I’d also been there when Deanna met Charlie. I had stood at her side when she married him.
She’d been there when I met Kent. And she’d stood at my side while we stood about five feet behind Charlie’s back when Charlie stood in my doorway with a baseball bat and told Kent if he showed at my place one more time he’d cave his head in with that bat.
Deanna was very black, very round, very beautiful, and even though I adored the younger one I got by blood, Deanna was also the big sister I’d always wanted to have.
Needless to say, with my life, and Deanna’s, me wanting to have it together so bad it was an obsession, her having it together naturally, there were a lot of thank-you dinners from me to her in our past and there probably would be a lot more in our future.
“See you tomorrow at work and we’ll be there Saturday for one of Izzy’s delicacies,” she told me.
“Great, doll. See you tomorrow.”
“That you will, later, babe.”
“Later, Deanna.”
We hung up but I didn’t move, watching my horses roam their space, my dogs doing it with them, Dempsey with Swirl, my old boy, the senior member of my zoo, my Bernese mountain dog mix I’d rescued about a year after I graduated from college.
I’d come to Matlock thinking, after losing Mom, after my sister married a loser, after what happened with Kent, that I’d hit this little farmhouse on three acres and hit heaven.
Johnny and Shandra.
Well, there it was. Johnny was probably removed not only because he was having a rough day, which was the anniversary of his dad’s death, but because he was remote so as not to let anyone think they were getting in there because my sense was he was that kind of guy. He might have burned a few women after Shandra, but he’d know that and in future have a mind to it. I could only guess that was true, but with his gentlemanly manner, I figured it’d be a good guess.
So it was what it was. I’d had my first hookup, which wasn’t going to be a one-night stand. That soothed the inherent good girl in me but ravaged the dreamer I wouldn’t ever let myself be.
I stared at my horses and dogs.
This was my dream.
This was mine.
This was my heaven.
It was ordered and it was pretty and it was filled with love. It reminded me of what I had with Mom and my sister, but without all the bad parts mixed in.
Would it be better with Johnny or a Johnny-type person in the mix?
Maybe.
But this was what I had now.
And it was beautiful.
So I’d take it.
And do what my mother always told me to do.
Just be happy.
I’d already exfoliated, had just ripped the charcoal strip off my nose and was about to slather the facial sheets on my skin when my phone rang.
I looked down to my bathroom counter and saw it said, Johnny Calling.
I took the call and put the phone to my ear.
“Hey.”
“No bullshit with you, rings twice and I get a ‘hey,’” was his reply.
I stared at the curlicue, ivory wire bathroom accessories on my countertop. “Sorry?”
“Nothin’, Iz,” he said, sounding amused. “Have a good day?”
I wandered into my bedroom straight to my iron bed with its acres-of-material white coverlet, large, gorgeous sage-green crocheted throw draped along the bottom, lacy white euros at the top sprinkled with dusky flower-printed toss pillows, and climbed in while answering.
“Did a recon of the kitchen because you’re getting dessert tomorrow night too. This necessitated a trip to the store in town. Came back, rode Serengeti. Got my tomato and strawberry pots sorted and planted some herbs. Looked at chicken coops. They’re not that expensive, but the ones that aren’t so expensive only allow two chickens or four bantams, so I think I need to do more research since I want at least six. Maybe eight. And I want standards. Now I’ve got the lasagna in the oven and I’m in the middle of my regular Sunday night facial. So all in all, it was really good.”
Johnny said nothing.
“So, well . . . I hesitate to ask,” I filled the silence, “but how was the rest of yours?”
“Strawberry pots?”
“They’re biggish pots with lots of little openings that strawberries grow out of,” I explained and when he made no reply, I shared idiotically, “Mine are dark blue ceramic. I have five of them.”
His voice sounded funny, tight, like he was choking when he asked, “Chicken coop?”
“We had chickens once growing up. Mom didn’t eat them but my sister and I did, and fresh eggs are hard to beat. Plus, chickens have funny personalities. They have brains the size of a pea, but they still have personalities.”
Johnny again was silent.
He was this for so long, I called, “Johnny?”
“Sounds like you had a full day,” he noted.
“I guess so.”
“You guess so?”
“Well, I mean, it was just a day.”
“Strawberry pots. Chicken coops. Horseback rides. Grocery stores. And lasagna,” he oddly ran it down.
“And my tomatoes, and I’m half into my facial. And then, of course, there was breakfast and, uh . . . other things with you.”
He let out a sharp bark of laughter that sounded so nice it tingled through my ear down my neck and parts south.
“What’s funny?” I asked softly.
“Watched you walk from that sleek, burgundy Murano without a speck of dust on it in those sweet jeans with that cute top and all that hair, and I would not have pegged you as a woman who wanted chickens and planted herbs.”
“It was car wash day yesterday,” I informed him. “My Murano is usually coated in dust and specked with mud.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Well, that would be about now since it’s been sitting at the front of my house all day and it’s dusty around here. I don’t have a garage.”
“Probably should consider that before a chicken coop, babe,” he advised.
“Perhaps,” I mumbled.
He chuckled.
That tingled down my neck too.
Since he was chuckling, I didn’t want to ask. But I’d mucked things up earlier that day, so I had to ask.
“You okay?”
“Don’t do my thing until later. Movin’ out in about an hour.”
“Okay,” I replied and didn’t pry about what his “thing” was.
“What time you want me over there tomorrow?”
I stared at my beautifully crocheted throw.
I got off at five but usually hung around to make sure my staff met their goals for the day and were off themselves. The commute was an hour, if traffic cooperated. The chicken cooked all day and it was only a matter of separating it, tossing in more stuff, and letting it cook a little longer, but there was that little longer.
He lived close to town and had a garage in that town (not that he’d shared that last with me).
And he was a small-town guy with a blue-collar job. Or at least he owned garages that were blue collar, if perhaps owning them made him not so much that.
Maybe he wanted dinner on the table at five thirty, which was an impossibility.
“Six thirty?”
“It’s you gotta be ready for me, Iz, so don’t know why that’s coming at me as a question. That give you enough time?”
“I work in the city.”
“Again, that give you enough time?”