It's Not About You Read online

  I hadn't done much to it. I still had some savings. Enough to kickstart making changes. I had a little over two months before she would arrive. Kyle was all on board for making a change upstairs. His half of the house was awesome. I mostly spent my time down there with him.

  The first thing I did was paint. Everything. Kyle helped me choose colors and coordinate and talked me into doing a full on clean out. I caught the neighbor swooning when Kyle took his shirt off (it's still hot here in September) and hauled box after box of junkie crap out of the house to the curb.

  Once the walls were painted and the furniture tossed, Ikea became my friend. That and a set of power tools Kyle invested in. And once we had the upstairs living and dining room cleaned, painted, re-furnitured and looking awesome, Kyle started on the kitchen. New sink, new counter tops and new appliances. I didn't want him to spend the money, but he assured me that if I ever moved to Oregon like I'd talked about since we met, he wanted the house.

  We got everything done in just over a month. Six weeks left before my daughter unit would arrive—and I was flat broke.

  I had killed every bit of savings I had.

  Kyle was good for the house payment, as minimal as it was. But I had to contribute somehow. And if I didn't have money, how could I pay for her tuition next semester?

  I needed a job.

  But what exactly does a forty-something divorcé do? I hadn't worked a serious job in long time because the ex had supported us during her school years. But with the divorce finished, there was no more support.

  As the ex still loved to call and remind me.

  It was late in the evening when my Summer happy came to an abrupt, needle across vinyl stop. Kyle was on the couch flipping channels on the new flatscreen and I was at the new dinning room table with the Atlanta Journal and Constitution spread out to the job listings.

  We were waiting on one of my masterpiece healthy lobster casseroles to finish baking. Kyle had uncorked a new bottle of red wine he wanted to try with it (I would be sticking to white wine) so it was sitting on the kitchen island. I had a bottled water beside me and we had both just spent a good hour at his gym. I think Kyle had three phone numbers in his pocket and he hadn't bothered looking at any of them.

  Green beans steamed on the stove and the timer went off just as my phone did. I looked down at the caller.

  Selfish Prick was calling. No really. That's what I programmed my ex's number to read.

  Damn.

  I grabbed the phone as I got up to turn the beans off. I had the headphones still plugged in so I popped one in my ear, tucked the other down the front of my tee-shirt and slipped the phone in my back pocket.

  I pinched the button on the wire under the earbud. "Murphy's Mortuary. You stab 'em, we slab 'em. Can I help you?" I turned the eye under the beans off and then dumped the beans in some waiting ice water to stop them from cooking.

  The voice on the other side was curt and harsh. Like it always was. Ahh… good times. "You have to stop answering the phone like that. It's not funny."

  "Sorry, Burt. But you don't call the shots anymore. Whaddayawant?"

  Kyle turned and looked at me as he muted the television. His left brow arched in question and I held up a finger—our signal we'd worked out since the divorce that meant let's wait a second. Otherwise Kyle was going to grab the phone and speak his mind.

  He loved doing that.

  "I'm coming home for Thanksgiving."

  I frowned as I processed that. "You're going to Florida? Why call and tell me that?"

  "No. Georgia. To the house."

  "My house?"

  He sighed. "Fine. Your house. I'm coming to your house for Thanksgiving."

  I motioned for Kyle to come close, removed the earbud and put Burt on speaker. Kyle was beside me in a second as I thumbed the home button and slid my finger to the side till I found the call recorder, turned it on, and set the phone on the counter. "Can you repeat that? I'm not sure I heard you right."

  "You heard me, Grace. I'm coming to your house for Thanksgiving."

  Kyle opened his mouth and I slapped a hand over it and gave him a quick shake of my head before I removed it. "Burt, I'm sorry. But you're not coming here for Thanksgiving. You're not invited."

  "Like hell I'm not. My daughter said she was going home for Thanksgiving. I want to see her so I'm coming there."

  "No. You're not."

  "Grace—I paid the mortgage on that house for nearly ten years—"

  "Stop it, Burt. The house is mine. You're no long on the title and you were never on the mortgage. You step one foot in my yard and I will personally call the police and have you arrested."

  "Oh so you'd call that cop boyfriend of yours to kick me out? Or will he already be there?"

  I closed my eyes. Shook my head. Same shit, different day. The guy seriously needed a new schtick. "I'm not dating the cop anymore, Burt. Not that it's any of your business."

  I opened my eyes and Kyle was staring at me. He motioned to the phone and then pointed to himself. I shook my head.

  Burt was speaking. "You wouldn't do that. Not in front of Tanae."

  "Yeah. I would. Burt—you are not invited to Thanksgiving. It'll be Tanae's friends who want to come see her, my sister and her husband, and Kyle and his friends."

  There was a long pause. "He's there, isn't he?"

  "Always," Kyle said in his deep, melodic voice.

  "Still fucking him too, huh?"

  And there it was. The old accusations. The man was like a broken record. "Night Burt. Don't show up here or I'll file another restraining order and have you arrested if you do." I pressed the disconnect button. "Ass. Hat."

  "He does know I'm gay, right? I mean…we've both told him."

  "Doesn't matter." I brushed my thumb over the phone's surface to Burt's contact information. I blocked his calls.

  "That's not going to work. He's going to show up."

  "Then I need to go back to the precinct tomorrow and refile. I got him recorded. I can't use it, but if Lt. Taylor's there…" I wiggled my eyebrows.

  "You just want to see Taylor again. How long's it been?"

  "I dunno. Five months? And no that's not the reason. I really don't want Burt showing up and ruining Thanksgiving."

  "Why did you two break up? You and Taylor. With Burt it's obvious."

  "Me and Kevin?" I thought about Lt. Kevin Taylor. He was nearing fifty, handsome, slim and sweet. But he was also in a job that kept me sitting on my nerves the whole time we dated. "I wasn't ready. You told me that back then, remember?"

  "You mean you're actually listening to me?"

  I held out my hand to indicate the house. "Hello? You warned me about Burt and I never listened. I wanted to avoid more pain. I'm gonna go fill out a few job apps in that area tomorrow so I'll just drop by and fill another restraining order."

  "They already know Burt's a bastard. They probably have your name pre-filled on the form." He shifted on his bare feet. "You going to tell Tanae?"

  "About this call?" I turned the recorder off. "Not unless she asks. If there's one thing about my relationship with my daughter, it's that I've never lied to her."

  My advice to anyone listening—never say something like that.

  Ever.

  Trying to find a job at my age turned into a morning of trying-not-to-cry. I had resumes submitted to several online job-hunting sites. The two head-hunters who had been able to find me work in the past kept hitting brick walls. I was either over-qualified (what does that mean?!) or they were looking for younger, just out of college fools they could hire for less hours, avoid benefits, and then shit on when their bottom line tanked.

  So the morning after Prick's call I exercised with Kyle, showered and let him dress me for heading out into the world. I put applications in at drugstores (or what my generation called drugstores cause I think they're called just plain pharmacies now), several of the big name chain department stores, a few of the lesser known department stores, and a few pla
ces I wouldn't be caught dead in if I didn't need the money.

  They all smiled, spoke nicely to me and gave me the standard, "We'll call you if something opens up." Wherein I was sure they promptly tossed my application the moment I left their premises. I was tempted to hang around at some of those stores, wait till the asshole I interviewed with left and check their trash.

  But after five hours of this…I just wanted off my feet and into a hot bath.

  Since it was getting close to my cooking class, I settled on one of those ridiculously expensive coffees at a local coffee house.

  Trade In Beans had been open going on twenty years. The daughter unit had worked there off and on during her high school years. I liked the place and I liked the owners, George and Bradford, one of the nicer couples the Prick and I used to hang out with. Until the two of them had had enough of the asshole.

  The two of them threw me a party after I told them me and the Prick were getting a divorce, just a meet-n-greet of their 100 closest friends. I knew a couple of the guys there, but none of the women. That's where I met Linda, a woman my age with an incredibly gifted husband and their son, Jeremy. Jeremy and Tanae were the same age and hit it off as best friends.

  Linda and I became inseparable. We texted daily, morning till night, talked on the phone, got on Skype, and met up for brunches and long lazy afternoons by the pool in their neighborhood. We weren't square financially enough to afford the pool membership in our own neighborhood. So after comparing our pool's $600 a year membership with no friends to their $450 and friends, we split the cost, packed the car and headed over there weekend after weekend, year after year.

  Linda was the friend that passed away a year and a half ago. George and Bradford had the wake at the coffee shop. Closed it down for a day and those who knew her could come and hang out, drink cheap sangria (her favorite pool side spirit) and reminisce.

  I still texted her for the first year after she passed, knowing there was no one there to read them, and knowing no one would ever answer them back. But it helped for a long time, just pretending she was there.

  I hadn't texted her in over five years. She'd been gone from my life for six. And I still kept her texts on my phone so I could read them and laugh (yes I had the same phone).

  I was doing just that, texting, thinking of Linda and standing in line at the Trade In Beans, when someone shoved me hard from the back. I stumbled forward and knocked into the guy in front of me and so went the domino affect. When the guy I bumped into turned and gave me an angry look, I pointed behind me. "I'm sorry but they shoved me."

  When the angry-faced man started to say something, the person behind me stepped around and put a hand on angry-face's shoulder. "She's right. I tripped coming in and unfortunately plowed into her. Please, apologies?"

  I looked at angry-face—and he did have an angry face, even after he was apologized to—and smiled. He rolled his eyes and turned back to be the next in line.

  "Wow…what a prick." Yeah…that's me. Just couldn't keep my opinion to myself.

  Soft laughter caught my attention and I turned to my right. The shover person was standing beside me. I hadn't paid much attention to him before, mainly because I didn't want angry-face to start something. But now I had a second to look at him.

  My initial impression was "young" followed by "is his razor defective?" trumped by "holy shit look at those eyes."

  They were blue. But not just blue but the color of the sky. He had brown hair with highlights (I didn't know if they were natural or lemon) that brushed his shirt collar, a scruffy half-there beard and a smile that actually met his eyes.

  A genuine smile.

  He was dressed in a light black jacket, a dress shirt and a loosened tie and jeans. I didn't look down to see his shoes because frankly—I was being sucked in alive by those eyes. There was something interesting about them. Maybe the shape?

  "I'm sorry—" I stammered, still tripping inside those eyes.

  He held up a hand. "Oh no, no. You just said what I was thinking. And it was kinda funny coming out of you."

  The eyes dimmed. I leaned back and narrowed my own peepers at him. "Coming out of me? Do I know you?"

  "No. It's just…I like it when older women speak their mind."

  Older women. I sighed. It was bad enough I'd seen reaction after reaction to my age all morning and into the afternoon, but now I was getting the older woman comment from some young hottie in a coffee line. Geez…I wonder how he'd react if the old gal here called him a hottie to his face.

  I looked forward as angry-face stepped away and walked up to order.

  "I'll get hers and mine."

  I looked up at Pretty Eyes and shook my head. "Oh. No thanks. This older woman can pay for her own coffee." I felt my frustration gnawing at the back of my neck and now I just wanted to grab my coffee and go sit in the lobby of the cooking school for the entire forty-five minute wait, away from Pretty Prick here. "I'll have a White Mocha. Tall."

  "And your name?" the barista grabbed a black pen and a tall cup, ready to scribble like a doctor.

  "Grace!"

  I looked up to see George coming from the back, an orange apron tied around his waist. I returned his smile and his hug. George always gave the best hugs. "It's good to see you George."

  "Where the hell have you been? Hold on," he said as he looked at the young people behind the counter. "Who's getting Grace's coffee? Ah, Monroe, make it the largest size and it's on the house. And bring it to us." He put his hand to my shoulder and lead me past the staring Pretty Eyes to a booth in the back with the sign RESERVED on top.

  He pushed it aside as we sat facing each other and immediately reached over and grabbed my hand. "Now, you know Brad and I usually go to the islands for Thanksgiving, but we want to come to your house this year. We haven't seen Tanae since she started college and we have presents for her."

  The fact this man was offering to give up a week of hot male bodies in a foreign country where clothing was optional told me one thing. "Kyle called you."

  George was not a good liar. And even worse at keeping secrets. "Yes. But don't get mad. We just want to make sure Burt doesn't ruin time with your daughter."

  "Burt is not going to come." I checked my watch. "Cause I plan on getting another restraining order this afternoon. After cooking class."

  "Will Lt. Taylor be there?"

  I gave George my best stop it look. "I don't know. But if he is it'll make it easier to get the order faster." The barista brought the drink and I gave her a tip. She smiled, winked at George and left us alone. I looked at the counter but there was no sign of Pretty Eyes.

  "His name's Michael, be we all call him Pretty Eyes."

  I looked back at George and blinked. "Who?" But come on…they called him the same thing I did? Kismet.

  "The guy with the kick-ass eyes. You were talking to him in line."

  "Oh I wasn't—"

  "Yes you were. And damn girl, you have got to stop shying away from admitting you look. You're past forty, not dead. Geez. Be a Cougar."

  I snorted at him. George and I had already had the Cougar discussion and I decided ignoring it was a better avenue. I sipped my White Mocha. "Oh God…this is heaven."

  "You always did love those. Why did you stop coming so much?"

  I sipped the coffee again and licked at the whip cream. "Money. These things aren't cheap. I've been out all morning putting in applications for jobs."

  "You're not freelancing anymore?"

  "Eh….the flow stopped. Freelancing is great as long as you keep saying yes. But the minute you say no to a job, word gets around. And I had to say no to a few during the divorce."

  "Lemme guess. Burt?"

  "Oh George," I said and sat back, my hands on the table. "You have no idea. Well you might cause Kyle was in the middle of it. The bastard said he wanted an easy divorce, right? With Tanae coming close to eighteen, there wouldn't be a need for child support or custody. So there wasn't anymore need for him to have cont
rol. I was making the mortgage payments—made them all on my own these past five years. Made the bills. Kyle's moving in helped there in the end. So Burt didn't have any claims, so he tried to take the house."

  George blinked a few times and put his hand to his chest. "What? Kyle didn't tell us this."

  "Bastard decided if he couldn't control custody, or he couldn't control with money, then he would control what I did by insisting the house be sold and split down the middle. Took a chunk of my savings for the lawyer to prove to the judge that my 401K bought that house, my original good credit bought that house, and I had made the lion-share of the house payments." I pointed to the table with my index finger for emphasis. "So after three months, they awarded me full ownership. Of course, it took another grand just to get his name off the title."

  "Holy shit. And he didn't pay for any of it?"

  "Nope. So I'm down to very little and with Tanae's college tuition," I said and then sighed.

  "Burt's not helping you with that?"

  "Hell no. He doesn't believe in helping financially with education. He got through college on student loans, so he thinks she should too."

  George's jaw dropped. "What a prick."

  "I don't want her burdened with student loans. That's one of Burt's problems now. He's been paying on his own loans for over thirty years."

  "That bastard is such a…" George laughed. "Bastard."

  I sipped more mocha. "Oh…mmmm."

  George was quiet for a few minutes and I looked at him. "What?"

  "Grace…I have an idea. It's crazy…but it's something I think Brad will agree on."

  "Oh God…when you get that twitch going with your eyebrow it worries me."

  But George wasn't paying any attention to me as he put his hands flat on the table. "I need a manager. Here at this location. We have three shops now, you know. Brad's always at the Decatur location, and I move between this one and the Norcross location. If we had someone managing this one—" he held out his hands. "It would help."

  I stared at him. Was this real? Or was there a camera somewhere and I was getting punked cause that shit's not funny.