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“If we create a book club, maybe we could invite her, too. She has read more than one book on Ted Bundy. I think she would be interested,” Tess said.
“No, not Mia,” Ruth replied. Mia is a year younger than her and was a bubbly cheerleader, popular, and loved to have a good time. Completely the opposite of Ruth. Even though her cheerleading days were ten years behind her, that was still how Ruth saw her. Pasts were hard to get over in a small town.
“Why?” Tess asked as the woman in question slid their plates onto the table with a smile and no time to stop as she hurried away.
When she was gone, Ruth whispered, “Mia is Mia.”
“Maybe you guys could bond over serial killers and your dislike of Rafferty Brooks. Looks like she has no time for Mr. Flirty,” Tess said as she watched Mia.
Turning, she looked and caught Mia grab his knit hat and throw it on the ground, only to stomp on it as she went back into the kitchen, catching sight of the back of Anderson’s head as he got a front-row seat to the exchange. Maybe she would ask him on Monday about it, but she would probably chicken out.
“I guess you can. I am not,” Ruth stated, unwrapping her silverware.
When Mia finally made it back to their table, Tess asked Mia if she was interested in a book club. Ruth’s hopes were dashed when Mia seemed excited about the idea. The time and place were set by Mia herself: tomorrow right here. Leave it to her to take over the entire thing within seconds of being invited.
Mia returned to work, and the other two went to pay for their meals. Ruth walked to the resister at the café's front, noticing Anderson and Rafferty had both left. Their plates were still on the table, but the men were gone.
Bills paid, they both grabbed their jackets from the rack by the door, then headed out the door into the blowing, swirling snowstorm. At least the walk was short.
As she walked down the street beside Tess Thorn, Ruth wondered what the woman thought of the storm. She wasn’t actually from the area, so maybe she didn’t have an appreciation for it like Ruth did. Stopping in front of the insurance office, she said to Tess, “This is me.”
“Are you going to work?” Tess looked puzzled as she tried to keep her own hair from flying in the wind.
Ruth laughed. “No, I live above it. Short commute that way.”
“Then you are my neighbor! I live right there.” Tess pointed at the next building. It was a drug store on the main floor with three apartments above it.
“Yes, we are,” Ruth said, trying not to sound like she already knew that. She knew everything about downtown. Not much happened that she didn’t know about. It was her neighborhood, after all.
Last year when Tess had moved to town, Ruth had watched her move her boxes from her window next door. Thinking back on it, she should have helped but hadn’t felt like it that day. Now she wished she had; they might have a lot in common. They might have been friends before this.
“See you tomorrow then?” Tess asked, sounding as unsure as Ruth felt about it.
“Yes. At three at the cafe again,” Ruth agreed and hurried through the door into the warmth. She didn’t do well with small talk.
After parting, she went up to her apartment, shrugged off her heavy navy jacket, and hung it on a hook in the hallway. Then she pulled off her boots and left them out there also. Slipping on her cozy slippers, she walked into the apartment that faced Main Street. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms of all Ruth. She walked to the window to see if she could see Tess walk into her place but knew it wouldn’t have taken the woman that long to make it a few feet to her door, especially in the blowing snow and cold.
With Tess gone, her eyes went to the spot she had fallen into with Anderson. After a night and morning of more snow, she couldn’t even tell which snow pile it was. Now that Amanda’s car was shoveled out and gone from the street, all evidence had been erased.
Turning from the window, she smiled. The Saturday storm meant she finally had a day for herself. Usually, her mother or stepfather, Chester, would come and get her as the workday ended on Friday, and she stayed at their farm twelve miles from town until church on Sunday. They would then drop her off at her apartment, or she sometimes walked home from church in the summer. Over the years, it was just easier to go out there than to listen to her mom complain about her ungrateful daughter all week.
On the farm, she could finally get her reading done. Just snuggle down on the couch and read all day with few interruptions. It seemed her mother wanted her there all weekend but didn’t always want to talk to her or do anything special with her. Just having her only child present was enough for her mom most of the time, which left her with a lot of reading time.
But when it snowed or threatened to snow, Sara and Chester Kennedy would not come to get their daughter. She was stuck in town for the weekend.
A snowy weekend usually meant that she got to closet herself in her apartment and do what she loved to do most. But as much as she loved reading romance novels all weekend, she much preferred writing them, something she never did at her mom’s house.
Grabbing a pop from the fridge, she left her nice apartment and went across the hall to her office. Sitting down, she swiped the mouse so the computer would come to life.
Looking around, she remembered when she moved in across the hall, there was a forty-year-old divorced guy who lived in the place before she took it over. Up until the time she had moved in, he had lived there alone. He had been there when she had been happy with Franky, and he had been there when Franky had outgrown her.
By April of that first year, when the snow was almost completely melted, Franky still wasn’t coming home. Medical issues suddenly took her to the same town he was going to school in, and she was hospitalized for weeks. Even then, he still didn’t have time to visit her. Just as she was being released from the hospital weeks later, he finally showed up, only to say that he had met someone else and that they were over.
Ruth came home, and with nothing else going on in her life, she just kept working for Frank. Franky graduated, married, and started a family. Ruth just worked for Frank. Should she have left? Maybe. But for years, she didn’t think about it, just worked. Unable to move on.
Oddly, Frank never treated her any differently after the breakup. He just never talked about his son with her anymore. Over the years, the picture on his desk changed: Wedding, one baby, two babies, and then three. Frank never said a thing.
Still, the guy lived there until one day he was simply gone. She never asked where he went, and Frank never said if he knew. All that was left was the old couch and a few dishes that she threw out. After that, the apartment had stayed empty until she took it over.
