t make eye contact, still wearing the sunglasses. “Hey.”
“What’s going on, are you alright?” He sounded genuinely concerned.
“Yep, just making a quick errand.”
“Same.” He gave the small bone-shaped toy a squeak and it echoed through the store. All of us, including the cashier, let out a laugh.
“Do you want to go to the park later?”
The register opened and my receipt printed.
“Have a nice day,ma’am.”
Ma’am. A word that only brought the thought of cow udders, bonnets, andgirdlesto mind. A word so unflattering that it should be removed from the English language.
“Thank you,” I nodded to the cashier. “I can’t today. I bet Carolyn would.”
I wasn’t prepared to make such a snotty comment, and truthfully, I feltterrible the moment it came out of my mouth. But if I wanted to find a husband, I couldn’t be idling with unavailable, dead-end situations.
Eli gave a flatlined look and nodded,agreeing with me.There you go, I told myself. It’s an open-and-shut case, as my mother would say. I hoofed out to the car, the raindrops hitting my head like coins on the way out.
My words stung as I drove home quickly, knowing Eli would be right behind me any second. Hopefully, he paid with a card as well so I could buy myself a few minutes considering I hit every red light on the way back. I pulled into my parking spot, grabbed my bags, and ran the short distance to my stairs.
Dolly was at her water bowl when I stormed through the door, shaking off my wet raincoat outside before hanging it on the rack over the tile floor. “It’s raining cats and dogs!” I hollered over to her. “Time to go potty?”
Her grass pad was getting more and more convenient as the weather raged on. Thankfully there was a small covering to our balcony, so she didn’t need to get drenched.
I sat her by the door to see if she needed to go and she quickly ran out, did her thing, and ran back in.
“Good girl,” I robotically spoke to her, but I felt a heaviness. I felt overwhelmed. I wanted to apologize for my rude comment to Eli, but I also didn’t want to get in any deeper than I already was. It was quite a conundrum.
Once Dolly was inside, I let her see her new outfits.
“For next winter!”
She sniffed each thing, before finding the little toy I hadn’t realized I’d put in the basket. The same toy Eli bought Carter, except pink. Dolly picked up the pink squeaky bone and started chewing on it immediately.
“Do you like that?” The squeaks were loud and funny, a deeper noise than I’d heard from other toys. This one was like a low squeal from a disgruntled pig. I gave her a quick pat on the head before I headed to my vanity to fix the mess on my eyes.
The cotton pads came up black and sparkly. I looked much younger suddenly,having removed the excess color from my appearance. I let my skin dry and then applied a little eye cream and some pale shadow that just enhanced my eyes instead of adding depth and drama—two things no one needed to see on a school night at the animal shelter.
I felt much better once changing out of the errands outfit and into a casual, but fitting, pair of light wash jeans and a black long-sleeved sweater. I finished my look with a few accessories—a black headband, my pink stud earrings, and my rose gold watch. Casual with a touch of ‘I haven’t given upyet.’Exactly what I was going for.
I ate a light lunch of salad to use up my lettuce, and topped it with some lunch meat, a few crushed up tortilla chips and an avocado that had been sitting on my counter so long it was almost to the point of growing legs of its own and leaving. A large drizzle of ranch dressing and voila—a salad fit for the garbage disposal. It was better than the yogurt concoction, but still wasn’t very high on the list.
As I ate, I absently went through the box of fabric scraps once more, thinking of ideas of what I wanted to buy. Dolly was still squeaking her toy, looking up at me every few minutes as if to say thank you.
After lunch, I got out my duffel bag and travel kits, but immediately decided I didn’t have the energy to pack today and would do it first thing in the morning, which meant tomorrow would be hectic and rushed, and the rest of the to-do list except forWash my hair,would also be put off.
We had just enough time to watch a made-for-television movie before leaving to meet Samantha. It was about a vacation rental owner who unknowingly had a realtor stay a weekend at the house who ended up showing it to a family and then sold it to them. The plot, as always, was just the background noise for our short nap.
When I opened my eyes, the vacation rental owner had just discovered the new owners of his home were his long-lost relatives who’d been in witness protection for the last decade after watching a dinosaur costume company getrobbed by a gang of bandits who were disgruntled from being fired from their theme park jobs. The realtor was arrested for forging documents, but the family was allowed to stay in harmony and the homeowner married one of them.
“They are really running out of ideas, Dolly.”
