"Hi, Rita," Jay said, plunking two beers on the table and sitting his fine backside on the seat beside me. "How's it, Dave?"
Rita's dark eyes boggled in outraged surprise. For once the woman was speechless. I clenched my teeth to keep from laughing aloud at her comedic expression, an expression that clearly said "What the hell!?" to anyone who knew her even remotely well.
Dave, on the other hand, took the news in stride. "Good to see ya, Jay," he said, extending his huge hand.
"For sure." Jay grasped his old friend's outstretched palm and shook it warmly as if it was just another day in the neighborhood. "So what's good here, Jess? I was looking at that Meatsa. What do you think?"
Dinner was a hootenanny — really any event that included Rita Garcia on the guest list was a hootenanny — but brawny Dave Higgins proved her consummate match. The two were so hilarious, I wondered fleetingly if they shouldn't do comedy together. Jay and I were in stitches the entire evening listening to their banter. Amazingly, we only spilled one beer at our table, that entirely due to Dave's arm gesturing wildly to describe an injured goose who refused to be retrieved and attacked his hunting dog the previous Sunday. Scared the bejeezus out of the poor thing, and sent it scurrying under the truck with his tail tucked.
"Call the dog shrink!" Rita declared. "You're gonna need professional help if you ever want that dog to retrieve anything ever again."
"I think it's too soon to tell whether there's any permanent mental damage," Dave said with a perfectly straight face. "But I'll keep your recommendation in mind, Ms. Meter."
"Ms. Meter?" I looked at Rita with a raised eyebrow.
"Lovely Rita Meter Maid," Dave smiled at the woman beside him, then waggled his bushy blonde eyebrows. "May I inquire discretely. When are you free to have some fun with me?"
Rita unabashedly batted her eyelashes and we all laughed at Dave's twist on the Beatles lyrics.
"We're headed down to the Riverrun Tavern tonight. You guys should come. Jim Mason Band is playing." Rita posed the invitation as she intertwined her manicured fingers with Dave's rough ones.
"Thanks, but I don't think—" I began.
"Jim Mason? From up Redding way?" Jay interrupted.
"Yup. The very same," Dave confirmed, nodding down at Rita with a devilish grin.
"Haven't seen those guys in a while," Jay said. "We could go for a little bit. Jess?"
"OK. Sure." I shrugged in agreement. Couldn't hurt to watch a band play a set at the Riverrun. After that, I'd excuse myself and go home. No big deal.
Chapter Five
The following morning I awoke to the sound of a squirrel chattering on my bedroom balcony. The nutty rodent was carrying on a one-sided conversation, berating someone or something I could not see from my prone position. Every so often he'd stop and utter a series of "Tchaaa, tchaaa, tchaaa" sounds and flick his long tail back and forth, then he'd scamper up the wrought iron railing and back down again. Since I did not speak squirrel, I had no idea what the deal was, but the sound was unquestionably irritating.
Reaching across the bed, I grabbed my extra pillow and tossed it at the sliding glass door. "Quiet!"
Instead of running off or at least simmering down, the damn thing turned his ire on me, his beady eyes staring at me through the window. "Tchaaa, tchaaa, tchaaa," it scolded, fluffy gray tail twitching.
"What the fuck is your problem?" I sputtered to the rodent as I stumbled out of bed toward the kitchen. Making an about-face at the door frame, I returned to the bedroom to retrieve my bathrobe so as not to flash my inquisitive neighbors.
After the previous night's festivities, I had enough problems of my own beyond one scolding squirrel. Perched on a rickety wooden stool at my breakfast bar, I sipped a cup of watery instant coffee and gazed through my bedroom door at my empty messy bed, remembering all too clearly how it had not been so empty a few hours earlier. Not so empty at all. In fact, it had been delightfully occupied by a handsome man I'd sworn I'd never sleep with in a thousand years. But no way, no how, was I regretting my choice or the fact I'd broken my own "no married men" rule. Thankfully I was sitting down so I could catch my breath while the memories of the night before flooded my mind and the resulting weakness in my knees could pass without dumping me onto the carpeted floor.
Speaking of the floor, I turned to face the living room and blushed. The mess there consisted mostly of blankets and sofa cushions and two telltale Heineken beer bottles abandoned half full.
What the hell had I been thinking?
The answer was all too obvious: I hadn't been thinking — at least not all that clearly. No, that wasn't entirely accurate. I couldn't in good conscience make any excuses for my behavior. I had been thinking, all right, and I'd decided to let consequences be damned. Last night I hadn't cared about tomorrow or the next day; all I cared about was Jay. Jay and I. Us. All I cared about was us, and the wonderful soaring feeling that being with him gave me.
Perhaps it had been inevitable. Or perhaps I was simply one of those "other women" who had affairs with married low-down cheating men. Didn't matter.
Rita's invitation to go to Riverrun Tavern was the beginning of the end to Jay's and my friendship. Not that we were no longer friends, but we were well downstream from that label. Anyway, he and I were listening to the Jim Mason band while Rita and Dave made out on the other side of the table, when the lead guitarist struck the beginning licks to Jay's favorite Willie Nelson tune.
"Come on," Jay'd said, grabbing me by the hand and up out of my seat.
My first inclination had been to politely refuse, but then common sense prevailed and I figured it was just a dance. No harm in that, right?
I'd never been so wrong in my life.
Looking back the morning after, I figured if it hadn't been a slow dance — or even if it had been a slow dance, but a different song — the evening would have turned out different. But the thing was, Jay and I were there in that place at that moment in time together, and what happened, happened. The lyrics to My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys hit close to home for Jay, close to his heart, and when he gathered me into his arms, his heart became my heart. There's no other way to describe it. That same thing that happened in the restaurant when he touched my hand happened again, where the world faded away and it was just him and me, as if we'd always been together. As if there had always been an us.
And nothing else mattered.
"Sadly in search of, and one step in back of, themselves and their slow movin' dreams." Jay whispered the lyrics in my ear as the song ended. Then he pulled back and looked into my eyes, and what he said next changed whatever friendship we might have forged forever. "I been dreamin' 'bout someone like you Jess. Since way before I met you... I been alone so long, and now that we're here, I just..." He stopped speaking then, and kissed me. And kept kissing me, because I'd melted against him and was kissing him back.
We left Dave and Rita at that corner table in the club without saying good-bye and the rest of our adventurous evening resulted in the mess I was looking at in my apartment that very moment.
Now what? I thought in the shower, dreading Monday morning although it was still two days away. I'd broken my own "no married men" rule and I'd done it with someone I worked with. How dumb was that? How was I supposed to I face a man I've just boinked all night in a work setting and pretend we're nothing but colleagues?
Always eager to share her delectable weekend report, Rita showed up at my office door at 8:07 Monday morning, her Cheshire cat grin beaming. Dressed in an emerald green pantsuit over an ivory lace camisole, she handed me a fresh cup of black coffee, then leaned her elbows on the service counter. "How was your weekend?"
"Good," I said, smiling my practiced office girl smile hoping Rita didn't notice. "Yours?"
"Fucking awesome," she gushed, then launched into the tale of Dave Higgins asking her out and spending the weekend at his place in Glen Allen, and how funny he was, and what a great time they'd had. In more ways than one. In ever
y way imaginable.
"Jess, are you listening?" Rita's question penetrated my foggy brain ten minutes later.
"Absolutely," I smiled from the safety of my office chair. "Sounds wonderful, Reets. He's functional and ornamental, a great combination if you ask me. The best type of boyfriend to have. Especially since he has a job."
"You got that right," Rita smiled, her dark eyes sparkling way brighter than I'd seen them in months. "I didn't know Jay and Dave were friends, but I guess they go way back, huh?"
"Yeah. I guess," I said, then began straightening some file folders in my inbox.
"You OK?" Rita turned her high-beam eyes on me. "Where exactly did you two go after you left us at the Riverrun Friday?"
"Home. I went home." I said the words as convincingly casual as I dared. It wasn't exactly that I didn't want Rita to know, it was more that I didn't really want to talk about my weekend in the office where anyone could walk in and overhear.
Speeding around the counter, Rita stood beside my desk, her dark eyes narrowing. "Stand up," she insisted.
Unable to resist her big sister voice, I promptly did, teetering slightly on my high heels.
"Why are you wearing loose jeans and that baggy, ratty sweater to work?"
"What's wrong with this sweater?" I said, feigning outrage. "My mother gave me this sweater for my birthday last year."
"Exactly. It's middle-age housewife comfort clothes and you know it. Where is your eye shadow and lipstick? Are you sick or something?"
"NO! For goodness sakes, Reets... I felt casual today, so I dressed down. No big deal."
"Alright already. Cheese whilikers, girl. Come on, let's go over to Accounting and steal some of their hazelnut creamer." Rita grabbed me by the elbow and propelled me around the counter through the Service Department lobby.
"I don't use creamer."
"No, but I do," she smiled. "Walk with me." Rita opened the glass door and held her manicured hand out in invitation.
Whatever, I thought and strolled past her. The errand would take five minutes. I walked into the parking lot and turned to Rita, only to find her a good eight steps behind me.
"I thought we were going to Accounting to steal creamer." I stopped and waited for her to catch up.
"We are," Rita said, grinning at me. "I just wanted to confirm something first."
"I'm lost here, Reets. What are you talking about? Confirm what exactly?" Rita's shenanigans were proving too challenging for me first thing on a Monday morning and I was losing patience.
"I wanted to confirm you spent at least one night this weekend fucking your brains out with Jay Green and are still sore in the legs from all the fun." Rita sauntered past me, chin high, as if she'd just won the Nobel Peace Prize in Body Language Analysis. "Tell me it ain't true. "
Groaning, I raked my hands through my still damp hair. "Is it that obvious?" I wailed, my voice cracking with the strain.
"Not on you," Rita assured me. "But if you'd seen Jay this morning, there'd be no doubt in your mind the man had been well and truly fucked quite recently. The shit-eating grin on his face gave it away. I knew the second I laid eyes on him he'd been to heaven for the first time in a long time. And I guessed heaven might look a little bit like you."
Rita gently put her hand on my arm. "But I didn't think you'd be this upset about it. What's wrong? Did he hurt you?" She studied me closely, her huge brown eyes meeting mine.
"No. Nothing like that," I immediately shook my head. "Not at all. It was amazing. Better than amazing. But I don't know how I'm supposed to see him at work without.... Everyone's gonna know, right?" I suddenly felt acutely embarrassed thinking about Early Wyse and the entire shop — including Kevin's friends Jim and Terry — staring at me knowing I'd been to bed with the new foreman.
"No one is going to know for sure unless someone tells them, but folks may guess," Rita nodded. "I'll tell you what though, everyone already knows Jay and Candy have one of those "open" marriage arrangements. That whole business with Dave and Gina." Rita flapped her hand in the air. "Dave told me all about it this weekend. Gossip from Redding to Sonoma travels faster than you might think."
"Shitfire," I said, taking a deep breath. "What have I gotten myself into?"
"Nothing to beat yourself up over, sweetie. You wanted to. He wanted to. You're both consenting adults. Don't forget, Candy doesn't want Jay. If she did, she wouldn't be fucking around on him every few years. With their history, I'm figuring he'll tell her, so it ain't gonna be a secret where someone's being betrayed and hurt — not if their marriage is as "open" as it seems she's always insisted it was. Folks who are all prim and religious and shit will say you'll be damned to hell for screwing the guy, but that's eighteenth century thinking. Come on." Rita linked her arm with mine and pulled me along. We meandered across the tarmac together, quiet for a few moments. Dark rain clouds hovered over the coastal hills, promising a shower by lunchtime.
"You like him a lot, huh?"
Rita's question didn't entirely surprise me. My friend could be amazingly perceptive at times.
"Yeah, Reets. I do." And that was precisely the problem. I probably liked Jay Green way too much for my own good. But then we don't always get to pick who we love. Sometimes it just happens when we least expect it.
Chapter Six
The next few months Jay and I lived a version of Kenny Rogers Daytime Friends and Nighttime Lovers: working at the shop weekdays, pizza Friday nights, and talking and making love into the early hours Saturday mornings until he headed home to his family. I'd fallen for a man who understood me in a way no one else ever had, someone who thought I was smart and funny, someone who really listened to what I said and thought my interests and opinions were important. Jay was a man who I found I respected — for what he'd made out of his life despite his lean childhood , for his commitment to doing the right thing even when it was difficult, for his keen knowledge and expertise in his field. Working with him, I got to see Jay was a good boss, demanding, but fair, always encouraging, but not one to put up with shirking or inattentive mistakes. Somewhere along the line, he'd become a good leader, a man other men respected and willingly followed.
Some people undoubtedly thought our arrangement was twisted, that I was some kind of seductress stealing Jay away from his home life, or that Jay was some kind of playboy getting a piece of ass on the side. Others just thought Jay and Candy were doing one of those "open marriage" things again and I was a naive little college girl he'd talked into their swingers game — him being ten years older and wiser and me being so young, dumb, and gullible. Those were just a few of the comments we heard through the grapevine. In the absence of information, folks will make up a story just to have something interesting to gossip about. People painted us with a dirty brush because they could. But our relationship wasn't even remotely like what anyone imagined.
Not at all.
Jay and I were simply enjoying every minute we had. Not talking about the future. Just staying in the now. Because now was all we had.
One late Friday night in January before he headed home, Jay pulled a paperback novel out of his Carhart coat pocket and handed it to me. The Reincarnation of Peter Proud by Max Ehrlich.
"What's this?" I said, thumbing the worn pages. Although I believed in reincarnation, I didn't usually read those paranormal suspense novels that skewed metaphysical concepts into horror stories.
"I found this on Candy's bookshelf a month or so back. I actually read it. I don't read very fast, so it took me a long time. But I want you to read it. Please." Jay's blue eyes were serious.
"OK. You want me to read it because..." I knew there was more to his out-of-left-field request.
"Because I think it explains a lot," Jay said, collecting his truck keys from the breakfast bar. "About us."
He gathered me into his arms and kissed me on the forehead. "Will you?"
"Sure," I said, snuggling against his muscular frame. "And then I want to hear what you really think about it. Deal?"
"Deal. Love you, babe."
"Love you too," I said, reluctantly releasing him. A moment later his boot steps echoed in the stairwell as he descended into the rainy night.
The next day I spent the morning in the Sonoma State library conducting research for my Social Psychology paper. The rain had left the campus drenched and dripping, creating ponds out of potholes and permeating the air with a soggy chill. The library grew busier as morning waned into afternoon, so I gathered some books into my oversize backpack and headed home, determined to get the assignment off the ground, if not a handful of pages drafted.
The baseboard heater in my apartment protested against working overtime, so I turned on the oven for few minutes for a quick blast of heat. Wrapping myself into an oversize sweater, I brewed a cup of licorice tea and studied the psychology tomes now stacked in three neat piles on my breakfast bar. Better get to it, I thought, my hand grabbing the book atop the shortest stack on my way to my sagging oversized living room sofa.
The couch was positioned with a view out the wide front windows, its back kitty-corner to the entryway. I settled into the voluminous cushions beneath my rainbow granny-square afghan and took a luscious sip of tea, letting the smooth licorice warmth fill my chest. Rain beat against the windows, drops driven sideways by the gusty wind — a good day to be indoors. Expecting Caccioppo's Attitudes and Persuasions, I opened the book in my lap only to find Ehrlich's The Reincarnation of Peter Proud.
Fine, I thought, accepting the inadvertent diversion, I'll read the first chapter. At least then I could say I started the book if Jay asked. Three hours later I reached the end of Part I: Proud had found the town he'd seen in his dream in Massachusetts, the place he'd lived before he died, but he didn't yet know his name from that lifetime.
Never Say Never (Sonoma Summers Series Book 1) Page 3