by Laney Kay
Does that make me a bad person? Maybe, but mostly I just think that makes me a human. We all want justice, and I think one of the best forms of justice is when the universe gives someone exactly what he deserves.
As I drove around the corner toward my house, I felt the little jump of happiness. My beautiful little home. It’s so weird how some things in your life just belong to you from the moment you see them. My little Bug convertible was that way. The first time I saw it, I knew it was mine, and every time I see it, it makes me smile. Each of my dogs is that way. Now, the house is the same way. When I pull in the driveway, I feel peaceful and happy. It’s so cute, it’s so warm, and it already totally feels like home.
But, as I pulled into my driveway, my peaceful feeling rocketed away. Shit. Why in the hell is Bobby at my house? It actually kind of freaked me out, like I’d somehow conjured him out of thin air. Damn it, my grandmother was right, God don’t like ugly. The minute I start to think mean things about Bobby he shows up in my yard.
As I pulled in, Bobby waved uncertainly. Come to think of it, he was probably uncomfortable with him being on foot and me being in the car. The dogs were going crazy trying to get to Bobby since they hadn’t seen him in months, which actually made me feel a little bad. Bobby had lived with all of them since they were puppies, and I’m sure they missed him. Of course, they also didn’t know that he had left all of us to live with some pre-teen skank, but hey, they are just dogs. I put the car in park, put up the top, and pulled the keys out of the ignition, shaking them in front of Bobby so he’d know he was safe from another incident of unintentional vehicular assault. I grabbed the leashes and we stepped out of the car, just as Bobby rounded the corner of the car and bent down to get his delirious greeting. I pulled the dogs away from him and started towards the front door. “How’s the leg? I see you’re not limping.”
He straightened up. “Yeah, everything healed up fine, no problems.”
“Congratulations.” I started pulling the dogs up the walk and he followed us to the front door.
When I started to unlock it, he was right behind me. I raised my eyebrows at how close he was and he smiled and backed off a little. “You mind if I come in?”
Actually, I did mind. A lot. One of the things I liked best about the house is that there were no memories of Bobby anywhere in it, which made it much easier in my post-divorce adjustment process. I handed him the leashes and pointed to the gate to the backyard. “No, you take the pups back to the screened porch and I’ll meet you there in a minute.”
He shrugged and headed to the back. As soon as he rounded the corner, I threw open the door and ran through the house to the back door and opened the door to the porch. He was letting the boys off their leashes to run in the backyard. I told him, “Have a seat, and I’ll be right back.” I went back inside and grabbed a couple of glasses of tea and came back out on the porch. I handed him a glass and took a seat on the glider across from him.
“What do you want, Bobby?”
He could not have looked more uncomfortable as he avoided my question. “Wow, Daisy. This house is really pretty. Can I get a tour? I’d love to see what you’ve done with the inside.”
By that time, I was getting irritated. “Maybe later. Is there a problem with the divorce or the settlement?”
He shook his head. “No, everything’s fine. That was really great that you found a buyer so quickly.”
I put down my tea down on the table next to me. “Yeah, well, that was all Lola. I had nothing to do with it. Again, Bobby, what do you want?”
He looked down at his glass and started fiddling with the condensation on the outside. I knew he did that when he was nervous or uncomfortable, so I just waited. Finally, he lifted his head to meet my gaze, took a deep breath, and started to talk. “I just wanted to tell you I was sorry that I hurt you and that, on some level, I’ll always love you. I really want us to be friends.”
I felt my face get hot and I could tell my blood pressure was shooting up. I clenched my hands together, fighting the urge to punch him in the throat. “Friends? Really Bobby? Yeah, I can’t see that happening any time soon, because sneaking around behind my back and lying to my face isn’t what friends do.”
He hung his head for a moment, then started to reach for my clenched hands before thinking better of it and pulling it back. He met my eyes again. “Look, you’re right. What I did was terrible, but I really miss seeing everyone. I know it’s way too early right now, but I was thinking that maybe next season we could all join up for a Georgia game. I mean, just because we’re done as a couple doesn’t mean we can’t all still be friends.”
I just sat there with my mouth open. Seriously? He thought he and his prepubescent baby mama could join all of us for a game? I really didn’t know what to say. How freaking clueless can one stupid man be?
I pasted an insincere smile on my face and leaned forward. “Sure, Bobby, I think that’s a great idea. I’ll tell you what. You give Lola, Sara and Mo a call and ask them how they’d feel about hanging out with you and Barbie, and if they say yes, we can all hang out together.” From the horrified expression on his face, I think the mental picture of what Mo, Lola and Sara would say, and possibly do, to him after a request like that freaked him out. “You’ll be lucky to make it out with your remaining testicle intact.” I gave a little laugh, leaned back, crossed my arms over my chest and winked at him. “Just let me know when you make that call, because that is a show I would not want to miss.”
He sat back and took a long swig of his tea. Monroe had come onto the porch and was sitting by Bobby waiting to be scratched. Bobby absently began scratching above his tail sending Monroe into a happy dance of ecstasy.
I pushed the glider into a slow rock and changed the subject. “The dogs miss you. Any time you want to see them, you’re welcome to come take them for a walk. And by ‘you’, I mean you, not you and little Miss Skanks-a-lot.”
He rolled his eyes. “Really? ‘Little Miss Skanks-a-Lot’? Nice.” Although it did make him smile.
I wasn’t ready to make nice. I picked up my glass and drained it, then I stopped the swing as I planted both feet on the floor, narrowed my eyes, and glared at him. “Bobby, here’s the way I see it. I’m nowhere near being okay with your girlfriend, so you’d better get used to that. There’s not a snowflake’s chance in hell that the two of y’all will be going anywhere with all of us. I can’t speak for Harrison and Mark, but they’re not really thrilled with you at the moment and they sure as hell aren’t going to piss off their wives, so you might be out of luck on that front, too.”
Bobby slammed his glass on the little side table. “Shit, Daisy, What do you want from me? I told you I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did.”
I was furious. “Oh please, shit like that doesn’t just happen, Bobby. All you had to do was keep it in your pants. What are you saying, you were walking by her desk, for some reason she was totally naked and spread eagled on her desk, you tripped and just fell in? If so, that’s a horrible workplace injury and you should talk to your daddy about the agency taking over child support since that’s what resulted from your little ‘accident.’”
“It wasn’t like that.”
I felt my blood pressure rising so much I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. Damn it, I would be so pissed if I had a stroke and keeled over dead in front of him, so I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Really Bobby? What was it ‘like’? You say you’ve always loved me, you say you’ve always been my friend, but you were so disrespectful of me and our twenty plus years together that you screwed around behind my back? If you wanted to be with your little trashy girlfriend, you should have had the decency to get a divorce first then do whatever the hell you wanted. I would never have done something like that to you. You don’t do that to someone you supposedly care about.”
Bobby slumped in his chair. He knew I was right and that there was really nothing left to say. He patted Monroe and stood up to leave.
He looked me in the eye. “Daisy, I really am sorry.”
I stood up and met his gaze. “I do believe you’re sorry, Bobby. But it doesn’t really matter because it doesn’t change anything. You did a really shitty thing to me and you’re going to have to live with the consequences, whatever they may be.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to go, but I wasn’t quite done. “Oh, and by the way, one of those consequences is that you’re no longer welcome to sit in Lola’s seats, so you might want to start looking for your own tickets.”
He actually staggered back a little. To a good old Southern boy like Bobby, the loss of 50 yard line box seats at the Georgia game is about the worst thing that could happen. He nodded and left.
I leaned back on the glider and started a gentle swing. Monroe and Cletus jumped on the glider with me and pushed their big hound heads onto my lap. I started petting them and scratching under their chins and they immediately fell asleep. Within about a minute, Diego jumped up on the glider, wiggled his way in between the other dogs’ heads and went to sleep.
So there I was, in my beautiful little house, with a lap full of dogs on my fabulous glider, and all I felt was sad. I guess that’s normal. Lola had commented late one night that losing Bobby is like losing my younger self because he was a part of everything I ever did from the time I was eighteen years old. I miss all of us hanging out together, I miss our get togethers before the game, and I miss our walks after dinner. The truth is, I’ve started to realize I miss the idea of Bobby more than I miss the actual Bobby, but it’s still sad.
I wonder what Bobby’s going to do a couple of years from now when he wakes up and realizes what his life has become and what he’s lost? The truth is that I’ll still have the same friends, we’ll all still hang out together and go to games and take weekend trips, and Bobby won’t have any of that. Of course, he still has plenty of casual friends he can hang out with, but they’re not the same types of friends that he’s lost. Interesting. And totally not my problem.
I stopped rocking and told the boys to come inside to get something to eat. They flew off the glider and through the doggie door, I grabbed the empty glasses and followed through the big girl door. I fixed them their dinners and then took the cellphone on the porch to call Lola and tell her about Bobby’s visit.
I told her what happened and she was quiet as she thought about what I had told her. “Well, why do you think he actually came over? Was he really just trying to apologize for being such a huge dick?”
Good question. “I do think he feels bad about what happened, but I think his main problem is that he doesn’t like that I apparently got all of y’all in the divorce.” Lola laughed, and I continued. “Seriously, I think he was seriously bummed when he heard that Mark and Harrison had gone on an all-day golfing extravaganza last weekend and he wasn’t included. I think he’s gotten a taste of what his life is going to be like, and he doesn’t like it, so he’d hoped I’d say we can all be best buds and hang out together.”
“He’s such a dumbass.” I laughed at the disgust in Lola’s voice. “As if we’d do anything with him and Baby Skank. I’m pissed that you got to tell him about the tickets. I really wanted to be the one to tell him so that I could see his face.”
“I’m really sorry I spoiled your fun, but the timing was perfect. And, Lola, if it makes you feel better, he looked like he’d been shot. It obviously had not occurred to him yet.”
“Well, I’m sorry I missed it, for all kinds of reasons, but it is interesting. Maybe reality is starting to bite him on the ass.”
“Maybe so. I’m going to tell Harrison and Mark that they didn’t have to stop hanging out with Bobby, but please not to do it if I’m around.”
Lola snorted. “Yeah, I don’t think that’ll be an issue. Mark and Harrison are pissed that Bobby would go behind your back like that.” She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, basically they think he’s an idiot.”
I was so lucky to have these people. “That’s because he is an idiot.” We both laughed, said goodnight, and I went inside. I was afraid I’d have problems sleeping after my talk with Bobby, but I didn’t. I watched some TV and I baked some red velvet cupcakes and cheese straws to take to Lola and the folks at the TV studio, and then I slept like a baby.
6
I woke up the next morning to sun coming through my bedroom window. There was a huge patch of sun at the end of my bed and all of the dogs were stacked up in a row in the ray of sunlight. As soon as I lifted my head, little Diego ran up to the top of my bed and tucked under my chin, his hot little tongue trying to lick my nose. I grabbed him and tucked him next to me, rolled him on his back and started scratching his little fat belly which put him in a doggie coma in about 20 seconds. We lay there for a while until my stomach started to grumble. At the sound, Diego’s little head popped up and he ran to the bottom of the bed frantically wagging his tail, looking back at me to join him. Cletus and Monroe jumped up and stood with Diego, waiting for me to escort them to the kitchen. I got up and we all walked toward the kitchen to fix our breakfasts.
I filled the boys’ bowls, and then went into my office to check my emails and text messages. Apparently, Lola had told Sara and Mo about Bobby’s request to hang out with us and his girlfriend, because their return comments were pretty colorful.
By then, the boys were done eating, so I hooked them up so we could walk to the coffee shop and get some breakfast. In the hound dog way, we slowly made our way through the streets of the Highlands sniffing every leaf, patch of grass, and vertical surface, until we reached Java Vino coffee shop. I tied the boys outside and went inside to get a latte. When I came out, a large man in a ballcap and sunglasses was sitting at my table petting my dogs. As I came to the table, he looked up and smiled at me. “Nice dogs.”
I smiled back and thanked him and stood there with my coffee in my hand, waiting for him to move. He kept smiling at me, petting the dogs, and obviously didn’t get the hint. Finally, I’d had enough. “Pardon me sir, but I’m already sitting here.”
He grinned at me. “I assume then these are your dogs, Ma’am?” He stood up and waved his hand toward the empty chair across from him. “Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll talk?”
I was confused and frustrated. Who in the hell is this guy, and why won’t he get out of my seat? Haven’t I dealt with enough annoying men in a twenty-four hour period?
I put my drink on the table, looked at him with an insincere smile, and said in a sugary voice, “Sweetie, I’m sorry, but why am I looking to talk to you? I just came here to relax and have some coffee with my pups. No offense, but I’m not really in the mood for company.” I stood there with my hands on my hips and waited for him to do the polite thing and leave.
He didn’t budge, and as I began to look even more irritated, he started laughing. “Daisy, don’t you remember me?”
He pulled off his sunglasses. I looked at him carefully and all of a sudden I saw the face of the boy he’d been when I knew him in college. I started to laugh. “Lord have mercy, look at you. Luke Mathis.”
He stood up laughing and came around the table to hug me. “Yep. Good to see you, Daisy. Sara told me you’d probably be here this morning, so I came by to say hey.”
I looked him over and had to admit he’d grown up very nicely. Brown, wavy, hair with a lot of gray on the sides, blue eyes with laugh lines that stood out in his tan face, a big, muscular body with nice shoulders, the kind of lean hard muscles that are made from hard work, not gym muscles, long, strong legs, big hands and feet, and damn how tall was he? 6’3” or 4”, at least. Luke is Sara’s cousin, something like fourth cousin twice removed, which in the South is just called “cousin.” We had all hung out together our first few years at Georgia. He was dating Glenda, who was a pretty girl but kind of mean, and dumb as a bag of hair, and I was dating Bobby, and then he and Glenda moved back to his home state of Louisiana after he graduated early. I hadn’t seen him since, but had kept up with him through Sara who said he’d been wo
rking in New Orleans, gotten divorced a while back and recently moved to Georgia.
“I hear you got divorced. Sorry.”
He smiled at me. “Thanks. I heard the same about you. I hear it even went down the same.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really? So Glenda knocked up her twenty-year-old secretary and then you got in a fight and accidently pinned her to the wall of the garage with your car and it was on the news for weeks and made you the poster child for adulterer castration?”
He dropped into a chair across the table and winced. “Ouch. No, I meant they were both fooling around. Holy shit, seriously?”
“Please. Like I would make that up. Does any part of that like a positive for me?” Luke laughed. “Let’s face it, it either makes me sound old, or crazy and pathetic, and I really don’t care for any of those things.”
He smiled. “I think it makes you sound lucky.”
Okay, that’s about the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. I found myself staring into his laughing eyes and I mentally shook myself and tried to pay attention. “So what happened with you and Glenda? We’re you just as ‘lucky,’” I made little quotation marks with my fingers, “…as I was?”
He wrinkled his nose and shrugged. “I think so. She left me for someone else, and I consider that to be extremely lucky.” That made me laugh, and he continued. “Basically, she was pretty and I was a teenager with a lot of hormones and not a lot of sense. Once I grew up, I realized that Glenda was a lot of blonde hair, big boobs, and a whole lot of bitch, but not much else, so I buried himself in work and she buried herself in shopping and self-maintenance. After that, we had some issues and she left and I came back here.”
“So, does she still live in New Orleans?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? Wherever she is and whatever she’s doing, I’m sure it involves lots of parties and having her nails done.”
I shuddered. Attending functions and having my nails done is my personal idea of hell. Luke saw my face and laughed. “I can tell you haven’t changed much since college, Daisy.”