by Lucy Score
“Thanks for stepping in,” Gloria said, studying her fingernails and wondering if she should take up chewing them to help cope with the feelings that bubbled up within her and threatened to overwhelm.
Claire pulled up a stool next to her and stretched her long, denim-clad legs. “I didn’t want you knocking Mrs. Nickelbee’s wig off her head.”
Gloria’s eyebrows lifted. Claire’s assumption that she’d turn to violence instead of bursting into tears cheered her considerably. “You weren’t worried that I’d curl into the fetal position behind the register?”
“It took backbone to leave. It took backbone and more than a bit of recklessness to want to confront him.” Claire picked up a thick-stemmed peony. “You’re not some dainty blossom waiting to be crushed, honey. And eventually people will see that. Be patient with them…and yourself.”
“I hate being a victim.” The confession took Gloria by surprise. Apparently opening up to a therapist meant she’d be releasing the kraken to non-licensed listeners, too.
“Then don’t be,” Claire said lightly, jabbing her with the stem. “Be beautiful. Be fun. Be busy. Be excited. Be you. Everyone else will eventually catch up. You just have to give them something else to see.”
“You’re a pretty smart advice-giver, Claire.”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Would you please tell my children that? They insist on learning everything the hard way.”
Gloria decided to take Claire’s advice and get busy. She tackled the back room, determined to restore order to the supplies and tools. With every shelf righted, every cubby organized, she felt calmer. The stainless-steel work tables were next, doused with spray and polished until they gleamed. The half-dozen pairs of shears were collected and hung neatly on the pegboard that appeared to have been abandoned some months before.
She gathered up discarded blooms—peonies and spray roses—scattered about from the centerpieces Della and Claire had worked on that morning and she made her first official bouquet. It was chaotic and ever so slightly misshapen. But she liked it. Things didn’t have to be perfect to be attractive or interesting. She tied it with a shiny ribbon and, after the slightest hesitation, added it to the ready-made arrangement trough without asking for permission first.
Her phone buzzed in her apron pocket, and she fished it out.
Harper: Lunch with me and Soph at the diner?
Gloria considered.
Gloria: Can you guarantee no one will refer to me as “poor little Gloria Parker” within earshot?
Harper: Solution: Sophie and I will talk really loudly so you can’t hear anything else.
Gloria: Good enough for me.
She let Claire know she was taking her lunch and made the two-minute drive to the diner. “Give them something else to see,” she reminded herself before walking in the front door. It smelled of hot roast beef sandwiches and French fries. The floor was the required black and white checker pattern, the booths requisite red vinyl. It was packed. Tables were hard to come by during the lunch rush.
Sophie, with her dark hair tied in a high ponytail, waved to her from the back booth. Gloria slid into the red vinyl next to Harper.
“Gloria, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Sophie began. “But our lovely friend Harper is still here.”
Gloria looked from woman to woman. “What am I missing?”
“She was going to leave town when Luke deployed,” Sophie said. “Didn’t she tell you?” At the mention of the deployment, Gloria found herself back in her mother’s flower bed, reliving the most amazing kiss of her life. God, she missed Aldo, and she wasn’t even sure she had the right to.
Harper grimaced. “I’m not used to having actual friends, so I’m not great with the communication.”
That made two of them.
Sophie dropped her head back and released a dramatic sigh. “Okay, so Harper and Luke got together because I, a genius, manipulated them into pretending to have a relationship. Of course, per the aforementioned genius, I knew full well that Luke wouldn’t be able to resist a hot blonde who cruises the kitchen naked—”
“Not true. I was wearing underwear,” Harper cut in.
“Mostly naked,” Sophie corrected. “Fake relationship became real. But these two yahoos thought that the best thing to do would be to part ways when Luke left with his unit. I know, so stupid.”
“You’re a jerk,” Harper laughed, clearly unfazed.
“Fortunately, my mule-stubborn brother—Luke, not James, since there are two—came to his senses and demanded—”
“Asked,” Harper corrected.
“Whatever. Begged Harper to stay.”
Sophie stretched both arms over the back of the booth and looked smug. “The bottom line is, I’m a genius, and Harper and Luke are in a relationship.”
“I feel like a slow clap is called for,” Gloria said.
Sophie pointed at her. “You’re funny. I like that about you.”
Well, at least there was some part of her she hadn’t allowed Glenn to destroy.
“Now that we’re all caught up on my love life,” Harper said dryly. “How’s work going?”
Gloria realized Harper was talking to her. She, Gloria Rosemarie Parker, had a j-o-b. The rush of pleasure at the realization was swift, potent.
“It’s going well. Claire and Della have been very patient with me.” She had a lot to learn, enough that it was still overwhelming. But Gloria had a glimmer of hope that she’d be able to hold her own…in a year or two.
They ordered—an iced tea and tuna melt for her—from Sandra, the redheaded waitress/proprietress, who only gave Gloria the “aw, poor girl” look for a second. Once the food arrived, they slid into a comfortable banter about work, kids, and town gossip.
“Heard Mrs. Nickelbee was excited to make a purchase from you,” Sophie said, snagging a French fry off Harper’s plate.
Gloria resisted the urge to make a face. “She seemed to like her flowers,” she said, taking a bite of tuna to prevent herself from having to comment further.
“You grew up here,” Sophie said, after a gulp of her diet soda. “You know everyone feels entitled to everyone else’s business.”
“I’m hoping that someone else’s business will interest them soon,” Gloria sighed. She wondered how interested people would be to know that she’d kissed Aldo, that she had a tentative date with him when he came back. Would they think she was crazy? He was crazy?
A threesome, two men in business casual khakis and polo shirts and a woman in a flowing maxi dress, took stools at the counter. Gloria recognized the woman as Kate Marshall from the town council and owner of a mortgage company.
The man in the pale pink polo that hugged his beer belly hung up his phone and tossed it on the counter in disgust. “Well, Merle’s hip is officially broken.”
“This is a disaster,” Kate grumbled. “The man’s been chairing the Fourth of freaking July festival for thirty years. Who the hell are we going to find this late in the game?”
Gloria perked up, openly eavesdropping now. Harper opened her mouth to say something, but Gloria shushed her. She had been an organizer in school. She’d once loved the neat and tidy coordination of tiny details into one big, cohesive picture.
She’d once clearly been a nerd, Gloria realized.
“I sure as hell don’t have time,” Combover announced.
“We don’t even have three months,” Kate lamented. “Who’s going to volunteer to step into this mess? The 5k, the parade, the carnival, the fireworks. We’re screwed.”
The Gloria That Left Glenn After the First Time would be involved. She’d be a volunteer, a doer, an organizer. She’d champion causes and lend her resources to support the community at large. She’d be on boards and hosting functions, making a difference.
Gloria rose as if pulled by puppet strings. “I’ll do it,” she announced loudly.
Conversation in the diner came to a screeching halt.
Sophie’s bite of sandwich fell o
ut of her mouth and onto her plate.
17
He had sand in every fucking crevice. To top it off, the sand was mingling with the sweat that flowed from a bottomless, salty well, creating a kind of exfoliating slurry that Aldo knew from experience would take more than a week’s worth of showers to get rid of.
Afghanistan. Seven thousand miles from Benevolence. From his house. From his mother—that part wasn’t so bad. His job and his friends. The rocky landscape bounced heat back off the ground like a convection oven, cooking everything on its surface. He’d get used to it—mostly. He always did. But as a first lieutenant, part of his duty was to help his unit acclimate.
This stony slab of desert was about as far as you could get from the comforts of the U.S. Not only was it a combat theater with swarms of insurgents hoping to at least get a shot at any foreign “interloper,” it was also hot as balls and riddled with opium, and the education level peaked around first grade.
But over the years, he’d learned to embrace the discomfort. It made going home all the sweeter.
He pushed through the tent flap and angled himself toward his cot. It was a cozy setup with fourteen other soldiers crammed under the musty canvas.
“Hey, LT,” Private First Class Scotty Kettle greeted him, opening one eye on the cot next to Aldo’s. He was stripped down to briefs with a battery-operated fan blowing on his head. At nineteen, fresh out of high school, it was the kid’s first deployment.
Aldo grunted a greeting and toed off his boots. He yanked the blanket back on his own cot. He always checked for spiders. After his first encounter with a camel spider the size of a dinner plate, well, he never took any chances.
He stripped off his shirt and pants and flopped face down on his spider-free bed.
He’d been up for thirty hours straight, starting with a stint in the southern guard tower, flowing into a briefing with the base’s Afghan interpreters, and ending with a briefing and firearms training with the Afghan National Security Forces.
That was their primary mission. Training and advising the local security forces to be able to handle whatever the insurgents threw at them. Glorified babysitting. But he was proud to see the strides made since his last tour.
Luke—Captain Garrison here—had different responsibilities. Personnel. Briefings out the ass. Dealing with the higher-ups.
Aldo preferred his own. He liked getting dirty, liked getting to know the locals. He was a buddy and a shoulder when needed and the man screaming in your face to push harder when the chips were down. More babysitting.
“Rough day?” Aldo asked Scotty.
“It’s fucking hot, sir.”
“Wait until August,” Aldo said cheerfully. Sympathy never accomplished what preparation and white-knuckled determination did. “Missing home?”
Deployment could be boiled down to this: mind-numbing tedium punctuated with a fear for your life that you could taste. It took homesickness and magnified it into an obsession that some never recovered from.
He could hear the hard swallow. “Little bit.”
“You’ll be back before you know it. Swimming in pools, kissing pretty girls, smokin’ ribs.”
“Weird to think that it doesn’t all stop just because we’re here,” Scotty said.
Aldo thought about his mother heading to bingo. About Jamilah kicking ass on job sites and in conference rooms. About the butts on the stools at the diner and the cold beers poured at Remo’s.
While he worked his ass off and wrestled with spiders and boredom here, his mother’s cholesterol went up another five points, and Gloria was smiling smiles that he’d never see.
“You got a girl at home?” Aldo asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes, sir. Mandy. We’re engaged.”
Nineteen and engaged. Nineteen and spending six months avoiding indirect fire. Nineteen and responsible for keeping his unit alive. They just kept getting younger.
“Congratulations. What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get home?”
He listened to Scotty wax poetic on his mama’s potato salad and Mandy’s pretty smile.
The first deployment changed things. Not just in the man—or woman—but in every relationship they had back home. Seeing the slice of the world that most Americans were lucky enough to never know existed changed the DNA of a person.
Scotty would go home, God willing. But he’d be different from the kid who got on that bus. Aldo hoped Mandy was the accommodating type.
“She’ll be waiting for you when you get back. Probably already has a wedding dress picked out,” Aldo predicted. He didn’t know Mandy from Eve. But what Scotty needed right now was hope. And maybe Aldo could use a dose of it, too.
Aldo closed his eyes and thought of Gloria. She’d be at his house this week in his inner sanctum. He could picture her in his bedroom. Hell, he’d put two of his new plants on his dresser just so he knew she’d have to go inside. He wanted her there, more than he could say. It was purely selfish.
He could see her. That short, sassy hair, her bright smile, letting herself into his house with a key.
He purposely hadn’t given her a way to contact him. She had so much living that she was entitled to. He didn’t want to get in her way, roping her into some weird long-distance relationship. No, he wanted her. He wanted her strong and confident with six months of decisions she made herself between them. He’d fit himself into her life any way she’d let him. But after that kiss in the dark…well, he was feeling real hopeful that she’d be willing to make some serious room for him. Like dresser-drawer, key-to-the-house room.
He dropped off to sleep, thinking about Gloria sitting on the chair on his front porch, smiling and waiting.
18
The key was hot in her hand, its ridges digging into her palm. Gloria clung to it, running her thumb over the cuts, using the sensation to tear her focus away from the envelope in her bag.
Lord only knew why she’d brought it here, to this tidy bungalow with its welcoming front porch, its neat trim work. Its subtle hints of masculinity.
Aldo’s house. She’d be safe here, Gloria thought, mounting the steps one at a time as if approaching the altar of a church. With reverence, with hope, and the slightest taste of fear.
She opened the screen door and slid the key into the lock, not wanting to be observed skulking about his front porch. There was enough talk around town about her. Maybe she’d gone a little far in giving Benevolence something else to see besides a broken, battered woman. But there was no turning back now.
She was officially coordinating the town’s Fourth of July celebration.
And in small-town America that served up a large percentage of its populace to the nearby National Guard unit, well, she couldn’t afford to screw it all up. There was nothing bigger in Benevolence than its homage to the country and its patriots.
Gloria had been feeling fairly confident—or was that delusional?—in her ability to coordinate it all.
And then the letter arrived.
The envelope stamped with the telltale Mailed from a state correctional institution mark. She turned the knob and pushed open the heavy wood-and-glass door.
He’d gone for light hardwood throughout. Original, Gloria guessed by the scarring. Battered but beautiful. The walls were a pristine white that, if given the chance, she would change to hunter green or a slate blue. The living and dining spaces were open to each other, bisected by the staircase. There were plants crowded on end tables, perched on the fireplace mantel, and crammed onto the built-in shelves.
Gloria didn’t know a ton about taking care of living things, but she assumed that plants needed light more than books and magazines. She stepped up to the aloe plant on the mantel. It was still in its brown retail pot, a dinner plate shoved underneath to catch excess water. A quick spin of the pot revealed the price tag.
The plant next to it, a small Boston fern, still bore its identification marker in the soil.
She examined the other plant
s in the room. Had Aldo purchased an entire garden center’s worth of plants just to give her something to water?
The thought made her smile. It wasn’t so much underhanded as opportunistic. And dare she think it? A little romantic. She’d offered to water his plants, after all. Had he really wanted her in his house that much?
Considering the possibility gave her a dark thrill that propelled her up the L-shaped staircase in search of his bedroom. There were three bedrooms on this level. A lot of room for a bachelor. Gloria found the master at the back of the house with a wall of windows overlooking the backyard. The furniture—a bed, a dresser, and an oversized chair—was Aldo-esque. Sturdy, masculine, but still friendly, she decided, perching on the soft mattress. Eyeing the pillows, she thought about Aldo Moretta, her past crush and potential future boyfriend, laying his head there.
He’d hung photos on the walls in here. His mother, him and the Garrisons. One of him and Luke shirtless and laughing in some desert. Both men were excellent physical specimens. Both were mugging for the camera. But only one of them had her pulse kicking into gear. Gloria wasn’t sure if her libido was coming back to life or if it was rusty and confused from disuse. She shouldn’t be having these feelings, that quickening, that honeyed slide into attraction. It was too soon. She didn’t really know him. Hadn’t she vowed that she’d never make that mistake of falling too fast again?
With reluctance, she turned away from the photo. There were more plants here, stacked like mismatched socks on his otherwise orderly dresser. Aldo had wanted her in here. Wanted this connection to her. Whatever his reasons, Gloria needed it, too.
She slipped off her shoes, pulled the offending letter from her back pocket, and settled back against Aldo’s pillows, his scent rising up around her. A protective shield between herself and what waited for her inside the envelope. She didn’t want to open this in her mother’s house. Not in that sweet sanctuary. Gloria wouldn’t invite Glenn and his evil into that space. Here, she was protected.
