“Ha ha. Funny.” She went to her phone and scrolled to a photo of Bruce in manly splendor, and shoved it in front of Riley. “There. Laugh at this.”
“Huh.” Riley squinted at the phone. Turned it sideways. Then he handed it back to Sophia.
“Not laughing anymore, are you?”
“You know I’m a die-hard Giants fan, but the Orioles have had their moments. Few and far between but still.”
She stared at him blankly. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Bruce sure looks an awful lot like the Baltimore Oriole’s short stop.”
“Really?” She glanced back to her phone. Amazing. Her Bruce was so good looking he also looked like an athlete. Despite her stepbrother Billy’s amazing pitching career with the Oakland Sliders, Sophia still wasn’t much of a baseball fan. Or sports fan. Of any sport. But good to know.
Riley’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t met him yet, have you? Is this an online thing?”
“Of course you would think that! I’m not going to talk about Bruce. Especially not to you.” She gulped down some wine. It was light and fruity for a Merlot and she tasted a pinch of apricot. She’d have to tell Brooke later that she should consider adding a little more apricot flavor for the next harvest.
“Let’s talk about why I’m here.”
At that moment, Lizzie came by with his order of Puttanesca. She skillfully took it from her tray and placed it in front of him. “Hot plate.”
Riley gave her a full-on smile. “Thanks.”
Lizzie took that opening to flash her megawatt smile, the one that made grown men beg for scraps. “I hope you enjoy.”
“You know I will.” Riley winked at Lizzie as she left.
Winked! “Don’t you flirt with my waitress.”
“Why? You jealous?”
“Please.” She pointed to the photo of Bruce.
“Yeah. He’s good looking in a girly-man way.”
“I’ll have you know he works out. He’s a big proponent of yoga and all its many health benefits.”
“Yoga?” He grimaced. “Yeah. Girly-man.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about Bruce.”
“You started it.”
Crap, she hated when Riley was right. “You were going to tell me why you’re here? I mean, other than to eat my Puttanesca.”
He acted like she’d just said something sexual, gave her a wicked smile instead of answering, and wound a strand of pasta around his fork.
“Good?” She didn’t need his approval, but he was a customer and as such she would like him to leave satisfied with his meal.
“Excellent. You’ve done a great job here, Soph.”
No thanks to you, she wanted to add. “Thirty thousand followers on Twitter and counting.”
“I’m one of them.”
For once she didn’t have words.
“I’m living here now. I wanted you to know first, because, you know. It could be awkward.”
“Right.” But not with Bruce in her pocket. “Does this mean what I think it means? I mean, you’re—”
“Out.”
Once that had been her greatest dream. He’d leave the Marine Corps and come home to Starlight Hill with her. She veered off into safer territory, although in Riley’s case, not so much. “So how’s Lucy?”
“Not good.”
“Sorry to hear that.” It made sense that he’d be back in the area. Lucy lived in nearby Napa, and Riley would want to look out for his younger sister as he always had. She’d struggled with addiction for years.
He went back to his pasta, occasionally took a sip of wine, and studied her. He’d always had a way of making her feel like she was on display. Like maybe she’d forgotten to wear clothes. She picked up her phone and reminded herself that there were guys like Bruce in the world. A guy who made her feel good, even if, okay, she’d never actually met him but she would soon enough.
Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. “All right, stop. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m worried about you.”
Sophia blew out a breath. “You don’t get to do that anymore.”
Naturally, he ignored her. “The guy.”
“Bruce?”
“Yeah. He’s not real. And I don’t want you—”
Sophia put up her hand. “Don’t.”
He leaned forward. “Listen to me. These people with a lot of time on their hands do this kind of thing. Prey on someone innocent. Someone needy—”
Her right cheek started to twitch. How did he always know which buttons to push? “Needy? Needy? You think I’m needy?”
“Did you tell him you want to get married? Settle down? Have four or five kids?”
Sophia’s face flushed, and her twitch went into overdrive. “What if I did? He wants the same things I do!”
“Sure. That’s what he told you, anyway.”
Sophia leaned across the table and gave him her best wish-you-were-dead scowl. “You would think that.”
“What seems odd to me is that this guy says he’s a doctor but his picture is of a Baltimore Orioles’ short stop.”
“Did you ever think he might just look like him?”
“No.”
She stood up. “I’m not going to sit here and let you insult me anymore. I’m not an idiot, you know. I might want certain things in life, but I won’t let some man fool me.” She turned to give him a deadly look. “Not anymore.”
“Sophia,” he called out.
“What?” She whipped around.
“If you have any trouble with this guy, you call me first.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because I’m the new chief of police.”
At the look of shock he might have witnessed on her face, he shot her a big grin. “And by the way, this sauce is great but a little short on garlic.”
2
Late that night, after Riley and all the other customers had left, Sophia sat at a table with Angie and Lizzie, one on either side of her. All three of them were attempting to eat their weight in chocolate.
“Riley. The new chief.” Sophia poked at the bowl of chocolate mousse. She wasn’t hungry, not even for dessert. It felt like six years ago again, when she hadn’t been able to keep much of anything down for weeks and her stepmother Eileen had wanted to call nine-one-one on a daily basis.
“It makes sense,” Lizzie said. “I heard the new chief they hired was some young guy. Bert had to retire. Bad knee.”
“Did you have to flirt with him?” For one second Sophia had been irrationally jealous of the way Riley had smiled at Lizzie. But men smiled at Lizzie all the time. It was a fact of life like the sun rising every morning in the east and it had never bothered Sophia before. Much.
“Please. He flirted with me for your benefit.”
“Don’t let him get to you, hon.” Angie rubbed Sophia’s back.
“At least I shouldn’t have to deal with him often,” Sophia said.
“Make sure you keep to the speed limit. That’s about all Bert had to do. That and give drunk people a ride home.”
Sophia snorted. “He said to call him if I have any problems with Bruce. Riley says Bruce isn’t who he says he is.”
Not a word from either Angie or Lizzie. The silence filled the room, and Sophia could hear the sprinklers go off outside in the courtyard.
“Oh my God. You two don’t believe he’s real, either.”
Lizzie put her hand on Sophia’s. “If you take the time to think about it, you’ll realize you don’t even want him to be real.”
“I think I’m with her on this.” Angie leaned over and took a spoonful of mousse. “You’ve had lots of online relationships, flirtations. But how many of these guys have you ever met in person?”
Not fair, because all the other relationships had fizzled out. Chat rooms, Facebook friendships, Instagram pals, all long distance stuff that had never gone anywhere. She’d met a lot of nice people all over the countr
y. Barry, ‘Montana Guy’ with the cattle ranch. They’d exchanged photos and phone calls for a year. He always wanted her to come out and see him, but the long distance thing hadn’t worked out too well and eventually Barry married a local girl. Miss Cattle or something. Bruce had actually been the first online relationship who was technically physically close by though they’d never officially met.
“That’s why I was so excited about tonight.”
“Yeah,” Lizzie said. “And I was pretty surprised you’d agreed to meet him.”
“Well, it was time.” It was true that she hadn’t officially dated anyone since … well, since Riley. Because it was possible that she didn’t have any business dating at all. Merely a technicality, though. Anyway, online seemed like a good way to test a guy out first. If she hadn’t met any of the men maybe that said more about the men she’d met than it did about her.
Or did it?
“It’s been six years.” This was said very tentatively by Angie.
“I’ve been busy!”
After Riley, she’d thrown herself back into the restaurant. Her dream, after all. But sometimes late at night after long and punishing hours, she’d still think about Riley. Wonder how he was doing in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever the Marines had sent him next. Secretly checked to make sure he was still among the living. Mostly for Lucy’s sake.
“You haven’t been that busy!” Lizzie said.
“Good grief, it’s just a little paper work,” Angie said. “Ten minutes of your time.”
Ten minutes of her time? Just a little paper work? Good God, if Mama heard that up in heaven she’d likely roll over in her grave.
“Personally, I think you’re ready for the real deal,” Lizzie said. “A living, breathing guy who will sit across the table from you and hold your hand. Stare into your eyes and call you ‘babe’. Let me fix you up!”
“Honey, don’t you want to get married and have kids anymore?” Angie asked.
“You know I do.” It was long past time to get started on her baby factory. She was Auntie to fourteen and a built-in babysitter but someday she wanted one or two (maybe four or five) of her own precious babies.
“For that you’re going to have to put yourself out there,” Lizzie said.
Sophia nodded. “I think I’m finally ready.”
“Sure you are.” Angie patted Sophia’s hand.
“I can’t have him think I’ve been pining away for him all this time. And it might look that way.” How pathetic would that be?
“You just have to take care of a few loose ends, that’s all. You’ve put if off long enough,” Lizzie said.
No use arguing. Her best friends were right and it was long past time.
She was going to have to divorce Riley.
It was eleven at night when Sophia pulled her sedan into her little carport on Cherryview Lane.
Home sweet home.
She lived in the same home she’d grown up with Mama and Daddy-o, spending all of her spare money and time in the last few years making her little house into a warm home. Hershee, her faithful French bulldog mix, would be inside waiting for her. Maybe someday she’d actually have a husband and child inside waiting for her too. Damn. She was either going to have to sign up for one of those dating services or try her hand at dating roulette with Angie and Lizzie.
But first the divorce.
She face planted on the steering wheel. Why oh why did love have to be so complicated?
It hadn’t been this complicated for Mama. Sophia had heard the story all her life. Her parents had met when they were both eighteen-year-old students at the Culinary Institute in New York. Married just six months later and moved to California to open a restaurant. Mama was pregnant by twenty with Sophia’s oldest sister Anna, and had three daughters by age twenty-six. Sophia might have been the daughter that physically looked the most like her mother, the one that loved cooking and running a restaurant like her mother did, but in the love department she wasn’t even in the same swim lane with Mama.
Far from meeting while pursuing higher education, Sophia had met Riley at Henry’s, a dive bar in Napa, a few months after she’d dropped out of Berkeley and turned twenty-one. When she’d been out celebrating her freedom from being another drone in training to take over corporate America, Riley had been in the same bar raising hell on leave with fellow Marines. One look at the edgy guy in the military crew cut staring at her like he was a missile and she was the heat, and Sophia made a beeline for the ladies’ room where he couldn’t follow.
Sophia opened the front door to a waiting Hershee. As usual, Hershee greeted her with a jump and a twirl, then by launching her little body straight to Sophia’s legs. Sophia picked her up and gave her a tight squeeze and Hershee responded by licking Sophia’s nose.
“Hi, sweetie. I guess you’re hungry. Sorry I’m late, but you know. Friday night.”
Hershee yipped, which was her way of asking about Sophia’s day.
“Fine for the most part. The usual. But then my husband showed up. That put a damper on the evening.” Sophia picked up Hershee’s dog bowl and scooped in a cup of the organic dog food she bought from Whole Foods in Napa, and then reached into the fridge for some leftover rice to mix in.
Hershee only deserved the best of ingredients, and that included the occasional bit of human food. Sophia figured as long as Hershee had regular exercise, she could afford to eat well and enjoy one of the few pleasures she had in her little doggy life. Sophia poured some chilled Chardonnay from Brooke’s vineyard into a wine glass and then sat down in front of her laptop. First order of business was to call Bruce out on his impersonation of a baseball player. Next order of business was to tell him she was done with their online relationship. She was going to have to move on and date real live men and have conversations that went beyond text messages and tweets. She fired a quick email to Bruce telling him he’d been outed by one of her friends, not by her husband, because he might misunderstand the situation.
Might think she was the one with the issues.
“I think we know who has issues in this situation,” Sophia said out loud to Hershee, who was now curled up at her feet. “I certainly didn’t send him a photo of someone else.”
But she also hadn’t told him she was still, technically, if you wanted to get right down to it… married.
The problem, as she saw it, was that Sophia didn’t much like the D word. She tried not to say it at all, instead choosing to think in terms of separation. She and Riley had been separated for many years. She figured the D word hadn’t happened because there was no need for it. If, perhaps, she’d met some other guy maybe she’d have worried a little more about such things. On the other hand, every year she’d waited to hear from Riley. But then one year turned into the next and she hadn’t been served papers. Hadn’t been notified that she was no longer a dependent of the United States government, entitled to military benefits. She didn’t use them anyway, but still.
And now the man himself was back, and while that might seem like the best time to get this done once and for all, it meant she’d have to talk to him. More than she had tonight. About things maybe she didn’t want to talk about. She was going to have to ask him for the D word. Unless he did first. Actually, now it made sense that he’d come back to town. This way he could easily ask her for the D word. He probably just hadn’t wanted to do it tonight right off the bat.
Her cellphone rang and caller ID showed it was her sister-in-law, Diana. Sophia didn’t have to wonder what Diana was doing up at almost midnight. With two little girls under five, it was the only time she had to work on her young adult novels.
“Hey, what’s up?” Sophia answered.
“Can we get a table for tomorrow night? I know its short notice.”
“Of course! You know there’s always a table for you and Scott.” Family always came first.
“Thanks. I should have called last week, but it’s been crazy. And also, can you babysit Sunday?”
“Sur
e, let me check my calendar.” Sophia pulled up her calendar on her phone. Unlike most businesswomen, her calendar was filled with babysitting dates. “Yep. Looks like I’m free.”
“Oh thank God.” Diana began to count out her litany of ‘problems’ which sounded like nothing of the sort to Sophia. Ballet lessons, food battles, preschool separation anxiety for Chloe, evaporating nap times for two-year-old Courtney, no more morning sex, boo hoo. Diana was living the dream and hardly seemed to be aware of it.
Sophia decided to interrupt Diana and clue her in on what real problems actually resembled. “Riley came in to the restaurant tonight.”
No sound on the other end of the line. No surprise. No shock.
“You knew!”
Diana cleared her throat. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to bring it up. I have to attend those city council meetings for the paper, and that’s where I heard about our new police chief.”
“I could have used a heads-up.”
“It’s a sore subject.”
“He didn’t say much. Just told me he’s the police chief and that the sauce needed more garlic.” Uncanny how he’d known that. “Also, that Bruce isn’t real.”
Again no response from Diana.
“Uh, hello?”
“I don’t think he can be real, either. I didn’t want to say anything. Sorry.”
“So super nice guys who treat a girl like a lady don’t exist anymore? Is that what we’ve come to? We have to question anyone with noble motives?”
“I didn’t think you were serious about meeting him or I would have checked him out. I thought maybe this was just another one of those … things.”
“Another one of what things?”
Diana sighed. “One of your online flirtations. You’re way too addicted to social media.”
“I have to do it for the restaurant!”
“Right. Look, I don’t think Riley is going to cause you any problems. He’s just here to do his job. We really need him. Bert was just burned out after so many years and we actually have a lot more crime in town than most people are even aware of. I think Riley’s going to be good for us. He’s young, and he can connect with some of the at-risk youth a lot better.”
THE STARLIGHT HILL COMPLETE COLLECTION: 1-8 Page 90
