A Girl Like You

by vinnie Kinsella

  One summer several years later, the veggie stand stayed empty. Another mom in the neighborhood said Mr. Zucchini had passed away. None of us had ever known the elusive farmer, but at the end of that summer, Mrs. Zucchini started sitting by the empty produce stand in a little red folding chair, holding a rain umbrella over her head to keep the sun off her face.

  She always had a tabby cat dozing on her lap. I came to think of her as the lonely cat lady. I waved at her from my air-conditioned car while she sat in the sweltering heat. I didn’t even know her real name, but without produce in the stand, there was no reason to stop.

  One day when I slowed down to wave, I saw her dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. I knew she was lonely and missed her husband, but I was busy with the kids and back-to-school time. The next summer, Mrs. Zucchini stayed inside, and a few years later, she died. The farmhouse was sold, the produce stand dismantled.

  I didn’t want to become Mrs. Zucchini with a cat and an umbrella in the summer and no one stopping to visit. I’d tried not to think about the passage of time, but here I was, almost twenty years later, and I didn’t have young children to take care of any longer.

  Most of all, I didn’t want Ian and Madison to feel responsible for keeping me company. I wanted them to live their lives independently from me, maybe have dinner with me sometimes, or lounge around on a Saturday and tell me about their week. Bring the grandkids to visit.

  But there was something more. What else was I afraid to face?

  And then I knew. I was worried that maybe the best years of my life had come and gone. The kids had been my whole life for two decades. I’d been completely immersed in being a mom. I loved every second of it and would do it all again in a heartbeat. Maybe in the afterlife.

  But there wasn’t any going back, just moving forward, and I needed to square my shoulders and keep my chin up and take whatever was coming my way. Maybe even embrace it. I was stronger than I’d been in my marriages, I realized, no longer trying to fill an empty space. Maybe I’d been whole all along.

  I’d slept with my arm hanging off the bed after Bryan left, leaving Penny with plenty of room to herself. But the next morning, I woke up in the middle, my arms flung out, stretched out on my back, taking up most of the bed, actually crowding my little dog.

  I was an unmarried adult woman, feeling, for the first time, something close to exhilaration.

  68

  “How are things?” I texted Bryan before I went to work one morning in February. It was nearly the one-year anniversary of his move south.

  I didn’t get a reply until I was at my desk wrestling with the purchase order software. Wes, Sal, and Paulie gathered around the conference table, already getting excited about the 17th annual strawberry fest, which wasn’t until June. They were in a heated debate over whose wife would make the best shortcake.

  Joe was feeding Jerky some of the peanut butter dog snacks I’d brought in.

  “We have news,” Bry texted back.

  I snuck my phone into my pocket, feeling ridiculous, and went into the bathroom, turning on the water so they’d think I was washing my hands, as if I were doing something wrong texting in there.

  “We?”

  “Sarah and me…I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. We’re engaged!”

  I had been examining my gray roots in the bathroom mirror, trying to remember when I had last visited the salon to have them colored.

  Engaged? What?

  I put down the toilet seat, cursing the damn unisex bathroom, and sat down, my knees actually shaking.

  “That’s great,” I texted back. “So great.”

  “I know. I never thought she’d say yes, but she told me she knew I was The One the first time she laid eyes on me.”

  I closed my eyes. There it was again. The One. The Fucking One. Had I ever been anybody’s One? Had I been Adam’s? Bryan’s? I shook my head. None of that mattered now. Adam had his RV life, and now Bryan had the new love of his life. In less than a year. I tried to remember when he’d told me he met Sarah but came up blank. Three months before? Anyway, it was within a few months of leaving New York.

  I had a sudden, vivid image of Bryan’s face at our small, unfussy wedding ceremony, calm and peaceful as if it weren’t even a big step for him to marry me, as if it was meant to be. Later, we’d toasted each other with sangria and fed each other meatballs at the Italian restaurant, and he’d leaned over to whisper something in my ear.

  “Thank you for having me,” he’d said.

  “My pleasure,” I’d whispered back.

  I was grateful for all the good years with Bryan. I wanted him to be happy, and I knew it wasn’t with me. But to fall in love so quickly—out of nowhere, really—with a swimsuit model/teacher? How had that happened?

  Was it fate? Dumb luck? Did that mean, by contrast, I was cursed with bad luck? I knew it made no sense comparing myself to Bryan, but we had been husband and wife, and now he would be with swimsuit-model-worthy Sarah. And I couldn’t even find a steady boyfriend.

  Great—now I was a melodramatic spinster on a pity train. I put my phone on my lap to rub my throbbing temples.

  “How are the kids?” Bryan texted when I picked up my phone again.

  “Good. Really good. Madd loves her job and met someone she really likes. Ian is doing great at school and has decided to let nature take its course and meet someone organically, as he says.”

  “Tell them I said hi,” Bryan texted.

  “Sure will.”

  “How’s that cutie pie Ben, and Cassie?”

  “Ben is a real handful, such a personality, and Cassie’s going to night school to be an X-ray technician.”

  “Cool,” I texted.

  “Hey Jess? I wanted to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting me go. For knowing it was the right thing.”

  It was suddenly ragingly hot in the bathroom, and I stood up to pace, as much as I could pace from the toilet to the sink to the paper towel dispenser.

  What to say? What to say? You’re welcome? It was my pleasure letting you go? Neither of these was true. It had been wrenching. I’d felt like I had taken a direct hit to the back of my knees when Bryan had left. More than once, I’d wanted to get in the car and drive all night to North Carolina to find him and beg him to come back.

  But I hadn’t. I hadn’t, because I knew both of us needed—deserved—more than what our marriage had become. We had stopped bringing out the best in each other. The laughter had gone silent. We had to separate to even be friends again. I had never regretted meeting, being with, and marrying Bryan. He had been in my path. He was part of my story. He always would be.

  I had grown stronger during my single life after Bryan, and if he was grateful, so was I.

  “I’m glad it all worked out,” I texted.

  It was meant to be. He was meant to be happy. He was meant to be free.

  “Keep in touch,” was his last text.

  I went to the sink to wash my hands. The soap dispenser held nothing but a few watery bubbles at the bottom. Did no one else but me notice these things?

  “Geez, did you fall in?” Wes asked, guffawing, when I emerged from the bathroom.

  “Here’s a new batch,” Joe said, adding to the pile of invoices on my desk.

  “The secret is how much lard you use,” Sal said, speaking way too loud for the office.

  Use your indoor voice, I wanted to tell him.

  “No, it’s the sugar that’s the thing,” Paulie rallied back. “Use too much, and the berries bleed all over.”

  “It’s neither,” Wes said. “It’s the ripeness of the berries. You pick them even a day too early, you’ll end up with sour strawberries. Too late, and they’re soft.”

  “None of your wives won best shortcake last year,” Joe yelled over the counter. “It was Marla Stokes, remember? The newcomer.”

  I’d heard them mention Marla before because it was rumored she was sleeping with the planning
board chairman. As for being a newcomer, she’d lived in Meredia eight years.

  “Yeah, well, she was probably screwing the judge,” Sal said, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

  “Probably,” Wes grunted, chortling.

  I was happy for Bryan, I realized. Fully happy. Happy enough to let the town comedians jabber on down another nonsensical tangent, entertaining one another and even me.

  Whatever was next, I decided I would be open to possibility. Every day carried the potential to bring something new and unexpected. And that was a good way to live, working very hard to trust the universe.

  69

  Online, BoldMan was wearing a ski hat, about to take a run down a steep cliff-like hill, looking like an excited kid. So what if I didn’t ski—I could wait in the lodge by the fireplace, right?

  He was fifty-nine, which was great, but unfortunately, lived more than two hours away, which could pose a significant logistical challenge.

  His profile left much to the imagination: he only said he liked to ski, hike (of course), swim, and hang out with his kids.

  It was worth a shot.

  “You don’t give much away in your profile,” I messaged Bold. “Are you waiting for someone to ask the right questions?”

  “Ask away.” His response came within minutes.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Daniel. Yours?”

  “Jessica. How old are your kids?”

  “Twenty-nine and thirty-two. Yours?”

  “Twenty-one and twenty-five. So you ski?”

  “Love it. You?”

  “I’m more of a ski fan, like, I watch the winter Olympics. Winter your favorite season?”

  “Summer,” Daniel replied. “Yours?”

  “Fall. Orange leaves, a snap in the air, no humidity.”

  “Yeah, humidity does terrible things to my hair.” Which was a joke, because his head was shaved in all his photos.

  I defaulted to my speed dating questions, which he returned with some of his own.

  “So, would you take a trip to a beach or to mountains?”

  “Beach, hands down,” Daniel replied. “Morning person or night owl?”

  “Mornings suck.”

  “You’ve got it there. Everything good happens at night. Dogs or cats?”

  “Definitely dogs. I have a little one sleeping on my feet right now. Literally, on my feet.”

  “Small dogs for sure. I have four that rule the house!” Daniel wrote. “Long hair or short?”

  “On a dog?”

  “No, yours,” he replied. “I’m looking at your profile pictures right now, Jess. Is your hair still long?”

  “Got it trimmed recently, just the ends.”

  “It’s very pretty,” Daniel wrote. “I like it long.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Hey, I hate messaging through this site, I’d much rather text. Sound good to you?”

  “Absolutely,” I replied, sending him my cell number.

  That was the first step in online dating intimacy—switching from using the site to message to actual texting, which involved sharing phone numbers. My kids, of course, told me to never give out my cell number, because if things didn’t work out with a guy, it would be easier for him to stalk me.

  Daniel didn’t seem like the stalker type.

  His first text came across. “Will you send me some photos of yourself? I’m a very visual person.”

  “There are four photos on Fish,” I reminded him.

  “I want close-ups.”

  Hmm. I wasn’t really a selfie person. I always looked uncomfortable and never knew whether to smile with teeth or closed lips. Whichever I chose looked unnatural.

  “Will you do it for me?” Daniel texted.

  I got out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror. Not exactly camera ready, my hair was tousled, eyeliner faded, and lipstick nonexistent.

  “I look like shit,” I told him.

  “I doubt that. Send some.”

  So I made funny faces, sticking out my tongue and scrunching up my face, sending him the silliest ones.

  “You’re something else, Jess.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “That’s how it’s meant,” he said.

  “Where were we in our conversation?”

  “Do you wear sundresses or shorts?”

  “Shorts and sneakers. Swimming or kayaking?” I was trying to come up with questions that might make me look somewhat athletic.

  “Depends. Is it skinny dipping?”

  Hm. I thought about that one. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shed my clothes for a swim.

  “Do you skinny dip?” I was too curious to pass up the chance to find out.

  “All the time. My mother has a lake house and I go in after dark. It’s very quiet and secluded.”

  “Alone?”

  “Sometimes yes, other times no.”

  I was oddly jealous of the women he’d taken a swim with, which made no sense, because I didn’t even know him.

  And so, since we were both night people, we spent the next two hours texting. He told me about his idyllic childhood, raised with two sisters who argued over who would take care of him when his parents were out, how his dogs once ate an entire coconut cream pie, how much he’d missed his daughter when she moved out and went to Michigan for a job.

  “Yeah, I’m really lucky to have both my kids around,” I texted. “Don’t know what I’d do without them.”

  Turned out that both of us were language and grammar snobs. We compared notes on the worst offenses.

  “I could care less,” I texted.

  “Supposably,” he replied.

  “I ain’t got none.”

  “You don’t need to water it or nothing.”

  “There, their, and they’re.”

  “Your a good writter,” Daniel texted. “Im impressed by you’re spelling.”

  “LOL. Your pretty amazing to.”

  “We could do this all day,” he texted.

  Soon we were debating whether it was lonely being single.

  “I’m happy being alone,” Daniel texted. “I have a lot of things that keep me busy.”

  “Such as?”

  “I have a lot of projects going at my house, and I have a home gym and work out every day.”

  Oh geez, I thought. Another fitness nut, probably in better shape than me. Probably? Definitely.

  “Tell me something personal, Jess,” he texted next.

  I came up blank. “You go first.”

  “OK. I have Lyme Disease.”

  “OMG, I’m so sorry. Was it a tick?”

  “Yes. Eight years ago, after a hike. On my shoulder.”

  “Did it stick on you a long time?”

  “It dug right in. Then I took some bad advice and tried all the ways I shouldn’t have to get it out.”

  “Like what?”

  “Scratching at it with a credit card, rubbing alcohol, burning it. And all the time I was torturing it, it was seeping poison into my bloodstream. It was a mess by the time I went to the hospital.”

  I wiped my sweaty forehead, feeling sick at the image. Fucking tick. “Did you get sick right away?”

  “I had partial paralysis. For two months I couldn’t use that side of my body. I lost thirty pounds.”

  OK, the weight loss doesn’t sound so bad, I thought, then I kicked myself for thinking that. Of course it was awful, and from his pictures, he looked slender to begin with.

  “Are you all right now?”

  “Comes and goes,” Daniel texted. “There are days I have trouble getting out of bed, but I push myself. I get tired a lot, but hate taking it easy. I never miss a day at the gym.”

  Good for him, I thought. I was still trying to regain my fitness.

  “I’m sorry,” I texted, not sure what else to say.

  “Don’t be. It’s just something I deal with. Everyone has things going on that people can’t see. This is just my thing.”
<
br />   “That’s true. I’m glad you’re OK.”

  “Now it’s your turn,” he texted.

  “My turn for what?”

  “Something personal, Jess. Make it a good one.”

  Geez. I couldn’t come up with anything. I had nothing.

  “Come on,” Daniel texted. “Tell me what you like.”

  “Chocolate. Wine spritzers. White pizza. Horror movies.”

  I was embarrassed to see three of the four things I listed were food and drink. Couldn’t I have come up with something that made me seem athletic, or at least like I got off the couch on weekends?

  “I’ll tell you what I like. I’m a very physical person. I love to explore.”

  Now he had my full attention.

  “I’m also very oral.” Daniel texted. “You?”

  “Physical?”

  “No, oral.”

  “I think so,” I texted Daniel. “I’m not sure I know what you’re saying,” I lied.

  “Do you like being licked?”

  Well, there was a question. There it was. I read it three times. How to answer, how to answer?

  “I’d love to lick you all over,” Daniel texted, sparing me an answer.

  My stomach lurched and I knew, at that moment, I was in deep trouble. I’d wished for adventure, and sure enough, it had found me.

  “Really? We haven’t even met in person yet.”

  “I have a really good feeling about this.”

  “Good night,” I texted.

  “Good knight, deer one,” he texted back.

  All that, and a sense of humor too. I was officially smitten.

  70

  Within a day, Daniel and I were texting constantly, Joe glowering at me and jamming more files into my inbox. This, while he spent about 6 ½ hours of his 8-hour workday shooting the shit with the Three Stooges.

  But I had plenty of work to do, so I limited my texting to lunchtime and after work. The best texting was at night, when I stretched out on my bed and turned on quiet music, making him seem not so far away.