4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
Brandy
My office was perfect.
I didn't say that lightly. I've worked in enough spaces over the years to know that your office either worked for you or worked against you, and this one was absolutely perfect.
Big windows. An actual conference table with four chairs that matched. A desk the size of a small continent. Built-in shelves that were currently empty but wouldn't be for long.
I stood in the middle of it with my hands on my hips and looked around, smiling.
“Okay,” I said to no one. “Okay. I can work with this. A couple of plants to bring some life. A few pillows for color, and we've got something here.”
I spent two hours rearranging and setting up after I'd brought in my office box from the trunk of my car. I made a list of what I still needed and another list of what I needed to do and a third list that was really just thoughts that needed somewhere to live.
By the time I was done, I was sweating profusely, either from a dreaded hot flash or from the work I’d done.
Probably both. But the office looked like a work in progress, and I was okay with that.
I sat in my chair, fanning myself with a folder while looking out my big windows at the main street of Denture going about its afternoon.
I allowed myself thirty full seconds of feeling like I'd made the right choice to take the job, not to wear a long-sleeved blouse.
Damn perimenopause.
I crossed the office to the thermostat and turned the heat off.
Good Lord, what fool had the heat on in May?
I went back to my desk and wrote a Post-it note saying, Do Not Change! Grabbed a piece of tape and put the note next to the thermostat.
I sat back down and opened my notebook to the page that said June Event with three question marks and a drawing of a firework I'd done while Rich Stevens was talking endlessly about sparks.
Still fanning myself, I looked at the sheet, willing it to reveal its secrets.
“Well, you're not going to come up with an idea just sitting here. And there’s no way I’m going to dinner in this thermosuit,” I told myself as I closed the notebook, grabbed my bag, and went home to find something else to wear to dinner.
Here is what I had learned about myself in fifty years: I would always change my outfit at least twice before going somewhere new. Don't ask me why. I'd tried to break myself of the habit, but I've been that way since high school, and that was a hell of a long time ago.
I changed into dark jeans, a short-sleeved cotton shirt that was nice without trying too hard, and my good flats. Looked in the mirror, nodded once, and headed back into the closet.
This time I returned to the mirror wearing faded jeans, a pink T-shirt, and a cream-colored short-sleeved cardigan that I would certainly remove.
“Now this says, casual dinner at someone's house.”
I grabbed the wine and the flowers and headed out.
Jo and Ruthie's house was exactly what I expected and nothing like what I expected at the same time.
The outside was tidy and practical — clean lines, good landscaping, the kind of house that said the people inside had their act together.
But the front porch had a collection of mismatched planters overflowing with flowers, and hanging baskets galore.
Approaching the open screen door, a smell so good stopped me on the front step. Whatever Ruthie was cooking, I wanted to marry it.
I knocked.
Jo opened the door, still in her work clothes, because of course she did, and behind her appeared the woman I could only assume was Ruthie.
Ruthie was warm in the way that some people just were — the kind of warm that hit you before they've said a word.
She appeared to be a few years older than Jo, with dark, curly, long hair that she wore in a ponytail.
She had an apron on that read, I kiss better than I cook, which, given the smell coming from that kitchen, I chose to interpret as a very high bar indeed.
She was wiping her hands and already smiling.
“Welcome, you must be Brandy.” She said it like she'd been expecting me for years. “Jo said you were lovely. She was right. Come in, come in—”
“These are for you,” I said, holding out the flowers and the wine. “My grandmother always said don't arrive empty-handed.”
Ruthie pressed one hand to her chest. “Oh, how thoughtful. I love flowers.”
She looked at Jo with the specific expression of a woman making a point. The same point that had been made several times before.
“Someone in this house doesn't buy them.”
“They're already dead,” Jo said. “The moment you cut them, they're dead. You're paying for dead things.”
“So's the beef you eat,” Ruthie said pleasantly, “and you still buy that.”
I decided right then and there that I loved Ruthie.
Jo took the wine. Ruthie took the flowers.
And I followed them into a kitchen that looked lived in and loved — pots on the stove, herbs on the windowsill, a corkboard on the wall covered in recipes and photos and what appeared to be a card from a child that said ‘Miss Ruthie your bread is the best,’ with a drawing of what might have been a loaf of bread or possibly a brown cloud.
If I squinted, it could have been a rabbit. It was hard to tell.
But whatever it was, the sentiment was lovely.
“Sit, sit.” Ruthie pointed at the kitchen island. “Wine's open on the counter. Pour yourself a glass and pour us one too because goodness knows we've earned it. And Jo, darling, open those damn doors. I’m about to roast in this kitchen.”
I smiled at her, totally understanding the feeling.
I poured three glasses and felt my shoulders come down about two inches.
“Whatever you’re making, it smells amazing,” I said, taking a large sniff.
“Oh, aren't you sweet? Thank you. It's lasagna. Jo's favorite. It's resting. About another five minutes and we can eat.”
“I love all your flowers out front, it's very welcoming. I should get some baskets for my porch too,” I spent the next five minutes learning where to buy hanging baskets in and around Denture.
“Let's eat.” Ruthie changed the subject when the timer went off.
Ruthie's lasagna and homemade sourdough garlic knots were so good you understand why people wrote poetry about food.
We ate at a round table in the dining room with the windows open and the evening breeze coming in cool and easy and the wine doing exactly what wine was supposed to do. It felt like a dinner with women I'd known for years.
“So,” Ruthie said, refilling my glass with the authority of a woman who hosted frequently and had strong opinions about empty glasses. “Tell us everything. What brought you to Denture?”
Jo leaned back in her chair. “She means the real version. Not the resume version.”
I looked at them both. Two women who had clearly built something real here, something of their own, watched me with the open faces of people who actually wanted to know.
So, I told them.
The whole thing about Gary, the failed relationship.
The way we'd drifted but just lived with it.
Until the dating profile made it impossible not to.
The judge and the stenographer. The refrigerator and the model cars and the oak tree installation and driving away with the windows down and Shania Twain at full volume.
By the end of it, Ruthie's hand was over her mouth and her eyes were bright, and Jo was nodding.
When I stopped talking, they both applauded me.
“Good riddance,” Jo said.
“To Gary being gone,” Ruthie said, raising her glass.
“Amen,” I agreed. “And to unplugged refrigerators everywhere.”
We drank, then laughed.
“Alright, your turn. How did you two end up here?”
Ruthie and Jo exchanged a look, smiling at one another.
“Jo wanted a change,” Ruthie said.
“Needed one,” Jo corrected. “We left a big city where I was in a job that was...” She turned her wine glass slowly.
“Fine. It was good money but miserable hours.
I was gone all the time. All I did was work.
And over time we started to have some issues with Ruthie feeling like she was alone all the time.
Since our marriage was still new, we went to therapy, and that's where I admitted that I'd always wanted to be a firefighter.”
She shrugged like this was simple, which I suspected it hadn't been.
“So,” Ruthie took over, “we talked and talked some more. We had some savings, so we decided that Jo should quit and go to the academy. She was hired for the job she has now straight out of school.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Jo looked at Ruthie. “She supported us while I was in school, and I’m grateful. When I got the job, there wasn’t any question with Ruthie. She instantly said, ‘let's move.’ So, we packed everything up and headed out.”
“And we haven't been happier.” Ruthie patted the back of Jo's hand. “But boy, let me tell you, those senior tongues...” Ruthie giggled. “They were absolutely wagging when we arrived. Try being a lesbian couple with an age gap in a small Midwestern town.”
She shook her head with the amusement of a woman who found it entertaining.
“Oh, they had things to say.”
“You don’t have an age gap,” I stated, looking at each of them.
Ruthie smiled and laughed. “Thank you, but I’m seven years older than Jo.”
“Seven years is nothing.” I picked up my water. “Twenty, and I’d have questions. I probably wouldn’t ask them, but I would have them. Now who are these seniors? High school kids?”
“No,” Jo laughed. “The town has an active senior citizen center. It's where all the gossip starts and ends. The town has quite a senior population.”
“That's...” I laughed. “That's interesting.”
Jo leaned forward. “I'm sure you were the talk of the center today. Helen, Edith, and Fern, the Harris sisters, saw you this morning when you came to the bay.”
I put my wine glass down. “And?”
“And between the three of them, they told approximately all of the on-duty police and everyone at the senior center all about you. Including that the new Community Ambassador arrived at the fire station in, and I quote, 'hooker heels.'“
I blinked a couple of times, then laughed a deep laugh.
The ladies joined in.