Tempted Again (15 page)

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“What experience do you have with matchmaking mommas?” Marissa asked Deb as they sat in Cups Café sipping their iced coffees. This was the first time they’d gotten together since meeting at the divorce support group a few days ago.

While the college crowd gathered at the local Starbucks, Hopeful’s full-time residents preferred the ambience and prices of the local business.

“Why? Are you looking to be matched up?” Deb asked.

“Not at all. But my mom has that gleam in her eye. I haven’t even been divorced a year and already she’s pushing me to get back out there and start dating.”

“Just tell her that some of the self-help books say you should wait at least a year before reentering the dating world.”

“She’s not the only one bugging me about it. Someone at work tried to hook me up with their cousin who works at the hospital.”

“I heard you and the sheriff were an item,” Deb said.

“What?! That’s not true. Who told you that?”

Deb shrugged. “It’s just a rumor I heard floating around.”

“Why would someone get that idea?”

“Because you live next to each other and you’re both single and sparks fly when you’re together.”

“Those are argumentative sparks, not sexual sparks,” Marissa said. “We have to work together on a special
project. Neither one of us wants to but we don’t really have a choice. We’re sort of stuck with each other.”

“Sounds like a relationship.”

“A
working
relationship, maybe. But that’s as far as it goes.” Marissa took a sip of her iced coffee. “What is it about a divorced woman that makes everyone want to hook her up with someone?”

“I don’t know. I do know that a lot of the couples who were friends before my divorce no longer invite me to their events,” Deb said. “I tell myself it’s because having me would make it an odd number of people to dinner. But it’s almost like they’re afraid that divorce is a contagious disease or something.”

“I know what you mean.” Marissa had had a similar experience when she was back in New York.

“It’s like you become a social pariah,” Deb continued. “My single girlfriends have been really supportive and they try to help but they don’t really understand what it feels like. Yes, some of them have been dumped but it’s not the same thing as ending a marriage, ending a promise, a declaration in front of your family, friends and in your church that this is going to last forever. That you and your spouse are going to do whatever it takes to make it work. The sense of failure is just so overwhelming. You’ve probably read the same self-help books I have. I know that divorce is a grieving process. That there are stages you have to progress through and that there is no one time schedule. Everyone progresses at their own speed and in their own way.”

Marissa nodded. “Logically I know that. The thing with Brad is that he pursued me. I think I was a challenge to him. He really had to go after me because I wasn’t convinced we’d be a good match. But he was relentless
and charming. He’d do such sweet and romantic things. He could have gone after other women but he stuck with courting me. And that made me feel so special, so wanted. Those powerful, positive feelings drowned out my original doubt. Even so, something made me tell him that cheating was a deal-breaker for me. When he proposed to me, I made sure he understood that before I said yes.”

“It seems to me that your inner radar was warning you even then that he was a cheater,” Deb said.

“You’re right. Most women don’t say,
Yes, I’ll marry you providing you honor our marriage vows and don’t stray
.”

“True.”

“I mean, logically, I know there is life after divorce. I know it’s a matter of moving on, of being able to get rid of the baggage you’re carrying.”

“Everyone has baggage.”

“Did you ever see that episode of the CBS sitcom
How I Met Your Mother
that showed the baggage the characters had and the baggage they were trying to figure out everyone else had? I lie awake at night wondering when I’m going to be able to get over it and throw the baggage away. Incinerate it. Ship it into outer space. Blow it up.”

“I have those thoughts at night, too,” Deb admitted. “Although it’s usually about doing that to my husband, not to my emotional baggage.”

“Was it an acrimonious divorce?” Marissa asked.

“I wouldn’t be going to a support group if it wasn’t. You know, I really envy people who are able to end things smoothly and calmly. Like your ex, my husband cheated. Unlike your situation, he did it more than once.
The first time he pleaded with me to take him back and I did. He was good for a while and then he cheated again. We separated and I almost took him back a third time. But the trust had been broken and I couldn’t see it ever being repaired again. Not after the second occurrence. You know that saying, ‘Ignore what a man says, pay attention to what he does’? My ex said all the right things but did all the wrong ones. It took forever for him to sign the divorce papers. It’s like he saw that as a surrender, as if losing a marriage was a football game or something. That we were in overtime and if he just hung in there long enough he’d score a point and win.”

“Did you have kids?” Marissa asked.

“No. That would have really made things even more difficult. My parents were divorced when I was a kid, and I swore to myself that I would never get a divorce.”

“My parents have tried to be supportive. Well, my mom has. My dad is kind of oblivious to it all,” Marissa said. “He hasn’t said anything, but I feel like he’s disappointed in me.”

“Did he like your ex?”

Marissa shrugged. “He never said. He didn’t say he didn’t like him either.”

“At least you’re not running into your ex all the time.”

Marissa wasn’t running into Brad but she was running into and having to work with Connor a lot of the time. She was so afraid of letting down her guard around him. Okay, so the truth was that she wasn’t just afraid, she was terrified with a generous amount of panic mixed in.

Her life would be so much simpler if he hadn’t returned to Hopeful or if she hadn’t. Or if her feelings for him and the chemistry between them had totally
disappeared. But more and more, she found herself traveling into the world of what-if.

What if Connor hadn’t deserted her a decade ago? What if they’d stayed together? Would they still be a couple? Could she have gone with him to Chicago to be a cop’s wife? Could she have dealt with the constant danger to a big-city law enforcement officer? What if he’d stayed here in Hopeful and neither one of them had ever left? Would they have kids by now? In what-if land, there were millions of possible scenarios to explore.

“Do you ever wonder ‘What if’?” Marissa asked Deb.

“Sometimes. What if he hadn’t strayed? Yeah, I think about that a lot sometimes.”

“Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you’d married your first love or someone else instead of your ex?”

“Sure. Who doesn’t? I’ve even looked them up online.”

“Did you ever contact someone that way?”

“No,” Deb said. “I don’t have the nerve. Why? Have you done that? Contacted someone from your past to see if they’re still available?”

“No,” Marissa said. Which was true. She technically hadn’t contacted Connor. He’d contacted her when he’d pulled her over during the parade. Fate had put them together. Neither one of them had taken measures to make that happen. In fact, they both had made moves to avoid such a thing happening. Although she’d done more than he had.

Connor seemed to take some pleasure in the fact that he could still get to her. Maybe that was just male ego. Not that Connor was pursuing her. Although there was
that pity pizza…but that wasn’t much, really. It’s not like he was sending her dozens of roses like Brad had when he was courting her. Or sending sexy text messages.

No, Connor didn’t make any of the obvious moves. Instead he’d just look at her. But the wow factor was increasing with every glance and every stare he sent her way.

She only had one first love in her life, and for good or bad that was Connor. That fact colored her reaction to him. To every look, every touch, every comment.

“I wish I could just tune it all out,” Marissa muttered.

“Me, too,” Deb said.

“I’m sorry for venting like that. I don’t mean to sound like Wendy Whiner.”

Deb smiled and pointed to herself. “Or even worse, Deb Downer?”

“No way. Not you. You’re the only person I can really talk to about all this. You get it.” Now what Marissa had to “get” was that wandering into what-if land carried its own dangers and was full of emotional land mines.

Chapter Ten

Dealing
with teenagers was like herding cats…only worse. Days like today made Marissa doubt her own judgment in wanting to do more. Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone?
Nooo.
She had to come up with a group to help teens.

The American Library Association had books and subcommittees on the subject of appealing to young adults.
Booklist
did special webinars about what they termed as Reluctant Readers. Marissa would add the words
Rebellious
,
Recalcitrant
and
Rowdy
to that description.

Today’s drama involved the group’s plans for the upcoming Rhubarb Festival this weekend.

“I still say that we should be auctioning off one of my apps instead of a T-shirt,” Snake said.

“It’s not just a T-shirt. It’s a custom, one-of-a-kind
T-shirt,” Jose said. “Your apps aren’t custom. Anyone can download one for ninety-nine cents. The T-shirt I did is worth a lot more than that.”

Snake was clearly not convinced. “Or so you say.”

“You got a problem with that?” Jose said, going into defense mode.

“You all voted on this,” Marissa reminded them.

“Red Fred does whatever Jose tells him,” Snake said. “That’s why he voted for the shirt. And the girls don’t even know what an app is because they don’t have smartphones.”

“An app is an application,” Tasmyn said, shoving her hair away from her face to glare at Snake. “Not everyone is rich enough to afford a smartphone.”

“And I’d like to remind you that I’m a girl and I voted for the app,” Nadine said.

Snake waved her words away. “I don’t think of you as a girl.”

Now Nadine joined Tasmyn and Molly in the glarefest.

“Tool.” The normally low-key Molly threw the insult at him.

“You have to be popular with girls but hurt them before you can be a tool,” Nadine said. “Outside of this group, Snake can’t even talk to a girl.”

“He used to be popular with us and he hurt us,” Molly said “That means he qualifies.”

“Trust me, he’s no tool. He’s not cool enough to be a tool,” Jose said.

“It’s not cool to be a tool,” Nadine said.

“And it’s not cool to insult people,” Marissa pointed out. “Just because you don’t agree with others, doesn’t mean that you should insult them.”

“Why not?” Red Fred said. “They do it on TV all the time. Especially on Fox News. And politicians do it, too. You should read some of the blogs out there.”

“My mom says Fox doesn’t really do news,” Molly said.

“And my mom says Fox are the only ones who do the news,” Red Fred stated.

Marissa wasn’t about to let things go off into a political discussion of “red-” and “blue-” state moms. She had enough trouble as it was. “We don’t insult others because it’s rude. And insults lead to bullying, which will not be tolerated here and should not be tolerated anywhere.”

“Right,” Red Fred said. “We’re all in this together. Just like on
Glee
.”

“Except we don’t sing or dance,” Tasmyn said.

“And we don’t have slushies thrown at us,” Nadine said.

“I do,” Red Fred said.

“You
used
to,” Jose said. “But not since you started wearing the T-shirts I designed for you.”

Red Fred nodded. “Right.”

“So is the library gonna let us have a display for the shirt and the auction in their booth at the festival?” Jose asked.

“Rhubarb sucks,” Red Fred said. Before Marissa could protest, he added, “No, really. Have you ever tasted it raw? It’s really sour.”

“Kinda like that library board dude who gives us the evil eye whenever he sees us,” Jose said. “Especially me.”

“He’s like a hundred years old or something,” Red Fred said.

“What are we going to do with the raffle money?” Tasmyn asked.

“We already decided we’re going to give it to poor kids who can’t read,” Red Fred said.

“We’re poor,” Molly said.

“Yeah, but we can read,” Jose said.

“I think we should give it to UNICEF,” Snake said. “Doesn’t Angelina Jolie do stuff for them?”

“You just picked them because of Jolie,” Molly said.

“And you just picked that Humane Society because you wanted a signed picture of that dude from
The Vampire Diaries
,” Snake countered.

“The St. Tammany Humane Society is Ian Somerhalder’s favorite charity.” Molly’s voice was almost reverent as she said the star’s name.

“Well, it’s not
my
favorite charity,” Snake said.