Olive Oil and White Bread

by Georgia Beers

  They sipped their coffees in silence. Seemingly out of suggestions, Shay changed the subject. “And how’s my baby Boo?”

  At the mention of her beloved pooch, Jillian’s eyes lit up. “She’s adorable, as always. A little stiff in the mornings, I think.”

  “She’s getting up there,” Shay said. “Those old bones and muscles aren’t as limber as they used to be. What is she now, eleven?”

  Jillian agreed. “Yeah. I hate to think about it. Why can’t our dogs live as long as we do?”

  “Not a day goes by for me that I don’t have a client ask me that very question.” Shay gazed out the window, her voice growing almost wistful. “I think dogs are much too valuable to stay in this world for very long. It must be exhausting, constantly handing out all that love and devotion and loyalty. I think they move on to the next place so they can recharge.”

  Her eyes glassy, Jillian agreed. “That’s beautiful. I like it.”

  “It’s the only explanation I’ve got,” Shay said, shaking herself with a chuckle.

  With a glance at her watch, Shay mentioned she needed to stop by the office.

  “What?” Jillian scoffed. “It’s your day off. You’re supposed to avoid that place like the plague on your day off.”

  “I know, but Melissa had a couple things I promised I’d help her with.” Shay looked everywhere but at Jillian, which made her friend laugh loudly.

  “Oh, Melissa needs help with a ‘couple things’ does she?” Jillian made air quotes with her fingers, her tone gently teasing.

  Shay shook her head, unable to hide a shy grin. “Come on! She’s new. She isn’t sure how it all works at the clinic, so I told her I’d go over some things with her.”

  “And does going over things with this new vet include doing so over a meal?”

  Shay cleared her throat. “It may.”

  “I knew it!” Jillian pointed an accusing finger at Shay, her delight palpable. “You’re dating her, aren’t you?”

  Playful defeat colored Shay’s face. “Maybe a little.”

  “This is good news,” Jillian pronounced, meaning it. Shay’d had a terrible time recovering from the loss and betrayal of Laura. It had been over a year before she’d even considered going on a date, and when she did, she’d told Jillian she was uncomfortable and self-conscious the whole time. She stopped about three months ago, telling Jillian she just didn’t feel ready.

  Melissa Saunders had come on board at the veterinary clinic where Shay worked about a month and a half ago, and Jillian only had to hear Shay talk about her once to know she was ready.

  “I’m so happy for you, Shayneese.” Jillian covered Shay’s hand with hers and squeezed.

  “It’s really nothing right now,” Shay told her, packing up her things. “We’re just hanging out, moving very slowly. She had a bad breakup last year, so I know exactly what she’s going through.”

  “Well, I’m still happy for you. Having somebody to hang with—besides me—is a good thing. When you’re ready to introduce her, I’d love to meet her.”

  “You’ll be the first. You know that.” Shay stood, bent across the table and kissed Jillian on the forehead. “Catch you later, babe.”

  Jillian watched out the window as Shay walked to her car. She held her head up, a subtle smile decorating her face, and there was a little bounce in her step. It was slight, and somebody who hadn’t known Shay for more than twenty years probably wouldn’t have noticed it. But Jillian did, and it filled her with warmth and love for her friend. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then stood up and gathered her things. As she deposited her garbage in the garbage can, she glanced up at the counter.

  Jen tossed her a last wink.

  2005

  Lonely No More

  Twenty-Two

  I feel like I’m drowning.

  The thought came to Angie out of the blue as she drove back to the office after an appointment with a client. It was sudden, and it was frightening.

  At work. At home. She couldn’t keep her head above water. She was going under. It was just a matter of when.

  She thought about work, how it was the same shit, only worse and worse each day. Mr. Guelli had retired last year; Jeremy was running the show.

  “Little bastard,” she muttered as she braked for a light.

  As if a twenty-five-year-old being handed a thriving business wasn’t enough to make Angie grind her teeth with envy, Jeremy had decided a bunch of new requirements and procedures should be put into place. Some made sense to Angie—hell, they should do, they were her ideas—like regular, weekly sales meetings and more visits by suppliers. Others were making everybody cranky and irritated. Weekly quotas were his newest baby, and in many sales companies, they were perfectly practical. But in this business, sales came and went with the seasons. It didn’t matter if you wrote only a few orders in October because in November and December—when companies were buying holiday gifts for employees and customers—you were going to crush it. Jeremy didn’t seem to get that. He chalked up the complaints of his veteran salespeople to general laziness and his uncle letting them “get away with too much for too long.”

  He was also requesting quote sheets. Any time a salesperson quoted a price to a client, they had to write up the details and e-mail them to Jeremy so he could keep track of what was being closed and offer his help as needed. That part made Angie roll her eyes. Offer his help? He was a baby. “I’ve been in sales since Peach Fuzz was in grade school,” Hope had spat angrily when she read the memo over Angie’s shoulder. “Peach Fuzz” was the current nickname she had for Jeremy. It was much less colorful than her previous ones. “That little egomaniac had better stop insulting us.”

  Angie wasn’t really in any danger. She’d been at the game long enough to know how to hedge her bets. She could finagle things if she had to in order to keep Jeremy happy—and not looking too closely at her. She saved orders from last week and included them on this week’s quota report. She wrote up quotes after she actually closed the orders.

  “I can play that little game,” she said to the dashboard.

  But she could also manage the sales staff so much better than he could. She knew it, but there was nothing she could do about it. So she went along, playing the good employee to Jeremy, playing sounding board to her fellow employees. Keith was spitting nails. He’d been at his job for ages and he was the most successful salesperson in the company. Everybody knew it. Common knowledge. Keith brought in more sales than Angie, Hope, and anybody else in the office, combined. The smart thing for Jeremy to do would be to leave Keith alone, let him do his thing, and reap the rewards.

  “Dad always said if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” she said as she turned into the parking lot of Logo Promo.

  Unfortunately for Jeremy, he had the tendency to let his power go to his head on occasion. Not all the time. He wasn’t a bad kid. Angie actually kind of liked him, would like him a lot more if not for the fact that he had ripped the job she had her heart set on right out of her grasp without her ever seeing it coming. But every once in a while, he’d do something stupid, something that jeopardized the good of the overall business.

  Saddling Keith Muldoon with meaningless paperwork that pissed him off was jsut one case. Which planted a seed of an idea in her head that she decided to let germinate. She grabbed her briefcase from the back seat and headed inside.

  In the meantime, Angie was torn between requesting a meeting with Jeremy to give him an ‘annual report’ that was really a tactful assessment of how he’d been handling things over the past year, maybe offering up some advice on how to handle certain people and/or situations, and sitting back, crossing her arms, and watching the whole thing crumble. Not that that’s what would happen. More likely, the old-timers like Keith would move on to another company, Jeremy would bring in fresh blood, and Logo Promo would think it was just fine without them . . . though it wouldn’t be half the business it was before.

  She reached her office, dro
pped her briefcase, and flopped back into her chair, suddenly exhausted. “Christ, I’m forty. I am too old for this shit.”

  At home, she was just as frustrated. Jillian seemed to always be just a little bit annoyed with her. She never remembered her partner being demanding, but lately, that’s how it seemed. Hell, they’d been together for sixteen years; it seemed kind of late for a new personality trait to rear its head, but that’s how it felt. Angie couldn’t do anything right. She worked too much. She drank too much. She didn’t do enough around the house (she’d been scolded last night for leaving dirty dishes in the sink . . . again). She never wanted to talk. She wasn’t interested in sex. She’d become boring.

  None of it was true. Well, okay, maybe the working part was true. And the drinking had been an ongoing issue, but she couldn’t help the fact that she was totally stressed out by her job. Coming home to somebody who did nothing but bitch at her didn’t help. Who wouldn’t want a beer or a glass of wine to calm her nerves? Jesus. She didn’t do much around the house lately; that wasn’t a total lie. But she was so damn tired all the time. That’s also why she wasn’t talking as much. She was on the phone all day at work. The last thing she wanted to do in her spare time was blather on and on. Not that Jillian blathered, but god, could she give Angie fifteen minutes to gain some equilibrium at home before launching into discussion?

  As for the sex . . .

  Angie sighed. She was tired. She was irritable. She was forty. Those were her excuses. Was her sex drive gone? Of course not. Was it the same as it had been when she was twenty-five? Of course not! That only made sense. Jillian had always had a higher drive, or more intense desire. But lately, she was making a connection between their lack of sex and Angie’s attraction to her, and there simply was no such link. Jillian was still the most beautiful, sexiest woman she’d ever met. Age had only improved her appearance, as far as Angie was concerned. The laugh lines around her eyes had become a bit more prominent and Angie loved them. Her tummy was a little less flat and Angie loved it. Her eyes were wiser, her voice was softer, her smile was gentler (except these days when she seemed irritable). Angie was drawn to all of those things. Nothing had changed but the urgency, and in Angie’s eyes, that was normal.

  Jillian didn’t agree. Angie was fairly certain of that. Jillian could tell her exactly how many days/weeks/months it had been since they’d last had sex, and sometimes she would. It drove Angie mad. Jillian also told Angie that she felt old. She felt fat. She thought she was no longer attractive, and no matter what Angie said, Jillian didn’t seem to hear her. She seemed tense. Annoyed. And worst of all: unhappy.

  I’ve been naïve.

  It was a thought that had crossed Angie’s mind often lately. Was it common to assume your own relationship was the exception to the rule? That others may preach about how much work a partnership is, how many bumps there are that you don’t expect, but doesn’t everybody at one time or another think that’s rubbish? Doesn’t everybody, at some point during their own bliss, think, “That will never happen to us” or “We’re not like that”? Angie knew she was guilty of thinking such things. Yes, she and Jillian had an amazing relationship, had always had an amazing relationship, but she was a fool if she thought there were no problems. Her wife was unhappy.

  That thought simultaneously angered Angie and scared the bejesus out of her, mostly because she had no idea how to fix things. And god forbid Jillian should actually talk to her about how she was feeling. Jillian kept everything inside, festering, until it exploded out of her. That impending explosion was something Angie dreaded.

  Advice. She needed advice. But from whom? A number of people crossed her mind: her mother, Hope, Dom, Shay. The idea of talking in depth about her relationship—and more terrifyingly, her sex life—with even close friends made her feel jumpy. This stuff was private. Shouldn’t she be able to figure it out on her own without subjecting herself to embarrassment in front of somebody she cared about?

  Her computer let out a ding, telling her she’d received an e-mail, but she ignored it. Her mind was anywhere but on work, even though that’s where it should have been. A lot of things were on her plate, a lot that needed her attention, but she couldn’t get past the niggling sensation in her brain telling her she was failing as a partner, as a wife. Jillian’s face from that morning filled her head now, the expression of disappointment and worse, resignation.

  Was Jillian still in love with her?

  The thought came unbidden, out of nowhere, and it jerked Angie upright in her chair. She sat ramrod straight, her palms flat on her desk. It was the first time those words had entered her thoughts; she’d never doubted Jillian’s love, never, not once.

  Okay, this is ridiculous, she thought. I’m panicking for no reason. I need to get my shit together and stop this. Right now. Before I drive myself nuts.

  They just needed to talk. That was all. Simple. She’d have to bring it up, of course, because Jillian never would. But Angie could do that. They’d talk, they’d get it all out on the table, and things would be fine.

  There.

  With a curt nod to the empty air in her office, Angie turned to her computer and proceeded to throw herself into her work.

  It was what she did best.

  Twenty-Three

  Jillian sighed as she completed some paperwork at her desk. The kids had been gone for about thirty minutes, and she had a staff meeting in twenty. All she really wanted to do was go home. She felt tired. Run-down.

  Old.

  Holding her right hand up in front of her face, she studied it. The skin was looser than it used to be. Not wrinkled (thank god), not yet, but not tight, the blue veins more prominent than she remembered them being. For the first time, she realized she had her mother’s hands, no longer the strong, pretty hands of a young woman. Instead, hands that had seen better days. Hands that had a lot of miles on them, had done a lot of work.

  Hands of a middle-aged woman.

  Sliding open a desk drawer, she pulled out a makeup mirror and studied her face with the same scrutiny. It was true that everything started to go south as you aged. It seemed the outer corners of her eyes pulled down ever so slightly, the color not as bright as it used to be, crow’s feet frighteningly obvious. Her smile lines no longer disappeared when she stopped smiling; they were there all the time and they horrified her. When did that happen? She still had the dimples, of course, and for that she was happy, but even the texture of her skin seemed to have changed, freckles and blemishes much more apparent than they used to be, her smooth, clear, creamy skin—also her mother’s—a distant memory. Not for the first time, she wondered if her mother had had the same sense of worry, of near-panic when she realized she was no longer a young woman.

  I wish I could ask her.

  Jillian had never thought of herself as somebody who would dread aging, but as forty loomed just over the horizon, she had to fight the urge to turn and run, not that it would help. Angie had handled it with grace and a shrug, stating the simple fact that turning forty was “better than the alternative.” Of course, she was still stunning, and could be well into her sixties. The only adjustment she’d made was coloring her hair. The gray had become a bit too clear in her mid-thirties, so Angie simply had it colored every five weeks. End of story. Other than that, she still looked completely delicious.

  Jillian hated her just a little bit for that.

  Staring into the little mirror, she shook her head back and forth. My god, if I’m this much of a mess now, what will I be like when I hit menopause?

  A knock on her doorjamb saved her from the tears welling in her eyes. It was Marina. “Hey, you. Ready?”

  Jillian nodded, wiping her face quickly, shoving the mirror back into its place.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Marina studied her face as Jillian approached. “You sure?”

  Jillian squeezed Marina’s upper arm in gratitude. “I’m sure.”

  Clearly not convinced, Marina le
t it go. “I think the new gym teacher will be at the meeting.”

  “Phys ed teacher. I don’t think you’re supposed to call them gym teachers.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Lindsey Page had soft brown eyes that were kind and a little bit smoldering. That was the first thing Jillian noticed about her when she was introduced at the staff meeting.

  “Ms. Page comes to us from St. Augustine’s and will be taking over for Mr. Taft, given his heart attack and unexpected retirement.” Carl Ritter was vice principal: scrawny, balding, thick glasses, the kind of man you just knew was picked on as a nerd when he was a student himself. Now he was able to get his revenge by bossing around a new generation of kids, and he often did so with relish.

  “Please welcome Lindsey Page, our new physical education teacher.”

  Nods of welcome, along with hellos, went around the room as the meeting came to a close. Lindsey seemed to gravitate toward Jillian and Marina.

  “Hi,” she said, her voice surprisingly low, a slight gravelly edge to it. “Lindsey.” She held out her hand to Marina, then to Jillian, as they introduced themselves.

  “St. Augustine’s, huh?” Marina asked. “Bit of a change coming from a Catholic school.”

  Lindsey chuckled. “Let’s just say I didn’t agree with some of their values.” Jillian’s gaydar immediately started clanging in her head, and she began to look for other clues as Marina and Lindsey shared Catholic school stories.

  First things first: gym teacher. Always a check mark in the box. One corner of Jillian’s mouth curved up into a half-grin. A definite athletic build, maybe 5’6”, muscular and fit. Yes, very fit. Jillian swallowed, then chewed on the inside of her cheek as she wondered what sports Lindsey might play. Reddish brown hair pulled back into a casual ponytail. That threw Jillian a little bit until she reached up and wrapped a finger around the ends of her own long hair and admitted to herself that hair length meant nothing. Little if any makeup—not that she needed any with those big eyes and full lips. No nail polish, nails filed down neatly.