I nodded.
This all seemed very weird, complicated with a good deal of it contradictory, but at least that was good to know.
“Your bathroom is really nice,” I observed and it came again.
He turned off, looked at his plate.
Shut me out.
The Izzy I was normally would ignore it, find some way to move around it, but something made me ask, “Sorry, I . . . you . . . am I stepping where I shouldn’t?”
His black eyes came direct to me and they weren’t entirely impassive. There was something in their depths. I just couldn’t read it.
But surprisingly, he gave it to me.
“Left my old place, sold the place I grew up, fixed up this place and moved in after my dad died.”
“Oh God, Johnny, I’m so sorry.”
“There’s shit in my life I’m not big on talking about. Was tight with my dad. So that’s some of it.”
I nodded. “Of course, sorry. So sorry.”
He nabbed another slice of bacon. “You didn’t know so no need to apologize.”
“Right. Okay,” I replied quickly.
But even though this was an explanation, something niggled at me because I found it odd if he was still so deeply affected by his father’s passing, why he’d chosen to be in a place that daily, hourly, each second he was in it, reminded him of that in such a way it clearly bothered him.
I knew what it was like to lose a parent because I’d lost both. How that came about, I’d had no choice but to let them go and I’d lost each in entirely different, but not equally agonizing, ways.
I knew how hard it was. I knew how painful. No matter what way you lost them.
I also knew escaping anything that brought additional pain was a good coping mechanism.
So I wondered, no matter how fabulous this space was, why he didn’t find his way to that.
I did not ask this as it became clear even if I’d asked, he more than likely would not tell me.
This made something else clear.
This was not a getting-to-know-you date.
This wasn’t a date at all.
This was a hookup.
This was not something beginning.
This was something else.
Not just sex, as such.
But something I’d never encountered.
And as handsome as he was, as nice as it was that he gave me the best seat (and all the rest), even if I wanted that to be the type of girl I was (and I actually did), that wasn’t the type of girl I was.
I always wanted more.
Sitting there I realized with more pain than it should cause, I wanted this maybe especially from Johnny.
“Baby.”
That came gently and I turned my attention to him.
“Not sure I like the look on your face. It seems a lifetime ago but also like yesterday. Most the time, I just live with it. But sometimes I have bad days. This is one of those days.”
This was one of those days.
A sunny early summer morning in his house . . . with me.
“My mom died of cancer, Johnny, so I get that.”
He stared at me.
“Ate her up. She was dead in six months,” I shared.
He blinked.
“I miss her every day, and if I let it in, I miss her every second.”
“Iz,” he whispered, a wealth of meaning and understanding and a lot more in his saying my name, all of it, for his sake on a bad day where I was sharing that day with him thus him having that understanding didn’t make me feel real great.
I didn’t focus on that.
“But that wasn’t the meaning behind the look on my face,” I told him, surprising myself at my candor.
“What was the meaning?” he asked.
I didn’t know what was happening. What this was. Where it led.
I just knew I liked him a whole lot for a whole lot of reasons, the most recent him being thoughtful enough to give me the seat at the dining room table in his own home that had the best view.
But it seemed he liked me mostly because he could have sex with me and I amused him with my shy ways in the midst of me having lots of sex with him.
He let me talk about myself, and he listened, because that was easier than sharing about himself, something it had become clear he didn’t intend to do. Or at least not without a goodly amount of effort on my part and with little elaboration when he gave me something.
He shared his body and his talents in bed without a problem though.
So I might not have a lot of experience with a hookup, but one and one were equaling one in this equation, not the path to there maybe being a two.
“I need to go home. Deanna took care of my animals but I have things to do today,” I declared.
This was somewhat a lie. I had one thing to do, which would take me ten minutes.
He put his fork to his plate and sat back in his seat, eyes on me.
“So do you mind, after I help you clean up, taking me back to my car?” I asked.
He studied me pensively as he answered, “You don’t have to help me clean up.”
“I don’t want to be rude.”
He didn’t respond to that.
He tipped his chin down to my plate and asked, “You get enough to eat?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You ready to go now?” he queried, even though neither of us had cleaned our plates and that so went against the grain for me, it was difficult to give him my answer.
But I did.
“Yes, that probably would be best.”
“Right, Eliza,” he said on a curt nod. “I’ll get this soaking. You get dressed.”
“I can help,” I offered.
His eyes came to me. “Get dressed.”
That hurt. It shouldn’t. It was me putting an end to this.
But it did.
I got up and went to gather my clothes. I took them to the bathroom and got dressed.
By the time I came out, the dishes were cleared, soaking in the sink, jelly and ketchup still on the table.
“Be out in a second,” Johnny muttered, moving by me to go down the hall.
He disappeared in the bathroom.
I felt the sudden need to cry.
Instead, I went to his wall of windows, leaned a shoulder against one and looked out.
It was then I knew why he didn’t give up this place that reminded him of his dad.
The creek was wide and meandered slowly. Some of the trees grew straight out of it, their wide trunks serving as banks. Even that early in the summer, there was so much foliage, the sun struggled to get through but the power of it was such it cast streaks of bright against leaves and trunks and glimmered in the clear water and stone creek bed, making it appear magical.
I could stand out there with coffee every morning for fifteen minutes, half an hour, ages, just letting the peace of it and the gently turning water wheel calm me.
I wouldn’t have that opportunity, then or ever.
Johnny called from behind me, “Ready?”
I pushed away and looked to him to see him in another T-shirt and a different pair of jeans, wondering inanely (knowledge I’d never get either), where he got his clothes from, and I nodded.
I went to the island to get my purse, made sure my phone was in it, then followed him out the door.
He didn’t lock it behind him.
I moved at his back toward the truck, feeling a melancholy steal over me when he walked right to the passenger side door.
He opened it.
I started to shift around him to get in position to climb in but stopped when he slammed the door and turned to me. Hooking an arm around my waist, he pulled me around, put his hand to my stomach and pushed me against the truck.
My heart started beating hard as I tipped my head back to look up at him.
“You just got your fill or what?” he asked coldly.
“Sorry?” I whispered anxiously.
“Is that your p
lay?” he demanded to know, the ice still in his tone.
“My . . . play?”
“Cut the crap, Eliza. What the fuck?”
I stared up at him.
“I don’t know. I’m not a woman,” he went on. “Only know the different reasons a man goes alone to a bar. The reason I hit Home last night was not the way it turned out to be. But I figure, one of the reasons men go alone is one of the reasons women go alone. So is that it? You went to find yourself some cock. Found it, got your fill, now you’re done?”
I felt my eyes get wide.
“You don’t owe me dick,” he continued. “I got it good so I’m not complaining. But assuage my curiosity. What the fuck?”
“I’ve never . . . not ever . . .” I trailed off, not knowing if I was offended, hurt, angry or all three.
“You’ve never what?” he pushed tersely.
“This,” I said, throwing out an arm to my side.
His heavy brows shot together. “You tryin’ to tell me you were a virgin?”
“Of course not,” I answered fast.
“Then what?” he pressed.
“Hooked up,” I told him.
“You’ve never hooked up,” he stated, making it clear he didn’t believe me.
“Well, I’ve hooked up but not hooked up hooked up. Like, you know, what we did. Meet a guy, and then, you know, leave with him and then, well . . . what came next.”
He glowered down at me.
“I don’t know the protocol,” I blurted.
The glower wavered as he asked, “The protocol?”
“I don’t know how to act. What to do. I mean, what do you do when a hookup is obviously coming to an end?”
“Jesus,” he whispered, now staring at me like he’d never seen a woman in his life.
“I . . . in there . . . you were . . . you’ve been . . .” I stuttered then changed courses, “This isn’t like a get-to-know-you date. I know how to do those. This, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You want some insight?” he inquired.
By the look on his face, what I knew was I did not.
Even though I didn’t, I tentatively nodded, such was the only response I could give due to that look on his face.
I was wrong, that hooded brow with those thick eyebrows could be ominous.
“When the man you’ve outstandingly fucked four times opens up enough to tell you he’s havin’ a rough time because his dad died three years earlier, on this day, this being the reason he went out to get a few drinks the night before, you don’t immediately set about scraping him off so you can get on with your day.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he shot back.
“I didn’t know,” I pointed out gently (and it must be said, since that look was still on his face, carefully).
“And that makes it okay?” he asked.
“Well, um . . . no. But, in my defense—”
“You’ve never hooked up and don’t know the protocol,” he finished for me.
Right then, that totally sounded weak.
I pressed my lips together.
He studied me a few seconds before he asked, “Honest to Christ, you’ve never picked a guy up and fucked him before?”
I shook my head slowly.
“You’re a prude,” he stated.
“Well, not recently, but, um . . . yes,” I confirmed. “My mom wasn’t and my sister really wasn’t, so someone had to be around, you know, to feed the dogs and get in the car and pick them up when they got in situations and, uh . . . other stuff. Though, that said, it really just comes naturally, until, like I said but you already know since you were there, recently.”
“Why am I pissed at you and still wanna laugh my ass off?” he asked curiously.
“Because I’m being an idiot?” I asked back in answer.
“Yeah, that’s why,” he agreed.
I fell silent.
Johnny didn’t break the silence.
I couldn’t take the silence so I surged ahead.
“I can cook, like I told you, but, I don’t want to brag, I’m actually really good at it. So, to make up for being an idiot, if you want, you can take me to my car and I’ll get stuff sorted to make you dinner and you can come over later. Meet the babies. I’ll feed you and then maybe do some other, you know, stuff, to um . . . make up for being an idiot when you’re having a rough day.”
“So what you’re saying is you’ll feed me, introduce me to your pets and then fuck my brains out.”
I got a becoming-familiar trill down my spine, looked to his throat and muttered, “Something like that.”
“Iz.”
I looked into his eyes.
“I got a tradition for tonight that I do by myself. But tomorrow, I’ll be over.”
My heart skipped a beat and my lips formed the word, “Really?”
He hooked me at the waist again, pulled me from his truck, opened the door, and after I climbed inside, he tossed his phone at me.
I bobbled it but caught hold of it while he said, “Code, eight, nine, one, two. Program you in. Call yourself. Program me in. I’ll call you later.”
Then he slammed the door and started around the hood.
I didn’t know what he did for a living.
But I did know the code to his phone.
I bent my head to it making the herculean effort not to do it smiling so big, I broke my own face.
He climbed in beside me, roared the truck to life and I looked up from programming myself in his phone in order to catch him put an arm around my seat so he could twist to see where we were going as he reversed in a big arc in the huge space beside his house.
Johnny Gamble then set us on our way to my car.
We were well down the dirt road, I was done with all my programming, when I said softly into the cab, “I’m sorry I messed up so big over eggs.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he replied.
“I lost my mom so I know—”
His fingers curled tight around my knee and he cut me off. “Put it out of your head. Only things I want in your head are you getting inspired about what you’re gonna feed me tomorrow night and what you’re gonna give me after.”
“Do you like chicken enchiladas?”
“Yup.”
“Do you like olives?”
“Yup.”
“Do you like sour cream?”
“Yup.”
“On a scale of a little bit of cheese goes a long way to cheese fanatic, where do you sit?”
“Fanatic.”
We had something in common.
“Do you want beer or wine or something else?”
“Beer.”
“Well, that’s dinner sorted,” I muttered.
He burst out laughing, slid his hand up my thigh and kept it resting there.
I let out a relieved breath.
Johnny stopped, checked, then pulled out of the dirt road onto the paved road.
And he took me to my car.
Be
Izzy
WHEN I GOT in my front door, my dogs attacked me.
This wasn’t surprising. Except for me going to work and out to an occasional social engagement, they usually had me all to themselves.
After I gave them rubdowns, I let them out and went in search of my cats.
They were far less excited to see me.
I still gave them scratches.
I looked in on my birds and then went to the back porch. I took off the cute sandals I’d worn to the bar last night, dropped them on wood and pulled on my Wellington boots that were black and had big pink roses, blue leaves and tiny yellow flowers on them.
I headed to my stable with my dogs at my heels and my phone in hand.
I now had three things I had to do that day. Call Deanna. Change the sheets on my bed. And go back into town if I needed anything to make dinner for Johnny tomorrow night.
My schedule was this free, my time just my own, because I’d lived a disorder
ly life with a hard-working, hard-playing, hard-loving, hard-knock mother who, through choice and situation, taught me that stability was people, not places and things.
The way my mind worked, it violently rejected that idea. So when I left my mother’s home, I sought order and stability in almost every aspect of my life to the point I planned times when I’d allow the former of those two things not to be available.
Along the line, I’d hit on the perfect model in which to order my life when I read an article somewhere about how to use useless time in order to free up useful time, make it non-stressful, but most of all, free.
This was, get chores out of the way during time you’d likely just waste sitting in front of the TV, so when the weekend came, it was yours.
To that end, one night a week, I dusted. Another, I vacuumed. Other nights, I cleaned the bathrooms. I did one load of laundry a night until it was done. Every two weeks, I added doing the ironing. And if I had to run errands, I divvied them up and ran them after work in the city before I got home. Except grocery shopping, which I did every Friday evening, hitting Macy’s Flower Shop first—which stayed open late on Fridays—so I’d have fresh flowers around the house for the week, before going to the store and then home.
The only thing I left was changing the sheets on my bed every Sunday, so when, in the evening, I’d had a long hot shower or soaked in a long hot bath, given myself a fresh manicure, pedicure and a lengthy facial, I could then eat the extravagant meal I cooked myself while reading, coloring or watching a movie, and after, slide into cool, clean sheets.
For a person who craved order, having this schedule was like nirvana. The only weekend chore was Saturday morning’s mucking out of the stalls and then I was free.
Free to be disordered.
Free to putter in my garden and with my flowers in the summer months.
Free to bake breads and make jellies and infuse flavored vodkas and gins.
Free to go back into the city and wander in a mall or down a shopping street, get a lovely lunch or treat myself to a nice dinner.
Free to linger over my Sunday facial, the only thing my mother kept scheduled and ordered for all us girls (if she was off work that was), saying, “If you take care of nothin’, my beautiful queens, take care of your skin.”