Side Order of Love

by Unknown

  A twinge of pleasure caught Grace off guard. It was nice having someone flirt with her, but she certainly had no intention of taking it further. Her thoughts still drifted to Torrie more often than she wanted. She didn’t want to think about her because Torrie was in the past, and there was no chance of a future. They’d had a brief moment where Grace thought something meaningful was developing between them, perhaps even something lasting. But she’d learned the painful way that Torrie wasn’t truly serious about her, that at the first sign of trouble, she had bolted. Torrie was no more ready for a serious relationship right now than Grace was. Perhaps even less so.

  More of the restaurant’s workers drifted over to the trio. They were boisterous, on their second drinks and laughing about a waiter’s dumped plate of spaghetti earlier in the evening.

  Grace collected her second vodka and orange juice, and Trish led her to a private table in a corner. Jayla looked disappointed by their departure.

  “How’d it feel tonight?” Trish asked.

  Grace sat down and sipped her drink, slowly this time. “Great. I’ve missed the cooking part, Trish. It seems like we’ve been busier being celebrities lately than being actual chefs.”

  Trish nodded dolefully. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

  “It’s hard not to though, isn’t it? You start having some success, and more and more opportunities seem to open up, and people urge you to take them. And then they demand you take them, so you do, and it just leads to more. I don’t know…We’ve gotten so far removed from where we started.”

  Trish smiled nostalgically. “Remember the little bistro we started together eight years ago? Just the two of us?”

  “Yeah.” It was their first restaurant together, so small it only seated two dozen people. They’d specialized in French cuisine, and they’d worked like dogs to make it a success, learning quickly from their mistakes. “It was fun, wasn’t it?”

  “The best.”

  They sat in silence, nursing their drinks, immersed in their own thoughts. Grace could feel Jayla’s eyes on her back, not uncomfortably so.

  “What killed your marriage with Scott?” Grace suddenly asked.

  Trish popped a peanut into her mouth, thoughtful for a moment. “Never seeing each other for one thing. Never having had a solid base of friendship for another.”

  “Friendship and spending time together.” Grace winked. “The secret ingredients?”

  “Hell, I’m no authority on it, but it makes sense to me. I didn’t have those things with Scott. You didn’t have them with Aly, and now look at us.”

  “Yeah.” Grace laughed. “Lonely old maids. Or at least I am.”

  Trish didn’t laugh. “You could have had those things with Torrie.”

  Grace was disgusted by the tears pooling suddenly. Damn Torrie for still making her hurt like this when she least expected it. Twenty days. That’s all Torrie had been in her life, but those twenty days still made her quiver with regret. Still made her heart desolate in a way she’d never experienced before. It was like finally discovering a taste for something and having it permanently taken away.

  “I’m sorry, Grace. You haven’t talked much about Torrie and I wish you would.”

  Grace swallowed her unshed tears and took another drink. “What’s to say? You know the story.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think I know how it ends yet.”

  Grace laughed bitterly. “Yes you do. It’s over. Torrie will be back on the Tour any day now, and she’s made it clear by her very loud silence that she wants nothing more to do with me.”

  “Catie says Torrie’s not herself. That she’s hurting too.”

  Grace drained her drink and set the empty glass down with an angry thud. “Torrie is the engineer of her own unhappiness. What the hell do you want me to say, Trish?”

  Trish gave her a look of gentle understanding. “That it’s not all her fault, Grace. That maybe some of it’s your responsibility too.”

  Responsibility. Grace had thought a lot about that word over the last three months. It was why Torrie’s leaving filled her with more regret than anger. Yes, Trish was right. It would be simpler if she could just blame everything on everybody else. Except she couldn’t anymore. She was the one responsible for her own life and for whether she was happy or not.

  “I know, Trish.” Grace rubbed her temples wearily. “I wasn’t ready for Torrie.”

  “Torrie, or anyone?”

  “Anyone,” Grace said. “When Torrie came into my life, I wanted it to be the right time. I really did, but it wasn’t. I think, honestly, it was probably for the best that she walked out.”

  Trish shrugged. “I don’t know about that. Maybe you two could have worked on things. Have you thought about getting in touch with her?”

  Grace had never been serious about the idea. “No. There’s no point. I don’t think we’d be any further ahead than where we were.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about things too lately.”

  “Catie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you in love with her?”

  Trish shrugged, but she couldn’t quite keep the smile off her face. “I like her, Grace. A lot. We’re trying to see each other every couple of weeks, but it’s not enough.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  Trish studied the wooden tabletop scratched and maimed by years of use. “Like I said, you can’t make a relationship work if you don’t spend time together.”

  “And like I said, what are you going to do about it?”

  Trish raised slightly desperate eyes. “I don’t know, Grace. We’ll be starting to tape a new season of shows soon. We’ve got the Manhattan restaurant opening for Christmas. We’re going to be so socked in soon, we won’t know which way is up.”

  “What if we weren’t?”

  “What?”

  “Socked in.” Grace’s voice took on new life. “What if we just said fuck it?”

  Trish’s eyebrows nearly jumped off her forehead. Then she laughed long and hard, right from the belly. “You can’t be serious, Gracie.”

  “Maybe I am.” Grace was deadly serious. More serious about anything than she’d ever been. “I’m not sure we’ll ever get what we need in our lives if we keep up this pace.”

  Trish had gone a little pale, but she wasn’t dismissing Grace’s suggestion. “Do you think we actually could scale back? I mean, just go back to running Sheridan’s?”

  Grace was growing excited by the idea. They could, if they wanted to. They’d always been able to do anything they wanted. “Why not? We’ll be finished taping all our shows by early December. Our contract is only for a season at a time, so we don’t have to renew it.”

  “What about the new restaurant?”

  That was a little more serious. “There’ll be penalties with the contractor. We’re probably on the hook for the lease for a year. We’ll lose a bit, but James can work his charm.”

  Trish smiled widely, then leaned over and kissed Grace on the cheek. “Let’s do it, Grace.”

  “Yeah,” Grace said with conviction. “Let’s do it.”

  They ordered another drink to celebrate their impulsive decision. It was scary, unraveling their plans. But it was necessary, and Grace knew it was right.

  Trish was looking past her. “You do realize Jayla’s been trying to hit on you?”

  Grace spun her glass around in her hand, her other hand playing with the straw. “She’s a nice woman, but I’m not interested.”

  “It could be fun.”

  Grace shot Trish a look that told her to knock it off. Jayla could, no doubt, provide a few hours of fun and distraction, but it was the furthest thing from Grace’s mind right now.

  Before leaving, she spun around and flicked a brief, apologetic glance at Jayla that told her there was no hope.

  Torrie’s shoulder hurt with every swing of the club. By the third day of the four-day tournament—her first back on the Tour—it began to h
urt even when she wasn’t swinging. The rounds and the punishing practice hours the last few days had taken a painful toll. Ice and ibuprofen were her temporary liberators, but by bedtime, Torrie would curl up and bite back a sob. One more day, she told herself. She was in sixth position, a marvelous and surprising showing after her months-long layoff. She was only five strokes off the lead, which, in past tournaments, was nothing for Torrie. Five strokes she could practically make up in her sleep. Then. Now, it struck her that those five strokes meant five fewer painful swings of her club, which sounded heavenly, but seemed nearly insurmountable.

  It was early, barely ten o’clock, but Torrie was exhausted. She would have to be up by seven in the morning for the final round. She’d eat no later than eight, giving herself enough time for her breakfast to settle before she would start warming up on the range and the practice green. Two hours of that and she would be ready for her noon tee time.

  In her mind, Torrie ran through tomorrow’s routine. It would be precise and the same as always. She would eat the same thing she always ate on tournament day—bacon, eggs, potatoes, fruit. She would meet Catie, and they would go through all the equipment in her bag. She would pack power drinks, power bars and bananas, extra socks. She’d go over their notes on the course, page by page. They’d look at the weather forecast and check the wind. Her clothing was already set out. Routine was important because once she started practicing for the round, she wanted nothing on her mind but the task at hand. And by the time she made her way to the first tee box, she would be completely focused, totally unconcerned about how the other golfers were doing. It would be like walking through a tunnel.

  Torrie tried to visualize that tunnel, dark on all sides, nothing but sunshine and green grass at the end. There was only herself, walking toward it, feeling the heat on her face the closer she got. Her breathing was calm, regular. She was almost there, at the opening, where a field of green awaited. Three more steps. Two more. One. Grace! Oh, God, it’s Grace. She was there suddenly, waiting at the opening to the field, her arms outstretched, a gentle smile on her face. Her eyes were not angry, only forgiving.

  Torrie sucked in a deep breath tightly, as though she were drawing it in through a straw. Tomorrow would be her biggest day in months and yet there was Grace. Torrie had not been able to expel her from her thoughts, from her very being. She was the one Torrie talked to in her mind every day. I’m having a good shoulder day today, Grace. You should see how much farther I was hitting the ball today, Grace. It felt so good. The e-mail Aunt Connie sent me today was a real laugh, Grace, because she talked about actually getting a dog of her own and that it was all your fault. Grace, this meal I had last night would have been right up your alley, though you probably could have cooked it better. Grace, did you hear that new song on the radio, “I Kissed a Girl?” Man, it’s wild, isn’t it?

  She had conversations in her head like that all the time, but tonight and tomorrow, she did not want Grace in her head. She had no time for the tiny tremble in her limbs whenever she thought of Grace, or the little tickle in her stomach, or the tightness in her chest. This is not the time for you, Grace. Go away.

  With effort, Torrie pushed Grace out. When she awoke in the morning she felt rested, and thankfully, calm. She would be in control today, she decided. She would be in absolute control of her body and her mind. Today would be hers. She would make up those five shots, no matter what anyone else did. Five shots. The thought—the goal—was all that mattered.

  She and Catie didn’t talk a lot. Catie instinctively knew it was not a day where Torrie needed any sort of bolstering or helpful distractions, so she let Torrie retreat into herself. To focus.

  Torrie’s friend Diana was her playing partner today, a luck of the draw that Torrie welcomed. Torrie knew Diana was secretly pulling for her to do well, even though Diana was a shot ahead of her. They would both focus on climbing ahead of the pack, but not climbing on each other’s backs to do it like some did. Players played their own game, but there were head games too sometimes, like walking through someone’s line of sight or stepping on their putting line with an artificial oops, I’m sorry.

  Or it might be walking away before the opponent strikes her ball, or whispering too loudly to a caddie or Tour official nearby. There would be no such nonsense between Torrie and Diana. They respected one another too much.

  Diana gave her an encouraging nod just before her first drive. Torrie gasped a little from the pain as her club struck the ball, sending it powerfully into the air. She watched it arc neatly and nearly disappear in the almost white light of the noon sky. They matched each other shot for shot, slowly overtaking the field, with Diana remaining a stroke ahead of Torrie.

  “How’s the shoulder?” Diana asked midway through the round.

  “Manageable, I guess.” With anyone else, Torrie might have lied and said it felt great.

  Diana nodded in sympathy. They didn’t speak much the rest of the way as they jockeyed for top position on the leader board. Back and forth they went, a birdie for Torrie sending her into a tie with Diana. They both parred the next hole, and on the par-three seventeenth, Diana’s eight-iron drive plopped down smoothly, mere inches from the hole. Torrie, who had to go up a club because of her weakened shoulder, couldn’t harness enough spin. Her ball landed several feet from the hole and above it, which would make for a difficult putt. Diana was pretty much guaranteed to pull ahead of Torrie again, with one hole left to play. Torrie’s birdie attempt veered wide. Diana’s thunked into the cup.

  On the final tee box, Torrie calculated her chances. She was playing her own game, playing against herself, but she could not pretend she didn’t want to win this one. She did want it. Badly. It would send a powerful message to her rivals and her fans that she was back in the biggest way possible. She’d need a birdie just to tie Diana and force a playoff. If Diana birdied as well, the win would be hers.

  Torrie sent her drive out well beyond two hundred and sixty yards—a strong drive considering her shoulder felt like an elephant was sitting on it. But it sliced a little, and Torrie winced more from the pain of the ball’s direction than from her shoulder. She swore to herself, because Diana’s ball was nicely in the middle and her own sat just on the gluey edge of the fairway and the dense rough.

  Torrie would hit first. She and Catie quickly discussed the line to the hole and which club to use. She knew what she had to do—lock her wrists and power through the edge of the deep rough that would try to hang on to her ball and mess with its trajectory. Torrie took a deep breath, lined herself up to the ball and cleared her mind. Between shots she often let a song run through her head—nothing more complex than that. Always a catchy tune too, nothing with deep lyrics or a doleful melody. Just before taking her shot, however, her mind always went completely blank. She was beyond thinking about what she needed to do, and she was beyond visualizing it. It was time to trust the mechanics of her swing and the plan she was about to put in motion. The repetitiveness and the muscle memory of years of playing told her it was just like any of the other millions of shots she’d taken. In her backswing, she knew the shot would hurt. On the downswing she knew it would hurt significantly. On impact, it hurt like bloody hell. She grunted loudly and doubled over in a flash of pain.

  “Jesus, Torrie.” Catie rushed to her side. “Are you okay?”

  Torrie nodded, unable to speak. She would have to be okay. She would have to make at least one, maybe two more shots. She had yet to look at where her ball had gone.

  “You did good, Tor.”

  Torrie finally glanced up. The pain had caused her to take something off the ball, and instead of being on the green, it lay just at the edge. It would mean a chip and a put for par. An up and down, unless she could pull magic out of her hat and sink her chip shot.

  Her shoulder throbbing wildly, Torrie strode ahead, hoping for the best, thinking the worst. She had to make that chip. What’s more, she had to believe she would. She knew how it worked. Doubt was for lose
rs. But these were special circumstances and her shoulder was a very real impediment. It occurred to her for the first time in these four days that maybe she’d come back to the Tour too soon.

  She stood over her chip shot, catching an encouraging wink from Diana, but barely, for the first time in years, feeling any confidence. She knew it was a crappy shot before the ball even left her club. She and Catie shared a look of frustration and resignation as the ball wobbled and stopped three feet before the hole. Diana did not miss her four-foot birdie putt, just as Torrie knew she wouldn’t. The win was hers, and Torrie felt instant relief that the ordeal was over.

  “Congratulations, Diana.” Torrie gave her a tight hug and a kiss on both cheeks.

  “Thanks, hon.” Diana gave her an extra squeeze. “You were awesome this week, Torrie. I’m sorry I spoiled your comeback.”

  Torrie smiled and meant it. “You didn’t spoil anything. You deserved this. But next time I plan to make it much tougher for you.”

  Diana laughed. “I expect nothing less, my friend.” She winked once more and walked toward the waiting arms of her girlfriend.

  Torrie’s parents, meanwhile, stood on the sidelines, and Torrie smiled and nodded at them. She could see by their wide smiles that they were thrilled with her results. Her dad, always one to embarrass her, gave her two thumbs up and yelled her name.

  God, she thought. What a loser I am. A thirty-year-old woman with no one but her parents waiting at the end for her. Grace’s absence hit her devastatingly hard just then. Every day she’d felt it for the last months, but not like this. This was every bit as piercing as her damaged shoulder. This was what caused her now to gasp for air, to stumble a step. Grace should be here, with her loving eyes and her understanding smile, her tender embraces and soothing words. Grace was the only one she really wanted here. Grace, she realized, was the only one she would ever really want in her corner, waiting at the end for her, above anyone else.