Sara's Unyielding Lover (The Lovers Series) (2 page)

Coming back from her
memory she slowly looked around her apartment again, covered her face with her
small hands and began to cry. With her mascara running down her face she
wondered

“
What had happened to their marriage? Why had they grown so cold toward
each other in the last few years?”

 
And she knew as soon as she thought it.
It had been Michael’s new job, he was determined to work his way up the corporate
ladder. He began to want the high life, social parties, prestigious position, knowing
all the right contacts and having the so called best of everything. But in
doing so the Michael she had grown up with, fell in love with and married had
gotten lost. Lost in that financial and fake world; lost in overtime, extra
projects to prove himself to all the others, because he also had no formal
education after high school. Lost in the women that came onto any good looking
man not caring if they were married as long as it helped boost up their own
social standing or if it helped them to build contacts.

 
He started at the bottom and worked his
way up and with each promotion he had grown more distant. Her family had been
right to tell her to divorce him. For years she had wanted children but he was
too busy and always said they were not financially ready for a child. In reality
he had just become too selfish to want a child. He said that he wanted to have
a child when he could afford to give the child everything they never had. And
so 10 years later Sara was living in a big empty house only seeing Michael
before he went to work and when he was at home ready for bed. She would fight
with him that he was working too much and he had countered that he had to
because he was supporting them both since Sara didn’t work and never had worked.
When she started to see lipstick smudges on his collars she tried to think it
away.

“He’s going through a phase” “He’s curious about other
women because I’m the only one he had ever with” “He really loves me and he’s
sorry he’ll stop”

All thoughts she would
think to herself. Only his “late” nights at the office became more often and he
started keeping his phone locked. So taking the advice of her family Sara began
to take some night courses, to not only fill the void that her husband had left
behind, but to have some form of education to obtain a job should she decide
enough was enough and leave him. One Friday night she reached her limit when a
female actually called the house asking for him to confirm their date because
he wasn’t answering his cell. With the truth slapping her so hard in the face she
could no longer try to think it away and with her family urging her to leave
Michael she saw no other option. There was only so much self-respect she had
left and if she wanted to keep it she had to stop being a doormat and divorce
him.

Now here she was alone
in her new apartment unable to stop her tears and sobs over a man who didn’t
deserve her love, loyalty or tears. She walked from the front door to the
living room and to the closest box marked “linens” and began to unpack blankets
and pillows to make a temporary bed on the floor to sleep on; until she could
go to a store and buy all the furnishings she needed. Between her divorce
settlement and alimony she would receive for the next two years she should be
able to get some nice furniture and start a savings for herself. As she began
to think about tomorrow and things that needed to be done she slowly stopped
crying pulled herself together and continued to unpack more boxes. As she did
she began to feel a little better about the fresh start she was giving herself.
She was unpacking a box with some of her clothes when her cell phone rang. She
put her clothes down on the carpeted floor and went to pick up her new IPhone
5s that she had left in the other room.

“Hello”

“Hello Sara its Jo Ann”

“Jo Ann hi how are you?”

“Well actually I was
calling to see how you were and if you needed any help unpacking or with
anything else?”

“Oh my yes, that would
be great. I keep thinking of my old home and life and crying over it. I could
really use someone right now; oh I guess that’s TMI I always say too much.”

“I like your honesty Sara
that’s why I hired you. There’s nothing wrong with admitting you need someone
to talk to. I'm hoping that we not only be colleagues but friends too.”

“I know, thank you Jo
Ann, I hope that we can be friends too, because honestly I don’t know anyone
else.” Sara said letting a small giggling laugh out as she spoke.

“So how about I come
over and help you unpack and you buy us some Chinese takeout.”

“Ok you got a deal.”

Twenty minutes later there
was a knock at her apartment door. Thou she knew who it was she still peeked
through the peek hole in the middle of the door. There stood Jo Ann with her chestnut
brown hair pulled into a French braid. Wearing a purple T-shirt that said “life
is good” across her chest with a pair of hipster dark blue jeans and matching
her top purple flip flops. Sara unlocked and opened the door.

“Hi”

“Hi”

“Come on in excuse the
mess” Sara stated with a small chagrin look on her face.

“No problem I remember
moving into my new condo it took me two weeks to unpack and get everything put
in the right place”

“I hope it doesn’t take
me that long, although a lot of stuff I can’t unpack until I get my furniture,
which I hope to do tomorrow.”

“You’re buying all new
furniture?” Jo Ann had a slightly stunned look on her face as she looked to
Sara for her answer.

“Yeah too many memories
with the old furniture, anniversary gifts and so on, I want none of it” As she
said this her delicate eyebrows scrunched together making the skin between them
ridge up and she had a glare of annoyance in her eyes.

“I get that” Jo Ann easily
nodded in agreement.

“I guess I’ll call for
the Chinese food now and then we can start unpacking in the kitchen.”

“Sounds like a plan,
just point me in the direction” Jo Ann replied while glancing around the
apartment.

Once shown the right
direction Jo Ann moved into the kitchen to start unpacking while Sara walked
back to her bedroom to fetch the yellow pages phone book which the phone
company had given her when she had her land line put in. Walking back to the
kitchen yellow pages in hand she went to the dark granite counter top to pick
up her cordless house phone to order their food.

Looking back to Jo Ann
who was in the middle of setting up her Keurig and k-cup tree. Sara looked to her
and said.

“I didn’t know what you
liked so I ordered a little of everything.”

Jo Ann responded with a
friendly smile and emphatically stated “I love Chinese food period doesn’t
matter what it is.”

“Good.” Sara promptly
answered Jo Ann, returning her smile.

“Where do you want these
dishes to go?” Questioned Jo Ann holding up Sara’s new plates.

Sara looked at the
plates and smiled, when she was at the store buying the dish set she had immediately
picked the cutest flowered dishes she could find. When picking her new dishes
with Michael he had wanted something in a solid color that looked sophisticated
and would suit for any occasion. They had ended up with Asian inspired black
glazed dishes. Which she hated and thought looked a little depressing, but she
went along with Michael’s choice trying to make him happy and to not rock the
boat,

“Over in that cupboard,
to the right of the sink.” she pointed with a manicured finger.

And so they worked
unpacking the kitchen while chit chatting about the work week ahead of them and
what Sara could expect from her first few days of orientation; to her annual
evaluations, pay raises and commission. The two of them got along great as if
they were old friends who had known each other for years instead of days and
Sara could tell that not only would Jo Ann be a good boss but a close confidant
too. When someone knocked at the apartment door Sara looked around and couldn’t
believe how much they had unpacked and put away in such a short amount of time.
Sara strolled back into her bedroom to retrieve her wallet then went to the front
door; checked the peep hole, saw it was the delivery man and opened the door.

“Hi I forgot to ask if
you would have enough change to break a large bill. All I have are fifties.”

“Yes no problem” The short
man said with a heavily Asian accent.

After paying for the
food, tipping the man nicely, shutting and locking the door Sara bought the
food to the kitchen counter.

“Well we can stand and
eat at the counter or we can sit on the floor Indian style.”

“Floor is fine with me”
Jo Ann returned coming around the counter to exit the kitchen and follow Sara
to the living room.

As they settled themselves
onto the soft carpeted floor they started to divvy out the food on to Sara's flowery
plates. They started to talk more and get to know each other even better asking
more personal questions and interests. The two women noticed they had similar
taste in music, movies and art. By the time they were done eating and talking
they looked at the time, it was just past nine o’clock; they had talked the
whole night away.

“Well I better be going
I didn’t realize it was so late” Jo Ann said while pulling out her cell phone
from her back jeans pocket to double check the time.

“Me neither, thanks for
coming to help me and for the company.” Sara responded while standing up to
give Jo Ann a polite hug and see her out.

“No problem, got to make
sure my employee gets off on the right foot” Jo Ann retorted with a little
grin, while hugging Sara back.

“Yeah thanks I
appreciate it.” Sara replied with a small smile and light laugh.

“Thanks for dinner; I’ll
see you on Monday”

“Ok”

Sara walked Jo Ann out
and shut and locked the door behind her. She turned leaned her head on the back
of the door and gave herself a mini pep talk.

 
“
I
can do this, it will be ok, and it will all work for the best.”

 
With that last thought she made
her way back to the living room and began to pick up the rest of the food and
put it in the refrigerator, she turned out the lights in the empty rooms and
headed to her bathroom. She went through her nightly routine, brushed her
teeth, hair, removed her make and headed to her bedroom where her make shift
bed waited for her. Crawling underneath her down feathered duvet she settled into
a comfortable position and went to sleep.

As the morning sunshine filtered
into her bedroom through her roman shade covered window Sara awoke slowly
stretching her arms and twisting her back. “
Not
to sore.”
Sara thought to herself as she picked up her cell phone to check
the time she contemplated on what to do after her shower. She had two choices,
eat leftover Chinese food or go out to breakfast. Having a craving for
something sweet she decided to go out, she wasn’t extremely hungry thou so she
chose to go to Dunkin Donuts. She could get a good vanilla chi and one of their
wonderfully sweet chocolate covered Boston crème donuts.

Once out of her shower
she did what she normally did; checked the weather to see how she should dress.
In Pennsylvania no matter what season it was the temperature could always
change depending on wind, cloud coverage and so on. Why, one winter in December
the weather had gone from 49 degrees one day to 9 degrees the next. Going to
her weather app Sara saw that it was going to be sunny all week. Moving to her
pile of clothes she had neatly stacked against the wall, sifting through her
tops she pick a cute soft yellow A-symmetrical tank top with a scoop neck.
Picking up a pair of pastel colored plaid cotton shorts she thought the outfit paired
nicely,
“now shoes”
she thought.

Ambling over to her
closet where she had lined up all her shoes on the floor, she looked at the few
sandals she had
“ I have to get more
sandals maybe lots of colored flip flops, San Diego always has sandal weather”

When she finished her
thought she reached down and picked a flesh toned strappy roman style sandal.
Once dressed she gathered up her phone, purse, keys and headed out the door; double
checking to make sure her front door was locked she turned and went to the
apartment parking lot. As she got to her parking space she was happy to have a
covered spot. No doubt the leather seats in her Maxima would be scorching hot
after sitting in the sun. Her Maxima was stylish and cute in a pearl white
color, leather seats, automatic, mp3 port, heated seats, though she doubted she
would need that feature here it was perfect for her. Much better than the Mercedes
she used to drive, yeah Mercedes are a higher end car but really you’re only
paying for the name and status symbol that went with owning one, which see
hated.

Pressing her key fob she
opened her door climbed in and started it up. Syncing up her iPhone, she
scrolled through her playlist seeing the song she wanted she selected it and
hit play. Her speakers buzzed to life and Miley Cyrus began to sing...

“It's our party we can
do what we want

It's our party we can say
what we want

It's our party we can
love who we want

We can kiss who we want

We can sing what we want”

Yeah she was 28 almost
29 and divorced she didn’t care this was gonna be her new theme song. She was
gonna start doing things for herself because she wanted. No more trying to live
up to the image Michael wanted to portray. Smiling to herself she began to belt
out loud along with Miley.

“So la da di da di
We like to party
Dancing with Miley
Doing whatever we want
This is our house
This is our rules
And we can't stop
And we won't stop
Can't you see it's we who own the night?
Can't you see it's we who 'bout that life?
And we can't stop
And we won't stop
We run things, things don't run we
Don't take nothing from nobody
Yeah, yeah”

Driving down the
boulevard she saw a Starbucks and passed it by nothing pretentious for her,
with people who nitpick at their coffee, “I’ll have a Venti caramel macchiato
with soy an extra shot 5 pumps of vanilla upside down” and then the inevitable
“excuse me but you didn’t use soy I can taste the difference” snobs all of
them. All she wanted was a vanilla chi tea and she was happy. As she came to a
stop light she saw a sign for Dunkin Donuts, she smiled and once the light
turned green went forward and pulled into the parking lot.

Pulling the door open
immediately she was hit with the delectable sweet smell of fresh donuts and
coffee. Waiting her turn in line she started wondering about what kind of
furniture she wanted to buy. She always liked antiques and the weathered look,
where would she find that around here. As she got to the counter to place her
order she decided the best way to find a place would be to ask a local.

“Excuse me?” she asked
the young tanned dark haired girl behind the counter with the name Nicole
printed on her name tag.

“Yes? Is there something
else you needed? Your chi tea will be ready in a moment.” she replied in a
cheerful voice.

“No actually I just
moved to this area and I was wondering if you might know where I might be able
to buy some antique furniture?” Sara waited as Nicole began to think tapping
her acrylic nails on the Formica counter top as she did.

“Well I know there are a
lot of antique boutiques down town, but they can be pricey. There’s this auction
place I know thou, my friends brother works there as a delivery driver. They
have really good deals nice prices. Rick says a lot of boutiques come and buy
stuff then jack up the prices at their shops.” Nicole answered with a shake of
her head at the boutiques and their gouging prices.

“Oh an auction I’ve
never been to one I think that would be a fun approach to buying furniture. Can
you write the info down for me?”

“Yeah no problem.” As
she was speaking Nicole began to look for a piece of paper to write down the
auction house information. She ducked under the counter and came up with an old
flyer flipping it over she began to scrawl the information down. When she was
finished she handed the paper to Sara.

“Thank you” Sara replied
with a smile while depositing $3.00 into the tip jar.

Seeing the tip being
placed in the jar Nicole smiled back and said “Thank you, your tea is ready,
here you go enjoy have a nice day.”

Grabbing her order Sara
went to the closest empty table and sat down to enjoy her tea and donut and
then googled for more information and directions to the auction house.
Surprisingly she found out that you can not only bid in person but you can also
bid online.

“Online would be easier, but you can’t see all the details
through a photo. I think it’ll be better to go in person”
she thought to herself as she
took a bite of her Boston crème, tipping her head back as some of the crème
tried to ooze down her chin. Using her finger she wiped the crème off then
licked her finger clean.