Mine

by Georgia Beers

“Yeah, good luck with that,” she muttered under her breath as she zigzagged through the crowded and noisy tables toward the back corner.

  Alice was dressed in her usually impeccable style of designer pantsuit and too much jewelry. Today’s choice was a deep eggplant color with an ivory silk blouse underneath and a bright, multicolored silk scarf knotted loosely around her neck. Her bottle-blond hair had been tinted recently and looked very modern, easily taking ten years off her appearance. Hair color was where the similarities between mother and daughter stopped, though. Where Rachel had crystal blue eyes, Alice’s were hazel. Rachel was tall and lean, Alice was rather short and a bit on the plump side, despite her penchant for whatever fad diet was in the news at the time. She carried herself well, though, and had a confidence level that caused heads to turn when she walked through a room.

  Alice looked away from the window and watched her daughter’s approach.

  “Hi, Mom.” Rachel bent and kissed Alice’s cheek.

  “Don’t you eat?” Alice asked by way of greeting. “You’re too thin.”

  “I’m not too thin, Mom.” Rachel took a seat across the table from her and unfolded her napkin. “How are you?”

  Alice sipped her drink and waved a hand dismissively in the air as she began to unload about her lazy husband, her stupid clients, her annoying coworkers, and her irritating neighbors.

  Rachel ordered a glass of chardonnay in preparation for the lunch, and felt her eyes glaze over as she listened to her mother’s usual negative diatribe. She tried to will her mind back in time, back twenty-five years or more, when she remembered her mother as happy, smiling, and loving. It was before her father left, and Rachel was eleven or twelve. Emily was five years younger. The older Rachel got, the harder it was to remember the details, but she always tried to put herself back there in an attempt to drown out the depressing droning on of what Alice had become. Rachel could be seemingly focused on Alice’s face, apparently paying rapt attention to whatever was being complained about at the moment, but in reality, she was back in time. She was fondly recalling the smell of home-baked chocolate chip cookies waiting for her after a long day at school. She was remembering Alice trying to teach her how to crochet and young Rachel not quite able to twist her long, gangly fingers in the right directions. She could almost smell the fresh flowers that always adorned the interior of the house and the laundry on the line, flapping in the gentle breeze and soaking up the incomparable scent of the outdoors.

  Alice had launched into how appalled she’d been by the uncleanliness of a house she’d recently been asked to sell when she was cut off by the blessed appearance of the waiter.

  “Would you care to hear our specials?” he asked cordially.

  “Absolutely,” Rachel replied, before Alice could dismiss him. She wanted to keep him at the table as long as possible. He went on for several minutes, describing each special in mouthwatering detail. Rachel didn’t really listen—she’d already decided on the chicken Caesar salad—but she let him ramble on as she nodded politely after each selection.

  Once the waiter had taken their orders, Alice dove right back in. “I see you sold the place out on Wayworth. What did you get for it?”

  “Three-eighty,” Rachel replied, knowing so instinctively where this was going that she almost mouthed her mother’s response with her.

  “Oh, Rachel, you could have gotten another twenty thou for that house.” Her expression showed a sliver of disgust at her daughter’s incompetence.

  “Well, the seller was perfectly happy with the offer and was ready to move on.”

  “You’re right. Who needs another twelve hundred dollars in commission?”

  “I do just fine, thank you.” Rachel tried not to give her answer through clenched teeth, but failed miserably.

  “I’ve been telling you for years, dear, you need to work on that killer instinct. You’d make a lot more money.”

  Rachel nodded and finished off her wine, signaling the waiter by holding up her empty glass and pointing to it. Desperate to change the subject, she asked, “Have you talked with Emily lately?”

  Alice scoffed. “I called her on Saturday, but he was there, so I didn’t talk long.”

  He was Rachel and Emily’s father. According to the Book of Alice, he was the sole reason for any and all difficulty in Alice’s life and she rarely used his name. “Bitter” wasn’t a strong enough word to describe Alice’s feelings about her husband leaving her a quarter of a century ago, and don’t get her started on “that slut” he’d married less than a year after their divorce. Her death a few years earlier had served him right, according to Alice. Finally, punishment from above or some such justification, the warped logic of which made Rachel’s head spin.

  “Oh.” Rachel found it strange that the only time she ever felt an inkling of protection for her father was when her mother disparaged him. In those instances, did Rachel feel a little too much like her mother? The thought made her enormously uncomfortable and, as usual, she steered the conversation in another direction. “Well, she’s feeling great. No more headaches, but the cravings won’t go away.”

  For a split second, Rachel was sure she saw the Alice of thirty years ago in the glow that zipped across her face. “She mentioned that earlier in the week when we talked. It was salt and vinegar potato chips at that point.”

  Rachel grinned. “It’s saltines with peanut butter now.”

  “Ugh.” Alice shook her head with fondness. “I remember those days.”

  “You do?”

  “Oh, yes. With you, I was traditional. Chocolate ice cream all the way. For months. With Emily? Baked potatoes. With bacon bits…remember those things in the jar?”

  “The fake bacon you sprinkled on salads?”

  “Exactly. I must have gone through twenty jars of those damn things during my pregnancy with her.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  The waiter arrived with their lunches, and unfortunately for Rachel, that was the end of Alice’s fond reminiscing. She was immediately on to less pleasant things, as if she realized she’d ventured into the wrong arena and quickly backpedaled. Rachel sighed internally as Alice began complaining about the newest realtor in her office.

  Over the years, Rachel had perfected the art of pretending to listen. It had served her well growing up in a house filled with the depression and bitterness of her mother, and she’d discovered fairly recently that it actually helped her in her job, too. Not that she always tuned people out, but just like a bartender, people seemed to want to unload on their realtor, tell her all the reasons why they were selling or why they bought or what was so great—or so awful—about the house. Most of the time, this information was very useful. But on occasion, she’d ended up with a client who just liked to talk. On and on and on. Her talent for appearing as though she was paying rapt attention had become a gift and she used it well.

  Now, as Alice droned on about the audacity of the new guy, Rachel found her thoughts drifting to the voice-mail message she’d received Sunday night from Courtney. It was a complete fluke that she hadn’t answered; nine times out of ten, she had her cell phone clipped to her waistband even when she was puttering around her apartment. Sunday night, however, she’d left it on the dresser on vibrate and had wandered into the kitchen in a robe to get something to drink. She hadn’t heard the buzzing sound and hadn’t bothered to look at the phone again until Monday morning as she got ready for work. She was actually surprised by her own surprise at finding the message from Courtney thanking her for the invitation to the volunteer happy hour on Friday. She was also taken off guard by the giddiness that seeped in at Courtney’s acceptance. I’d love to go with you, were her exact words. Rachel could still hear them replay in her head, Courtney’s exact inflections and tone of voice intact. It embarrassed her no end that she’d saved the message and had listened to it more than once during the day.

  Who the hell am I? she wondered, not for the first time si
nce she’d met Courtney McAllister.

  The salad was quite good, she noted as she quickly checked back into the one-sided conversation taking place before her. Alice was still rambling, her scowl accentuating the deep crevice that had taken up residence between her eyebrows. Rachel nodded and made a sound that conveyed her attention. Then she returned to the more pleasant thoughts of Courtney. What the hell was it about the woman that drew Rachel so strongly? She couldn’t seem to put a finger on any one thing. Courtney was extremely attractive in the physical sense, for sure, so there was definitely that. Those green eyes of hers… Rachel mentally shook her head. God, those eyes. Rachel had never understood what it meant to be lost in somebody’s eyes until Courtney had looked directly at her. In addition to the beauty of her face, she had a trim, athletic body, the kind Rachel had always found most attractive—though she suspected beneath the jeans, sweats, or shorts lay some very feminine curves…

  Okay, okay, Rachel’s brain snapped, stopping her in midthought. She’s fun to look at; we’ve established that. Big deal. What is it that’s pulling you?

  It was her face, something in her face that Rachel found…magnetic. The kindness in her face? The gentleness in her tone? The obvious intelligence? There wasn’t much that was sexier than a smart woman. Or was it that little bit of sadness that made people want to take care of her, protect her? Maybe a combination of all of it?

  Rachel Hart was not easily drawn to people. It just didn’t happen. She had dated. Of course she had dated. She’d even had a couple of somewhat-long-term relationships, but nothing, nobody, ever stuck. She was a loner, she was set in her ways, and she liked it that way. As Jeff’s voice interrupted her thoughts to tease her with “control freak” comments, she tried hard to block it out. She didn’t need anybody, nor did she really want anybody. She liked her life the way it was, her routine the way she planned it, and things were fine. There was a little part of her that cringed inside, worried about somebody like Courtney coming in and messing everything up, disturbing the order and causing unpredictability.

  But those eyes…

  Rachel gave her head a quick shake and focused across the table.

  “Are you listening to me, Rachel?” Alice asked, annoyance etched clearly on her face.

  “Yes. I am. Of course I am.” Rachel shoved a forkful of salad into her mouth as Alice took up right where she’d left off, unable to understand how the manager of her office could possibly put up with the shenanigans going on with this new guy. Rachel nodded, willing her mind to concentrate on the words dropping uninterestingly from her mother’s mouth and not to take her back into the territory of thoughts and theories of which she was unsure and couldn’t compartmentalize.

  Those eyes…

  Chapter Eight

  “‘Very informal’ is such a relative term.” Courtney sighed as she roughly yanked the blouse off and grabbed another from a hanger in the closet. “Very informal to me and very informal to her could be two very different things.”

  Amelia chuckled with amusement. “Sweetie, you need to relax a little bit or you’re going to frighten the poor girl away.” She reached around Courtney and grabbed a deep green blouse with three-quarter-length sleeves out of the closet. “Put this on with your khaki slacks, the low-waisted ones, and tuck it in. Brown belt. Those shoes.” She pointed to a pair of simple, comfortable brown leather shoes with a modest heel.

  Courtney dressed obediently, never questioning Amelia’s suggestions. Since college, she knew without a doubt that Amelia had an inherent sense of fashion and she’d never steered Courtney wrong. Courtney had learned that if she shut up and wore whatever Amelia told her to, she’d be fine.

  “I’ll be downstairs getting my stuff ready.” Amelia stopped and studied Courtney. “Just pull a little of your hair back. Use that funky gold clip you bought a couple weeks ago.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Courtney responded with a grin. She heard Amelia’s sneakers as she descended the hardwood stairs and headed for the dining room, in which she was mounting a border for Courtney. She was very good at such things, Courtney was very bad at them, and it gave Amelia an opportunity to spend the evening away from the chaos of her own household.

  Standing in the bathroom, Courtney finished applying some light makeup, then styled her hair the way Amelia had ordered. The addition of some simple gold earrings completed the ensemble and she studied herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. Not bad, she thought, her gaze starting at her shoes and sliding critically up her body, taking in the fit of the pants, the curve of her own hips, the snugness of the blouse, ending at her face where she made eye contact with herself. Not bad at all. I think. She freed a couple strands of hair so they hung in corkscrew curls near her ears.

  She thought about her date and found herself suddenly self-conscious about looking good enough to be standing next to somebody who looked as good as Rachel. “Nope. No pressure there,” she muttered to her reflection and rolled her eyes. “No pressure at all.”

  Deciding this was as good as it was going to get, she spritzed on a lightly scented perfume and headed downstairs. She stopped short as she turned the corner and heard conversation coming from the dining room. Steeling herself, she continued on her path and was surprised to see Rachel and Amelia discussing the border Amelia was going to mount.

  “Hi,” Courtney said. “I didn’t hear the bell.” She hoped her swallow wasn’t audible as she tried not to gawk at the sight of the woman before her. Rachel wasn’t dressed any more fancily than Courtney—she wore a nice pair of jeans and a simple black top—but she was stunning nonetheless. Her wavy hair was loose, her legs—as always—went on forever, and for the first time, Courtney was treated to a full-on, close-up view of her ass, snugly held in denim and begging for a caress.

  Amelia jumped in. “I saw her pull up, so I let her in before she could ring the doorbell.” She gestured to the rolled-up wallpaper border and tools spread out on the dining-room table. “We were just talking about my project. Did you know Rachel owns her apartment building?”

  Courtney blinked. “Um, no. I didn’t know that.”

  “She does. And she’s put up wallpaper, borders, she’s painted, she’s stenciled. She’s a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.”

  At that, Rachel burst into laughter. Courtney watched her, absorbing the sound, musical and husky at the same time, and was shocked to feel a tingle low in her belly. When Rachel turned and looked at Courtney, her eyes dancing, Courtney felt her breath catch.

  “You look terrific,” Rachel said, her gaze skimming quickly but thoroughly over Courtney’s frame. “I’m really glad you decided to go. Are you ready?”

  Courtney nodded quickly, words seemingly impossible. What the hell is wrong with me?

  Rachel turned toward Amelia and waved as she followed Courtney to the door. “It was nice to see you again.”

  “Same here,” Amelia replied. “Her curfew is eleven, by the way,” she added with a wink.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Rachel winked back and Courtney shot a glare in Amelia’s direction as she closed the door.

  “Have fun!” Amelia called.

  Once settled comfortably into the BMW, Rachel turned to glance at Courtney “So,” she said. “How are you? How’s the house?”

  “It’s great,” Courtney replied with a smile, grateful for the banter. If she could keep on jabbering, she wouldn’t have a chance to focus on her nervousness. She talked about her plans for the different rooms, colors she’d chosen for painting, how many more trips to Home Depot she had in her future. Rachel contributed succinct comments here and there and they both laughed often. The twenty-five-minute ride was over in no time.

  Happy Acres consisted of a large one-story brown building that sprawled wide and flat across the land. Courtney had been there more than once, but it had been a while—several years at least—and many renovations had been made since her last visit.

  “Wow,” she said as Rachel slid the BMW i
nto a parking spot in the busy lot. “They’ve really done a lot to this place.”

  “Been a while since you’ve been here?”

  “Theresa and I adopted our beagle, Polo, from here way, way back. Then we came again a few years ago when we knew Polo was getting up there in years, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to pick another dog.” She grimaced. “It felt too much like we were trying to replace him before he was even gone, you know?”

  “Sure. Losing a pet must be very hard.” Rachel waited for Courtney to reach her side before walking toward the building.

  “You told me you don’t have a dog because you’re in an apartment, but now I know you own the building.” Courtney bumped Rachel with her shoulder as they strolled. “So…since you’re the landlady, why don’t you have one?”

  Rachel pursed her lips in thought, as though trying to find the best explanation. Before she could speak, though, she was interrupted by a heavyset, rather loud woman who called from across the yard.

  “Rachel Hart!” She bustled up to them and threw her arms around an obviously unexpectant Rachel. Courtney pressed her fingertips to her lips to keep from bursting out in laughter at the expression on Rachel’s face, which was a mix of here we go again and God, help me, as she met Courtney’s eyes over the woman’s shoulder. “It’s so good to see you!” The woman held Rachel at arm’s length, and everything she said sounded like it should have an exclamation point after it. “It seems like every time you’re here, I’m not!”

  Courtney didn’t need more than the quick glance Rachel shot her to know that missing the woman was intentional on Rachel’s part. She bit her lip to keep her smile to a minimum.

  “Betsy, this is my friend, Courtney McAllister.” Rachel turned Betsy by her shoulder so she faced Courtney. “Courtney, this is the head of volunteer coordination here at Happy Acres, Betsy Crawford.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Betsy.” Courtney shook the meaty hand held out to her.

  “Same here!” Betsy said, smiling widely and pumping Courtney’s hand with enthusiasm. To Rachel, she added, “Are you bringing me another volunteer?” Facing back to Courtney, she gushed, “Rachel practically lives here! And we wouldn’t have the new wing if it weren’t for her!”