A Fighting Chance

by T. L. Hayes

  Recovering, Lou said, “I learn something new about you every day, Mrs. Adams.”

  “Good, keeps you on your toes.” Mrs. Adams’s tone sobered when she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you tell all. I’m just really glad it went well, and I hope it’s the start of good things to come for both of you. You both deserve it.”

  Lou’s tone softened and she said, “Thank you, Mrs. Adams.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, if you keep calling me Mrs. Adams, I’m going to brain you, Sifu.” She bowed but winked to show she was teasing. “From here on out, you will call me Lorraine, and I don’t want to hear any protests. Got it?”

  “I’ll do my best. See you next week.” Lou gave her a parting smile, then picked up her things and left, smiling to herself and shaking her head.

  * * *

  As Lou drove home, she was thinking about many things: her smelly clothes in the back seat, the coffee cups she really needed to throw away, how great it would be to see Rachel and Bobby again, and Steve. Though she was doing her best not to think of Steve. It had been one date, after all, that might or might not lead to more, with someone she still couldn’t even say for sure why she was attracted to her, good looks and charm notwithstanding.

  Just as she took a left onto Circle Court, into the cul-de-sac where her little house sat, her phone buzzed from the center console. Two quick buzzes told her it was a text message. She ignored it until after she pulled into her driveway and cut the engine, then she unbuckled the seat belt with her left hand while reaching for the phone with her right.

  It was a text from Bill. You must tell me ALL the details!

  She laughed out loud, then responded, Gossip queen!

  Is there any other kind?

  You’re such a cliché.

  I can live with that. Come to dinner tonight and tell us everything. I’m making steaks!

  She grinned. Okay, but only for the food! You’re not getting a thing out of me!

  Well, you’re no fun at all.

  She was laughing as she got out of the Jeep. She was two steps away when she stopped, snapped her fingers and doubled back, unlocked the door, pushed the seat up, and grabbed her duffel bag. She frowned down at the paper cups but said in a jovial mood, “Not today, little friends,” then relocked and closed the door and swung the duffel up on her shoulder as she headed into the house.

  Once inside she headed straight for the laundry room and threw her smelly workout gear, duffel and all, into the washer and let it do its thing, then immediately started taking her clothes off as she headed through the house, leaving a trail from the living room to her bathroom, where she hopped in the shower. An ex-girlfriend had once commented on this habit. Not that I mind the show, but you kind of remind me of an out-of-the-park-homer that’s hit so hard, it sheds layers as it flies. And I’m the outfielder looking for pieces. Sports metaphors had just been how Lisa talked. She was a high school PE teacher and women’s softball coach. Lou had gotten used to them and had even found that one kind of sweet.

  She was looking forward to dinner with the boys tonight. She didn’t really mind that they would be grilling her along with the steaks. She had teased Bill about being a gossip, but she knew their questions came from a good place. Anyway, she had no one else to gush to, not that she was much of a gusher. Her college friends had all scattered to the four winds after graduation, and the friends she’d made since hadn’t become as close-knit as her group of irregulars, as they referred to themselves, from college. They had all been geeks and nerds, and once she met them she had felt as if she had found her people.

  Now Bill and Dix were her family, and it seemed right that she would talk to them about her date. If her mother had still been alive, she would have asked polite, interested questions and not intruded too much on Lou’s privacy. Lou’s friends used to tell her how lucky she was to have a mother who cared enough to stay out of her business, and Lou tried to see it from their point of view, but she couldn’t always. She sometimes wished her mother would ask her more questions, instead of just asking a few rudimentary ones, almost like she was playing the part of an interested mother but really wasn’t. Almost as if she hadn’t wanted to get involved.

  After her shower, Lou still had several hours before she was due at Bill and Dix’s, so after getting dressed in a T-shirt and cargo pants, she pulled the stack of midterm papers out of her satchel and sat down at the kitchen table with a large cup of coffee and a red pen. She used the red pen out of nostalgia mostly, but also conceded that it did stand out better than her favorite black pen did. She’d had a professor in college who had graded with a green pencil and she had never understood why. While the traditional red markup led generations of students to refer to their profs bleeding all over the paper, that green pen had been dubbed ooze.

  When she graded, she mostly commented on where a student could have taken their work further and made suggestions on other research they could consult. On Rate My Professors, students described her as intense but an easy A, as long as you showed up and did all the things. That was pretty accurate.

  Five hours later, after only getting up for more coffee and to check on her laundry, Lou put away the mostly done stack of papers and realized it was time to head over to the boys’ place for dinner. She took her cup to the sink and rinsed it, then turned it upside down in the sink. She picked up her keys and phone and turned her phone back on—she often turned it off when she wanted to concentrate on something, whether it was grading, writing, or working out—and saw that she had several email notifications and three texts from Bill, all saying pretty much the same thing: Where are you?

  She smiled and typed back, Doing my job. I’m on my way now. Leaving the phone on vibrate, she put it her pocket and headed for the door.

  * * *

  Dix met Lou at the door and greeted her by putting a kiss on each of her cheeks and handing her a bottle of beer. She accepted the beer and the kisses with a smile and said, “You’re only one of two men who are allowed to kiss me.”

  Bill came in from the living room with his arms open wide and enveloped her in a hug, and said, “As long as I’m the other one.” So saying, he kissed her on the left cheek. “How are you, dear?”

  She sighed audibly and said, “I have grading fatigue. But other than that, ready for a good medium-rare.”

  As they made their way into the living room, Dix said, “Why don’t you ever insult his cooking?”

  Before Lou could respond, Bill jumped in, “Why would she?”

  Lou giggled, while Dix stood with his mouth agape. “Guess who’s not going to be big spoon tonight?”

  “Oh, hush. The last time you spooned me was the night of Maggie’s wedding.” Bill turned to Lou. “He was feeling frisky after the day’s events and attacked me as soon as we got back to our hotel.”

  “Don’t lie to the poor girl.” Dix inclined his head to Lou almost conspiratorially and said, “I ask you, do you know any other couple who’s been together over twenty years and still has sex as much as we do? Hmm?”

  “I don’t know how much sex you have.” Before either of them could fill her in on this knowledge, she raised a finger of warning. “And I don’t want to know. So don’t tell me.” But she was laughing as she said it.

  Bill shrugged and looked at his husband. “She has just been no fun at all today.”

  “But we love her anyway.” Dix smiled and kissed her on the cheek again, then took her by the arm. He said to his husband, “Now go finish up those steaks, while our second-favorite lesbian tells me about her date.”

  “She is going to tell us together, aren’t you, love?”

  Lou crossed her arms over her chest and looked at them with fond amusement. “I don’t know. I may have to reconsider if I’m your second-favorite lesbian.”

  “I’m sorry, but Maggie was here first,” Bill said.

  “So you play favorites?”

  “Yes, but she’s only winning by a hair. After all, she went off a
nd left us, so you are our favorite lesbian left in town.”

  Lou unclasped her arms and said dryly, “Small compensation.”

  Dix looked at Bill and said sadly, “Honey, I think we hurt her feelings.”

  “It can’t be helped. It is what it is. I shall return.” With that, he turned on his heel and left the living room through the patio door to attend to the grill.

  Lou looked out in wonder. “He’s actually grilling? Doesn’t he know it’s October?”

  “Oh, honey, that man would grill in the middle of winter. One year he wanted grilled turkey for Thanksgiving and it snowed that year. Didn’t matter to him. He was still out there in his heavy winter coat and Cubs hat, you know, the kind with the ball on top?” Dix made a gesture on top of his head to indicate a puffy ball.

  “I think they call those beanies now.”

  Dix tsked. “It’s a hat—a beanie has a propeller on it. Young people would know that if they weren’t so stupid.”

  Lou laughed. “Do you include your students in that?”

  “Oh, I include them especially. Not really, of course. We all have our own abilities. I love my job, don’t get me wrong, but too many students are lured by unscrupulous recruiters who are just trying to fill seats.” Dix looked lost in thought for a moment, contemplating his own words.

  “That’s probably true. Too many kids are pushed to go to college, when they shouldn’t.”

  “I could talk for hours on that topic, so I will force myself not to. Come on and help me set the table.”

  Lou bowed to him much the same way Steve had bowed to her, in a courtly way, and said, “As you like.”

  Dix put his hands over his heart and exclaimed, “Be still my heart.”

  They laughed together as they walked into the kitchen.

  * * *

  Once dinner was served, they all sat around the table enjoying the steaks Bill had prepared and exclaiming over their goodness. She was halfway through her meal before Bill and Dix started asking questions. Bill was first.

  “Okay, you’ve had plenty of food. Tell us.”

  Before she could, Dix piped up and said, “Sgt. Hottie, reporting for duty.”

  “I think you’re confusing my love life with gay porn.”

  “You mean it’s not?” Bill sounded disappointed.

  Lou looked down and pretended to sigh dejectedly. “Alas, it is not. I hope I have not disappointed your expectations of what lesbians are like.”

  Dix looked at his husband. “I’ve heard that lesbians can go out and not have sex on the first date.”

  “What?” Bill sounded shocked.

  “It’s true,” Dix replied.

  “He’s right.” Lou backed him up. “But we make up for it by moving in on the second date.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “So when is she moving in?” Dix asked.

  Lou shrugged and took a bite of her steak, then said, “Not sure. We haven’t set up a second date yet, but I think we will.”

  “So if you didn’t have sex last night, what did you do?”

  “What all lesbians do on dates—we had dinner, talked, got to know each other, staged a protest over the unfair wages the waiters were making, then went home.” Lou grinned.

  Bill looked at Dix. “I hope you’re taking notes for our report.”

  Dix used his fork to pretend to make a note in the air and smiled at Lou.

  Bill turned back to Lou. “If you’re not going to be honest, you are not getting dessert, missy.”

  “What’s for dessert?”

  “Apple cobbler and vanilla ice cream.”

  Lou considered. “Well…I’ll give you more details, but only if it’s homemade.”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  “You mean homemade by him or Mrs. Smith?”

  “Hush.” Bill pointed his finger at Dix and Dix fixed him with a beatific smile and winked at Lou.

  “There isn’t that much more to tell anyway. After dinner, we went to campus and walked around the duck pond, and then she took me home and kissed me good night.”

  Bill leaned in. “Was it a good kiss?”

  Lou leaned in to Bill. “That depends, is it going in your report?”

  “No, this is just between us.”

  Lou sat up and said wistfully, “It was a very good kiss.”

  Dix quipped, “It was wrong to compare it to gay porn. That does not sound hot at all.”

  Lou grinned. “I never said it wasn’t hot.”

  “Finally, some juicy details,” Bill said excitedly.

  “Nope, that’s all you get, mainly because that’s all there was.”

  “And you wonder why Maggie’s our favorite.”

  “Well, if being your favorite means giving you all the intimate details, I guess I’m happy being second best.”

  “I knew there were more details,” Dix declared.

  “There always are. Don’t worry, my dear, we’ll get the story out of her yet.”

  “And my little dog too?”

  “You don’t have a little dog,” Dix said.

  “But if you did, yes,” Bill declared.

  * * *

  Later that night, when Lou got home, she pulled the midterm papers out and finished grading them, then answered all her emails, most of which were from panicked students. She did what she could to put their fears to rest, then put her laptop and the papers away and went to her room. By the time she called it a night, it was well past midnight, but that was typical. The boys had been disappointed when she didn’t stay long after dinner, but she knew she had several more hours of work waiting for her at home.

  They had kissed her good-bye at the door and Bill had said, “You will keep us informed, won’t you?”

  She crossed her heart and said, “I will keep you abreast of everything.”

  “Oh God, I don’t want to be that close to you.”

  Lou laughed and Dix rolled his eyes.

  Sobering, Lou said, “Don’t make me give you a bear hug.”

  “Just go. But let us know what happens.”

  “Of course.”

  Now in her room, Lou took off her T-shirt and cargo pants and threw them in a vague direction toward her hamper, and took some joy in flinging her sports bra like the slingshot it was often called in the same direction. There was another T-shirt on her bed, an oversized heather gray one with Army Strong in bold black lettering, that she had taken from her father’s closet when he left. It still smelled of his piney scent and was two sizes too big on her, but it was the perfect size to sleep in. She slipped it on and it came to just above her knees. The shoulders fell halfway down her arms. She didn’t fill the shirt out the way her father had. The years she had spent learning her craft had given her a lean, toned body, one she was proud of, but not an overly large one. Her shoulders weren’t bulging but she did have good definition. And she was okay with that. She hadn’t learned her skills for the muscles, but the speed and deftness with which she could now move had come in handy over the years.

  She left her bedroom, went into the kitchen, and took a plastic glass from the cabinet above the sink, filled it with iced tea from the fridge, then took it back to her room and set it on her nightstand. She pulled the covers back and settled in, retrieved a paperback novel off the nightstand, and began to read. One of her favorite fantasy writers had recently come out with a new book and she was anxious to read it.

  After about a half hour, her phone buzzed on the nightstand. The noise was so loud against the wooden surface and she was so into the book, that she jumped, startled. She chuckled to herself when she realized what she had done. “Bill, I’m going to kill you.” But the message wasn’t from Bill at all and she smiled. “Oh.”

  Sorry it’s so late, but I just couldn’t wait another day. I think etiquette says you’re supposed to but I just couldn’t. I hope I didn’t wake you. If you’re just finding this in the morning, good morning. I hope you slept well. If you are reading this in the now, I hope you h
ad a good day today. Whenever you’re reading this, I hope you’re smiling.

  Lou felt her cheeks grow warm and her smile grew. “Oh my God.” She typed, Yes, I’m smiling. Maybe even blushing a little, though I don’t know why. Yes, I had a good day. Saw your mother this morning, then did teacher things in the afternoon, then met friends for dinner. How about you?

  Blushing? I’d give anything to see that. But in time, I’m sure. Yes, I saw my mother today too. She was surprisingly polite about not asking me too much. Did she grill you? I hope not.

  She was polite to me as well. But she did mention inviting me to dinner and asking for info there. Should I be worried?

  Haha. Nah. But I think we should have a second date before I bring you home to Mother.

  Well, I’ve already met your mother, but yes, I agree.

  No, you’ve met Mrs. Adams—you have not met my mother. I assure you, mom mode is much different. I don’t know if even your ninja skills will prepare you.

  Now I’m worried. So, when and where, soldier?

  Are you busy tomorrow night?

  You mean go out on a school night? Lol

  If you dare.

  Okay, I’m game. What time?

  Seven? I have something in mind. It’s casual attire.

  Intrigued. Okay. I’m in.

  Good. I’ll see you tomorrow night. Good night, Lou.

  Good night, Steve.

  Lou was about to put the phone back on the nightstand when she remembered her promise to the boys. She texted Bill, Dr. Lou reporting. Rendezvous scheduled for tomorrow. Not sure what to expect. Will proceed with caution. Please advise.

  The reply came a couple minutes later. Woman, do you not know what time it is? Some of us need our beauty sleep, though I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about that.

  I think that was a compliment.

  Mostly. My advice—don’t proceed with caution. Go all in and don’t hold anything back. Now, good night.

  All in? I’m not sleeping with her on the second date just so you can get juicy details.