by BWWM Club
He was a very good-looking man. He was available.
And it really had been a very long time. Oh, so long.
Dale knew what he was doing.
She caught herself before she let her mind wander too far.
"Well, it's been lovely, Dale, and it was nice to have coffee with you, but I think I should be going now."
Dale grinned and got to his feet, took both her hands in his.
"It was lovely for me, too. I hope you find what you're looking for, Rebecca. But if you don't, you have my number now. You can call me. I'll even give you a special rate. Maybe even buy you a coffee after."
Rebecca chuckled.
"I think I appreciate the sentiment behind the offer, Dale. You take care of yourself, do you hear me?"
Dale grinned and nodded, then kissed her cheek softly.
"I will, and I'd take care of you anytime you wanted me to, remember that."
Rebecca gathered up her shopping, only to be stopped by the young man who insisted on helping her with her bags, and walking her to the parking lot. He waited until she was inside and leaned down to the window, a cocky grin curving his lips.
"I might even throw in a little something for free if you call me," he promised. Despite herself, her body did rev a little bit in response, just like her car did.
She couldn't resist a quick glance in the rear view mirror as she drove away.
Well, that had been an experience. It was turning out to be one heck of a Saturday, that was for sure. Was this how most single and available people lived during their weekends? Rebecca didn't think she could handle the excitement.
She got home, went inside, dumped her bags on the couch, and went straight to the fridge to pour herself a glass of white wine.
Maybe she needed something a little bit stronger.
That had been an experience and a half, she told herself, and sat down at the kitchen table, in the little nook.
And it had been a bit of a revelation, too. Sure, Dale was a professional, and that wasn't something to be ignored. Dale had known exactly what he was doing and he'd been good at doing it.
It was probably part of his whole... job, she supposed.
But he had shown her something. He'd shown her that there were things she had missed in the last decade. Things she had just gotten used to living without, because she'd just assumed that things would be that way.
And yet...
It was all so wrong, so deliciously, thrillingly wrong. It wasn't as if she was going to call Dale and take him up on his offer. Now that she was home and thinking straight, she could tell herself very clearly that she had no intention of doing that.
But...
But maybe it was time to consider dating again. Maybe she had closed herself off from too many things, too many possibilities, too much joy and too much hurt. Maybe she had been living her life and shutting herself off from too much.
She should at least thank Dale for showing her that. If she did, he would probably charge her for it, thought Rebecca, a little amused, as she sipped her wine.
She couldn't wait to tell Grace and Lill about this. Grace would laugh, and probably ask her for Dale's number. Lill would be appalled and apologetic, but she would laugh, too, until all three of them were giggling helplessly.
But that day had also showed her one more thing: she wasn't ready for online dating. She was ready for dating, but maybe it just meant being more open to being approached in the real world. Maybe it meant taking a few more risks in the real world.
She was clearly not equipped to handle online dating.
Look at how her two dates had gone! She'd gotten one racist and one hooker, and the hooker had been the nice one.
Grace would shrug, and Lill would be disappointed but understanding, but Rebecca wouldn't be comfortable going on any more dates through the app.
A little regretfully, Rebecca took her phone out and opened the app. She should just get rid of it, delete it altogether, before she lost her nerve or changed her mind.
That was really the only option.
But there was no harm in scrolling through once more before doing that, was there? She could even justify it as doing a little background research. She would be getting a head start on all the over-sixty singles in her area. If she ran into any of them, she would recognize them.
And besides, her curiosity had not been satisfied quite yet.
"Oh, come now. I know Phyllis has been after me to get a new phone, but don't you begin to be on her side now. Just go ahead and keep going as you always have."
Her phone had been acting up a little for the last few weeks. Phyllis had pointed it out, and so had Grace, but really, she didn't need much more than something to use to keep in touch with people. What did she need a new phone for?
She scrolled down, and was a little sad that she hadn't initiated a single conversation, or even tapped that little dot that indicated that she was interested. She had just responded to people who had gotten in touch with her, really.
Well, this was just not for her.
"Goodbye, dating app. I can't say it's been great, but I can say that it's been an experience," she told it, being a little dramatic, and why not? It had been an extremely dramatic day.
She tapped on the little icon for settings, trying to figure out how to get it off her phone, and maybe delete her profile - how exactly was she supposed to do this?
"Oh, please, phone, won't you work with me here?"
Why was it freezing?
She should try turning it off and on again, and then maybe a factory reset, after making sure all the information she needed was saved on her memory card.
Maybe she should get Phyllis to do it for her. She didn't want to lose all the contacts in her phone book. She had heard of such terrible things happening.
"Oh! Oh, no!"
It was frozen now.
She sighed.
It really was an eventful day.
She turned it over, and pressed the button to turn it off manually. She held it pressed down, and then she said a little prayer for a few seconds before turning it on again.
Rebecca grinned as the screen brightened and the annoying little sound played.
"Good! Obviously, this app isn't agreeing with you, either. Sorry about that. I'll get rid of it and we can go back to using you the way I used to, how about that?"
She swiped through to the app, and was about to get into the settings and delete her profile when she noticed something.
She had... Oh no.
She had done something.
She had done that thing - she had expressed interest in somebody. Somebody named George Walters, sixty-five years old, retired, and…
He had expressed interest right back at her.
She should just tell him it had been a mistake, and she should delete her profile from the service, and the app from her phone. That’s what she should do, of course.
And that was exactly what she was going to do.
It was exactly…
Rebecca clicked on his profile and saw a very nice looking man with salt and pepper hair, bright blue eyes and a rather serious smile – a nice looking man.
Her inbox icon glowed.
A nice looking man who had messaged her.
Maybe… Maybe third time would be the charm?
Chapter 4
Rebecca dragged her heels. She consciously stalled, telling herself that she needed a break from that damn app and all the drama it had brought into her life, and that was true enough.
She lasted until after dinner, and even started planning how she would tell her friends about all of it at their next Thursday evening meet-up. But once she got in bed, with her reading glasses on, the book still stuck in the same place it had been when she'd first started talking to Fred - had it really been only two days? It felt like forever!
That was when the curiosity got too much. It niggled at her like an itch, and ignoring it wasn't making it go away.
Finally, sh
e sighed and made a bargain with herself: "I'll check the message, but I won't reply until tomorrow morning."
She believed it, too.
But when she checked the message, she sat up with a hard jerk.
Hello! I don't really know what to say next. But you do taekwondo, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in grabbing a cup of coffee. I have a garden, too.
How the hell could he possibly know about her new interests? That hadn't been up on the profile at all! It hadn't...
"Grace, really!"
Of course.
Rebecca checked her profile and saw that that was exactly what had happened. Grace had added that to her profile, because of course, Rebecca hadn't even thought of changing her password. Why would she?
Of course, this was why she should have, but...
Did this mean that Grace had read her messages? Knew about her dates? No, surely not. That couldn't be. It couldn't, because Grace would've called her by then if she knew.
She sighed and changed her password, getting a little bit of grim satisfaction from doing that. She closed the app, and texted Grace instead:
I changed the password.
It took only a few seconds before she got the reply. It was past eleven. Tony was toast, then.
About time.
Rebecca grinned.
Well, that meant Grace probably didn't know about George.
Text him back. He sounds nice. A little awkward, a little uncertain. Not used to this and not a creep.
Or maybe Grace knew.
I'll text him back if I want to. I'm not doing it now. Butt out, Grace.
Grace wouldn't apologize, of course. Frankly, she'd be shocked if Grace every apologized for overstepping boundaries in her quest to do what she believed was right for the people she loved. Rebecca had to remind herself that it came from a place of love, infuriating though it was.
Fine, but text him back. Good night.
Rebecca sighed and lay back, wondering.
Objectively, as dates, both her experiences had been pretty bad. But she had gotten something out of meeting Dale, she could admit that.
And Grace was right about George. There was an endearing lack of practiced ease in that text.
Still, she needed the time and the space. She tried her best to get it off of her mind and settled down, willing herself to go to sleep. She never used sleep aids if she could help it. She'd started having trouble sleeping soundly ten years ago, when Roger died. She had chosen to keep her prescription filled. But she only took them on very bad nights, when the grief hit and she simply couldn't turn her mind off. Otherwise, she used meditation.
Even after just a couple of taekwondo classes, she was beginning to realize that meditation was becoming more effective. There was something to be said for knowing yourself.
And maybe... maybe that wasn't the only way she needed to know herself. Maybe she should finally pay attention to the parts of her she had neglected so far.
As if making up her mind a little bit had helped, she fell fast asleep.
In the morning, she didn't remember her dreams. If she had been able to remember, she would have blushed at the lengths to which her own mind had gone once she had eased up on her control of it.
But she did wake up knowing that she wouldn't ignore George, the man who also did taekwondo and who had a garden.
She waited, until she had made herself her cup of tea and cut herself some fruits, and then settled at the kitchen table with her simple breakfast.
All right, then. She could reply now.
Hello, George. I'm new at this, so I'm not entirely sure how to go about this. How long have you been doing taekwondo? I just started. Maybe it's silly to start at my age.
There, that was good enough. She set her phone aside, and focused on her breathing. She had her third class that day, and she had a lot of reading to do. It was nice to have a full day but without anything that would be detrimental if she didn't get around to it. That was the part of retirement that she loved the most. She could fill her days but she wasn't required to push herself until she was exhausted.
The phone buzzed, making her frown.
It was just past six in the morning. She didn't have to wake up that early anymore, of course, but old habits die hard, and the fact was that she loved mornings. She loved everything about the beginning of a new day.
I'm new at this, but not taekwondo. I've been doing it for about fifty years now. I started when I was fourteen.
Well, that was a bit of a relief! He was definitely not looking for a - what was the feminine equivalent of a sugar daddy? A honey mommy?
She replied without waiting this time.
I wish I'd started that long ago. I love it, but I don't think I'm going to become a black belt certified martial artist at the rate I can go now.
She waited, again, slowly getting invested in the conversation despite herself, despite how she had urged herself to take things slow.
This time, she smiled when her phone buzzed.
Unlikely, but never say never. It becomes a part of you no matter what color your belt might be. The longer you do it, the less you worry about your belts. The longer you do it, the more you realize you have to learn.
Oh, she liked him. That was how she felt, as a teacher. The good teachers were the ones who realized that two-dimensional pictures of teenagers were always wrong. Teenagers were people, with as much depth and more turbulent needs than most other people. They were sensitive, intelligent, and always looking for influences, whether or not they realized it. Even the ones who thought they were completely original. Especially them.
You never reached a point where you could divide them into neat categories. You never felt as if you did all the teaching and they did all the learning.
The bad teachers were the ones who believed that if they knew one teenager, they knew them all. They also believed that they knew their subjects as well as anybody needed to know them.
You would make a good teacher with that attitude - never stop learning, and the more you learn, the more you realize how much you will never learn. About everything. Especially people.
She waited, this time, instead of setting the phone aside and going to do the washing up as she usually would.
She was interested now - far more interested than she would have admitted, even to herself.
That's a lovely compliment. But I wonder if I could ever have had the imagination to be a good teacher.
Oh, he was good! Not many people understood that part of teaching, the amount of imagination it took to compete with the highlight reels always running in your students' heads!
Now that is an even lovelier compliment. You said you have a garden, too. I'm only beginning there, as well. I only have a few herbs and a couple of flower beds right now.
She didn't even think of putting her phone away at all. The reply came quickly.
It's rewarding. You already know more than most people when they start. Would you like me to help you with it? The gardening, or the taekwondo. I'm available for either.
Rebecca grinned. Well, the man might not have been smooth to begin with, but he had circled around and made that move smoothly enough.
But she'd had enough of jumping the gun. Sure, she might have a good feeling about this one, but that was no reason to agree to meet him so quickly.
I think I'd like to figure out some of it on my own before I reach out for help.
She waited, again.
Fair enough. Then how about coffee? Or perhaps tea. I'm trying to cut down on caffeine. I relied on it until I retired and got an ulcer to show for it. Now I drink tea, and that is a forbidden treat.
Oh, she could relate to that, too. She'd been reliant on coffee for years, until she finally realized that it contributed to her insomnia. She had to quit then.
Finally, something I can help you with, too! I have a nine-year head start on you there. I quit coffee nine years ago. I've even come to appreciate tea.
This time,
she reminded herself to get up and wash her breakfast bowl and tea mug. She then went outside, unrolled her yoga mat on her back porch and settled down to work on her morning routine.
That was another thing that had helped her with her insomnia. She might not flow from one pose to another with the fluid ease of the young women who taught classes and had videos up on YouTube, but she did well enough. She was flexible for her years.
She flushed all her thoughts from her mind and let herself work, let her mind work on itself. It always helped.
When she was done, she walked to her garden - it wasn't much, as she had said. But she had always grown her own herbs, even back when she had only been able to have a window box, and she knew how to take care of that. She had always had a few flowers, too. Maybe a few perennials, a couple of annuals that were easy and bloomed beautifully.
Now she would have the kind of garden she had envied, once upon a time.
By the time she was done and had made her way back inside, she was feeling better, steadier on her feet and in her mind.
So she'd had a couple of rough days. She had been thrown off-balance by Phyllis's remarks. She could see that now. Phyllis had dismissed any idea that her life could change. She'd pretty much come right out and said that her life would just be like this, until the day she died, or worse, had to move into assisted living of some sort.
As if the living part was already over. All that was left was existing.
That was why she had made uncharacteristically rash decisions and gone on those two dates. She wouldn't have done that, otherwise.
But this time, it felt a little different.
She went to have a shower, and changed into her gear for her morning class before she finally checked George's message.
Whenever you have the time, Rebecca. I think I'd like to meet you. I think, if nothing else, we could be friends. I spent my life neglecting friends, and I regret it now. I intend to make changes, and making new friends is one of those changes.
Rebecca smiled.
Oh, that was just the right thing to say, wasn't it? Grace would find him boring, and Lill - well, there was just never a way to tell how Lill would react until Lill reacted, really - but Rebecca liked him. She liked how steady and even he seemed.