More Than Friends (10 page)

“Good morning.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Evelyn slid into the booth across from Kendall and wrapped her hands around the warm porcelain mug in front of her, glad that the trend toward disposable cups with plastic lids hadn’t reached their favorite coffee shop. The neighborhood place, little more than a long Formica counter and a few booths, had survived the influx of gourmet chain shops, so far.

“I ordered coffee, but I didn’t know what you wanted to eat.”

Evelyn nodded, and as if on cue the server approached. She opened the menu and ordered the first thing she saw.

“Steak and eggs, huh? Are you hungry?” Kendall asked.

“Apparently.” Her usual breakfast of a hard-boiled egg and wheat toast would be like an appetizer compared to what she’d just asked for. “How was the date?” She jumped right in, hoping to find normalcy in conversation.

“Not bad. She seemed nice and down-to-earth.”

“Are you going to see her again?”

“Maybe.”

“That doesn’t sound very promising.”

“It’s not meant to be. I’m definitely not looking for anything serious. And I was pretty up-front about that, so I don’t think she expects any more from this than I do. ”

“That’s understandable, and good that you were honest about it. Was she cute?”

Kendall smiled. “Yeah, she was. And easy to talk to.”

“Did you kiss her?”

Kendall didn’t answer, but the rush of pink up her neck revealed the truth.

“So, how was it?” She felt awkward asking, having always been on the other side of the inquisition.

“It was—strange. I haven’t kissed anyone but Melanie in—hell, I’m tired of thinking about Melanie. I want to talk about something else.”

When the server set a large plate of food in front of her, Evelyn decided to dig in and enjoy the indulgence. Her stomach growled in response to the enticing aroma of the steak, eggs, and mound of hash browns heaped on her plate. She shook steak sauce over the entire plate and picked up her fork.

Kendall narrowed her eyes. “You look like you slept in those clothes. Or maybe they spent the night on the floor at some hottie’s house.”

“What? No.” She glanced down. Her jeans were clean and the T-shirt was pretty wrinkled from being folded, but it was passable.

“So you slept in your own bed last night, and you still look like that?”

“Hey.”

“Seriously? You just dragged details from me and you’re going to hold out on me now.”

She shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell. I met Jennifer and some of the other girls out at the bar. I overslept this morning and just threw on some clothes to meet you.” Technically, that was true, but she had more to tell in her effort to remain fair and neutral. “Melanie came out for a few drinks, too.”

Kendall jerked her eyes up from her plate. “Yeah?” She seemed to press the stilted word through thinned lips.

“I ran into her when I took a break-in report for one of her clients. So I talked her into going out with us.”

“Good. I’m glad.” Kendall rolled her shoulders, as if forcing herself to relax.

“You are?”

“Sure. She’s probably been overworked these past few months and needed to unwind. You looked after her, right? You didn’t let anyone hit on her?”

“No one bothered her.”

“Yes.” Kendall nodded, her mood obviously shifting. “This is actually a good idea. She gets to go out and you take care of her.”

“She can take care of herself.” She wouldn’t let Kendall make her responsible for Melanie’s social life.

“I know. She’s a smart girl. But you’ve been out there, Ev. You know what some of those women in the bar are like. I hate to think of her with one of them.”

She recalled how Jennifer had come on to her and didn’t want Melanie dealing with such aggression either. But given the direction of her thoughts last night, could she truly separate herself from the lecherous women that concerned Kendall?

“Hell, I hate just as much to think of her with someone nice and settled and sane, too.”

“I don’t think you can win on this one. You’re not going to like whoever she dates, and she won’t like who you see. That’s part of breaking up, right?” She sopped up steak sauce with the last bit of her toast and shoved it in her mouth.

Kendall nodded. “So I’ll just keep going out on dates until it starts to feel okay again.”

“Yep. And if you need anything, I’m here for you, buddy.”
Assuming I can figure out how to stop lusting after your ex.
When the server laid the bill on the table, she picked it up. “Starting with breakfast.” She pulled out her wallet and counted out enough cash to cover the total and a generous tip.

*

Melanie shook two aspirin into her hand, then downed them with a large swallow of orange juice. Hopefully, the pounding in her head would ease soon so she could peel herself off the couch and get some much-needed housework done. The headache and a dry mouth were apparently the only repercussions for her over-indulgence the previous night. She hadn’t been drunk in years, and while she didn’t recommend it as a means for solving problems, she didn’t regret it either. She hadn’t set out with that goal, but the more she relaxed and enjoyed the night out with Evelyn and her friends, the easier the drinks went down.

Maybe after the stress of the breakup, she deserved one night of letting loose, and today she’d return to reality. She had already planned to take today off work in order to catch up at home. While she waited for the aspirin to kick in, she settled on the end of the couch and picked up a notepad and pen from the coffee table and began making a to-do list.

At the end of her list she made a note to call her mother and schedule lunch one day next week. Last year, she never would have thought she’d have to vie for a spot on her mother’s busy social calendar, but now she welcomed making the call.

Her father had passed away three years ago after a prolonged illness. And her mother, suddenly without the distraction of caring for him, had tumbled into depression. She wouldn’t leave the house unless Melanie or her sister dragged her out. Her health began to decline, until Melanie worried she might be burying her soon as well.

Her mother’s wake-up call had come when one of her friends lost her husband as well. She’d set aside her own grief to help her friend cope. They began going to senior outings together. Amazingly, when seeing someone else in the same situation she’d been in, her mother could so clearly find the solution. Six months ago, she’d said she was ready to sell the house and get an apartment in a senior community. Before long, she was involved in a regular schedule of activities and outings with other residents.

Melanie was happy that her mother remained active and busy, but lately she’d been missing both her and her father. Since her breakup with Kendall, she’d been incredibly nostalgic, desperately recalling happy memories from her childhood to help alleviate her own loneliness.

At times, she and Kendall had talked about having a child, both saying they wanted to start a family “someday.” And though they hadn’t taken definitive steps in that direction, she had believed it would eventually happen. At thirty-three, she had plenty of time before panic was warranted, but the years had a way of slipping away, as they had done while she and Kendall were together. And by the time she met someone new, reached the “planning for the future” stage, and got ready to have a child, several more years would likely pass.

Sighing, she pushed off the couch, determined to distract herself with activity. She strode to the bedroom, grabbed an armload of clothes she’d sorted from the hamper, then dumped them in the washer. While waiting for the laundry, she decided to get to work cleaning the kitchen. Once she started, she found an uncharacteristic need to scrub every surface and rearrange the items on her countertop. Did the spice rack look better in the corner, or should it be closer to the stove for convenience? Should she keep the bright-green tea kettle even though she rarely made tea, just because she liked the pop of color it added to the sleek black lines of her stovetop?

By the time she’d emptied the jumbled mess her Tupperware cabinet had become, she’d finally driven her concerns about the future out of her mind. Organizing the many containers and their lids of varying sizes became her main goal. This time, she vowed she would keep them orderly, even though she knew the promise was hollow. In a few months, she would once again be sitting on her freshly cleaned kitchen floor surrounded by more plastic food storage than one person ever needed.

After she finished her chores, she called her mother, who surprisingly was free for dinner. Neither of them felt like cooking, so they settled on a restaurant and she offered to drive. She puttered around the house a bit more, then showered and changed before heading to her mother’s apartment.

She’d just pulled into a spot in front of the building when her mother came out of the breezeway walking with another woman. As they reached the edge of the sidewalk, her mother took the other woman’s arm, guided her across an expanse of grass, and helped her settle onto a wood-framed swing.

After a few more words, her mother straightened and headed for her truck. Melanie had often marveled at how many years her father’s illness had seemed to steal from her mother. The lines on her face had deepened, and she’d stopped coloring her hair, letting the artificial light-brown give way to gray. But living here might have restored some of that time. She seemed better able to balance helping some of the older residents with household chores or errands without losing herself in the process. Here, she flourished by being needed, while cultivating her own interests as well.

“How’ve you been, dear?” her mother asked as she climbed into the truck. She leaned across the wide center console and patted Melanie’s hand. Her eyebrows peaked in concern and she seemed to be searching Melanie’s face for signs of wear.

“Fine.” Melanie drew her hand back. Then, to avoid offending her mother, she acted as if she’d needed to do so in order to shift.

How much time had to pass before people stopped looking at her with the sympathy she didn’t feel she deserved? She hadn’t been dumped; she’d been the one to end it. She shouldn’t get sympathy for pain that basically had resulted from her own decisions, should she?

“Are you getting by okay?”

“How do you mean?”

“Without Kendall’s income?”

“Yes, Mom.” Melanie nodded, not surprised that her mother’s initial concern was financial. For over forty years, her mother had been the homemaker in a rather old-fashioned marriage. Her father’s insurance had left her comfortably taken care of, but not extravagantly so. Never having worried about money issues, after his death, she had thrown herself into learning every aspect of her financial situation. Consequently, she’d also become more concerned with how well Melanie and her sister planned for their futures.

“Perhaps when your lease is up, you’ll want to consider moving to a smaller apartment.”

“Mom, I’m fine. I don’t need to move.” She liked the open floor plan of her apartment and had no desire to confine herself to a more cramped space. In fact, since Kendall had taken her workout equipment from the third bedroom, she had begun to think about fixing it up as a guest room so the futon in the office could stop doing double duty.

“You could get a little place on your sister’s side of town. I’m sure she would like to see you more often.”

“We see each other plenty. Besides, she’s never home either.” As a regional sales manager, her sister traveled at least two weeks out of every month. Her husband spent nearly as much time on the road, but, if fifteen years of marriage was any indication, it worked for them.

“Are you dating again, yet?”

“No.”

“I heard Mr. Rubio’s daughter is single again. Would you like me to get her number?”

Melanie smiled. Her mother had adjusted well to her coming out while in her twenties. She’d simply made the transition from trying to find her a nice young man to a young woman. She had earned a reprieve during her years with Kendall but apparently now was once again fair game. Mr. Rubio from down the hall was the only other resident in her mother’s building who admitted to having a gay child.

“What? She’s running the family dry-cleaning business. You could do worse.”

“I’m sure she’s lovely. Although Mr. Rubio is in his eighties, so unless he had her late in life, she’s probably in her sixties.”

“I hear about women having sugar daddies. Can’t it be the same for gay women?”

“I don’t want to be the kept woman of a dry cleaner, Mom.” Melanie struggled to keep the laughter out of her voice.

“Now you’re making fun of me.” Her mom’s smile suggested that she’d been teasing.

“I’m not. Let’s just put the dry cleaner on the back burner for now. If I change my mind about her, I’ll let you know. I’m really not thinking about dating right now.” She steered her truck into the parking lot of the restaurant and chose a spot near the door.

“It’s natural for you to miss Kendall. But working all the time isn’t good for you.”

“I know,” she replied automatically, and when her mother’s expression changed to disbelief, she went on. “I did miss Kendall a lot, at first. I still do, often. But she’s not what’s stopped me from dating. I haven’t been alone in a long time. Now that I am, I don’t feel an overwhelming urge to throw myself into a new dynamic with another person.” Searching for the right words, she turned in her seat and met her mother’s eyes. “I can hardly remember the last time I made a decision without thinking about how it impacted someone else. I want to do that now. I want to do things that make me happy, perhaps selfishly, but I think it’s my right.”

“What if Miss Wonderful comes along while you’re figuring yourself out?”

She sighed. “If I promise that, if someone comes along that I can’t live without, I will give her a chance, can we stop talking about this and go inside and eat? I’m starving.”

“I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get out of you, so, okay.”

She smiled, knowing that they hadn’t truly dropped the subject. But as they walked inside, her mother began talking about her upcoming bus trip to the Mississippi casinos. Maybe Melanie would give her a twenty and ask her to play the slots for her.