New Uses For Old Boyfriends

by Beth Kendrick

  “Do you even know how to start that thing?” her mother asked.

  Lila stared at the mower with steely resolve. “No. But I’m guessing it has something to do with this cord right here. Have faith, Mom. I have opposable thumbs and YouTube. Victory will be mine.”

  chapter 9

  “Welcome back! You look . . . a bit flushed.” Jenna poured a tumbler full of ice water as soon as Lila entered the Whinery.

  Lila grabbed the glass, downed the contents in thirty seconds flat, and passed it back to Jenna for a refill.

  “What happened to you? Should I even ask?”

  “Lawn insurgency.” After five minutes of yanking the pull cord and swearing, she’d managed to get the mower started. While Daphne had disappeared back into the house, Lila tried to crush the grassroots rebellion. And she’d broken eight out of ten fingernails in her struggle.

  For the next few hours, as the sun sank in the sky and the stars came out, Lila worked as hard as she could. She started at the back corner of the yard, where the grass was longest and densest. The Alders house was situated on a gentle slope; she had never realized this before. But now she was keenly aware of every tilt in the earth, every hill that made her job harder.

  She’d kept pushing. She’d sweated enough for three Bikram yoga sessions. And finally, her senses inundated with the roar of the engine and the scent of gasoline and the dull ache in her arms and shoulders, she’d admitted defeat. The lawn still looked like crap. She was too overheated and grimy to even think about eating dinner—but her mood was surprisingly good. So she showered off the errant blades of grass, put on a demure pink sweater and pearls, and did her hair and makeup to Daphne’s specifications before heading out for a celebratory glass of (the cheapest available) wine.

  “I like your hair,” Jenna said. “The color looks good on you. Snickers?” She offered up a silver dish of candy.

  Lila waved it away. “No, thanks. Just keep the ice water coming, please.”

  “You know we’re fans of hydration here.” Jenna poured two more glasses of water and set them down in front of Lila. “Knock yourself out.”

  As the lilting piano notes of Fiona Apple’s “Get Gone” started playing on the sound system, an Amazonian redhead stalked into the bar with a fistful of T-shirts and a murderous expression on her face. “I heard you guys set up an Ex Box?”

  “Right over there.” Jenna pointed out a tall cardboard box in the corner. The brown corrugated carton had been adorned with ribbon and a glittery pink label: The Ex Box.

  “What’s an Ex Box?” Lila asked.

  “Oh, that’s where heartbreak tourists can drop off their breakup baggage,” Jenna explained. “T-shirts, baseball caps, wedding dresses, whatever. Marla—she runs the Better Off Bed-and-Breakfast down the street—has bonfires a few times a week, but it seemed like a waste to burn perfectly good clothes. So now visitors can pitch their karmically tainted hand-me-downs in here and we donate everything to charity.”

  “Good to know.” Still guzzling water, Lila hopped off her barstool and examined the box. “I’m forcing my mother to clean out her closets and I’m guessing we’ll have a lot to donate.”

  As she started back to her barstool, the door swung open and Ben Collier walked in.

  Instinctively, she froze and conducted a quick mental inventory. Hair, face, wardrobe, jewelry, footwear? Washed, powdered, pressed, sparkly, and on trend.

  Oh, and her bra and panties matched. Baby blue La Perla, purchased back when she still thought three hundred dollars was a reasonable price to pay for underwear.

  When she glanced up, Ben was watching her with that slow, sweet smile that had always made her melt.

  “Hey, Lila.” He strode over and gave her a hug. She thought she felt him brush his lips across the top of her head, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought . . .” I thought the bartender at the country club said you wouldn’t be caught dead here. No. That was not an acceptable conversation opener.

  “I called your house, and your mother said you’d be here.”

  “Oh.” She gazed up at him through lowered lashes. “You called the house?”

  He nodded, put one arm around her shoulder, and led her back toward the bar. “Let’s have a drink and catch up.”

  “Okay.” As she eased onto the wrought iron stool, every muscle in her legs protested.

  “Your hair.” He rubbed a lock between his fingertips. “It looks just like it used to.”

  She redoubled the fluttery-eyelashes routine. “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah. It reminds me of—” He broke off, frowning with concern. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, why?”

  “Nothing. You looked like you had something stuck in your eye.”

  She stopped flirting and scanned the specialty drinks listed on the chalkboard over the bar. “Let’s order.”

  Right on cue, Jenna appeared with the wine list. “I have a great new Sauv Blanc.”

  Lila nodded. “Sounds good.”

  Jenna turned to Ben. “Two?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  Lila settled back in her seat. “Look at us. Drinking wine out of real glasses instead of warm beer out of red plastic cups. We’re all grown up.” When Jenna returned with two delicate stemmed glasses, they toasted with exaggerated solemnity.

  “To old times and new beginnings.” Ben took a sip of the chilled white wine, then made a face. “There’s something to be said for warm beer in plastic cups.”

  “Go ahead and get your beer.” Lila swept her hair back off one shoulder. “You know you want to.”

  Ben nodded at Jenna, who grabbed a bottle of Dogfish Head ale from the refrigerator. “So did you get your car checked yet?” he asked Lila.

  “Not yet. We’ve had a lot going on.”

  He chuckled. “I bet. I know how your mom gets.”

  Lila finally started to relax. “You have no idea. She’s gotten like ten times squirrellier with age.”

  “She’s lucky to have you.”

  “Thanks.” She nudged his elbow with hers. “Your mom must be thrilled to have you back home, too.”

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  “What do you mean, you guess?”

  “She’s glad to have more time with my dad, now that he’s retiring, but he makes her go fishing with him.”

  Lila laughed at the mental image of Ben’s chatty, extroverted mother confined to a rowboat for hours on end.

  “And, you know. She thought she’d have grandchildren by now.” He poured his beer into a glass. “She brings it up about five times a day.”

  “Let me guess—if you ask her to stop, she gives you the Bambi eyes and says she does it out of looove.”

  “The Bambi eyes are a killer.” He scrubbed his cleanly shaven jawline with his palm. “So you’re divorced?”

  She tried not to flinch. “Yep.”

  “What happened?” He moved in closer. She could smell the fresh, lingering scents of laundry detergent and shaving cream. “If I’m allowed to ask. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  “No, no, it’s fine.” She turned the base of her wineglass clockwise, then counterclockwise. “His name was Carl; we were married for almost seven years.” She tried to figure out what to reveal and what to leave out. How to avoid making him feel awkward or making herself look pathetic. “We were just different people. We grew apart.”

  He reached over and rested his hand on hers. “You grew apart?”

  She laughed and confessed, “Okay, the truth is, it was every horrible cliché you can think of. He cheated on me, he lied about it, he left me for another woman, and then he screwed me over in the divorce. It was a total Lifetime movie.”

  “With a very beautiful leading lady.” His hand was still holding hers
.

  “Well, thank you.”

  He let go and took a contemplative sip of beer. “Your ex is an idiot.”

  “I agree.”

  “Why’d you marry him?”

  Lila drank her wine and tried to remember. “He wasn’t like that in the beginning. Or maybe he was, but I just didn’t see it. I was only twenty when I met him, and he was older and already established, and he came from this important family and he seemed so sure about everything, and I thought . . .” This had never occurred to her until now, but she realized it was the truth. “I thought our marriage would be just like my parents’.”

  Ben nodded knowingly. “Your mom could do no wrong.”

  “Exactly. My dad just adored her, no matter what. And she adored him. And I assumed that that’s how it always was.”

  He nodded again. He’d known her parents for decades; he understood her history and her family’s little quirks. It was so nice not to have to explain everything.

  “What about you?” she asked. “I’m kind of surprised you haven’t settled down yet. I always figured you for the white-picket-fence lifestyle. Wife, kids, golden retriever, Subaru . . .”

  Ben grinned, and she caught a glimmer of the charming, confident football star she’d fallen so hard for. “Me, too. That was always my goal: married by thirty, two kids by thirty-five.”

  “You and your goals.”

  “What can I say? All of Coach’s lectures stuck with me.” He looked down at the bar top. “I turned thirty last month.”

  “I know.”

  “I had a serious girlfriend last fall. Allison. And I thought that was it. I thought she was the one.”

  “Uh-oh. I’m guessing this story doesn’t end well.”

  “I picked out a ring, I was all set to propose, but as soon as I mentioned the word ‘marriage,’ she freaked out.” Now it was Ben’s turn to study the specials on the chalkboard. “Then my dad called and asked me to consider coming back and taking over the family business, so here I am.”

  “And you haven’t talked to her since . . . ?”

  “Fifty-three days ago.” He shook his head. “What is there to say?”

  “I don’t know.” Lila gave his shoulder a little squeeze. “But I do know that girl’s crazy. She’s never going to find another guy like you.”

  “She said she wasn’t sure if she could move down here. She said she needed more time.”

  “More time? How long had you guys been together?”

  “Six months.”

  “Oh.” Lila frowned. “Well, actually, that’s . . .” She trailed off when she saw the obstinate expression on his face. Ben had never been one for long, detailed discussions about feelings. He’d always been decisive and direct, and she’d always liked that about him.

  “Thirty,” he said.

  She left a little lull in the conversation. Then she said, “Maybe you just haven’t found the right woman.”

  There was a long silence between them. Sugarland’s “Already Gone” started playing.

  Finally, he spoke. “I always figured you and I would settle down someday.”

  “Is that why you broke up with me when you left for Tufts?” She smiled to soften the words. “My tender eighteen-year-old heart was shattered.”

  “Come on, Lila. We both knew that the ‘hometown honey’ thing never lasts when you’re in college. We were so young. But I always knew that we’d come back together someday.” He brushed his fingers against hers. “And here we are.”

  “Here we are.”

  There was another long pause, and then he shifted in his seat. “I’ll be right back.”

  As he headed for the restroom, Jenna paused the music and held up her hand.

  “What?” a woman at the other end of the bar asked.

  Jenna cocked her head. “Do you hear that?”

  Everyone froze, listening. “No.”

  “It sounds like a car alarm out in the parking lot,” Jenna said.

  And then Lila did hear it: the insistent, electronic bleating muffled by the thick brick walls.

  “Any idea whose car that is?” Jenna asked.

  “I can’t be sure.” Lila got to her feet and grabbed her car keys out of her bag. “But I have a guess. I’ll be right back.”

  She dashed out the door and around the corner. Sure enough, the FUV was staging a full revolt. The headlights were blinking in time to the deafening blasts of the horn. Lila twisted up her face and hit her key fob.

  After a little beep of protest, the FUV went silent.

  Lila stepped closer and glared at the vehicle. “Don’t stand there and pretend to be normal,” she hissed at the shiny white door. “You’re not fooling me. This isn’t over.”

  She heard rustling behind her, and turned to find a man who had apparently interrupted his evening run to assist her. She deduced the running part from the fact that he had sneakers and earbuds . . . and the fact that sweat was literally dripping from his face. His gray cotton T-shirt was saturated, clinging to what she couldn’t help noticing were very nice abs.

  “Everything okay?” He was tall, broad shouldered, square jawed, and oh so very sweaty.

  She watched a trickle of perspiration make its way down his forehead. “Everything’s fine, thank you. My car alarm went off, but it does that all the time. Randomly. Just to keep me on my toes.”

  Darkness had fallen and the nearest streetlight was half a block away, but she could see his expression flicker as he looked at her.

  “Lila.” His voice was deep and low and one hundred percent unfamiliar.

  “Yes!” She tried to cover her confusion with near-manic enthusiasm. “Hi! You must be . . .”

  “Malcolm.”

  She felt her expression change, too. “Malcolm Toth?”

  He looked surprised. “You remember me.”

  “Of course!” She waved one hand around. “We went to high school together, right?”

  His face went all stony again. “That’s what you remember?”

  “Well, that and, of course, the time we . . .” She waited for him to fill in the blank.

  He stared down at her.

  She forced a breathy little laugh. “Listen, I’ve been drinking all night. My memory’s kind of fuzzy.”

  He nodded.

  “And I’d better be getting back inside.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Ben’s waiting for me.”

  He betrayed no hint of surprise. “That figures.”

  “Hey!” She took a step toward him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” He clapped one hand against her upper arm. “Welcome back to Black Dog Bay.” When he took his hand away, he left a faint trace of sweat on her cardigan.

  She tried to hide her dismay. She failed. “My sweater!”

  “Sorry.” He put his earbuds back in and prepared to resume running.

  “You should be. This is dry-clean only, I’ll have you know. I can’t go back in there with . . . with sweat on my sweater.”

  “Take it off.” He looked her straight in the eye, then turned his back and left her, his stride long and steady.

  She stood there in the dark for a moment, trying to come up with a cutting retort. She could still feel the warm pressure where his hand had been.

  Take it off. Who the hell did he think he was?

  No wonder she couldn’t remember him from high school. The man had more sweat glands than social skills.

  She slipped off her cardigan and returned to the bar in her camisole, flustered and flushed.

  Ben clearly noticed the newly bared expanse of neck and arms and shoulders, but he didn’t mention it. Because, unlike some people, he had manners.

  He was paying the check and chatting with Jenna. “Lila, I’m so sorry, but I have to run. My mother just called. My
dad’s out of town, and apparently there’s some sort of bat-related emergency in the garage.”

  Lila smiled. “No need to explain. I know the drill.”

  “It’s great to see you.” He leaned in. “We should do this again sometime.”

  “Absolutely.” She tipped her face up, parted her lips, and closed her eyes. For this brief, beautiful moment, she felt young and carefree again.

  He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her against him, and kissed her. On the cheek.

  * * *

  “What was that all about?” Summer had joined Jenna at the bar by the time Lila had said good-bye to Ben and regained her sensibilities.

  Lila flipped her hair and tried to sound casual. “Oh, that was just me reuniting with my long-lost love. We were the ‘it’ couple in high school.” She paused to help herself to a mini Milky Way. “And yes, I realize exactly how that sounds. But whatever—we were passionately devoted.”

  Jenna looked dubious. “Devoted, maybe. But passion? I don’t see it.”

  “You don’t? Really?”

  Jenna shook her head.

  “Look again. We’re perfect for each other! He was a football player, I was a cheerleader. He used to send me flowers and make me CDs full of sappy songs. Even our parents were friends. Our dads used to do business together all the time.”

  “Maybe so.” Jenna scrunched up her nose. “But I’m not seeing a lot of chemistry.”

  “Oh, we have chemistry,” Lila assured them, draining the last of her wine. “Lots of chemistry. Entire meth labs’ worth of chemistry.”

  Summer and Jenna exchanged a look. “If you say so.”

  “I do say so! Back in the day, we used to make out for hours on end. He’s a great kisser, for your information.”

  “But you never had sex,” Summer said.

  “We might have.” Lila’s voice rose. “We might have had sex all over this town.”

  Summer laughed and rolled her eyes. “Try to keep your clothes on. I dare you.”

  “Go ahead and mock me. But you don’t know our history. What we had was special, and it still is. Ben and I are meant to be.”