by Lucy Score
“It went…well,” Gloria decided, remembering Aldo’s quick grin and how it worked its way through her ribs to glow away in her chest.
“You like this Harper?” Sara asked, juicing half of a grapefruit with vigor.
Of course her mother had known where she’d gone. Sara claimed to have mystical powers of sight passed down through her great-great-grandmother, a desert canyon shawoman. Growing up, Gloria had preferred to believe her mother had hidden video surveillance equipment around the house.
“I like her very much. She’s happy, friendly.”
“Good,” Sara nodded briskly. The blender whirred to life.
Gloria made herself useful and pulled two margarita glasses from the shelf next to the sink. Candytuft and begonias bloomed in a riot of color on the other side of the window. Her mother had scrimped and saved for this house for two years after her husband, Gloria’s father, had walked out on them. Sara had filled her life with work and pretty things. But without the man she’d called Daddy, Gloria had been hungry to fill the void of male attention. When Glenn Diller had taken her hand at a summer bonfire and kissed her in the shadows, tasting of beer and tobacco…, well, she’d thought that void would finally be filled.
Her mother, on the other hand, had used the abandonment to build a life exactly the way she wanted it. She was a hair stylist, and had they lived in a more metropolitan area, Gloria knew her mother would have been a wealthy business owner. But Sara was content in Benevolence, running her own shop, giving Manhattan-worthy cuts at rural Maryland prices. She worked six days a week and had two part-time employees. She dated when she found a man worthy and otherwise filled her time with books and friends and wine.
Sara plopped a frothy pink margarita in front of Gloria. “Take your medicine, Gloria.”
The Gloria Who Left Glenn After the First Time would have treated her mother to a spa day and lunch at a restaurant where waiters pulled out the chairs for you. They would have giggled through facials and shopped and enjoyed a whole day of pampering.
This Gloria, the broken one, reached for her mother’s hand and squeezed it. “I want to be you when I grow up, Mama.”
The iron-spined Sara bit her lip, her brown eyes welling with tears.
“Mija,” she whispered. “Don’t be me. Be you. And be happy.”
“I’m not sure how,” Gloria confessed, her own eyes filling. She’d cried more this last week or two than she had in the last decade. As if something had thawed inside her, letting loose a stoppered flood of tears.
“You listen to me, Gloria Rosemarie. Backbone runs in our family. It did not skip a generation,” Sara insisted, her voice stern.
Gloria was the last in a long line of independent, steely, sometimes terrifying women. The last ten years had stripped her of any resemblance to her ancestors. She knew it had to be a terrible blow to her mother. To see her daughter lose herself to an unworthy man.
Bone-weary in this bright, cheerful kitchen, disappointment weighed heavily on her shoulders.
Who would ever want her like this? Why would someone big and beautiful and vibrant like Aldo Moretta want a crushed and damaged flower petal?
“Tsk tsk,” her mother clucked. “Enough of this pity party.” She threaded her fingers through Gloria’s long, unstyled hair. “I think it’s time we make a change. Yes?” Sara was studying her with the critical eye of a professional.
Gloria patted her thick, shapeless mane. “Just like old times?”
“Yes, but with margaritas.”
“Then absolutely yes,” Gloria decided.
Her mother danced from the room. Music, bright and Latin, sounded from a wireless speaker near the refrigerator. It was a ritual they’d enjoyed a long time ago. Kitchen makeovers. Bonding. Music and laughter.
For the first time, Gloria felt like she’d really come home.
“Your good taste hasn’t been damaged,” Sara decided as she snipped and fluffed.
Gloria studied the picture on the incredible Pinterest app her mother had introduced her to and swallowed hard. She’d begged her mother to choose a style for her. But Sara had refused. “You must get used to making your own decisions again,” she’d said wisely.
Fortified by tequila, Gloria bypassed the safe shoulder-length styles and took her first big risk. She winced as inches of her dark hair fell to the warm tile floor. “It’ll grow back,” she reminded herself.
“You’re not going to want it to,” Sara predicted, rubbing a serum between her palms. “You will love this.” Her mother worked the product through what felt like very, very short hair.
“Oh, God. What have I done?” Gloria groaned and reached for her margarita.
Her mother smirked without sympathy and drained the rest of her drink.
“Should you be cutting hair while under the influence?”
Sara snorted. “I do my best work with tequila.”
Gloria laughed despite herself and gave herself over to her mother’s ministrations.
“Okay. Time for the reveal.” Sara handed Gloria the mirror handle. “New beginnings call for new hair.”
The deep breath did little to settle her stomach. Her hair had been largely untouched over the last several years. Ever since Glenn had thrown a dinner plate at her for spontaneously cutting six inches off of her hair. Women should have long hair. You look like an ugly little boy.
She opened her eyes and took the first look at The New Gloria.
Her dark hair had lost its heavy length. Instead it was styled around her face in a cloud of natural curl and volume.
“You look like Sofia Loren,” her mother said with satisfaction.
Gloria reached up to touch it. “I don’t look like me.”
“You didn’t look like you before,” Sara countered, pouring more frozen goodness into their glasses.
Turning her head from side to side, Gloria admired the reflection. It was…perfect.
“I love it,” she said, staring in the mirror longer than she had in years and liking what she saw.
“How do you feel about some makeup?” Sara tempted.
Makeup. Gloria had once loved all things cosmetic. She loved experimenting, making pretty. She’d done her friends’ makeup for homecoming her junior year. Glenn didn’t approve. She’d managed to hide a small stash of guilty pleasures from him for over a year before he’d found it and called her a whore for painting her face.
“Yes,” she said, enjoying the spark she saw in her reflection. “And then let’s go out to dinner.”
Sara pushed the glass toward her. “We will Uber.”
“Cheers,” Gloria raised her glass, the smile stretching her face in unfamiliar and wonderful ways.
7
She’d picked up her new phone to cancel at least a dozen times. It was a pity invite, she decided as she rolled out the pie crust with a panicked violence. “Harper felt sorry for me,” Gloria told herself. Besides, her car was in the garage getting some of its rust removed and its brakes changed—thanks to her saint of a mother.
It was the perfect excuse to cancel. Of course, she could walk. It was only a couple of blocks.
“Gah!” Gloria swiped the back of her hand over her forehead in frustration, leaving a streak of flour behind.
Her mother was at work, queen beeing around her salon, and she had the house to her self-conscious, terrified self. They’d gone to dinner in town that weekend, and it had been a mistake.
“Poor little Gloria Parker” had been on the lips of every patron as they smiled sadly at her. By the end of dinner, she’d felt like a zoo animal rescued from the wild where she was too weak to survive.
“Why am I even making a damn pie?” She wasn’t going. She didn’t know how to socialize. For all intents and purposes, high school sleepovers were her last real social experience, and she was quite certain none of that etiquette applied to a casual backyard barbecue. Though she couldn’t help but wonder what Aldo Moretta’s reaction would be if she hit him with a pillow.
&n
bsp; She was definitely not going. The man left her tongue-tied, shy, and painfully nervous. The absolute last thing she needed right now was a crush on a man like that. Aldo’s personality was as big as his barrel-like chest. Next to him, she’d fade away as she had with Glenn.
And she was good and tired of fading.
She draped the crust over the pie plate and spooned the filling into it, ignoring the way her hands shook.
The dream last night was still with her. Glenn, bursting into her room, murder in his eyes. He’d kill her in her mother’s house. She knew it even when she’d woken up, sobbing and covering her face.
Too many times it hadn’t been a dream. The abuse—and worse, the fear—was engraved in her bones, woven into her DNA. She was a different person from the teenager Glenn Diller had claimed as his own.
Where was the girl who shoved Bobby Leinhart off of Jamal Ngyuen on the playground? The girl who’d argued with her English teacher for a full letter grade higher on her To Kill a Mockingbird essay? The girl who’d laughed and awkwardly flirted and sang?
Was she still in there? Or was she already dead?
In her head, she could still hear Glenn’s hateful laugh.
She grabbed the wooden spoon out of the bowl and hurled it across the room. “Get out of my head!”
“I’m in love with your hair,” Harper announced, opening the door before Gloria made it to the top step of the porch.
Self-consciously she patted it with her free hand. “Really?” She’d taken her time with the styling and with her makeup, and when she looked in the mirror, it wasn’t the old Gloria she saw or the teenage, pre-Glenn Gloria. It was someone new.
“You look amazing,” Harper insisted.
“Thanks,” Gloria said, unaccustomed to compliments. “You look great, too.” It was the truth. There was an energy, bright and vivacious, that bubbled out of Harper even more so tonight than before. Gloria wondered if it was because Luke was home.
She followed her new friend inside and paused inside the door.
“Wait. Am I hallucinating?” she asked Harper, handing over the pie. Luke’s living room and dining room were full of actual furniture.
“I don’t know what happened, but I owe you big time.” Harper’s eyes twinkled. “The threat of having people over pushed him over the edge, and Luke went insane and bought out most of the inventory at Bob’s Fine Furnishings.”
Gloria followed Harper back down the hallway to the kitchen, which was now home to a new breakfast table and chairs. Luke Garrison himself was juggling side dishes from the fridge to the island.
“Apple pie and Gloria are here,” Harper announced cheerfully.
Luke dumped his load and wiped his hands on his jeans before offering Gloria his hand. “Hey, Gloria. It’s good to see you,” he said. He was tall with military-short dark hair and hard hazel eyes. The ink on his forearm gave him the look of a badass, but it was the eyes hooded with a hurt that ran deep that made him irresistible. The long-term effects of grief, Gloria guessed.
She’d been cut off from the outside world but still knew the basics of his situation. No one would blame him for never getting over it. But she hoped for his sake that Harper’s presence was a sign that he was finally thawing.
“Where’s my water?” A good-natured bellow sounded from the backyard.
“Where’s my please and thank you?” Luke hollered back.
“Aldo.” Harper grinned by way of explanation. “He’s manning the grill. Claims Luke only makes charcoal burgers and blackened chicken.”
Luke slung his arm around Harper’s shoulder, and Gloria thought her new friend might split in two with happiness. This was not the same Luke Garrison that had mourned his way through life for the past few years. And it was beautiful to see.
If there was hope for him, maybe there was the tiniest scrap of hope for her.
“Water!”
“How about I take it out to him?” Gloria suggested. The way Luke and Harper were looking at each other, she was about to witness some NC-17 action.
Luke handed her two bottles and was making a beeline for Harper by the time the screen door closed behind her.
Aldo was behind the grill in shorts and a polo shirt stretched to capacity over that broad chest. His hair was still on the long side, curling at the ends. He stood with his feet braced apart as if ready to do battle with the meat on the grill. Everything about him from the muscled calves to the tattoos down his arms spoke of strength, power. A different kind than what Glenn had wielded against her.
“Did someone order a water?” she asked, praying that she sounded casual.
He tensed at the sound of her voice, and then a slow smile spread across his face as if he’d been waiting for this exact moment.
She brought it to him, every step that carried her closer to him feeling slower, heavier. The spring air between them thickened and blurred until she was standing in front of him and the rest of the backyard disappeared.
“Hi,” he said softly. Then he leaned in, and instead of shaking her hand firmly like Luke had, Aldo brushed a kiss against her cheek.
“Hi,” she croaked. She was lucky she didn’t stutter and freeze to the space. But the spot where his lips had touched flared with the heat of the sun, guaranteeing that nothing would freeze inside her for a long, long time.
“You look great,” he said.
“I…what?” She’d taken time choosing an outfit. Skinny jeans and a loose blue tank tucked into the front of her jeans and left long in the back. There were no more bruises to hide anymore, and the leather wrap bracelets she’d added to her wrists, the heavy chandelier earrings she’d chosen, felt like a celebration of that.
“Your hair,” he said. He took her chin, his touch achingly gentle, and turned her head from side to side.
Her heart rate kicked up at his touch. He hated it. He’d tell her she looked ugly. Or he’d lie to her, tell her she was pretty and not mean it. He wouldn’t smile at her like that again. And she would wither up and die. Okay, Drama Queen, slow your roll.
“Brave choice. It works,” he said simply. Gloria felt her cheeks heat. It shouldn’t matter what he said. But damn if his approval didn’t feel really good.
“Thanks. My mom did it,” she said lamely. God, how sad was it that she wasn’t used to people being nice?
“So, what do you think?” Aldo asked, pointing the tongs he wielded toward the house. “Luke’s nesting, right?”
Gloria laughed, and it loosened her chest, allowing her to draw a free breath. “Definitely nesting.”
“Harp seems good for him,” Aldo predicted. “Maybe he’s finally going to see that happily ever after.”
“Let’s hope there’s one for all of us,” Gloria said wistfully.
“Sweetheart, I can guarantee it,” Aldo told her. He wasn’t smiling, but the look in those warm brown eyes tickled her belly. This wasn’t fear she was feeling. This was something entirely different.
8
“So, you’re nesting now that you finally found a woman to tolerate you?” Aldo demanded, eyeing the apple pie that Gloria was cutting into neat slices.
Luke rolled his eyes and muttered “smartass” under his breath.
“Gloria, I think we’re witnessing a real-life bromance,” Harper said in a stage whisper across the picnic table. Night had fallen, casting the backyard into shadow. But to Gloria, the darkness felt like comfort, delivering with it a quiet kind of intimacy between them. There were no monsters lurking here.
Aldo shared the bench with her, and even though they weren’t touching, she was very aware of his heat, his presence.
Luke and Harper’s joined hands rested in Harper’s lap. Gloria felt a twinge of envy at the way they looked at each other. So much passed between them. Not the least of which was longing, and she imagined the night would be an early one for their little party.
Would she ever find a relationship like the one across the table? Did she even believe in love?
“How
’s work going?” Aldo asked Luke. “You know, since you hired that horrible office manager.”
Harper feigned a gasp of dismay and threw a piece of hamburger bun at him. Luke had hired Harper to manage the office of his contractor business.
“Work is going exceedingly well, and I hear the new office manager is a dream come true. A real hero,” she insisted.
Gloria admired how relaxed and natural they all were, bickering back and forth. Meanwhile, she was tying herself up in knots about whether or not she should serve the pie. Was it her responsibility to offer it up since she brought it? Nerves. She was being ridiculous. It was a damn pie. Not a bomb to diffuse.
“Anyone want a piece of pie?” she piped up.
“Yes!” came the unanimous response.
She served while Aldo shared a story about work. He was a structural engineer in a small firm in town. Gloria wasn’t quite sure what a structural engineer did and made a note to look it up now that she had unlimited internet access. So much to catch up on. So many things missed out on.
Pie plated, Harper grandly suggested they adjourn to the firepit.
“Indubitably,” Aldo agreed, pretending to adjust his invisible monocle. He carried his plate and Gloria’s over to the fire. Was he doing it on purpose, being attentive? Was this interest or just being kind? Her mind was a whirl. Flirting, relationships, Gloria was so far removed from healthy social interactions that she couldn’t tell if he was only being polite with his attentiveness.
“Oh my God,” Harper moaned next to Gloria. “Heaven just exploded in my mouth. Will you teach me to make pie?”
“Yes, please, Gloria. Teach Harper to make pie,” Luke insisted.