Elise was ready to wave her white flag and pack up for California and the things she did know. With a huff of exasperated air, she said, “I guess Sprite is safe.”
“I’ll be right back.” She walked off, shaking her head and ripping the slip from her order pad.
Elise huddled down close to the table’s surface, as though she was getting ready to go over a game plan with her teammates. “If we do all right here, I will take you to the park.” She waited to see their little heads nod in agreement. “But if you don’t, we will go and sit with Grandma and Aunt Hildie and I’ll make you eat tuna!”
They screamed as Elise put her hands over their mouths. And then it happened.
The bells on that door rang, screaming for her to look up. It was him. Oh, shit. Her bodily functions locked as her eyes narrowed in on his dark tanned skin and incredibly wide, white smile. Like looking through the end of a paper towel roll, targeting on small pieces, she found that dimple on his left cheek. Her muscles, thoughts, nerve endings...they were all shutting down. Although her eyes seemed unable to close, along with her gaping mouth.
Mason dropped the pepper shaker and snapped Elise from her trance. Her mouth closed and her eyes refreshed from a quick blink. Would it be obvious to play a game of eating under the table? Ben walked in after the cute blonde in her lacy white top that contrasted with her perfectly tanned body. He hadn’t changed, only had become more attractive. Manlier. He’d taken off his cowboy hat the moment his feet stepped inside the establishment. Elise’s heart received the message her brain was sending and sent a jolt of adrenaline through her body. It made her tingle as heat rose to the surface of her face. This was it.
He saw her. Their eyes settled on one another like magnets. He ushered his Barbie to one of the front booths and bent over, telling her something. His face was turned so Elise couldn’t attempt lip reading. After he sat his hat down on the seat, he turned and walked toward Elise. She licked her very dry mouth to prevent her lips from sticking to her teeth. Where in the hell was Amanda with her coffee? Or the escape hatch to this place?
He reached her table. What was protocol? Was she to stand and hug him? Smile, say hello, and stay seated? What was expected when seeing the guy you left and subsequently could not move forward in life because of?
Her shaky legs supported her as she stood, leaning in with a one-armed hug, her body on auto-pilot. He smelled so good that she had to close her eyes to fully appreciate it. Like a good wine that tickled your nose and made you wait with anticipation for a drink. Her cheek touched his neck. It was warm, making her want to curl closer. They moved apart. It took three seconds flat and it was over.
“Daddy,” yelled Faith.
“Hey, guys.” He glanced down at them before settling his eyes on Elise. “Hi, Elise. It’s good to see you.”
“Hi, Ben. It’s good to see you, too.” She sat down and Amanda waited beside him, holding a tray of drinks.
Ben moved to the side and waited. “I see you two are catching up.” Amanda was the town’s biggest newspaper contributor. She just didn’t get paid for it.
“Not really. He’s just checking on Mason and Faith.” Elise didn’t want to give the illusion to anyone that she and Ben were ‘talking’ again.
Amanda put the drinks down and left, unable to get any juicy information from the table that fell silent while she was there.
“I see you’re here with someone. I’m sure she’s feeling a little weird sitting by herself.” Elise looked over and saw Blondie staring in her direction. She pretended not to stare as she opened Faith’s straw.
He turned around and checked his date. “She’ll be all right.” He looked at the kids who were both vying for his attention, tugging at him to sit down. “Are you all going to be good for Elise today?”
“Yes, Daddy. But why can’t you eat lunch with us?” asked Mason.
“I came with a friend. But maybe I’ll see you later.” His tone was low. Lower than theirs. Maybe it would catch on with his children to be quieter than they had been. Elise wasn’t used to traveling with a two-member circus.
Ben focused his attention on Elise. “If you need anything, let me know.”
That was a loaded proposition. “Melanie gets off later. I promise to keep them alive until then.” She forced a smile to her lips and hoped her shaking knee was safely hidden under the Formica tabletop.
“All right. I’ll see you all later.”
He walked back to the table to probably answer a million questions about who was with his children and why they hugged. Elise could spot an insecure girl thirty paces away. And the way she touched Ben when he sat down told her that one didn’t let him stray too far.
Luckily it wasn’t long before the food arrived. Amanda seemed disappointed to see Ben had retreated to his own side of the restaurant. It wasn’t two seconds after Elise opened their pouches of honey mustard that Faith had to go the bathroom. “Honey, can’t you wait? I’m starving and I just need a few bites.”
“I’ll go poop in my pants. I promise.” She jiggled back and forth, holding her belly with a squeamish look on her face.
“You better take her. She’ll do it in her pants, if you don’t,” Mason warned, sticking a salty French fry in his mouth.
Elise flung her napkin on the table, letting out a groan. “Come on, then.” She looked at Mason. “You, too. I can’t leave you. Melanie would kill me if I left you anywhere by
yourself.”
“I’m not going in the girls’ room. No way,” he stated firmly.
The waitress dropped by at that moment to see if everything was all right. “Amanda, could you sit with Mason while I take Faith to the bathroom?”
“Honey, I have tables to serve. I’ll go get Ben for you.” Before she could stop her, Amanda was at Ben’s table pointing back at her, explaining something. He walked over to them. Shit, shit, shit.
“I can sit with Mason. Go ahead.”
“I can’t believe Amanda asked you.” Elise looked at Mason with an evil eye. “He could have come with us.”
“Not likely,” Ben said. “He isn’t a girl.”
“I know that,” she said, taking Faith’s hand. “It wouldn’t have killed him just this once. It’s not like there will be anything more inappropriate than a toilet in there!”
Elise stood at the sink, waiting for Faith to finish washing her hands. She looked at her reflection in the mirror.
Why hadn’t she straightened her hair that morning? The heat seemed to be counteracting with her natural curl and was frizzing up the ends. Scarecrows looked better. She splashed some water on the ends and tried to smooth them out. When Faith was finished wiping her hands, dread swept over Elise about returning to the table. She hoped Ben was gone. But he wasn’t. He had cut up Faith’s food and was talking with Mason when they returned.
“Thanks. I hope I didn’t ruin your lunch with your date.” She had to hit the ‘date’ button one more time. Was she jealous? Not on your life. That time of her life was over. That opportunity lost by hers truly.
“You didn’t. It’s just lunch.”
He stood up from the table, and their eyes became level with one another. The smog of tension was making it hard for her to breathe naturally. Was she hitting him with the forced air from her fighting lungs? Easy yoga breaths. Count.
“Thanks, again.” She took a seat and tried her best not to watch his back as he walked away. His butt was one of her guilty pleasures. The thought of it naked made her cheeks heat.
For the next ten or so minutes, she rushed the children through lunch. Watching him glance over at her made little of her appetite. The coconut meringue pie would have to wait until she could fully enjoy it with rolled-back eyes and moans. She paid the check and tried to make it out without an additional scene. The kids ran over to him before a successful getaway. Elise waited at the door for them to finish and flashed a smile without true eye contact before leaving.
Luckily the car started and she headed for the park. This calle
d for a lengthy telephone call to her friend and sponsor, Kelly. She needed outside reinforcement to stop her craving for a piece of her past. She had been doing so well with Darren. Well sort of. Letting her visit back home destroy the mountain climb of an ‘I love you’ to her boyfriend was not advisable. She just needed a voice other than the one in her head to say so.
She parked in the open lot and opened the back door. The children took off like flies from a mason jar. “You better be careful, and no dare deviling,” she yelled as they clearly were ignoring her.
She sat down in the grass under a huge oak tree and took out her phone. After she read a text message from Darren wishing her success in her day, she dialed Kelly’s number. While she waited for her to answer, she stroked the green grass, its softness bending with her touch. Nothing like the sharp blades of California.
“Hello?”
“Thank God. Are you busy? I have a crisis.” Elise took note where the kids were playing. They were crossing back and forth over a kiddie bridge, playing imaginary sword fighting.
“That’s what I’m here for. Please tell me you’re still potentially engaged.”
“Engaged? What the hell have you been smoking? I told him I loved him. Kill me now.” Elise screamed toward the sky. “But I spent the whole plane ride analyzing it and getting over the fact that I didn’t suddenly melt into a puddle because of it.”
“Plane ride? Where are you?”
“Oh, right. I haven’t kept you up to speed, have I? I’m in Kentucky. I’m watching my sister’s kids for a week while my mother recovers from foot surgery.”
“Kentucky?”
“Yes, now listen to my new problem.” Elise talked fast, so she could get it all on the table in order for her friend to solve her spiraling world situation. “I was settling down from the whiplash of the airport confession. By the way, I told him as he loaded my bags on a sky shuttle. Why is it that things that are allowed to loiter in your head for years are given an expiration date of when the plane’s propellers begin to spin in the distance? It’s like you have ten seconds and counting to say what you should have said two months ago.” She was barely taking breaths in between sentences, still keeping an eye on the children.
“Anyway, I began feeling less and less nauseated from hearing myself say it to him, in my mind. You know, kind of like realizing I wasn’t a wooden puppet after all? I was a real girl and could say real things? Let alone, feel it?” Elise didn’t wait for the rhetorical answer.
“So then, in walks Ben.”
Kelly interrupted her. “Ben? Old lover Ben?”
“Yes,” answered Elise.
“The one you fled, Ben? The past, Ben? The one you should never see again, Ben?”
Boy, her best friend really did know her well. “Yes, all those Bens. So, the question is, did I really mean...could I really mean I loved Darren if at the very moment I saw Ben, I imagined him without clothes? Well, sort of. I saw him with clothes, my heart had a seizure, then I imagined the clothes somehow disappearing. Impulsive, I guess. Like when you’re about to descend down a rollercoaster hill, you close your eyes. When I see Ben’s tight butt in jeans, his clothes suddenly fall off. Not to mention I become very jarred at his very presence. It’s been twelve years and I still can’t be unaffected.”
“Okay, Elise.” Kelly charged in to get a word in edgewise. “You need to listen and listen good. Get out of Kentucky. You are on dangerous ground. You just finished a triathlon of some sort by telling Darren your feelings. Bravo, by the way. It’s about time. Now, it’s natural to be weakened by such an outpouring of emotion. You’re vulnerable. It’s the best time to go back and be with Darren. Shake off the wooden planks you’ve been wearing for nine months and settle down into a good relationship. Kentucky is going to set you back.”
“I can’t go back there now! I know he’s just waiting for the perfect moment to corner me and ask that I say it again.”
“Don’t you want to? Don’t you think that after three seasons with the same guy, he doesn’t deserve some form of commitment from you? I’m your best friend. I know he’d die before hurting you.”
The kids had jumped from the bridge and began running wildly to the parking lot. Her eyes scanned that way and saw a Ford Explorer parked. It was Ben.
“Oh, shit. I’ve got to go. He’s here.”
“Who’s there?”
“Ben. What in the world is he doing here? Do I have a low-jack for guys who are looking to destroy me? I’ll call you later when I can talk. I heard what you said, Kelly. I know he’s good for me. I’ll try and figure out my problem.”
She hung up the phone without waiting for Kelly’s response and tried to inhale some definition into her posture.
Something to seem more confident that Ben didn’t affect her. She wondered how it looked to the unsuspecting, figuring he knew her better than she knew herself. It was a skill he had never lost.
Ben jumped out of his vehicle and handed Mason a play truck and Faith some small items. Elise squinted her eyes, trying to figure it out. She straightened up more as he made his way to her, pulling at the bottom of her shirt to cover where it’d raised up from leaning back on the comfy grass.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
His tight jeans walked right over to her and crouched down. She tried her best not to leave her eyes on them too long. She put her phone down in the grass and looked toward the kids.
“I was getting off the phone, anyway. I see you are either very skeptical I can watch them or this was also your time for recess. Speaking of children, where is your date?”
“Ouch,” he said, grimacing. “She’s hardly a child. And for your information, she works a late shift at the hospital today. Did you know they let fifteen-year-olds give shots and take blood now?”
Game on.
“So, she gets her driver’s license next year? It was good of you to drive her, then.”
Ben looked ahead, smiling. He always said he could never win a match of wits with her. “No. Mason told me you were bringing them here and I just wanted to bring their toys. You know, the ones they usually bring, but you might have forgotten some because you were too busy packing your cell phone?”
Elise figured she’d stop before the digging went ‘history deep,’ somewhere she never visited, and certainly would never invite Ben.
“Touché.”
She began replacing the bald spots with the grass she’d just pulled out while she was on the phone with Kelly. Was he going to stay the whole time or what? Meditation was not performed that morning to prepare her for this. She rolled her head around on her shoulders. They had never had a problem in the past with discomfort of being together. But then again, they usually filled the silence with some form of touch.
“Well, I guess I’ll take advantage of this unscheduled visit and go play with them. Do you mind?” He stood up and looked down at her. His very presence was killing her. Slowly unhinging all her doors of defenses, opening up the wounds of her past regrets.
“Not at all.”
She watched him as he ran toward them. What an awesome dad. He sat on the dirt and drove Mason’s dump truck back and forth, loading Faith’s dolls and taking them for rides. Elise’s eyes grew heavy watching them. The sun draped a blanket of warmth on her and the ground beckoned her to become more comfortable. She laid back and stared up into the millions of branches in the tree. Before she got to number twenty, she was asleep.
First her nose itched, then her ear. She swatted them both and then heard uncontrollable giggling. She jumped, freaked out about where she was and if it was nighttime yet. It had only been fifteen minutes, but she had slipped into a wonderful slumber. After all, she was still missing a few hours of sleep from the time change of the night before.
“Mason, stop,” Ben said authoritatively to the little boy who was stirring a blade of grass in his aunt’s ear.
Elise sat up, dazed and confused. But most of all, completely embarrassed. “Oh, shit. Did
I fall asleep?”
“Shit,” laughed Faith.
“Don’t say that, Faith,” Ben said with popping eyes at Elise.
“Oh, shit.” Elise just didn’t get when to stop the expletives. “I’m sorry.” She put her hand over Faith’s mouth. “Don’t say that, honey. It’s an ugly word. How long was I asleep, anyway?”
“Not long, but the kids don’t have sun screen on and I’m afraid they’re going to get burned if they stay out.” Ben extended his hand to help her up. Two awkward seconds passed as she thought about the consequences of touching him. She gave into the argument in her head and accepted. Skin to skin. Contact was made. Not a good idea.
He pulled her within inches of him. She quickly stepped backward, her oxygen level dangerously low. Fog swirled in her head, and she braced her hand against the tree. Mason handed her the phone she’d left on the ground.
“Thank you, Mason. Well, then are you all ready to go home?” What child wants to leave a play yard? She must’ve missed the memo on the sun’s UV rays and little people.
“Daddy said we can go for ice cream.”
Faith clapped her hands, smiling from ear to ear. Elise froze from the suggestion. Time with him, one on one (well, three), wasn’t in the plan for the day.
“Guys, we have to go check on Grandma.”
That answer was as popular to them as the dentist and the Boogey Man. Faith threw her dollies down and grabbed her daddy’s legs.
“I’m sorry.” Elise looked at Ben, thanking him for destroying her hero image.
He stooped down to Faith and Mason’s height. “I forgot about Grandma, guys. You have to go and check to make sure she’s okay. Maybe we’ll do it another time.”
Faith burned a nasty look into Elise’s forehead and Mason walked like a whipped dog to Elise’s car. Her celebrity was tarnished with one slip of the tongue from Ben. Puppy killer had become her new identity.
“Let’s get in Mommy’s car, Faith. I promise we’ll go next time,” Ben promised.
He buckled in the kids and talked with them in the back seat as Elise waited at the rear of the car. He shut the door and walked toward her.
The Kentucky Cure Page 8