10. Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Brandy
It took exactly three hours to get the first notification. Three hours.
My phone buzzed while I was talking on the phone to Bill, the manager at the hardware store, who was so enthusiastic about the trunk-or-treat that I had to agree to let him bring an evil forklift.
Ruthie: Hey, when you get a chance, could you stop by the bakery? No rush. Lies. Maybe a little rush. But not an emergency.
Me: Sure, give me twenty.
I wrapped up the conversation. He’d been debating how to put pointed teeth on the forklift. I thanked Bill and promised to get back to him with more details.
Leaving my office building, I walked the two blocks to the bakery.
Ruthie was waiting at the counter. The second I walked through the door, she grabbed my arm, told the lady at the counter that she would be in her office, and ushered me to her back office. She closed the door behind us and put her back against it.
“Hank?” she said. “Hank? Really?”
I opened my mouth, closed it. “Hank what?”
“Are you having dinner with the police chief on Saturday or not?”
“How did you find out?”
“Hank told Barb and Phyllis.” She threw her hands out. “And they dispatched the news.”
I felt my eyes widening. “Dispatched? You mean over the radio?”
“No, no.” She waved her hand. “Barb told her daughters and Phyllis told a couple of her friends and, of course, they told the other dispatchers.” She rolled her hand in a circle to demonstrate how this process would continue indefinitely across the entirety of Denture until it reached the last person who had somehow not yet heard, which, by my estimation, was me.
I put my face in my hands.
“Good grief.”
“Welcome,” Ruthie said, “to small-town living.”
She pointed at the chair across from her desk and took her own seat. Then she rubbed her hands together.
“So,” she said. “Tell me everything. How did Hank and you start?”
I started to explain, but she held both hands up.
“Wait. Wait one minute.”
She jogged out of the office.
I sat and listened to the sounds of the bakery as I contemplated what else the telephone gossip game said about me. I could only imagine.
Ruthie returned sixty seconds later with two tall glasses of lemonade and a plate of chocolate chip cookies.
“Good stories need cookies; these just came out of the oven,” she said, taking one and settling back into her chair. “And go.”
She pointed at me.
Even though she didn’t know it, at that exact moment, I could have kissed her right on the forehead. After not having very many friends and losing those that I had during the divorce, it was so nice to have someone who wanted to hear about what was going on with me.
I spent the next half hour telling her everything. The frustratingly extensive tour and Hank’s detailed explanations.
Ruthie's lemonade sat untouched. She had both hands over her mouth. But by the way her face looked, I could tell she was smiling behind her hands. Finally, it was too much, and she giggled, which grew steadily into laughter.
She closed her eyes. “You’re telling me he actually showed you the bathrooms?
” She opened them, and I could see the glee on her face.
“Like this is the men's and over here we have the women’s?” She bit the side of her lower lip and smirked.
She extended her arm as if she was doing her best Vanna White impression.
“And here we have the door to the men's room.”
“And the closet,” I said. “Don't forget the closet.”
She snorted. The kind that makes you cover your nose and look embarrassed about it, which she did, then snorted again, which made me laugh, which in turn made her laugh and snort even harder.
When we'd regained our composure, I told her about him standing at that door, watching my ass until I turned the corner.
“Oh, no doubt.” Ruthie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Knowing Hank, he stood there until you were completely out of sight.”
She picked up a cookie, took a bite, and shook her head.
“Brandy. If you had told me you were interested in dating, I could have suggested some delightful men in town.”
“But,” I said, “Hank McAllister wouldn't have been one of them.”
She tilted her head.
“Ah, in a word, no.”
She shifted in her chair as if she wasn't sure how to proceed. A moment later, she frowned.
“He's perfectly nice. He just thinks a lot of himself. And he's dated a lot, which everyone in town knows because, well, as you learned earlier, the gossip train.” She paused. “I just wouldn't have thought the loud, center-of-attention, life-of-the-party type is the kind of guy you go for.”
I looked at my lemonade.
“He's not; they're not. Shit, I didn't want to go, but I just felt like I couldn't say no.”
“Why?”
So I explained my reasoning and what had gone through my head.
Ruthie listened with the focused attention she gave to everything. Then she sat back.
“I understand. I do. But, Brandy...” she leveled me with a look, “what if everyone who agrees to participate in the event asks you out? Seriously.”
I stared at her.
She waited.
“That's not funny,” I said.
“I'm completely serious; you’re the new single lady in town.” She repositioned herself in her chair. “You might as well have a blinking neon sign that reads single.”
“Oh, come on, like Bill from the hardware store? He is not going to ask me out.”
“Bill from the hardware store,” Ruthie raised her eyebrow, reaching for her lemonade, “has been widowed for four years, and if he thinks there's a remote possibility of you saying yes, he will absolutely be asking you out.
Bill's not an awful choice. I mean, if you can stand the smell of yard chemicals and chainsaw oil.”
I put my head on her desk.
“I can not.”
“Actually,” she said, and I could hear the smile in it, “I owe you an apology. I was the first one to commit to the Summerween event, and I didn't ask you out at all.” She laughed. “I should probably tell Jo I'm bringing home another woman.”
I lifted my head.
“I'm leaving.”
“Details,” she called after me as I stood. “After the date. I need all of them.”
“Goodbye, Ruthie.”
“And I mean every single detail, Brandy.”
I went back to my office to research more businesses in town to promote the event to. I’d barely gotten my computer turned on when Rich Stevens came in with a strange look.
“Brandy,” he barged in, pointing at me.
Crossing the office to my desk and sitting down in the chair, he looked around my office and nodded approvingly.
“I heard the news. And I just wanted to say how much I approve.”
Oh, for the love of all things holy.
“Chief McAllister,” he said, nodding slowly as though processing something of great civic importance. “Good man. Good man.”
He pointed at me again, as if this were part of his communication.
“You know what I think?”
“I’m all ears.”
“I think it's good. Damn good. Good for the town. Good for visibility. Two high-ranking officials dating? Why, that’s–” he paused.
“Good?” I offered. Again he pointed at me.
“Yes, exactly, it shows unity. It says we're working together. It says Rich Stevens is running a team that communicates.”
He sat back, reeking of satisfaction.
“Yes, this will make people smile.”
I waited to see if there was more, and of course, there was more.
“The voters,” he said, leaning forward, “love to see that. They love to see their officials out and about in the community. And you, as the new Community Ambassador,” another finger in my direction, “with the Police Chief?
Well now, that's what I call a real community right there. That's exactly what this job is about.”
“My job is to date?” I said, because it was something I was going to address and clarify right now. “Because if it is, you’ll need to look for another ambassador.”
“No.” He looked confused for half a second.
“No, no, I'm saying this is good for the community. And a happy community is a good, good community. And as the community ambassador, a happy community is one that participates. And a community that participates wants to keep those that made them happy in office.” He stood, a smile spreading from ear to ear.
He smoothed his jacket and looked at my purple calendar one more time.
“I just wanted you to know that I encourage this, this date, ah, thing. What you're doing with Chief McAllister.” He headed for the door. “Keep up the good work, Brandy.” And then he was gone.
I closed my eyes and sat still for a moment, blowing my breath through my nose.
I counted backward from thirty because I'd heard on one of those talk shows that doing that helps you cope with stressful situations.
And I was learning that we could definitely label our beloved mayor a stressful situation.
After work, I had not intended to go to the grocery store. But with the day I'd had, I wanted ice cream, and since I had a shopping list on my phone that I'd been adding to for four days, I decided there was no time like the present. Mainly because I didn’t have any ice cream in my freezer.
Denture's grocery store was called Fielding's, and it was the kind of store that had been in the same spot for so long it had become part of the landscape.
I liked that it had wide aisles and a decent produce section.
Taking a cart, I made myself get fruit and vegetables before ice cream, a decision I felt warranted earning caramel sauce as a reward.
“There she is.”
I turned around.
Helen, Edith, and Fern were coming at me with a cart between them. Helen had reading glasses on top of her head. Edith had a box of cereal pressed to her chest, and Fern was clutching a small bunch of bananas. All three of them were staring at me.
Shit.
“I told you I saw her,” Fern stated.
“Ladies,” I smiled. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“We saw you come in,” Helen said, moving the cart forward with purpose. “We heard.”
“Excuse me?” I knew full well what they were talking about, but guessed they were hot on the trail of a scoop to share. And there was no way I was feeding into that. “I thought you were bowling tonight.”
“We were,” Edith spoke up. “But the other team got the flu, so they forfeited.”
“Personally,” Fern started, “they say it’s the flu, but really it’s a sexually transmitted disease problem.”
I bit the inside of my lip to keep from laughing.
“You know that mister–”
“Dear, it doesn’t matter.” Edith shook her head.
“Bet it matters to him,” Fern pointed out. “I saw on a commercial that there can be a lot of pain in his–”
Edith put her hand up to stop her sister.
“Fern, they forfeited, meaning we won.”
“Yeah, we crushed them,” Fern nodded, winking at me.
Oh, please make me like Fern when I’m her age.
“Hank McAllister, we’re talking about your date.” Helen brought the conversation back around. She said his name the way you'd say the name of a landmark. Something large and permanent and known to everyone.
“We’re just having dinner,” I said. “Not a date.”
“Of course it is,” Helen said. “Have you forgotten what dates are?”
“It’s not.”
Fern picked up a tomato next to her without looking at it and deposited it in their cart.
“He's a fine-looking man.”
“Very fine,” Edith agreed. “At his age, that body’s impressive.”
“He has a very warm smile,” Helen added helpfully.
My mind took that moment to think of Hank McAllister and then compare him to Nick Carson. It put the two of them next to each other. And I had to admit they were both built very well for their ages. But it was Nick that my mind’s eye kept scanning.
“But now, Brandy, you're new to town and, well, we wouldn’t normally do this, but because we like you—” her sisters nodded, Fern more enthusiastically than Helen, “we really should warn you about Hank,” Edith whispered. “He plays the field.”
“And not baseball.” Fern leaned in, whispering. “However, maybe he does play baseball. I guess I don’t know.”
“Thank you,” I said, placing my hand on my chest. “I’m honored you cared enough to warn me.”
“Plus, he’s a lot,” Helen added.
Edith jumped on that. “And, honey, he's dated half the county.”
“Half?” Fern looked at her. “Ha!”
“Now, don't get us wrong, dear, he's nice,” Edith said. “And Lord knows he's easy on the eyes.” She paused. “The word on the street is he’s good for a roll in the hay.”
I choked on absolutely nothing. “I'm not—”
Helen nodded thoughtfully at her sister, cutting me off.
“That's right, he's supposed to be pretty–”
I cut her off.
“Ladies, there's no way I'm sleeping with him. I promise you.”
“Are you sure?” Edith asked.
“Yes,” I elaborately nodded.
Fern patted my arm. “No need to rush, dear. Good things come to those who wait.”
I decided not to unpack that one.
“Suit yourself, hon,” Helen said, “probably for the best. Being new and people not knowing you yet. And he's not the one.”
“I—” I started.
“He's not for you, not long term,” Helen said.
“When we heard you were dating him, all three of us said it,” Fern confirmed cheerfully.
“How do you know he's not exactly what I like?” I asked genuinely.
Helen, Edith, and Fern looked at each other. One of those looks that contained an entire conversation.
“Oh,” Helen said, turning back to me. “We know.”
Edith nodded.
“We've been around.”
Fern smiled the smile of a woman who knew something she wasn't saying and was perfectly content to keep it that way.
“You'll see.” Helen patted my arm.
“Enjoy your dinner, dear,” Edith said.
“Don’t wear black,” Fern added.
As a unit, they moved their cart forward and continued down the aisle with the unhurried certainty of women who had nowhere important to be, and they were just fine with that.
I really should have thought before I said yes because it seemed I now had a date on Saturday night with a man who was, by unanimous town consensus, in their words, a lot.
Lucky me.
No ifs, ands, or buts about it, this situation required chocolate and caramel sauce.