by Joyia Marie
The fact I’ve seen his sister twice. I catch her looking at me from time to time as if she would love to ask some of the questions I can see swirling in her dark eyes so much like Aiden’s eyes.
Questions like what’s the deal with you and my brother? Do you like my brother? If so, why are you torturing him by not calling him? If me not calling was torturing him. I hoped so. Not in a mean way, but not calling was torturing me.
If she had asked, I would have answered as honestly as I could and hope she understood. I thought she might as she’s married and knows how attraction can lead to distraction. I just wanted a few of my messes cleaned up before I called him.
The question was he still willing to hear from me? I hope so, I prayed so, sometimes I think the only thing that got me through all nonsense of the last week was the hope that when it was all over that I would finally get my shot at a happily ever after or at least for a while. Maybe a short while, but with the way things have gone lately, I’d take what I could get.
Now the getting was the tricky bit. Isn’t that always the way? I started when the door opened and my mother breezed in. I was back for an hour since Raphael and I returned from Ms. Smithfield.
Raphael wasn’t happy to find his day with me shortened by his date with Jillian but he was game. Raphael was now as pro-Jillian as I was if it would keep Harold satisfied and out of my hair. Like I said, Harold needed a keeper and Jillian would do just fine.
Ms. Smithfield on the other hand was thrilled to finally have the signed divorce papers in her hot little hands. I was getting the feeling that Ms. Smithfield was getting impatient and if I hadn’t stepped in she was going to make her own run at Harold.
Now that’s a fight I would pay to see, Harold the pasty against Jane Smithfield the killer sprite. I know where I’d put my money. Yep, you got it on Ms. Smithfield. I hadn’t seen it personally, but I had the feeling her reputation as a ball buster was well deserved.
The other thing that makes me think that is while she didn’t ask how I got Harold to finally sign, I did see her give Raphael an approving glance and a nod of gratitude when she thought I wasn’t looking. I let her keep her illusions.
Raphael was ready and willing to put Harold in a headlock and keep him there until he signed. I was just glad that conversation had gotten the job done instead. All it took was a little honesty, a little lowering of the guard and crises averted.
Anyway, all dragons slain, and all was right with the world except this last nagging piece of business. This one phone call that would show me if it had all be worth it. I sighed as I stared at my phone, then flushed when my mother slipped her arm around me, put her chin on my shoulder and joined me in my contemplation. We looked like believers with a sacred relic.
“Call him,” my mother said, causing me to believe yet again that she was psychic at least where I was concerned.
I wish she had passed the talent down along with the hair, as it was a talent I would use from time to time to figure out what was going on in my own kids’ heads. I would give anything to know what was going on in Tony’s head or as I’ve started calling him at least in my head, Cousin It. Really, what is up with the bangs? I‘ve checked out his friends and none of them are sporting this particular ‘do’ or I guess I would call it more of a ‘don’t’. Tonya I would check for plans for world domination. My girl has the personality for it.
“Call who?” I asked, shaking off the question my children and their questionable choices for the moment.
“The man, the guy, whoever it is that makes you smile like that,” my mother said complacently.
She turned me around so I could see myself in the mirror and I saw the smile she meant. It was a little hopeful, a little shy with a slight dash of innocence in it. It was the smile of a woman in love or at least in serious lust.
“I messed up,” I admitted, turning away from the mirror and that smile. “I left him hanging for a week.”
“Darling, you have been a bit busy,” she said delivering absolution as a good mother should. “Surely if you have anything, like that smile indicates a week wouldn’t be enough to ruin it.”
I thought about it and she was right. Aiden and I were working under friend rules and I have friends I haven’t talked to in a week, hell a month. I did call Sonya to tell her about the Jillian debacle when it started just to give her a heads up. After all Sonya had first dibs on breaking that bit of tabloid goodness and I knew, she wouldn’t be pleased to be upstaged.
Which reminded me I needed to call her and let her know crises averted before she decided to come riding down Fort Worth way with a certain blond in her crosshairs. Sonya was a friend and she might not agree with my reasons, she knew this isn’t what I wanted right now, so she’d back my play.
I opened my cell phone and said, “I need to call Sonya.”
My mother snatched it out of my hands and said, “Already done. Raphael told her last night.”
“What? When? Where was I?” I asked a little disgruntled not to be charge of disseminating my own information.
“Last night at the restaurant. She called Raphael while you were in the women's room. He filled her in,” she said before handing me the phone back. “Now call him.”
I looked down at the tiny innocent piece of electronics and dithered. My mother lost her patience and took me by the shoulders until I looked at her. “Call him,” she said again.
“But…,” I started and she cut me off.
“Helen Elizabeth, you call him and you call him right now or I swear by all I hold holy I will call every construction company until I find one with a worker named Aiden and call him myself.”
I knew she would. It might take her a minute, but she would make the calls. My mother takes my happiness very seriously.
“Why are you all Team-Aiden?” I said, stalling, “you don’t even know this guy.”
“Because my darling little girl he makes you smile a smile I never saw you smile the entire time you were with Harold. For that alone, I’m Team-Aiden as you put it,” she smiled and I knew she would be ‘Team-a lot of things’ for the next little bit. My mother loves slang.
I gave up and called. What else could I do with my mother staring at me with her patented look. Another thing I wished she had passed down to me to use on my own kids. I tried it and they look at me as if I might be coming down with something. The last time Tonya actually put her hand on my forehead. It was a little disheartening.
“Hey,” I said when Aiden answered, on the first ring I noted. Very satisfactory.
“Hey,” he said and then we breathed at each other for a bit.
“Oh for goodness sake,” my mother said before she disappeared into the kitchen to put the kettle on, a new addition to ending the coffee/tea embargo with my coffee maker.
I struggled for something to say, but my mind was blank. Not a good thing for a writer to be out of words, I thought but I couldn’t say that.
“My daughter wants to go to lunch with you today,” my mother said loudly as she came back from the kitchen.
Aiden laughed while I tried to burn my mother to death with my ‘look’. I guess it was on the fritz as she just looked at me with the same concerned look the twins gave me when I tried it on them. Damn it, why couldn’t I get the look right I thought.
“Who was that?” Aiden said when he finished laughing.
“My mother, ignore her. I try to,” I said, trying my ‘look’ again. Mother walked over to me and put her hand on my forehead. I sighed and gave it up. I pushed her hand away.
“Your mother,” he said with a laugh that turned into a gasp. “Your mother, you mean Vivian Dudley, your mother.”
“Yeah,” I said as Aiden squealed like a teenager at a rock concert. My boy was a bit of an art groupie. He’d probably have a spontaneous orgasm if I told him who my dad was. I grinned, I couldn’t wait to tell him.
“Um, about that other thing, the lunch thing, just ignore that too. , I know you’re busy and I know this is
kind of last minute…” I babbled, embarrassed out of my mind. My mother just tried to set me up. Not that she hadn’t done it in the past, but never quite this bluntly. Good grief, I wasn’t even divorced yet.
“No, it's fine, I want to go,” Aiden said coming to my rescue and suddenly my mother was the most brilliant woman in the world and I was so glad to be her daughter. I gave her a beaming smile, which she returned before going into the kitchen for her tea.
“Really?” I said softly.
“Really,” he said just as softly and we breathed at each other some more.
“Oh for goodness sake,” my mother said again, returning with her tea. “At the rate you two are going it will be dinner soon,” she said before snatching the phone from my hand and talking to Aiden herself.
I looked at her in amazement, the pounding of my blood keeping me from hearing the conversation. I can’t believe she did that, I thought, though I so believed she did that.
She handed me back the phone with a bland look, then picked up her tea to take to the table where she had put her prints. She sipped as I looked at the phone as if I had never seen such a thing. I faintly heard Aiden saying hello so I put the strange thing to my ear.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you in a few,” Aiden said false casually.
“Okay,” I said just as fake casually, and then we breathed some more.
“Okay, I’m going to go so I can get there,” Aiden said after this latest round of breathing.
“Okay,” I said then I held the phone until he hung up.
I stood there for a long moment, unable to believe I was really getting ready to see Aiden. Then it occurred to me, a few? A few what? A few minutes? A few hours? A few days?
“You might want to get a move on, darling, you’re meeting him in about 15 minutes,” my mother said from her seat at the table. The tea was pushed aside and she had her little magnifying glass to her eye.
“15 minutes,” I squeaked before running to the bathroom. I wished I hadn’t sent Raphael away because in 5 minutes he could make me look like Angelina Jolie. Not really, but a lot better than I could make me look in 5 minutes. I finally brushed my teeth, slapped on some mascara and colored lip balm, and called it good. I gave my curls a fluff and grabbed my purse.
I made a note to change out my mom bag for a smaller bag now that I wasn’t on full time mom duty anymore and how strange was that. This morning still seemed too recent for all that had happened to sink in.
Then I stood at the door and realized I had no idea where to go. I flushed, then turned to my mother. She was still studying the negatives and paying me no attention.
“Mother,” I said slowly.
“Yes, darling,” my mother said absently.
“Where am I meeting Aiden?” I said shame faced. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t paid attention.
“You know darling that taco place on Main. That place we always go when I’m in town and I can never remember the name of.” She said her focus still on her pictures but I could see a gentle smile on her face.
I walked over and gave her a hug and a kiss. “Thanks Mother,” I said and then I told her what I always told her when we separated. “I love you.”
“Love you more darling,” she said with that same pleased look she got whenever I said I loved her. “Now, scoot, don’t want to be late.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said before, I scooted out to my car.
I started the car with a strange feeling of lightness, of hope, of the brink of being at the beginning of a new adventure. Wasn’t that what it’s all about? Taking a chance? Letting the cards fall where they may? Dusting yourself off and getting back up when the cards fell wrong? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
I drove off toward the taco place on main that my mother could never remember the name to and enjoyed my feeling of lightness. I looked in the mirror at the stoplight at the corner of main and I saw I was still wearing that smile, the one that made my mother willing to jump through any amount of hoops to get me with the man responsible.
I smiled wider and wondered if I was finally at the part of the story where they say…
“They lived happily ever after,” I said and I turned into the taco place ready to meet my destiny.
Chapter Fifty-Eight: Helen
Happily ever after is harder than it looks, I thought as I sat there staring at my lunch.
“So everything work out okay,” Aiden said, breaking what had turned into a really uncomfortable silence.
We had met outside, walked inside, ordered our lunch at the counter, waited for our lunch to be served, and then found a table with only about 10 words being exchanged. Since we sat down, we had done more staring at our lunch than eating it. I think I could pick my tacos out of a taco lineup should they go crazy and commit a crime.
“Yeah,” I said and winced. What happened to all the jokey sparkling repartee? All the give and take? We sounded like the soundtrack for ‘the world’s most awkward date, don’t let this happen to you’.
“The jump drive,” Aiden said, holding up his end of the conversational burden. “Did you get it back? From the blond girl?”
“Yep, all safe and sound. Bit of a tempest in a teapot,” I said and winced again. When in doubt, slang from the 1800’s not exactly the way to go. I looked at him in desperation and he was looking at me the same way.
“Safe,” he said and I started, wondering if he was just repeating what I had said, or maybe he was in the early stage of a rather benign form of Turret’s syndrome. Then I got it. He was asking if I had put the jump drive in a safe because I was having a safe installed in my loft. Good thing my male to English translator was working.
“Yeah,” I said then winced again. Okay much more of this and I’d have to turn in my writer’s card. What the hell was wrong with me? I hadn’t been this awkward as a teenager.
“Yeah, well the safe, we’re installing in your loft has a slot so you don’t even have to open it to put stuff in, well small stuff anyway,” Aiden said looking me deep in the eyes and I smiled and put my hand over his.
Now this I got. He messed up, he knew he messed up and he was fixing it the only way he could. This guy is a keeper and for once the thought didn’t freak me out. Now, whether that meant for a night or a lifetime was up for negotiation, but I would be keeping him for a bit. As soon as I could actually have him.
As if the same thought just occurred to him, he slipped his hand out from under mine and asked, “The divorce? How’s that going?”
“Oh good, I guess. I finally got my soon-to-be-ex to sign the paperwork so my lawyer is saying it’ll be 60 days more or less.”
“And then?” he asked, placing his hand over mine and looking deep into my eyes.
“And then?” I asked, now pulling my hand away as I wondered what he was talking about and praying he was not asking for a post-divorce booty call. Yeah, that was probably where this was headed, but come on, have a little decorum?
“You can climb me like a tree?” he asked, sounding as hopeful as a little boy.
“Yeah,” I said as I flushed. I still couldn’t believe I had said that to him, drunk or not. I would never live it down. Oh goody.
“That’s if you still want to?” he said a little uncertainly and my embarrassment faded away.
Awkward wasn’t as bad if you weren’t awkward alone and he and I sounded like the two biggest geeks on earth. I smiled at him, I couldn’t imagine anyone I would rather be geeky with.
“I still want to,” I said shyly.
“You do?,” he asked a little more sure of himself holding his hand out.
“Yeah, I do,” I said, slipping my hand back into his. I don’t think we said much after that and I know we didn’t eat much, but it was the best lunch I ever had.
Chapter Fifty-Nine: Helen
“Aiden, this is beautiful,” I said with another look around a month later. The room was flooded with light from the enlarged windows and the sealed concrete floor gleamed under the area rugs that
Aiden’s sister Denise had helped me pick out.
The furniture looked great and well worth all the torture Denise had put me through to find it. She dragged me around so many furniture show rooms I finally threatened to go with wall-to-wall bean bag chairs with my old futon as the centerpiece. She just laughed and dragged me to another one.
Denise helped me understand that having a decorator was a lot different than going to Rooms to Go with a gift card from Harold’s parents and pointing. Better, I guess many people would say. I can’t speak on that, but I do know it’s a lot more tiring.
After the main room and my room were done, I was able to sic Denise on my mother and the kids. Mom got her furniture picked out, but left on another adventure before she saw the little surprise Aiden had made for her.
He found a bit of space and set her up a small dark room. So no more hunting for dark room space for my mom. Aiden is always doing thoughtful things like that. One of the many reasons I love him.
Yep, I said it, I love Aiden Smyth. I’m sure he loves me. Almost sure. Okay, really, really sure. Anyway, we haven’t said the words, but I’m sure. I think we’re both waiting until the divorce is final before saying the words and that should be a little over a month from now. He and I have a divorce calendar and we mark off the days together.
That’s all speculation, so we take it a day at a time. Ms. Smithfield says it will happen when it happens and she can’t say exactly when but as neither Harold nor I are contesting anything, it should be quick. Okay, I know my idea of quick and her idea of quick differ because I doubt she has a big ol’ piece of man-candy and she can’t even take a bite.
I wandered the loft and loved everything I saw and would be glad when we could get the last pieces in. I haven’t brought over my grandmother’s art yet. The movers got everything from my storage room and Harold’s house, but I would be moving my grandmother’s paintings myself.