“Give me those.” Sabrina snatched them away before they were in his grasp. She didn’t want him to know that she’d let the bills slide into arrears because the cost of repairing the air conditioner in early October, when the temperature was still a sweltering hundred degrees, had taken precedence. “Sometimes my utility bill e-notifications go to spam, and I want to make sure that everything gets paid. Hard copy is like a tickler file.”
“Fine. But I could free up some time for you every weekend by making a detour by the trash bin whenever I get the mail. Or we could try something really outré and fill out a form that opts us out of junk mail. You know … go green,” he mouthed.
“Fine,” she said crankily. “Opt us out. Whatever.”
“I still get paper bills, by the way,” he informed her. “Just like I write paper checks. I have no disdain for trees; I just prefer old technology. I don’t have a home computer to e-anything.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he said. “I spend most of my day sitting behind big machines. Once I leave the station, I want to be away from the hum, so you can stop looking at me like I just stumbled off the Appalachian Trail.”
“But how do you make new social contacts?” Sabrina was surprised. Laptops and social networking profiles were as necessary as cell phones with texting features. Didn’t everyone have them?
Gage smiled and shook his head. “Listen to you. ‘Social contacts.’ They’re called ‘friends,’ and I make new ones all the time.”
“Where? How?”
“I see live music on and around Sixth Street. I go out for drinks with the guys from the station. Your garden variety real world stuff,” he finished blithely. “So if you’ll be so kind as to put my mail somewhere I can find it.”
“I’ll put it on the mantle next to — what are those anyway?” She eyed the tequila bottles malevolently.
“Souvenirs from weddings past. Always a groomsman, never a groom,” he said with faux wistfulness. “Speaking of which, we’re invited to Molly and Sebastian’s house for Thanksgiving. They asked me to pass the word.”
“Will Cybil and Shuck be there?”
“With bells on, I’d think.”
“Then I would rather be pelted by meteors.” Sabrina placed the gala invitation aside. “Besides, I always spend Thanksgiving with Nola. She’s my mother.”
“Your mother?” Gage looked slightly startled.
“Yes. The partials get me for Christmas.”
“What, pray tell, are ‘partials’?”
“My step-family. Well, and my father.”
“Your father,” he echoed contemplatively.
“Yes, Gage. I was conceived by human beings,” she said tediously. “Did you think I was grown in a test tube?”
“God, no.” He looked mildly affronted. “I would have guessed a super-secret cloning farm that churns out dutiful public servants genetically engineered to have impeccable taste in shoes.”
At her pointed look of offense, his mouth widened into a grin. He picked up the box again. Sabrina was gobsmacked. Did she really come across as so perversely fastidious?
“Hey — hey, you! Fitzgerald!” she barked. But he’d already swanned into the guest room — no, his bedroom now — and kicked the door closed.
She fell back into the couch and made herself take deep, even breaths. She looked at the remote wistfully. If she were alone, she’d catch a documentary on TV just like she did in her pre-Jackson days. But given the length of her mortgage, the next time she engaged in solitary indulgences might be when she was drawing pension.
She could hear Gage in the bedroom opening and shutting drawers and bathroom cabinets. He’d eventually come out again, and he’d bring his linebacker physique, windy auburn locks and sexy clean, male scent along with him. There would be more conversations about petty household issues like shopping lists.
Sabrina blew her bangs out of her eyes with a sigh.
She wished she didn’t know how he kissed. She really wished she didn’t know what was in his Dopp kit. Suddenly, the thought of another human being moving around on the other side of the wall — specifically a human named Gage Fitzgerald — made her feel distinctly uneasy.
How was a woman supposed to function?
The answer was, she couldn’t.
She grabbed her fleece jacket and car keys and beat a hasty retreat to her one refuge.
**
“I’m really pushing the envelope this time,” Molly said somberly as she brandished a pair of heavy cutting shears.
“I can see that.” Sabrina contemplated the phalanx of ratty handbags lined up on the dining room table in front of them.
“A leather quilt. What am I thinking?”
“Dunno, Molls. How would you launder it?”
“Oh, I have no idea.” Molly blinked. “But you didn’t come over for craft talk. It’s Friday night, Brini. Not that I care. Sebastian’s still grading papers at his office, and I can always use the company. But Friday? You?”
“I’m single,” Sabrina reminded her. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do on weekends.”
Sensing the gravity of the situation, Molly waved her into the kitchen. “Come,” she said. “We need something with Campbell’s Cream Of.”
Sabrina felt better sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by leftover comfort food. Tonight it was King Ranch casserole jazzed up with portabella mushrooms and smoked Gouda and chocolate-raspberry pots de crème.
“I have a theory about why you married Jackson. I think it’s a good one.” Molly dipped her spoon into her dessert.
“What is it?” Sabrina asked.
“Because you’re like Nola,” Molly said.
“Yikes, Molly. I’m trying not to be offended here.”
“Mmm. Let me explain,” Molly said around a mouthful of chocolate. “Think back to your various boyfriends, and you’ll see a pattern. Before Jackson, there was — who was the fellow who was into saltwater kayaking on the weekends?”
Sabrina searched her memory. “Paul? Or maybe James.” There had been two weekend kayakers.
“And the guy before him was—” Molly snapped her fingers and turned her eyes to the ceiling.
“Jonathan, I think. It’s easier to go in chronological order,” Sabrina suggested.
“Probably, but names and dates don’t matter.” Molly waved her hand dismissively. “The men you dated were the same. They all had respectable professions of the bleached, starched white-collar variety. They were all highly educated. Their student loans were paid off. They looked good on paper. But without exception, they all shared similar characteristics and operated under certain general assumptions.”
“I’m sure I’m going to regret asking this, but could you be more specific?” Sabrina asked.
Molly’s hand paused midway to the bowl of chocolate custard. She looked at Sabrina curiously.
“You really haven’t figured it out yet, have you? All of the men you’ve gotten involved with were real throwbacks, and I’m talking right back to the age of nuclear testing and ‘Father Knows Best.’ They didn’t just ask you to give up your career, get married and stay home with the kids; they demanded it. That’s your worst nightmare, Brini. Now, who do these men remind you of?”
She looked at Sabrina expectantly.
“I dunno. Who?”
“Les.” Molly aimed the bowl of her spoon at Sabrina. “You’re like Nola if her life jumped the shark.”
Molly had a way of cutting close to the knuckle sometimes. Oh, god, Sabrina thought gloomily. I really do have daddy issues.
“D’you think if I’d stayed married to Jackson, he would have had an illicit affair d’coeur?” she asked.
Molly shrugged. “That’s one possible outcome. There are others.”
“You think I would have eventually had an affair?” Sabrina asked, embarrassed that her best friend’s insinuations hadn’t exactly left her aghast.
“Jackson didn’t exactly frost your cupcake, Brini,�
�� came the frank reply. “What do you think?”
Sabrina didn’t want to ponder over Molly’s rhetoricals tonight. Her best friend was right. Leftover champagne retained its fizzle longer than the brief-lived physical attraction Sabrina had felt for her ex. And it had gone flat before Jackson had started getting the marriage itch. Had they stayed together, it would have only been a matter of time before one of them got a roving eye.
History would have repeated itself.
“How did you come up with this, Molls?” she asked.
“Because it makes sense. And because I’ve known you all of your life. You’re an only child, but astonishingly, you have no clue how to fill your downtime. That’s when you make poor decisions. That’s when you start dating men like boring ol’ Jackson.”
“You’re probably right.” Sabrina frowned and twirled her index finger around her bangs. “Sometimes I still dare dream about the impossible — or rather, the improbable.”
“What’s that?” Molly asked with curiosity.
Sabrina gave a meek shrug. “That twenty years from now, I’ll be in a blissfully happy marriage. You know, sort of like—” She clamped her lips shut. Finishing the sentence would pull her into a bittersweet mood. But Molly had already read her mind.
“—Like Grandma Ella?” she asked softly.
Sabrina nodded. The two friends smiled as they shared a moment of reflection. For as far back as she could remember Sabrina couldn’t think of a single cross word spoken between Ike and Ella Fontaine. Ike used to brag about his “beautiful bride” to his wife’s customers and boarders, and Grandma Ella’s face would crease with girlish delight. The way the couple coddled, teased and doted on each other gave people the impression that they were perpetually courting.
Marriages like the Fontaines’ — marriages that spanned more than six decades — weren’t very common, Sabrina thought longingly, although Molly and Sebastian were looking like strong contenders.
“Molls, I really don’t want to end up alone.” Sabrina despised the forlorn note she heard in her voice. She thought of the seasoned female staffers that populated the legislature, many of whom were much older than she was and were divorced or devoutly single. She was supposed to be a strong woman, damn it. Not a needy one.
“Then don’t,” Molly said, as though it were that simple. “Mr. Right will come around once you’ve sorted yourself out. In the meantime, there’s legislative session. I’m sure you’ll keep yourself busy getting Theo to ribbon cuttings and fancy soirees.”
“Keeping him out of trouble is more like it,” Sabrina muttered, setting a mental reminder to pick up more Febreze on her way to work the next morning.
Molly smiled a dulcet smile and added, “And now you have Gage.”
“For what, exactly?” Sabrina wondered what Molly was getting at.
“Gosh, let me think,” her friend replied innocently. “You could see movies at the Alamo Drafthouse. Maybe drink beer together. You could try out new restaurants that serve bizarre world cuisine or check out the latest band—”
Sabrina tilted her head and gave Molly a pained look.
“—Or the two of you could just sit around your house and converse,” Molly concluded weakly.
“All of that sounds an awful lot like dating.”
“So—?” Molly gave her a look that let her fill in the rest: What’s the problem?
Sabrina was aghast. “Oh, geez. Oh, Molls. Gage? ‘Fitz and Giggles?’ Tattoos?”
“He has body art. So what?” Molly carried their plates to the sink. “He’s kind to the eyes even with the ink. Especially with the ink, if you ask me. He’s got a wicked sense of humor, he’s intelligent, and most importantly, he’s not threatened by strong women.”
Now everything was becoming clearer.
“Please, please tell me you did not have an agenda when you suggested I take Gage on as a boarder,” Sabrina begged.
Molly meant well. But her way of horizon-expanding had a way of backfiring. In ninth grade, Molly had convinced Sabrina to choose art as an elective course. Sabrina quickly grew impatient with the slender, delicate brushes and tiny tubes of paint, which she had to mix, dab and stroke into recognizable elements. Her semester project, an unintentionally abstract, blue-themed blur she titled “Horizon,” blew her straight-A average.
“Honestly, Sabrina,” Molly demurred. “Do you think I’d try to orchestrate your love life?”
Sabrina didn’t want to answer that question.
“You don’t understand, Molls,” she said. “Everything feels so complicated right now. I came this close to losing my house. Sometimes I think it would have been easier to — oh, never mind.” Sabrina let her shoulders slump.
“What?” Molly pressed.
Sabrina gulped. “To stay married to Jackson.”
“Hush your mouth, Sabrina Jane March!” Molly looked horrified. “Don’t ever think of that again. Remember Zarabeth Singer?”
“Oh, good lord,” Sabrina groaned. “Who could forget her?”
Zarabeth was a slightly younger girl who had lived on the same block when Molly and Sabrina were children. The three of them had hung out together on the porch of Ella’s on many a Saturday, drinking Orange Crush straight out of the bottle while the old men played dominoes and their wives gossiped inside the bakery. Zarabeth had been raised by her two great-aunts, Emily and Otille, and they had remained devotedly stuck in an era when women still came with dowries and hope chests. The aunties’ attitudes had rubbed off, and Zara had been marriage-crazed by the tender age of ten. The last Sabrina heard, Zara led a pampered but miserable existence living with a man with more money than heart.
“So now what?” Molly crossed her arms and set them on the table.
“So now there are five bottles of tequila on my mantle and I’m living with a man I barely know who seems to have nothing but ill-veiled contempt for me.”
“What?” Molly looked concerned. “That doesn’t sound like Gage. You two seemed to be getting along when he came over to the house the other night. Unless, of course, there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Now was as good a time as any to come clean. To tell Molly about the heavy petting that took place at her un-wedding and the subsequent humiliation of having their interlude described on air. Then she saw the genuine compassion brimming in Molly’s eyes and decided against it.
“We just don’t get along after all. Gage thinks I’m a — a—” What else did he think about her that he wasn’t letting on? “He thinks I was cloned,” Sabrina choked.
“Oh, Brini!”
“Never mind,” Sabrina muttered. She needed to get over herself. “The most important thing is that I still have my home, right?”
“Right.” Molly looked at her with sympathy. “Need a sleepover?”
“Do you mind terribly?”
Nestled in the sewing room in her old bed, Sabrina struggled to fall asleep. Her thoughts were smash-banging around, replaying snippets of unrelated events. Theo haranguing her about accidentally ordering unrecycled stationery. Jackson’s pinched face when she said, I’ll let you file first. A silver quarter landing on Gage’s arm.
The front door opened and closed, sending a draft of cool, musty air into the room. Now she could hear Molly and Sebastian talking in their bedroom. Something about replacing the gutters, extra table leafs and butternut squash.
Oh yes, Thanksgiving’s coming …
The sound of their voices finally lulled her to sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gage stared at the flawless face of the pretty palomino blonde looking at him from across the table at Intermezzo, a popular outdoor coffee, gelato and pastry joint overlooking Ladybird Lake, and waited for a visceral reaction to kick in. Instead, he found himself wondering what his date had looked like before she got cheek implants.
Tara Reese, assistant spa manager, was proof that there was a direct correlation between eternal beauty and spending power. Damn if the woman wasn’t completel
y ageless, Gage thought, watching her carefully mete out exactly half a packet of sugar into her cup of green tea. She could have been twenty-five or forty-five or any number in between. In addition to the custom 34Ds Gideon had extolled, she’d had other “work” done, as women put it, her features carefully sculpted by a master of plastics.
Gage had to admit that it was good work.
It’s just that there was so much of it …
“Do you always ask women to meet you for coffee on a first date?” Tara smiled, crinkling her perfectly bobbed nose. Although it was chilly out, she wore a bright pink halter top that displayed an impressive amount of cleavage, Daisy Duke jean shorts, and those shearling-lined boots that were so popular with women these days. Surely she had to be cold, Gage thought, noticing the goose bumps that had popped up on her long, shapely thighs.
“Only if it’s right before payday,” he replied jokingly, taking a sip of his plain black cuppa joe. “After that, it’s all sirloin and good shiraz.”
Tara trilled out a laugh and reached for her mug of tea. Yeah, she was quite a “bee-yoot,” as the guys at the station with would say. She had perfected the art of the unmade-up face so well, Gage felt like he was looking at her through a soft-focus lens. Other men would have been chomping at the bit to get a piece of that action unless they questioned their sexual orientation. He had no doubt about his, but curiously, the beautiful woman with the hot body sitting across from him roused his libido with all of the force of his coffee stirrer.
There had to be something wrong with him.
No, worse than wrong. Defective.
“You’re just as funny in real life as you are on air.” Tara gave him one of those practiced charming smiles that women flashed when they were trying to make a good impression. “Where did you get your sense of humor from?”
“My grandpa. I’m the last male in the Fitzgerald line, so I suppose he had to pass the torch to someone.” Gage had sat through enough coffee dates with women who were interested in him because of what he did. He knew what they expected from him. Old-fashioned small-town-boy courtesy and down-to-earthiness coupled with the quick wit they associated with his alter ego, Fitz. Only given the problems that weighed on his mind, it was hard to get the exact ratios right these days.
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