by Donna Hill
Barbara shrugged, tossing the odd behavior aside. “And I also have to select the equipment.” Her face brightened. “Since you’re here, maybe you can go shopping with me tomorrow to pick some things out.”
He put some salad in a bowl and poured much too much dressing on it. “Yeah, sure.” He kept his gaze averted, intent on his salad.
Barbara put her fork down. “You want to tell me what’s suddenly bugging you?”
“I said nothing!”
She jerked back from the force of his words. “Fine.”
They ate in silence.
“Look, I need to go. I haven’t even checked into my hotel and I have some things to do. Coach wants to be sure he can get to us if necessary.” He got up from the table and practically tossed his bowl in the sink. He stalked out back into the bedroom and got dressed without saying a word.
Barbara stood in the doorway watching him as he got dressed. “You’re acting very childish. How can I know what’s going on if you don’t say anything.”
He turned on her as if she’d cursed his mama. “What? Childish?” He sputtered a nasty laugh. “I was wondering how long it would take for that to come out.”
“Mike, what in the hell is wrong with you?”
“Like I said, nothing is wrong. And if you think I’m childish then so be it. I’m out.” He brushed past her and was out the door before she could blink three times.
She shook her head in disbelief. What had just happened? One minute they were making love like wild rabbits, the next he has his jockstrap twisted in a knot.
Sighing, she began picking up her clothing from the various places off the floor, then put them in the hamper in the bathroom. She went into the kitchen and started cleaning up, going over the events of the evening, trying to pinpoint where things had taken a wrong turn. For the life of her she couldn’t figure it out.
By the time she settled down for bed it was nearly 1:00 a.m. She was sure she would have heard from Michael by now, apologizing and explaining his erratic behavior. As she stared up at the darkened ceiling, listening to the minutes tick by, the phone never rang.
The first thing she did the following morning was check her phone to make sure it was working. It was and there were no messages she’d missed. She dug in her purse for her cell phone. Again, not a word from Michael. She didn’t even know what hotel he was staying in, or for that matter, if he was still in New York. If he could suddenly shift gears like that there was no telling what he might do on the spur of the moment.
That whole notion disturbed her as she fixed a breakfast of wheat toast and scrambled egg whites. From the beginning it was Michael who pursued this relationship. It was Michael who insisted that it would work out between them. He was gung ho. With great reluctance and a great deal of prodding from her friends she’d given in. As wonderful as things were between them, in the back of her mind she still had some reservations about their age difference. By the time he was forty she would be in her sixties. Where she had been married, he never had. And she knew that at some point he would want to settle down and probably have a family.
She sighed as she spooned her food onto a plate. She had to be realistic. This relationship, as eye-opening and liberating as it was, had a limited life span. And if his odd behavior last night was any indication of what a future with him would be, maybe the life span would be shorter than they’d both anticipated. One thing she’d learned in her forty-nine years was that she’d developed a low tolerance for crap, and the older she got the less crap she was taking.
“Just out of the blue he got all funny acting?” Elizabeth asked as she and Barbara walked through the sporting equipment supply outlet.
“Yes.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
“Hmm. Well, one thing I learned and learned the hard way is that if you don’t have communication you are in deep trouble.”
“Speaking of trouble, how are things working out with you and Matt?”
Elizabeth sighed. “It’s in the lawyers’ hands now. The upside is, the house is in my name and my name only. We never had it changed. So, the house is currently on the market. And the way real estate is going these days, it could be sold in a matter of weeks.”
“Wow.”
“So I’m really hoping that the contractors will at least be finished with the electrical and plumbing soon so that they can get started on the top-floor apartment. I don’t want to move in with the girls, and threesomes are not my thing,” she added, giving Barbara a wink.
“Very funny. After we finish here we’ll go over to the house and see how things are going and talk to Ron about some realistic guesstimates.”
Elizabeth smiled.
“Give you a chance to see Mr. Front Cover again. As a matter of fact, as your best friend in the world, I’ll let you do all the talking.”
Elizabeth giggled like a teenager. “Any excuse works for me.”
“Girl, I’ve never heard you talk like that,” Barbara said, tickled for her friend.
Elizabeth turned to Barbara, resting her hip against a workbench. “You know, I think that for at least the past ten years I’ve been sleepwalking through life.”
Barbara checked the price on a massage table.
“Everything was routine. No excitement, nothing out of the norm.” Elizabeth shrugged. “I convinced myself that I was content.” She drew in a breath. “Maybe I can’t blame Matt. He was probably feeling the same way. Somewhere along the line we forgot to be the people who fell in love with each other. We stopped talking, stopped doing anything that wasn’t connected to the house or the girls.”
“But you always seemed so happy.”
“Looks can be deceiving. I had all the trappings of a successful marriage. And I convinced myself that it was a success. But day by day it was eroding and I was too blind to see it or maybe I didn’t want to.” She shrugged again. “That’s why I’m saying to you, if you have communication problems now, nip them in the bud, they can only get worse.”
Barbara thought about it as she placed an order for three massage tables, storage cabinets and blood pressure cuffs, and knew that her friend was right.
Chapter 31
Now that she was officially unemployed, she couldn’t very well sit around all day in her pajamas, Stephanie thought as she exited her bedroom for the first time that day.
She padded into the kitchen to scrounge around for something to nibble on. She’d made an appointment to meet with Raquel and the twins at two to work out the promotional campaign and it was already noon. She had some ideas, but with Ellie’s girls and Ann Marie’s daughter now on the team she wanted their input.
Interesting, the dynamics between Ann Marie and her daughter, Stephanie thought as she popped two pieces of bread into the toaster. Something was going on between them, for sure. Ann Marie had barely mentioned her daughter in the years that they’d all known each other, but now Ann Marie and Raquel seemed to have made some kind of connection. Maybe that even accounted for Ann Marie’s sudden change from bitch to human being. Whatever it was, she hoped it lasted. Ann Marie could certainly use some humanity in her life.
She buttered her toast and sat down at the kitchen table just as the phone rang. She pushed up from the table to get the phone and couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d been smacked by a complete stranger.
“Annie? What’s up?”
“I just received the paperwork in the mail to incorporate Pause for Men, and…uh, I was thinking that since you aren’t…working, well, you, uh, mentioned something about doing your own thing….”
Ann Marie was a lot of things, Stephanie thought as she listened and wondered where the conversation was going, but hesitant about what she had on her mind wasn’t one of them.
“Yes?”
“Well, I thought that maybe, if you were interested, of course, I could help you get your paperwork in order.”
Stephanie pinched her thigh good and hard until she wanted to yelp. Nope, this wasn’t a dream.
“Say what? You want to help me?” She tossed her newly done weave over her shoulder to make sure not a word was muffled.
“Hey, maybe it wasn’t a good idea, just a thought. Forget it, mon.”
“No, wait. I’m sorry. It’s just that…let’s be honest for a minute, Ann…you and I have been like oil and water for years. You get on my last nerve and I get on yours. So, to say that this offer of yours is a surprise would be an understatement, that’s all.” She paused, swallowed her pride and decades of bad feelings. “So…what were you thinking?”
As she listened to Ann Marie her excitement grew. The idea of running her own business had been an idea she’d been toying with even before her abrupt resignation. But to hear someone, especially Ann Marie who had so much business savvy, say that she believed in the idea meant more to her than she could have ever expected.
“…and to cut down on overhead, at least until you get too big, and I can’t stand you again, I thought it would be ideal if you worked right out of the house. Remember the room…”
Stephanie’s mind was running at light speed. She could see it all as plain as her hazel contacts. The location was perfect, she’d have the chance to meet all manner of potential clients and wouldn’t have to worry about rents or leases, at least for a while.
“I love it,” Stephanie said. “I’m convinced.”
Ann Marie laughed. “I could sell you your own damn panties and make ya t’ink they was new. I’m good, girl.”
Stephanie heard a lightness in Ann Marie’s voice, a playfulness that was foreign to her ears. And for once she wasn’t offended by Ann’s off-color comment.
“So what do I need to do?”
“Pick a name for one t’ing. I’ll do a search and make sure it’s not taken, and then we fill out the forms for incorporation.”
“Ann?”
“Yeah…”
“Thanks. I mean that. I’m not sure if you fell on your head recently, if it’s holy intervention or if Phil’s been hitting all the right spots lately, but…”
“There’s no more Phil.”
“What? Why? I thought he was the one.”
“So did I.”
“Well…if you, uh, ever want to talk about it…”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She pushed out a sigh. “Gotta get back to work. Me chat wit’ ya lata.”
“Sure. Thanks.” She slowly hung up the phone, still in shock over Ann Marie’s one-eighty. But it was all good.
No more Phil. Wonder what happened with that, and Ann never did say why Raquel and Earl split up. She shrugged it off. Everyone had their issues and she had enough to sink an ocean liner. But no time to dwell on things she couldn’t change at the moment. She had to focus on what she could handle, the rest would have to wait.
Stephanie got dressed, packed up her trusty laptop and headed out, only to run smack into Conrad, who was standing outside her door.
“What are you doing here?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
She tried to walk past him but he grabbed her upper arm.
“Steph, please, hear me out.”
She glared down at his hand on her arm. He removed it and took a step back.
“You have two minutes starting right now.”
“I want you back.”
“You have lost your mind.”
“Maybe I have and that’s why I was acting like such a fool. I’m sorry—for everything.”
“Great. Now I have to go.”
“I didn’t mean the things I said in the office.”
She looked him square in the eye. “Of course you did, Conrad. You never say things you don’t mean.”
“I did that day. I swear it. I was angry and quite frankly surprised.”
“Surprised that I finally stood up for myself and stood up to you?”
He hesitated. “No. Surprised that you would leave. You’re good at what you do. If nothing else, the firm needs you.”
“I’m sure you’ll find someone else to fill my shoes in no time.”
“That’s not possible.”
She was tired of the conversation. “Your two minutes are up. I have to go.” She walked toward her car.
“What are you going to do for money? Where are you going to go and get the kind of clientele you’ve been dealing with since you’ve been with me?” he called out to her back in a last-ditch effort.
She used the remote and deactivated the car alarm. She opened the door.
“I love you, Stephanie.”
She nearly stumbled.
“There, I’ve said it. I love you. I’ve made some awful mistakes. But I don’t want to lose you. I’ll make it all up to you I swear.”
Their time together flashed through her head. The fun, laughter, the great sex, the hurt, the humiliation, the assault. She spun toward him. “I don’t love you, Conrad. Maybe I did once. But I don’t now and never will again.” She opened the car door and got in, shutting it solidly behind her.
She watched him through her side-view mirror, standing there looking broken, the puff in his chest deflated. She had an instant moment of angst, a flash of possibility. The light turned green. Her new future lay ahead of her, the past behind.
She drove off and didn’t look back. But in a corner of her mind she knew she hadn’t heard the last of Conrad.
Chapter 32
When Barbara and Elizabeth arrived at the brownstone, the crew was just breaking for lunch. The men were in various states of relaxation as they walked inside.
“Excuse me,” Barbara said to one of the men sitting on a huge can of plaster, eating a sandwich. “Is the foreman around?”
He lifted his hard hat back up on his head to better see them. He resembled a buffed Don Johnson, the actor, right down to the sparkling blue eyes and devilish grin. “He’s working on the top floor. Said something about it being a rush.”
“Thanks,” Barbara said, and took Elizabeth’s arm. “Girl, are they all this fine?”
“Honey, we don’t need to open the spa for men, we could just let these guys keep working here forever.”
They giggled and headed up the stairs. There were at least twenty men on the crew, ranging in age from early twenties to late forties, all fine, fit and delicious. There should be some kind of law against having this many gorgeous men of every nationality in one location. They had to force themselves not to stare as the men bent, lifted, heaved and hoed.
“Lawdhavemercy,” Barbara murmured.
“Must be like firemen,” Elizabeth whispered as they reached the top floor. “You ever notice how every fireman is fine? Makes you almost want to set your house on fire just so they could run through there.”
Barbara burst out laughing. “Ellie, you need to stop. I never knew you had your eye on other men.”
“I may be married but I’m not dead or blind.”
“I hear that.” She lowered her voice. “There’s your Mr. Fixit.” She angled her chin in Ron’s direction. He was up on a ladder, refinishing the molding in the front room. “I’ll just make myself scarce. Go do your thing.”
Elizabeth tugged in a breath at Barbara’s encouraging smile. She walked toward Ron.
“Hey,” she said, stepping up alongside the ladder.
He looked down and a smile of pure delight lit up his face. “Hey, yourself. This is a surprise.” He came down, jumping off the last two steps. “How are you?” He wiped his hands on his dusty jeans.
“I’m good.” She looked around, amazed at how much had been accomplished. “The place looks great.”
He nodded. “We should be finished up here by the end of the week. We put in a new bathroom, rewired, stripped the floors and all the woodwork and replastered the walls. All that’s left to do now is stain all the wood, shellac the floors and paint. As soon as everything is dry you can move in.” He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Have any particular color you want in the rooms?”
&nbs
p; “I haven’t really thought about it, but I guess I should at the rate you’re going.”
“Wanna take a walk-through, see what we’ve done? Then maybe the color scheme will come to you.”
“Sure.”
Barbara watched them walk off and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her friend look so lighthearted and happy. There was actually a sparkle in her eyes. How could they have been so close for so long and she not notice that Elizabeth was not really happy?
She supposed the same could be said of her. You simply get comfortable in a lifestyle and accept it. Like Ellie said, you convince yourself that you’re happy simply because the bills are paid and the lights are on. But there is so much more to happiness than material things. Happiness starts from inside and works its way out. It’s like a light that gets turned on in the dark, and like Ellie, the light shines in your eyes.
She’d known happiness with Marvin. She’d found happiness again with Mike, although a different kind. With Marvin, it was a satisfying kind of love. The kind of love you have for the man who makes you feel secure and protected. He was her second and only lover until Michael.
Where Marvin was conservative and very conventional, Michael was just the opposite. It would have never occurred to Marvin to perform oral sex, or make love in the shower or on the living-room floor. And she’d accepted that. She’d certainly never discussed her sex life with her girlfriends, even though they didn’t seem to have a problem sharing theirs, especially Ann Marie.
Whether she and Michael worked things out or not, there was one thing she would always be grateful to him for: bringing her out of the dark and opening her up to her own sexuality and accepting it, embracing it without being ashamed of her desires or fantasies.
She smiled to herself. She liked sex—a lot. And she intended to have more of it. If she could catch the eye of someone as young as Michael Townsend, then the sky was the limit.
“What are you grinning about?”
Barbara blinked back into the present to see Elizabeth and Ron standing in front of her. Her face grew hot, as if they could read her thoughts.
