Mine (7 page)

Courtney cocked her head at Rachel, still chuckling. “Did you look in the mirror this morning?”

A small circle of red suddenly blossomed on each of Rachel’s cheeks and she cleared her throat. “Well, he’s very cute. It’s too bad I don’t play for his team or I’d seriously think about asking him out.” She then blinked at Courtney, almost as if she’d just realized what she’d said.

Courtney abruptly stopped laughing altogether.

Did she just come out to me?
With the entry of that thought into her brain, Courtney realized that she hadn’t even wondered. She’d just assumed Rachel was a gay-friendly straight woman who’d found a niche customer base in the queer market. She found herself weirdly excited to learn otherwise, like she’d just discovered her team had a ringer. Part of her wanted to dance a little jig of happiness, but she managed to maintain her composure.

Looking down at her hands, she was thankful they were full or she was certain they’d be jittery. For some reason, today Rachel was making her a little jumpy, and she suddenly sympathized with Mark. Taking a glance at her right hand, she did a double take and remarked, “This is a really nice bottle of wine, Rachel. Wow.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“I know it’s only early afternoon, but I was going to have a glass anyway.” Leaning in, she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Back-to-school time. It’s when all us teachers take up drinking again. Care to join me?”

Rachel smiled, a real, genuine smile, despite the fact that she seemed a bit nervous. Courtney was taken aback by the way it completely altered her face, how it went from cool and composed to friendly and gentle. “No. Thank you, though. I have to get going.”

Courtney’s disappointment deflated her somewhat. “Oh. Okay.”

“But I do appreciate the invite. Another time, maybe?”

“Definitely. Thank you for stopping by.” She held up her hands. “With presents. For future reference, anybody bearing gifts is automatically moved to the head of the entry line. The bouncers have instructions.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Moving toward the door, Rachel turned back to her. “The house looks great, Courtney.”

“Thanks. Come back again when you have more time. I’ll give you the tour and you can see it actually furnished.” Courtney had trouble keeping her eyes from roaming over Rachel’s backside as she headed down the walk to her car parked on the street.
Nice.
Her brain was already busy moving Rachel’s ranking from Icy Cold to Mildly Cool. And just a tad insecure, which Courtney found intriguing.
If I could just get her closer to Almost Warm, that’d be a start,
she thought with a giggle.
I might be able to work with that.
Then she stopped, realizing exactly the route her train of thought had gone. What surprised her, though, wasn’t that she’d actually been thinking somewhat sexual thoughts about a woman other than Theresa.

What surprised her was that she’d enjoyed it.

She chewed on that thought as she stood in the doorway and watched Rachel drive away down the quiet street.

Courtney busied herself for another hour, throwing a load of laundry in just to test Mark’s washer-hooking-up abilities. She organized the upstairs linen closet, piling the towels in a neat, geometric stack. She smiled when she thought how Theresa would have made a snide comment about her anal-retentiveness.

It was the opening day of football season, and she was almost glad she didn’t have the cable hooked up yet. Much as she’d enjoy watching the games, it was a beautiful day and she so wanted to test out her new porch and observe her new neighborhood. The bottle of wine Rachel brought was staring at her from the kitchen counter. She picked it up and studied it, debating. It was a very good bottle of wine. Courtney wasn’t a connoisseur by any means, but she enjoyed wine and was learning what she could little by little. This was a scarlet red merlot that she’d seen in her favorite wine store several weeks before. The description made it sound sumptuous, but on her teacher’s salary she balked at the $34 price tag, thinking she’d wait for some kind of celebration before she made a splurge like that. The fact that Rachel brought it to her was a strange, but not unwelcome coincidence.

“A new house seems like celebration enough,” she said aloud as she dug her corkscrew out of the drawer and went to work.

Courtney’s mother had given her and Theresa matching wicker rockers when they’d moved into their house. Now they occupied Courtney’s new open front porch and looked like they belonged there. The house was a comforting beige color that bordered on almost-yellow. The trim was cream and the accent was the deep forest green of a Christmas tree. The brown wicker rockers looked as if they were designed specifically for that particular porch, their dark green cushions matching the accent color of the house almost exactly.

Courtney dropped into the far chair and propped her feet up on the ridge of the porch, pushing slowly to rock, enjoying the openness of the design. She sipped the wine and her eyes closed almost immediately as she let the flavors and body of it roll around her tongue.

“Good God,” she whispered. It wasn’t often that sipping wine was akin to an almost sexual experience, but this was so good and so sensual as she swallowed and felt it flow into her body like some magic elixir. It was the best wine she’d ever tasted.

“Howdy, neighbor!”

The unexpected voice was frighteningly close and so loud that it made Courtney literally flinch in her seat. Her wine sloshed, dripping onto her bare thigh, and she pressed her hand to her chest in a vain attempt to calm her racing heart. She turned to her right and saw the tall, lanky man standing in the driveway next door. He had unkempt dark hair and Coke bottle glasses that were too big for his gaunt face, but he was dressed neatly in jeans, a tucked-in blue T-shirt, and work boots. Courtney put him in his mid- to late forties.

When she thought she could speak without squeaking, she said, “My God, you scared the crap out of me.”

The man chuckled, a weird, stilted sound that made Courtney furrow her brows at him. “Sorry about that. My mom always said I move like a cat.” He moved closer to her house and stuck his hand over the ridge of the porch. “Bob Ross.”

Courtney shook his hand. “Courtney McAllister.” She had to tug a bit to get him to release her.

“Nice to meet you, Courtney. You all settled in?”

“Yeah, I think I am.”

“Good for you. Good for you. You from around here?”

She nodded. “Been here all my life.”

“Me, too,” he said, matching the pace of her nod. “You work nearby?”

“I teach high school English.” If he noticed she left off the location, he didn’t show it. “You?”

“I’m the head groundskeeper over at Wood and Russell.”

“Yeah?” She had to admit to being impressed. Wood and Russell was a nationally known marketing company housed in an old mansion estate on East Avenue. The outside was positively pristine with thick, lush grass, lilac trees, and several varieties of flowers that appeared as bursts of radiant color on the property. You couldn’t drive by without remarking on its beauty. “You do a great job. That place is gorgeous.” Glancing over Bob’s head, she could see that he worked as hard on his own property. It was maniacally neat and she immediately felt the pressure to keep up.

He looked down at his feet, seemingly embarrassed by the compliment. “Yeah. Thanks. I’ve got a great garden in the back. Lots of vegetables. You like vegetables?”

“Sure. Yeah, I like them.”

“You like zucchini and tomatoes? I’ve got a ton of them now that the season’s coming to an end.”

Courtney nodded, taking a too-large gulp of her wine.

“I’ll bring some over for you. I’ve got way too many to eat.”

She had the sudden vision of Bob showing up at her door at all hours, his arms overflowing with zucchini, an expectant smile on his face. “That’s nice of you,” she said, hoping she was keeping the dread from being obvious. After all, maybe he was just a nice guy and she was jumping to conclusions.

He looked down at his feet. “It’s nothing. I like to share is all.” Looking back up at her through his thick lenses, he asked the inevitable. “You married?”

Courtney swallowed, not willing to give away too much to this total stranger, but hating the idea of lying. “No, not right now.” She could have sworn she saw his eyes light up.

“Maybe we could have a drink sometime. Or something.”

Wow, you don’t waste any time, do you, Bob?
“You know, I’m just recently out of a relationship.” The lie slipped out so easily, Courtney was ashamed of herself. Theresa would have been so disappointed. “Bad breakup.” She punctuated the story with a you-know-how-it-is expression tossed his way, which caused him to nod sympathetically. Inside, she cringed. Theresa would have just blurted out the facts, told him in no uncertain terms how things were and she and Bob probably would have ended up being buddies. She had been proud as well as no-nonsense that way, always standing up for herself, and people respected her for it. But now, without Theresa’s strength bolstering her, Courtney floundered, stumbling a bit, and she was embarrassed by her lack of conviction. If Bob noticed, he didn’t comment. “You seem like a really nice guy, but I’m just not ready to jump back in, you know?”

Before he could respond, her phone rang.
Saved by the bell!
She sent up a silent prayer of thanks. “That’s me,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “I should probably get that.”

He stepped back from her porch. “Sure. I’ll see you later, then.”

“It was nice to meet you, Bob.”

“You hang in there, Courtney. It’ll get better,” he reassured her as she took her wine and fled to safety.

Amelia was on the other end of the line. She sounded a little muffled and the background noise almost drowned her out completely.

“Where are you?” Courtney asked, sticking her finger in her other ear in the hopes of hearing better.

“I’m in the damn mall,” came the irritated response. “I swear to God, if my children live to see their senior years, it’ll be a goddamn miracle.” There was some static and some shuffling, then, “Are you out of your mind? Those shoes are a hundred and seventy-five dollars. What the hell do you need one hundred and seventy-five dollar shoes for? Are your feet that important?” There was a garbled response that Courtney couldn’t quite make out, then Amelia’s irritated voice again. “Do I look like I’m made of money to you?” Courtney stifled a laugh and waited patiently for her friend to return to their conversation. “C.? You there?”

“Still here.”

“Sorry about that. Do yourself a favor. Don’t ever have kids. If you decide against your better judgment that you want them, I’ll give you mine.”

“So noted,” Courtney said, knowing that the truth of the matter was, Amelia’s kids were her world, her heart, and her loves. She’d do anything and everything for them and usually did. They were good boys who would grow up to respect their significant others because of the values Amelia and Carl instilled in them. If Courtney were ever to become a mom, she could only hope to be as good at it as Amelia.

“I wanted to see what was up with the visit from Ms. Icy Cool.” As if the idea had only occurred to her, she quickly added, “She’s not still there, is she?”

“No, she’s not. She only stayed a minute.”

“You weren’t kidding about her looks. Damn, that girl is
hot
. I’ll bet she’s crushed a few men’s hearts in her time. I think she turned
me
on.”

“Poor Mark practically fell all over himself.”

Amelia laughed, remembering his faltering after seeing Rachel from the kitchen. “I told him he should ask her out. She’d turn him down, of course, but it would be good practice for the boy.”

Courtney dug her fingertips into the back of her shoulders, kneading the knot that had formed there from all the lifting and moving she’d done over the past three days. “Well, she’d turn him down anyway, because—as she informed me—she doesn’t play for his team.”

Only the sounds of frantic shoppers could be heard on the other end of the phone for several seconds. Courtney could almost hear the whirring of Amelia’s brain as she processed the information. “Wait. She
told
you that? Just…told you? Out of the blue?”

“Completely out of the blue.”

“Wow. Now I
know
she’s crushed some male hearts. You’re going to jump on this, right?”

Courtney frowned. “Jump on what? What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Amelia’s eye roll was almost audible. “You don’t just blurt out that kind of information unless there’s a reason.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Of course you’re not, because you’re
out of practice
. Mark shouldn’t be asking that girl out. You should.”

“What? Are you crazy?”

“No, I’m not, but you are if you think she didn’t just give you a personal invitation to ask her out. Come on, C. Open your eyes.”

Courtney was certain that Amelia was reading into things way too intently. “That’s just nuts. The woman doesn’t even like me that much.”

“Excuse me, but didn’t she show up at your house today?
With gifts
?”

“She probably does that for all her clients. It’s good business.”

“Good business, my ass. I’m telling you, the girl has opened the door for you. All you have to do is step through.”

Courtney’s heart was pounding at the prospect. “I don’t know, Meel.”

“At least think about it. Okay?”

“Yeah. All right.” She knew she’d think about nothing else now. Wanting desperately to change the subject, she told Amelia about New Neighbor Bob. She tried hard not to make her description of their conversation come across as creepy.

“Is he creepy?” Amelia asked, not missing a beat. “He sounds kind of creepy.”

“I think that remains to be seen. I’m going to wait to pass judgment until I know for sure. I mean, the guy offered me vegetables. I thought that was nice.”

“He offered you zucchini and then asked you out. It’s creepy is what it is.”

Courtney laughed at Amelia’s tone and promised to be careful with the information she gave out to strangers. She was still chuckling when they hung up, but her thoughts went traitorously zipping back to the gorgeous realtor who had visited a couple hours ago.