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ChapterNine
DAMIEN
“Ican’t believe she won’t see me.” I growled to Fred a week later, my head pounding from yet another bottle of cheap scotch. I really should find other ways of dealing with this shit and his look of disapproval as he threw my latest bottle away told me the same thing.
“You broke her heart, asshole, what did you expect,” Fred said loudly, making sure the bottle shattered with a loud bang as it landed in the trash can.
“I expected her to at least give me a chance to prove I was wrong before and I’d learned my lesson.” I answered back, even if my own words sounded idiotic to me. “Instead, she sent me home with an excuse about needing to go to a meeting with her accountant and a late meeting with her attorney.”
I held my head in my hands, wishing it would stop pounding in time with the beating of my heart. Perhaps another drink would solve the problem? I’d been drunk for the majority of the day before, trying to hide from the ache in my stupid heart.
“Blindsided you, did she?” Fred asked, and I could hear the boredom in his voice. It was the same conversation every morning, but I couldn’t help it. None of it made any sense.
“Yes, she did,” I replied with a sigh. “I thought she’d go to her meetings, give me a call, and we’d set something up for the next day, since she was so busy that day. But nothing. She hadn’t returned any of my calls and my text messages haven’t even been read yet. What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, I don’t bother with women, or men for that matter. Nothing but trouble all of this romance nonsense. All a body needs is a good clean home, a full belly, and some nice conversation every now and then. People today think the world rotates around romance for some reason, like a little bit of common sense is a bad thing.”
“Well, having someone to sleep next to would be nice, Fred. And no, I don’t mean you,” I got up, opened the fridge and took out some sausage. “You made the biscuits?”
“I have, they’re baking now if you want to do the rest.”
“I don’t but I can’t keep going the way I have been, my head can’t take it.” I sliced up the breakfast sausage and turned the pan on. While it was heating up, I poured myself a cup of coffee and took a sip. By the time the sausage was fried, and I’d made gravy to go on top of the biscuits, I was on my second cup of coffee. Three fried eggs came out of the frying pan, and I put two on my plate, with one on Fred’s the way he liked it.
“What are you going to do then, Damien?” Fred pulled the biscuits out with a dish towel to protect his hand and set the pan on the table. We both broke up biscuits and poured gravy over it before I answered.
“I don’t know yet. I thought about sending flowers and candy, but I think those would just get tossed out. She’s not that kind of woman.” I took a bite of my breakfast and thought about it. “I remember she said she missed things about home, all those years ago. Maybe she still does?”
“Such as?” Fred asked before taking a bite of biscuit.
“Well, that honey the Baker’s make over on the other side of town. And the soap Billy Johnson’s wife makes. She said it was the reason her skin was so soft.” I thought about it and decided I’d buy a load of both and take them up with me this weekend.
“Give it a try, if you’re serious about her. But, Damien, you have to leave her be if you’re just going to break her heart again. A woman like that, they’re not to be trifled with. She’s liable to come after you with a Bowie knife.” Fred cleaned up the last bite of his breakfast with his fork, and got up to wash the dishes. “She’s a smart girl, she knows what she wants in life. If you aren’t serious, don’t go messing around with her.”
“That’s just it, though, Fred, I am serious.” I wiped my mouth and let him take my plate. “I’m going to get cleaned up and go out to see the Bakers. You want to go.”
“Sure, I’ll go with you, just let me sort this stuff out,” Fred didn’t bother to turn around as I rushed off to shower and change.
By the time I drove into Chicago that weekend and walked into her club I had two gift baskets of honey, with some of the Baker’s honey banana bread tucked into the basket, and the other filled with orange blossom and black cherry soap from the Johnsons. There were some sort of scrubs in with the soap basket but I wasn’t sure what it was actually for.
My first surprise was that I was allowed in the door at all. I’d been worried that she might have banned me from the place, but I walked in without a problem once I showed the doorman my membership card. The second surprise was seeing Ginger march up to me, look at the baskets with contempt just before she grabbed them, and walking away without a word.
I went home defeated that first weekend. And the next weekend as well, which was when I brought her a basket of cakes and cookies from a church bake sale. They were the most popular producers of baked good in that area, besides the Johnsons, and I thought this might appease her as well. I tried to keep the shopping local, because they were local businesses that I wanted to support anyway. I also wanted to remind her that not everything about her hometown was bad.
I didn’t get a text message or a call to say thank you, not even a card, but she did accept the baskets I brought to her. By the time two months had passed since our last night together, she was waiting for me at the door, her eyes turned away but her hand out. Until the 8thweekend, when I had to go into the bar to find her. She was sitting at a table wearing a simple black dress with a deep V at the cleavage, strappy black sandals, with her hair around her shoulders. That’s when she surprised me and looked up.
“Sit down, Damien.” She ordered, waving at the seat across from hers.
“Thank you,” I said, not sure I wanted to push my luck by saying anything more. She had the upper hand, at the moment, I had to take what I could get.
I hadn’t been trying to romance her the last 8 weeks, I was trying to let her know I’d heard her when she told me five years ago that she missed some of the things from home terribly. The fact that she’d taken my gifts had given me hope that she understood that. I’d kept it up, week after week, because I wanted her to know I was serious. I meant everything I’d said to her the last time we were together. Maybe I’d finally proven it to her.
“Are you going to stop bringing me gift baskets?” She asked after a moment of staring, more like glaring or so it felt. She’d seemed to size me up with that stare and had come to some kind of conclusion. My answer would determine a major decision, I had a feeling.
“No, I’m not.” I wanted to add more, but the raised left eyebrow warned me I should stop while I was still ahead.
“I see,” she nodded as she said the words slowly. Her nails tapped at the top of the table, her green eyes still on me. “Why?”
“Because you once told me you missed these things. They were important enough to you that they stuck in your mind. I could send you flowers, cards, jewelry, clothes even, but these were the things you missed, you’d said. I wanted to give you things that would bring you comfort and happiness, not trifling things that didn’t matter. Even lingerie wouldn’t have been as personal as sending what used to be your favorite soap.” I halted my words, wondering if I’d said too much.
