Hello Love (8 page)

Andrea had tried to reconcile, offering to go to counseling and saying she would give up on the idea of having a baby. When she hadn’t gotten pregnant after a year of trying, she’d wanted to follow up with testing to see which of them was at fault, but he’d refused. It became a sticking point between them, and she had to believe this was the cause of Marco wanting a divorce. She would have done anything to make it work, but he would have none of it. She still had hope right up until the day she came home from work to find he’d packed up her things. He wanted her out. If that weren’t bad enough, around the same time, her grandmother’s engagement ring had disappeared. Gram had given it to her for safekeeping right before moving into a nursing home and it was Andrea’s most prized possession. Marco claimed he had no idea where it was, but with all the lies he’d been spewing, his word meant nothing. They’d had a big screaming match over the ring, and Andrea had said some ugly things she didn’t even want to think about later on.

Eventually Marco had used the money he inherited from his grandfather to buy out her half of the house and she’d moved out. Right after that, Desiree had moved in. It was such a cliché that her replacement was a perky, big-busted blonde, the type of woman who favored sparkly jewelry and bright-colored clothing. She looked like the kind of stereotypical home wrecker one saw in movies and on TV. It was like he’d held an audition and picked the most obvious choice. Marco had no imagination at all.

So many times since then Andrea had pictured Desiree luxuriating with a glass of wine in
her
spa tub, surrounded by lit candles (something she’d meant to do but never got around to), or sitting in front of the fireplace with Marco, his arm around her shoulder, sharing the day’s events. He’d done that a few times with Andrea, but it wasn’t as romantic as she’d anticipated. His arm was unbelievably heavy, like having a concrete boa constrictor around her neck; the weight caused her shoulder muscles to cramp. Plus, he barely listened when she talked about her workday; clearly he was just waiting until she was done so that he could talk. And, whoa, could he talk. On and on and on. She tried to be interested, but between her shoulders tensing and the nonstop bragging, she found herself losing interest. Honestly, in retrospect, they weren’t a good fit as a couple. But that didn’t mean she wanted to get booted out of her own house.

“Maybe it’s not a date. Maybe it’s a job interview or something?” Andrea suggested.

Jade wrinkled her nose. “If it’s a job interview, she’s being awfully flirtatious. Right now she’s rubbing his arm.”

“Maybe he’s a relative? A cousin she hasn’t seen in years?”

“Or, more likely, she’s a slut, sleeping around on Marco.” Jade’s eyes widened. “Oh, that would make me so happy. Proof that there is some justice in the world.”

“Well, I don’t really care,” Andrea said, and she meant it. As painful as the divorce had been, she was tired of dredging up all the negative emotions. Tired of being sad and angry and regretful. In the early days of the divorce, feeling like a victim had seemed to come with the territory. But she was beyond all that now. Desiree and Marco were going to do what they were going to do. Honestly she didn’t want Marco back. And the house hadn’t been her house in a long time. The condo felt like home now. And the truth of the matter was that Marco was a man who needed a woman. If he weren’t with Desiree, he’d be with someone else. A few weeks ago this scenario would have aroused all kinds of emotions, but not anymore. She was just tired of it all and ready to move on. Besides being a little curious, she just didn’t care.

“Well, I care,” Jade said. “I’m going to say hi to her when we walk past. I want to see her reaction.”

“You can if you want.” Andrea pushed her empty salad plate to the edge of the table. “But I’m not going to give her the satisfaction. I don’t even want to acknowledge her existence.”

SEVENTEEN

thirty minutes earlier, Dan had pulled into the restaurant parking lot. He looked at his watch and rolled his eyes. A family curse, always getting to places too early. His parents had instilled in him a fear of arriving late. They constantly drilled into him the need to allow extra time for train crossings and heavy traffic. Showing up late was a sign of disrespect, they’d said. Teachers would fail you. Prospective employers would write you off. Dates would think you were irresponsible. Dates. How did his mind wander over to that? He was a forty-year-old widower with a nearly grown daughter. He shouldn’t be dating. Even though he’d told himself this wasn’t a date, it felt like one and it also felt wrong. He should have been done with dating a long time ago. Everything was out of order. His life should not have played out this way.

He considered his options and decided to go inside instead of sitting out in his car. It was too cold and, who knew, maybe she’d be early and they could get this thing started and then over with. Bodecker’s on Main was welcoming—warm and cozy without being too formal. Dark wood with brass accents. Hanging light fixtures that looked like bulbs inside glass canning jars. The framed Art Nouveau prints gave it the look of an upscale pub. The waitress was a young girl with a bouncy walk and a big smile. About Lindsay’s age, if he had to guess. She asked if he wanted a drink while he waited, and he vacillated. On the one hand, it would be a start. On the other, what if the mystery woman never arrived? Would he feel obligated to order a meal and eat all alone? Finally, after hemming and hawing, he said he’d take a lemonade with very little ice. When the drink arrived, he saw that the waitress had erred on the side of caution with a very full glass and no ice at all. He took the straw out and sipped carefully.

Focusing on the drink kept him occupied for a bit, but as it got later and later, he became fidgety. Every woman who entered the restaurant was a possibility. A lush redhead who flashed him a smile seemed like a candidate, but she walked right on by. He’d actually hoped that the next woman would be his date because there was something about her that seemed warm and appealing. She was slim and pretty, wearing a camel-colored cloth coat, tied at the waist. The coat was long, coming all the way to the top of her boots. She looked about thirty, so the age matched, but she didn’t acknowledge him at all, and he remembered that she didn’t fit the description. He was looking for a woman wearing a black leather jacket. And a Hermès scarf.

Each time a potential woman went past, he felt a rising hope and then had to reset his expectations and wait some more. Twenty minutes after the expected time, with no sign of his date and no phone call, Dan decided he’d had enough. He was getting ready to leave when a blond woman arrived in a tizzy, dropping into the seat opposite him. “Dan?” she said, and when he nodded, she began talking a mile a minute about the traffic and something about her car being a mess. She explained that she’d stopped to fill up with gas and then got sidetracked washing her windows and scooping out all the trash that was in the backseat. “You know how that happens,” she said, as if of course he’d know. Dan wasn’t sure if she meant that he’d know about stopping for gas and getting sidetracked, or if somehow he was supposed to know about the trash in her backseat. Why would there be garbage in her backseat anyway? And why didn’t she allow extra time if she knew her car was low on gas? It was all so confusing, and trying to sort it out was too much work, so he nodded and agreed, just letting her talk.

He allowed himself to look at her when she ordered the meal. She was a bleached blonde with black eyebrows and dark-red lips. Her shiny top hugged her pushed-up rack. The whole effect reminded him of a film star from the fifties. Doreen had said she was chatty, which he now saw as a euphemism for “will not shut up.” She seemed unable to help herself. Even as the waitress was telling them the specials, she made commentary. “Braised beef tips? Oh ho!” she exclaimed, and reached over to squeeze Dan’s forearm. “Do I have a story about beef tips. I will definitely tell you later, don’t worry about that,” she added, as if he’d been begging to hear it right away. Besides the constant talking, it took her forever to order because she had to know the ingredients in several items and then questioned how everything was prepared.

“Maybe they’ll let you go back and watch the cook make it,” Dan said.

His suggestion drove her to stunned silence. But not for long. A second later she realized he’d been facetious and a smile stretched across her face. “You’re kidding! Oh, you.” She slapped his arm playfully.

After the waitress abandoned Dan, and he was left alone with her, he tried to steer the conversation in a way that would enable him to figure out this woman’s name. He hadn’t caught it during the phone call and was embarrassed to ask at this point. He’d Googled her cell number, but didn’t come up with anything. He’d considered calling Aunt Doreen and asking before heading out to the restaurant, but he didn’t want to reopen the whole conversation. She might take it as encouragement and start fixing him up with every woman who came across her path. No, he figured she’d just say her name when she arrived, the way a normal person would, but she hadn’t and now he really couldn’t ask. So very awkward.

Dan had the feeling someone had once told this woman she was the cutest thing ever and she took it to heart. Maybe when she was a little girl, her cutesy antics and bright smile got her so much attention that every year she amped it up until she was the human equivalent of a neon billboard. She threw her head back when she laughed and widened her eyes for emphasis like a cartoon character. How could Doreen have thought he’d enjoy her company?

The woman’s hands fluttered as she talked, and Dan found himself watching the slim manicured fingers rising and falling in a sweeping motion. It was mesmerizing. Not once did she ask him anything about himself, which was a relief, frankly, but still annoying. How could someone be so self-absorbed? She leaned across the table when making points and touched his hand or arm. The motion gave him a good view of her cleavage and the lacy bra beneath her top. He wasn’t interested in her, but he wasn’t dead either. She didn’t come off as overly bright, but she had to know the effect this kind of thing had on men. She was definitely cunning.

“So,” he finally said after the food was served. “Were you named after someone? A relative maybe?”

“No.”

He waited for her to elaborate, but she had run out of verbal momentum for the moment and was concentrating on her club sandwich. He tried again. “I’ve never met anyone else with your name. It’s reall
y . . .
interesting.”

“Thanks,” she said, lifting the bread off the sandwich and checking to make sure her request of no tomatoes had been honored. “But your name, not so unusual. I’ve known a couple of guys named Dan. Mostly older than me. Some go by Danny or Daniel. They’re all over the place. Two guys at the oil change place are named Dan. One of my teachers in high school was a Daniel. Daniel Tuttle was his name. There are lots of you guys.”

“Yes.” Dan nodded. Before she could ramble on about nothing again, he steered the conversation in another direction. “Doreen said you were having some relationship problems?” He hoped his tone was more kindly uncle than prospective boyfriend. He had a reason for asking this. A plan. Once she finished venting, he’d have an opportunity to work in how little free time he himself had for socializing. He’d apologize for his pushy aunt and explain how he wasn’t ready to get together after this one time. Having a deceased wife was a horrible but handy excuse to get out of meeting up with this woman again. Time to draw a circle around himself and declare the space inside a dating-free zone.

“I wouldn’t really call them relationship problems,” she said in disgust, like she didn’t want to talk about it, but clearly she did because she kept going. “More like finding out a man’s true colors. Talk about someone turning out to be
not as advertised
.” Odd, the way she worded things, as if they’d just been talking about people turning out to be not as advertised when that wasn’t the case at all. “Marco is his name.
Was
his name. Ancient history, or at least he will be when I find my own place.” As it turned out, they were still living together, but it was completely platonic, she’d hurriedly told him. Dan wondered if Aunt Doreen was aware of this. Probably not, he decided. She wouldn’t have approved.

The woman said that this boyfriend, the horrible Marco, had told her that she was the kind of woman who could drive a man to drink. “Can you imagine that?” she said, her eyes widening. “What a mean thing to say. And I’m telling you that this came out of nowhere. I kept the house super perfect, cooked his meals, did his laundry, and everything else.” She winked at the “everything else.” “There was no reason for him to turn on me like he did. My sister said she thinks he’s a sociopath and I Googled it and guess what?” Before Dan could answer, she answered her own question. “I read the description of a sociopath and he fits it perfectly.” She ticked off on her fingers. “Charming, manipulative, lack of empathy for other people, inability to truly love. I’m telling you, I dodged a bullet with that one.”

“Sounds like it,” Dan said.

“So if you know someone with a place to rent, I’m definitely in the market. It wouldn’t have to be a whole apartment at this point. Just a room would be okay. I really have to get out of there.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know of anything offhand. If something comes up, I’ll have Doreen let you know.”

After that he kept the conversation on an even keel, talking about his work in between bites. The food kept her somewhat occupied, but she still managed to interrupt him a few times. She’d never heard of a microbrewery. “Let me guess! It’s a teeny, tiny brewery!” she said, throwing her head back and laughing like it was hilarious. Dan had never seen anyone so entertained by their own words. “I would love working at a place where I could drink beer all day,” she said, making a show of tipping an imaginary bottle to her mouth. “Way cool.”

“A lot of people think that we get to drink beer all day,” he said, “but that’s not how it really works. We wouldn’t get anything done if we were drinking on the job.” Truthfully they were entitled to one glass a week. Many of the guys saved it for lunchtime on Friday. Besides the allotted amount, Dan occasionally did some taste testing when they were developing a new beer or ale. It wasn’t his area, but sometimes they asked his opinion. But he almost never mentioned that perk of the job.

She winked. “But I bet you can kick one back when no one’s looking, right? Especially being the boss and all.”

That was exactly why he never mentioned it. Everyone assumed his job was a forty-hour-a-week kegger, and it just wasn’t true. “I could, but I don’t.”

“Aw, come on, I won’t tell anyone! Fess up. Every once in a while when you’re having a bad day, it has to be a temptation, am I right?” She reached over and patted his wrist in a familiar way.

“Actually, n
o . . .
” He paused, aware of a woman who’d stopped at their table. He glanced up to see the voluptuous redhead who’d arrived at the restaurant just after him. Her friend, the familiar-looking brunette, kept going, her boots clicking their way toward the front door.

The redhead smacked her palm against the table and leaned toward his eating companion. “Hello there, Desiree.”

Oh, Desiree! Mystery solved. Dan now had a name to use when he let her down gently at the end of this lunch.

Desiree said, “Hi?”

“Are you enjoying your lunch date?”

Desiree glanced from Dan to the red-haired woman, clearly confused, then down at her nearly empty plate. “Yeah everything was good, thanks.”

Dan said, “It’s not a date.” But before he could say anything else, the woman strode away, flipping her knit scarf over her shoulder. “Do you know her?” he asked, watching until she disappeared around the corner.

Desiree shrugged. “She looked sort of familiar. Maybe she’s the manager here?”

Dan shook his head. “She’s not the manager. She was eating lunch right over there the whole time we’ve been here. Plus, she knew your name.”

“Oh yeah.” Desiree looked uninterested. “I get that a lot. I don’t want to sound conceited, but people always remember me, but I don’t always remember them.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I mean, I remember the important people. I’ll certainly remember you, don’t worry about that.”

Again she grasped his wrist, but this was one time too many for him. He felt his skin crawl at the intimacy of the gesture, and made a sudden decision. It was okay to be a little bit rude, just this once. “I hate to do this,” he said, pulling out his wallet and peeling off a couple of twenties, which he left in the middle of the table, “but I can’t stay any longer. I really have to go, so I’ll leave this here. If you’d take care of the bill, I’d really appreciate it. It was nice meeting you, Desiree.” He returned the wallet to his back pocket and got out the keys to his truck.

She watched, confused, as he slid out of the booth. “Well, maybe next time we can—”

“I’m sorry, but there won’t be a next time. Enjoy the rest of your day.” Leaving the restaurant, Dan felt his mood lift and as the cold outdoor air hit his face, it struck him as invigorating. The sun was high in the sky now too, the light a welcome sight after sitting for so long in the dim restaurant. During the whole meal he’d dreaded coming up with an excuse when all it took was telling her that there wouldn’t be a next time. Huh. Who knew how easy it could be? He felt the words still lingering on his tongue.
Sorry, but there won’t be a next time.
Simple, direct, nothing to argue about. He wasn’t trying to hurt her feelings, but there was no sense in prolonging the inevitable. And after all, he’d promised he’d have lunch with her and he’d fulfilled that obligation.