by Beth Rinyu
“That’s fine, we can set something up after she leaves. I have your number and you have mine. Plus, it’s not like we don’t see each other every day.”
I managed a nervous smile and nodded in agreement. “Sounds good, then. Get back in there and have another drink to warm up.”
He smiled back and waited until I was in the car before heading back into the bar. I jacked up the heat and foolishly held my hand up to the vents that were still blowing out freezing cold air. What the hell was I getting myself into with Michael? I was breaking my number one rule: Never date a coworker. It will only end badly. But the truth was, I had been a little lonely. My last real relationship didn’t end all that well, but that’s what I got for dating a man who had been in the process of a divorce for three years. Turned out, he was using those years only to finally figure out he wanted to get back with his wife. I was so angry for wasting almost an entire year on him, and even angrier at myself for not seeing the game he was playing.
After we broke up, I slowly got back into the dating game, becoming overcritical of each guy I’d meet, so I wouldn’t get burned again. It had been seven months since I’d gone on my last date, which happened to be a total disaster. It was a blind date my hairdresser had set me up on. He was a business acquaintance of her husband, who she believed to be forty-six…only to find out he was twenty-six. In her defense, he was prematurely gray, but his baby face gave it away immediately. I also came to learn his gray hair wasn’t brought on by Mother Nature, but instead by a drugstore color kit because he was into older women. He had finally confessed this to me when I confronted him about his real age. As if being young enough to be my son wasn’t grounds for ending the date immediately, the term older women was.
I hated that society viewed women over forty as old. We weren’t old by any means. My mother always said age is just a number, and you’re only as old as you feel, and mentally I still felt as if I were eighteen, some days even less mature than that. I did work a little harder to keep up these days than I had when I was younger.
When so many women in my age group were fighting with the excess weight that midlife brought on, I refused to let it overtake me. I ate healthy for the most part, hit the gym as much as I could, or went for runs when I was feeling ambitious. I scheduled my six-week hair color appointments to conceal the few grays that would poke through like clockwork and still dressed in the trending fashions. I didn’t shop in the junior’s section, of course, but I kept up with age-appropriate styles.
When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t think the forty-eight-year-old Stephanie looked much different than the twenty-year-old one. I still had my wavy brown locks; they were now shoulder-length instead of down the middle of my back. My deep brown eyes showed just a hint of wrinkles, thanks in part to my expensive eye cream. I liked to think of all the little extra steps I was taking as self-maintenance, and I was worth it.
I pulled out my phone before backing out of the spot to find a missed call and text from Jack.
Give me a call when you have a minute.
I pulled him up in my contacts and backed out of my spot, waiting for him to answer through my stereo speakers.
“Steph.” His deep voice was low, almost like a whisper. I immediately envisioned that I was interrupting him having one of his Don Juan moments with the many ladies I was certain still fell at his feet. He had it made. He seemed to get more handsome with age with very little effort, and if that wasn’t enough, being an FBI agent seemed to lure the women right in. It amazed me how superficial females could be.
“What’s up? You sent me a text to call you, so that’s what I’m doing.” I didn’t want whoever he was with to think his ex-wife was making a social call. Okay, maybe it was him I didn’t want to think that because chances were, whoever he was with probably didn’t even know who was on the other end of the call. Jack was a master at keeping secrets.
“Yeah. Will you be up in a bit? I’m still at work in the middle of something pretty big. I wanted to talk to you about the body that washed up on the beach. They were able to match the DNA.”
“Actually, I’m pretty tired. Can you just say what you need to now?” I wasn’t going to stay up until he was done with his date to find out.
“It was a man named Tom Cavlan. He comes from a very powerful political family. His brother is a senator in California and is actually a potential candidate for the presidential election next year.”
“Hmm…never heard of him or his brother. But then again, I’ve never been into politics. Well, I’m glad they found out who he was. Hopefully his family has a little closure now that he’s been identified.” There were a million more questions I wanted to ask him about the circumstances, but I remained nonchalant, mainly because I was seething. He asked me to call him so he could relay important information like this, then had the nerve to want to delay it so he could finish screwing his flavor of the week. “I’ll let you get back—”
“Jack, we need you back in the conference room,” a man’s voice interrupted.
“Be right there,” Jack responded. Turned out, he wasn’t lying after all. He really was still at work. “I’ll give you a call at some point tomorrow if I find anything else out.”
“Okay. Sounds good.” My tone was a little softer. “Jack!” I called just before we were getting ready to disconnect. “Kara will be home tomorrow, and we’re going to order some pizza for dinner…if you’re free, stop by. I’m sure that would be a nice surprise for her.”
“I’ll make sure I am. Good night, Steph,” he said as he hung up the phone.
Chapter 5
“MOM!” KARA CALLED from down the stairs. I had just finished putting fresh sheets on the bed in the guest room for her “friend” because friend or not, they would not be sharing the same bed while they were staying here.
“I’ll be right down!” I shouted, placing the last throw pillow back on the bed before closing the bedroom door behind me. I hurried down the steps and into the kitchen, looking past Kara to try and spot a glimpse of her mystery man. She threw her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek. I hugged her back and jumped when I felt something nudging at the back of my leg. I gasped as I stared down at the almond-shaped expressive eyes of what appeared to be a black-and-tan-colored German shepherd.
“Mom, meet my friend, Max.” Oh no. This was not the friend she was bringing home. The one who I had been nonstop binge cleaning for from the time I had gotten home from work.
“Kara…no, no, no!” I shouted as he lifted his leg, readying himself to pee on my freshly mopped kitchen floor.
“No, Max!” Kara shouted, causing him to put his leg down. “We go potty outside.” Her tone softened, sounding more like she was talking to a toddler than a dog as she walked him over to the slider and let him out in the yard.
“Kara.” I took a deep breath.
“Mom.” She smiled. “Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”
“Why didn’t you tell me this friend was a dog? He’s not even a dog, he’s a horse!”
“He is not, he’s actually still a puppy. He’s only ten months old. One of my roommates’ boyfriend got him for her, but my other roommate is allergic, so he can’t stay in our apartment.”
“Okay, so why didn’t your roommate who owns him take him home to her family?”
“Oh, because her mom would kill her if she brought a dog home,” she said nonchalantly, opening the refrigerator door and peering aimlessly inside.
“As opposed to your mom who would just welcome him with open arms.” My words were laced with sarcasm. We jerked our heads in unison to the back slider door where Max was letting us know he wanted to come in by standing on his hind legs, scratching his front paws along the glass. “He’s making a really good first impression!” I shouted as Kara dashed to the door to let him inside. It finally dawned on me, if her friend was allergic to this dog and this was the only option for him this weekend, did she plan on making him more than a temporary house guest?
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br /> “Look how obedient he’s being to you already.” She patted the top of his head as he sat at my feet, staring up at me.
“Kara, he is going back with you when you leave, right?”
“Well. No. He really can’t. Mandy is allergic, and we’re not allowed to have pets in our apartment.”
I took a deep breath. The last thing I wanted was to get in an argument with her the first night she was home, and over a dog of all things. “Then why doesn’t the boyfriend who bought the roommate the dog take him back?”
“Well…they kind of broke up, and he’s being a deadbeat dad who doesn’t want anything to do with poor Max anymore.”
“Kara, I’m sorry, but I don’t have the time for a dog in my life.”
Her blue eyes clouded over the same way they would as a little girl when sadness would overtake her. “But, Mom, he’s a really good boy. I promise I’ll come home as much as I can on the weekends. I’ll take him to the vet and to be groomed when he needs it, and Dad said he’d help out too.”
“Excuse me? Your father knew about this?”
Kara looked down at her phone. “Oh, Dad’s here now!” She waved her phone in front of my face to show me the text before bolting to the front door. Max lay down on my feet and stared up at me with the most pathetic gaze I had ever seen, as if he knew his fate was on the line. Kara and Jack walked into the kitchen with their arms looped together. I was certain she had warned him that she spilled the beans about his knowledge of the friend she was bringing this weekend.
“Wow, he’s gorgeous!” Jack crouched down to Max’s level and Max excitedly got up to greet him. As much as I hated to admit it, he was keeping my feet nice and warm.
“Aw, he likes you, Dad!” Kara beamed.
“That’s great news. Then maybe he’s found his new home,” I added, shaking my head at Jack in a scolding manner.
“He knows some commands in German too. He was bred and born there, and they shipped him here, and somehow he ended up in a shelter.” Kara carried on, playing up the dog’s qualifications like he was on a job interview.
“Wow, that’s pretty impressive. He’s show quality,” Jack chimed in. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was playing the same game as Kara.
“With all these great features he has, I’m sure he’ll have no problem finding a good, loving home,” I added.
“Dad, tell her she needs a companion to keep her company,” Kara pleaded.
“What? I do not need a companion, Kara…especially not a four-legged one!” I snapped.
“But, Mom—”
“I don’t want to talk about this now.” I picked up my phone and strolled into the living room to order the pizza.
_______________
We sat around the kitchen table eating our pizza while Max hung out underneath, trying his luck at getting some by resting his head on each of our laps, staring up at us with doe-like eyes. He found Kara to be his biggest ally when it came to begging for scraps. She always had a weird habit of removing almost all of the cheese from her pizza before eating it. Lucky thing for Max, who was all too happy to take it off her hands.
It amazed me how much the tension lifted between Jack and me when Kara was around. We’d talk about old times, laugh together, and even joke around, the complete opposite of how we were when she wasn’t here. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss times like these. Despite everything that had happened between Jack and me, he was a great father, and it saddened me that Kara was forced to only experience that on a part-time basis for part of her life instead of having him here living with us.
I gazed at the man sitting across from me, remembering him when he was Kara’s age. It felt like only yesterday, not a lifetime ago. We were best friends at one time, so when we divorced I not only lost a husband, but I also lost someone I had always confided my deepest secrets to.
Kara resembled her father in so many ways: blond hair, light eyes. It didn’t seem fair that I was the one who carried her around for nine months and gave birth to her, yet she bore no resemblance to me other than the cleft in her chin, which again could have been passed down from her father, who also had a cleft chin. My dark hair and dark eyes were a far cry from my daughter’s physical features, but she had the same strong will and independence I possessed, and to me that was more important.
“Oh my God! Mackenzie and Zoe are in the driveway. They want me to go to Murphy’s with them.” Kara looked down at her phone, then flashed Jack and me an apologetic grin. “I’ll just tell them to go without me.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re home for a whole week. We have plenty of time to spend together. This is your first chance to go out with your friends from home in months.” As much as I was looking forward to getting into our pajamas early and having a girls’ night in front of the television, I knew what it was once like to be twenty-one.
“Dad, I’ll be over on Sunday?”
“It’s a date.” He smiled. “Just be careful, and no drinking and driving.”
“I know, Dad.” She rolled her eyes and leaned down to give him a kiss. “Oh, Mom, does this mean you’ll babysit Max while I’m gone?”
Shit. The dog. How could I have forgotten about him as he sat under the kitchen table, licking his private parts? How could I say no when I had encouraged her to go and she was halfway out the door already? “Fine!” I huffed.
She zipped back over to where I was sitting and kissed my cheek. “You’re the best, Mom! You be a good boy for Grandma, Max!”
Grandma? Was she serious? “Kara, you better leave now before I change my mind.”
She let out a laugh, then headed out of the kitchen. “Love you guys!” she shouted, closing the front door behind her, leaving me all alone with Jack…and the dog.
Chapter 6
“WELL, I GUESS we learned that dear old Max here is lactose intolerant!” I said, as I put the mop away after cleaning up the multiple accidents Max had all over the kitchen floor. In his defense, he did try to make it outside in time, but he just couldn’t hold it.
“How much cheese from that pizza did Kara give him?” Jack asked.
“You would know better than me. You were the one who was on the frontline cleaning it up.”
Jack came to my rescue when I started to gag over the initial cleanup. Once it was picked up and taken outside to the trash, I gave it a second round of cleaning with the mop.
“Thanks for that, by the way. I’m pretty sure I would have been cleaning up puke along with dog crap if you weren’t here.”
“Well, I feel kind of responsible for not warning you that she was bringing him here.”
“Yeah…about that?” I shook my head and looked over at Max curled up on his bed that Kara had brought along with her. “He’s literally all pooped out.” We both busted out with laughter over my lame joke. “I think we earned a glass of wine. What do you think?”
“I think you earned yourself a glass of wine. I did a little more of the hard labor…so I’m thinking some Jack and Coke for me.”
“Well, you just happen to be in luck. I have a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the cabinet.”
“Wait, since when do you drink Jack Daniel’s?”
“It was some stupid gift exchange we did at work last year for Christmas. I was the last one who got to pick and kind of got stuck with it. I put it up in the cabinet and forgot about it.”
“I thought maybe you were changing it up to the hard stuff.”
“Never!” I said, making my way to the refrigerator to get out the bottle of Coke. “Is diet okay?”
“That’s fine,” he replied.
I stood on my tippy-toes, reaching for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the cabinet overhead. Jack shooed me out of the way, grabbing the bottle with no effort at all. He fixed his drink while I opened a bottle of wine and poured myself a glass.
We made our way into the living room and I turned on the fireplace. After taking a seat on the love seat opposite Jack, who was on the couch, I grabbed the rem
ote and flicked on the TV for some background noise to drown out any silence.
“So, any more news about the man?” I asked.
“No, not anything so far. I know the family was contacted. They’re retracing his last couple of days, trying to figure out who he may have been in contact with and where he was staying. Anything that may help them figure out what led him to do what he did. His family is trying to keep it under wraps because of his brother’s political ties, so they’re not making it very easy for the investigation. The detective on the case told me he’d keep me informed if he finds out any more.”
“That’s so sad. The man drowned either on purpose or by accident and all his family is worried about is keeping up appearances. You would think they would want answers more than anyone as to why this happened.”
Jack arched his eyebrow. “I guess politicians live a whole different way than the rest of us.”
“I guess.” I shrugged and took a gulp of wine.
“You changed the color in here.”
It had been well over two years since I’d given my living room a mini makeover, which included changing the shade on my walls from a dull tan to a grayish beige, but since Jack didn’t come around much these days, he wouldn’t have noticed it. This was technically still half his house in the legal sense. After we divorced, Jack bought a condo closer to his job, about forty miles north of us, while he continued to pay the mortgage on this house. He said he didn’t want to disrupt Kara’s life by making her move out of the only home she ever knew. I knew he was sincere with that notion, but I think a little bit of it had to do with his own guilt over how our marriage had ended. The house was now paid off, and I was seriously thinking about putting it on the market, so Jack could have his half of the investment he had paid on for so long. It was too big for just me, and if I was being honest, I felt lonely when I was here all by myself, conjuring up memories of when Kara was a little girl and Jack was still around.
