Coming into Focus, page 28
For me, I hope it’s temporary until I can get settled somewhere, as in land a job, land a purpose, land a life. When they offered, I immediately saw the appeal—the more distance between me and the ex and his younger, sluttier girlfriend the better—and I decided to move south too.
Now I can’t back out. I’ve already sold my house which buys me time, but I’ve got nowhere else to go. Where would I land? I’ve got three kids and limited skills. Plus, I don’t even have a career to use as an excuse to change my mind or to even point me in another direction.
In other words, I’m stuck. Whether I want to or not, I’m relocating to a run-down farmhouse in the middle of nowhere Illinois to help Justin and Olivia with their grandiose plans of fixing it up and living “authentic” lives since, according to Instagram, Pinterest, and lifestyle blogs everywhere, manicured suburbs with cookie-cutter houses, working utilities and paved sidewalks don’t count. Unless you’re stinking rich, which, unfortunately, we, most definitely, are not.
Let’s see, Justin has a new career opportunity, Olivia is going to restore, repaint, repurpose, and blog her way to a book deal, and me…and me…
Nope. I got nothing. No plans, no dreams, no job, nada. Here I am, the not-so-proud owner of a cheap polyester wardrobe with three kids rapidly outgrowing their own. I better come up with something, and quick.
Where’s cheesecake when you need it? I stab a cherry tomato, pluck it from my fork, and chew. The world is full of people living their dreams, while mine consists of an unbroken night’s sleep and a day without something gooey in my shoes. I take aim at a cucumber slice, pop it in my mouth, and pretend it’s a donut. At least I don’t have to wash these dishes.
Across from me, Olivia, my sometimes-vegan sister-in-law is unaware I’m questioning my life’s purpose while she questions her lunch choice. Unsatisfied, she drops her mushroom melt onto her plate and frowns. I knew it wouldn’t pass inspection. She may have lowered her standards to marry my brother, but she’d never do so for food. This is why she and I get along so well.
Olivia rocks back in her chair and smacks her lips, dissatisfied. “There’s no way this was cooked on a meat-free grill. I swear I can taste bacon. Maybe sausage too.” Her tongue swirls around in her mouth, searching for more hints of offending pork. “Definitely sausage.”
Frankly, I enjoy finding pork in my mouth. Then again, I have food issues. Though, if I liked munching tube steak more often, perhaps my ex wouldn’t have wandered. The bastard.
Justin watches his wife’s tongue roll around, and I don’t blame him. She’s beautiful—dark, luminous eyes, full lips flushed a natural pink glow, cascading dark curls, radiant brown skin, a toned physique despite two-year-old twins. She’s everything I am not.
She tells me I’m cute. Of course, the Pillsbury Dough Boy is cute too. Screw that. I want to be hot.
Regardless, I expect something crude to erupt from my brother’s mouth as he stares at his lovely bride, so I’m pleasantly surprised when it doesn’t. Instead, he shakes his head and works on his stack of onion rings. “What do you expect when you order off menu in a place like this, babe? Be glad they had portobellos.”
Across from me, she frowns. Model tall and fashionably lean, she’s casually elegant in a turquoise and brown print maxi dress, glittery dangle earrings, silky black curls, and daring red kitten heels that hug her slender feet. How does she do it? She exudes an easy glamour even as she peels a corner of toasted bun away from her sandwich, revealing a congealed mass of something.
“This isn’t a portobello. It’s a light dove gray, not a soft, deep, charcoal gray. I’m telling you this is a bad sandwich. I’m not eating it.” She extracts her fingers from the offending fungus and crosses her bangle bracelet encased arms.
Foodies. Go figure. No Instagram picture for you, sandwich from hell.
Fortunately their twins, Jaylen and Jayden, adorable in matching Swedish-inspired sweater dress ensembles and print tights, are less picky. Clearly, it comes from my chunky side of the family. They may be dressed to impress, but the ketchup slathered over their precious toddler faces says, “We have Auntie Ro’s DNA in us somewhere.”
I love that.
Justin cuts up the last half of a cold chicken strip and shares it with his daughters, who are constrained by plastic highchairs—which I can’t do with my kids any more, darn the luck—and, in addition to having no idea how to imitate raptors with half-empty water glasses like my boys or identify mushrooms by basis of color like their mother, they are still quite cute.
Love them as I do, my boys haven’t been cute for a while. Such a long while. Maddy, well, she’s cute on a day-to-day basis. Yet, they are my world. My phlegm covered, obnoxious, arguing world.
Justin wipes Jaylen’s cheek and checks his phone. “We need to get the bill. It’s getting late.”
I survey the room, hunting for our waitress. Despite the near constant stranger stares, this place intrigues me. It feels a hundred years old in a good, cozy way. The diner’s creaky, wood floor is well worn and the walls are exposed brick, which is quaint in restaurants even if it detracts from the value in Midwestern homes, including the giant moldering one Justin and Olivia bought northeast of town. Old tin advertising posters depict blue ribbon vegetables and old-time tractors in shades of red and green and yellow on the walls, and they may be the real antique deal.
They’re really into primary colors, these farm folks. Perhaps the best way to spice up a quiet life is to sprinkle it with something bright and shiny. As for me, I’ve been living in dull shades of beige for at least half a marriage now, if not longer. Should I try bright and shiny? Couldn’t hurt.
Red-pleather booths line the wall of windows to the left, and a row of tables divides the room, including the two tables we’ve shoved together which my children have destroyed with crumbs, blobs of ketchup, and snot. Of course, the twins helped too, but they’re toddlers so you can’t point a finger at them especially since all the customers are too busy pointing fingers at mine.
Bar stools belly up to a Formica counter to the right, and it’s all very old school and quaint, although I would hate to have to clean the place, partly because Maddy sneezed, and her mouth was open and full of fries.
Kids. So gross.
Three portly gentlemen in caps, flannel, and overalls overflow from the booth closest to our table and, clearly, they’re regulars. They’re polishing off burgers and chips, though no one is sneezing with his mouth open, most likely because his teeth will fly out in the process. I imagine the pleather booths are permanently imprinted with the marks of old asses from a decade’s worth of lunches. Sometimes it’s good to make an impression. The one we’re currently making, however? Probably not.
Nearly every table, booth, and stool are taken. Must be a popular place. Or it may be the only place in this itty, bitty town. It’s the type of place where everyone knows your name, meaning they all stared the minute we walked in because they don’t know ours, it’s a brisk Tuesday in early November, and we sure aren’t local.
Yet.
Several men of various ages in blue jeans and farm hats sit in a row upon the counter stools, munching their lunches. A smattering of conversations on hog feed, soybean yields, and tractor parts fills the air. They all talk at once, the way guys tend to do, with none of them listening except to the sound of his own voice, the way guys also tend to do, like stray dogs in a pound when strangers check them out and they’re hoping to impress.
Except for one of them, the one I noticed the minute we walked in and have kept tabs on ever since. Unlike the others, this man is quiet and, better yet, he doesn’t have the typical middle-aged, dad-bod build. While most of the other men are stocky and round, square and cubed, pear shaped and apple dumpling-esque, like bad geometry gone rogue, he isn’t. He’s tall with a rather broad triangular back and, given the way it’s stretching the confines of his faded, dark red, button-down shirt, it’s a well-muscled isosceles triangle at that. Brown cowboy boots with a Texas flag burned on the side of the wooden heel peek from beneath seasoned blue jeans, and those jeans cling to a pair of muscular thighs that could squeeze apples for juice.
God, I have a hankering for hot cider. With a great big, thick, rock-hard cinnamon stick swirling around too. Hmmm, spicy.
This Midwestern cowboy’s dark-brown hair is thick with a slight wave that would go a tad bit wild if he let it, and he needs to let it. Who doesn’t love surfer curls, and his are perfect. They’re the kind I could run my fingers through forever or hang onto hard in the sack, if need be. Trust me, there’s a need be.
His body is lean, yet strong, and beneath his rolled-up sleeves, there’s a swell of ample biceps and the sinewy lines of strong, tan forearms. It’s a tan I’m betting goes a lot further than his elbows. His face is sun-kissed too, and well-defined with high cheekbones and a sturdy chin. A hint of fine lines fan out from the corners of his chocolate-brown eyes and, while not many, there’re enough to catch any drool should my lips happen to ravage his face.
Facial lines on guys are so damn sexy. They hint at wisdom, experience, strength. Lines on women should be sexy too, even the stretchy white, hip-dwelling ones from multiple, boob-sucking babies, but men don’t think that way, which is why I only objectify them these days. Since getting literally screwed over by my ex, I’m the permanent mascot for Team Anti-Relationship. I blame those defective Y chromosomes myself. Stupid Y chromosomes.
Regardless, it’s difficult not to watch as this well-built triangle of a man wipes his mouth with a napkin. I wouldn’t mind being that white crumpled paper in that strong tan hand, even if I, too, end up spent on the counter afterward. At any rate, he stands, claps the guy to his left on the back, and I may have peed myself.
The sexy boot-clad stranger pulls cash from his wallet and sets it on the lucky napkin. “I’ve got to get back to the elevator, Phil. Busy day.”
Sweet, a Texas accent. How very Matthew McConaughey. Mama like.
A pear-shaped man next to him raises his glass. “See ya, Sam. You headed to George’s this afternoon?”
“I hope so. I need to get with Edmund first, plus we have a couple of trailers coming in, and I’ve got to do a moisture check on at least two of them.” His voice is low, but soft, the way you hope a new vibrator will sound, but never does until the batteries die which defeats the purpose, proving once again irony can be cruel.
And what the hell is a moisture check?
I zero in on the open button of his shirt, drawn to his chest like flies to honey, because that’s what I do now that I’m divorced and have no husband and no purpose—I ogle strange men for the raw meat they are. Nothing’s going to happen anyway. Truth be told, I haven’t dated in an eternity and have no real plans to start, partly because I’ve forgotten how; just another unfortunate aspect of my life on permanent hold. I’ve been invited to the singles’ buffet, but I’m too afraid to grab a plate. At this point in my recently wrecked, random life, I would rather vomit. Hell, I barely smell the entrees. I’m only interested in licking a hunk of two-legged meatloaf for the sauce anyway. There’s no harm in that, right?
Where was I? Right, his chest, and it’s a good chest, with the “oood” dragged out like a child’s Benadryl-laced nap on a hot afternoon. It’s that goood.
Of course, as I mentally drag out the “oood,” my lips involuntarily form the word in the air imitating a goldfish in a bowl. While I ogle this particular cut of prime rib, I realize he’s noticed my stare not to mention my “oood” inspired fish lips, which is not an attractive look, despite what selfie-addicted college girls think. Our eyes lock. An avalanche of goosebumps crawls its way up my back and down my arms and, I swear, I vibrate. Not like one of those little lipstick vibrators that can go off in your purse at the airport, thank you very much, but something more substantial with a silly name like Rabbit or Butterfly or Bone Master.
That, my friends, is the closest I’ve come to real sex in two and half years. Excuse me, but we need a moisture check at table two, please. Not to mention a mop. Okay…definitely a mop.
For a moment, we hold our stare—me with my fish lips frozen into place, vibrating silently in my long-sleeved, heather green T-shirt and jeans, surrounded by my small tribe of ketchup-covered children, and him all hot, tan, buff, and beefy, staring at us the way one gawks at a bloody, ten-car pile-up. All too soon, he blinks, the deer-in-the-headlights look fades, and he drops his gaze.
C’mon, stud, look again. I’m not wearing a push-up bra for nothing.
Big, dark, brown eyes pop up again and find mine. All too soon, they flit away to the floor.
Score.
Damn, he’s fine. Someone smoke me a cigarette, I’m spent.
I scan the table, imagining my children are radiating cuteness. No dice. Aaron imitates walrus tusks with the last of his French-fries, Nick is trying to de-fang him with a straw full of root beer, and Maddy’s two-knuckles deep into a nostril. And I’m sitting next to Justin.
Figures. My big, burly, ginger-headed, lug of a wedding-ring-wearing brother is beside me. Does this hunk of burning stud think he’s my husband? Should I pick my own nose with my naked, ring-less finger? Invest in a face tattoo that reads “divorced and horny?” Why do I even care? He’s only man meat. After all, was he really even looking at me? Or Olivia? Sexy, sultry, damn-sure-married-to-my-brother Olivia? I whip back to the stud prepared to blink “I’m easy” in Morse code.
*blink* *blink* *bliiiink*
With a spin on his star-studded boots, Hotty McHot heads toward the hallway at the back of the diner, oblivious that my gaze is rivetted to his ass and equally clueless to the fact that I have questions needing immediate answers, not to mention an overwhelming need to scream, “I’m single and put out, no strings attached” in his general direction.
Olivia pulls me back to reality with her own questions. “I mean, is it that difficult to scrape the grill before you cook someone’s meal?”
She’s still honked off about her sandwich, unaware I’m over here having mental sex with the hunky cowboy while sending my kids off to a good boarding school for the better part of the winter.
“I didn’t have many options here,” she rattles on, “even their salads have meat and egg in them. Instead of a writing a book, I should open a vegan restaurant. I was going to give them a good review for the ambiance, but not now. Wait until I post this on Yelp.”
Eyeballing the room, Justin polishes off the last of his double-cheese burger. “Sweetie, we’re moving to the land of pork and beef. Vegan won’t fly here, and I doubt the help cares about Yelp. Did you notice our waitress? She’s got a flip phone. Time to put away your inner princess and stick with the book idea.”
Long fingers with bronze gel manicured nails rat-a-tat-tat on the tabletop. She locks onto him with dark, intelligent, laser-beam eyes. “Would it kill you to be supportive, honey bunch? You might as well say, uck-fay u-vay.”
Apparently channeling some weird, inner death wish, Justin picks up an onion ring, takes a bite, then pulls a string of overcooked translucent slime free from its breaded coating. He snaps it free with his teeth, then offers it to her. “Your book is going to be great, babe, and it will appeal to a larger audience than here. Remember the goal, Liv. As for me, I’m trying to keep you humble. No one likes high maintenance.”
The limp, greasy onion hangs in the air. She ignores it, but not him. “Okay, this time, sweetie, I’ll say it. Uck-fay u-vay with an ig-bay ick-day.”
Jaylen looks up from her highchair and munches a chicken strip. “Uck-fay?” she repeats through fried poultry. “Ick-day?”
Behind her an older woman, also fluent in pig Latin, does a coffee-laced spit-take in her window booth. I hope she’s not a new neighbor.
Justin chuckles and polishes off the offending string of onion. Olivia stews. Time to implement an offense. Clearly, we need an exit strategy.
Where’s our waitress? I spy her delivering plates of food three booths down and wave. She nods, so I use these few moments to ward off any drama. “Suggestion, you two. Let’s not piss off the help. This may be the only place where we can hide from the kids and eat our feelings. Not to mention drink. Agreed?”
Justin snorts, but says nothing. Olivia rolls her eyes, but also says nothing. Success, although it’s tentative. Time to leave.
Water pitcher in hand, our waitress returns to our table. She surveys the left-over lunch carnage, unaware my sister-in-law is both unimpressed and pissed off, and it’s fairly obvious that, if we’re all going to be regulars here, a sizeable tip, different children, or the offer of a kidney is in order. A middle-aged woman in jeans, T-shirt, and an apron with short, no-nonsense, dishwater hair, she refills our water glasses, possibly so I’ll have something with which to wipe the seats or drown our young. Or both. I can’t be sure. But I’m open to options.
She sets the water pitcher on the table and starts stacking dirty plates. “Ready for dessert?” She’s a bit harried, and, with the possibility of an eruption from Olivia hanging over our heads, I pick up a napkin and start wiping. “We have cherry cobbler.”
An indignant cry erupts from the booth behind us. One of the three portly gentlemen hollers—this is the kind of place where you holler— “Save me a piece of cobbler.”
“Yeah, yeah, in a minute, Ernie.” The waitress scowls. “What else can I get you? Pie? Cake? The coffee’s fresh.”
“Yeah, but it ain’t good though,” barks the man named Ernie. A fresh wave of snorts erupts from his companions.
I stifle a laugh, but it’s a challenge, especially since Aaron’s been flicking my salad croutons in their general direction throughout most of the meal and, despite my scolding, he’s getting quite good with his trick shots.
