Chapter 10
Danielle
The microwave dinged, and Danielle opened the door to remove her small travel bowl filled with potato soup. It was her favorite soup, unless you considered gumbo soup, which Danielle did not. Gumbo was its own food group.
Since potato took the top soup honor, it reigned over Monday lunches during the winter. It always felt right to celebrate a Monday. New week, new experiences. Why not her favorite meal as well?
The trick was freezing a big batch with pureed potatoes in small, lunch-sized portions. Since dairy doesn’t freeze well, Danielle would make it without, then stir some cream into the defrosted portion before taking it to work. Voila! Perfect Monday lunches.
Danielle placed the bowl on a small round table with a melamine top and sat in one of the wood and metal chairs. As she removed her spoon from her lunch bag, she was joined by a familiar face.
“Let’s see them.”
Gerri wore high-waisted dark blue slacks that fit her tall frame. They were perfectly paired with a light blue long-sleeved blouse. Gerri knew how to rock minimalist chic, and she didn’t diminish her style for the classroom.
She hurried over to place her own lunch bag on the table and sat beside Danielle, peering at her head. Danielle tucked her hair on that side behind her ear to give Gerri a better look.
“Nice! Perfect choice of earrings.” She leaned back and looked between Danielle’s face and ears. “Love those on you.”
“Thanks,” Danielle said. “They’re a little sore, but not bad at all.”
Gerri gave her a knowing look as she opened her bag and popped a container of jambalaya, leftovers from a family gathering the day before, into the microwave. “That’s because you were in good hands.”
“Yes, Morgan is very good at her job.”
She blew on a spoonful of soup and took a bite, hoping Gerri didn’t catch the flush she felt growing behind her cheeks.
“I’m sure she is,” Gerri said as she pulled her lunch from the microwave and sat down again. “For real, your ears don’t even look red at all. I’ll bet you’re glad you went there. For a reason other than just to have a hot woman handle your ears.”
Danielle choked on her soup and coughed a couple of times to clear her airway. “It wasn’t about that.”
“Maybe not,” Gerri said. “But I’m sure it helped.”
It was time to get this conversation back on a more comfortable track.
“So how’s the day going over in math land?”
Gerrie waved her fork at Danielle. “Nuh-uh. No deflecting. The math wing is the math wing. Same as always. You and your love life are way more interesting.”
Two other teachers entered the break room. They were both from the history department, and Danielle didn’t know them well. Still, she didn’t need them to know all of her business.
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “There’s no love life.”
“Okay,” Gerri conceded. “Then your potential love life.”
Danielle stirred her soup, too rattled to take another bite yet. “There’s none of that either.”
Was that true?
Or the better question: did she want that to be true?
“What’s that look?” Gerri stabbed a piece of spicy sausage dotted with rice and aimed it at Danielle. “You know you can’t lie to me. Remember that time you, me, Melanie, and Kim all tried to play poker at their house? You’re terrible at bluffing.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not,” Gerri said. “It makes you a fantastic friend. But it also makes you a bad liar, so spill it. What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” Danielle insisted, attempting to lie to her friend once again. She decided instead to try something that was the absolute truth. “Lila gets my full attention, at least for the next few years, so there’s no potential anything with anyone.”
She knew plenty of people dated with kids, and Lila was getting older and didn’t need quite so much attention.
She had a support team in Melanie and Gerri, but it felt unfair to ask them to step in more than they already were doing.
And it would be unfair to ask any potential romantic partner to take a backseat to both Danielle’s career and her child and settle for the tiny scraps of Danielle that were left to share.
Gerri put the bite of jambalaya in her mouth and chewed it, holding her appraising gaze on Danielle. When she finished, she waved the fork again.
“You’re doing an amazing job with that girl, and we’ve already discussed that I’m willing to help out however I can to get you more free time.
I just want you to have some time for you.
” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “But I still think there’s something else you’re not telling me about Saturday night. ”
Rats. Gerri and her uncanny perception.
Danielle stalled by taking a bite of potato soup. It was delicious, and she mentally thanked herself, like she did every week, for prepping these Monday meals ahead of time. She was having trouble fully enjoying it while also trying to hide her secret plans.
But she couldn’t hide them forever. She’d at least need Gerri or Melanie’s help watching Lila, so she could go to this thing.
“Okay, so, it’s not a big deal,” she began. “But I might have agreed to go to Morgan’s sister’s wedding with her.”
Gerri’s eyes flew open wide as the fork clattered from her grasp onto the table. The other two teachers eyed them from across the room but went back to their own conversation once they realized everything was fine.
“What?” Gerri leaned in and whispered forcefully. “That’s definitely a big deal.”
Another teacher from the English department walked in to retrieve the Diet Coke with her name on it from the fridge. Danielle ate another bite of soup, then waved and smiled as the woman left.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Then tell me what it is,” Gerri said. “Because it sounds like you have a wedding date with a woman you have a crush on.”
“It’s not a date,” Danielle insisted. “And I don’t have a crush on her.” When Gerri gave her a sarcastic look, Danielle added, “Fine. I do. But we’re just friends.”
“So you’re going to a family wedding with a beautiful woman you barely know, but you’re just friends and it’s not a date. Is that what you’re trying to convince me of?”
Danielle had been trying to convince herself of that since Saturday night, and Gerri’s dose of Monday morning skepticism wasn’t helping that idea stick.
“We had a good time at Melanie’s thing, so she thought it would be fun to hang out again.”
“Assuming I buy this whole ‘not a date’ thing, why wouldn’t she take an actual date?”
Something pinched inside Danielle at the agreement that this was just a friendly outing. She didn’t want it to be a date. It couldn’t be a date. But hearing someone else say it stabbed at the tiny part of herself that wanted it to be something else.
“She has no more interest in dating someone than I do,” Danielle said. “So it makes more sense to bring a friend.”
Gerri chewed on more browned chicken and rice, taking her time with the bite as she pondered the information. “So why doesn’t she go by herself?”
Danielle struggled to find a way to say this. It was the part Gerri and later Melanie were going to have the biggest issue with. Heck, it was the part Danielle had the biggest issue with.
“Things with her family apparently aren’t great.”
Gerri chewed the last bite, then put her fork in the empty container and wiped nonexistent crumbs from her hands.
“Let me get this straight.”
Those were never good words to hear from Gerri. It usually meant she had it completely straight but wanted you to hear how terrible your logic was. Danielle wasn’t a fan of that phrase.
“She’s bringing you to a wedding to be surrounded by her crappy family members to either put you in the line of fire to take some heat off of her or to piss off some bigots.”
“She’s not putting me in the line of anything,” Danielle said. “She just wants some company while she deals with them, someone enjoyable and distracting, and we’ve already proved we make good company for each other at something like this.”
“Melanie’s recommitment celebration was nothing like how this sounds.” Gerri sighed. “There you were surrounded by love and acceptance. This wedding sounds like the opposite of that.”
Danielle glanced at the clock, and they both packed up their lunch gear.
“I know it sounds bad.” When Gerri gave her a disbelieving look, Danielle said, “I do. But she wants to be there for her sister, and I want to be there for her.”
They both stood and pushed their chairs in.
“You know this sounds like a relationship, right? That you want to be there for her?”
“Hey, I’m there for you, and you’re my friend.”
Gerri put her lunch bag on her arm and grabbed her travel mug. She stood facing Danielle and let out a sigh. Not one of judgment or annoyance. It was a sigh of concern.
“I’m just worried about you.”
“I know,” Danielle said. “But I can handle myself with a bunch of bigots.”
“I’m more worried about your heart,” Gerri said. “If neither of you wants a relationship, and this builds more feelings, someone’s going to get hurt.”
“No one’s getting hurt. We both know what this is going in. It’ll be fine.” Danielle smiled. “Plus, I’ve been promised top-tier wedding food.”
Gerri laughed as the bell rang for the next class. “Then why didn’t you lead with that?”