CHAPTER 5
“H ey, Henry,” Melinda said.
Myra looked up and spotted Melinda, Kyle, and Jill walking through the door of her uncle’s Po-Boy shop.
It was still interesting to her that she had never really noticed Melinda or any of her new friends here before, even though, according to Melinda, the woman had been coming to the restaurant for years, and Myra was in here at least once a week to grab something.
Usually, she would grab the food and go, though, so maybe that was why she hadn’t noticed any of the now-familiar faces prior to them becoming friends.
“Hey, Mel!” Uncle Henry yelled in response. “Have a seat. Usual?”
“Yeah. For me and Ky. Jill?”
“Me too,” Jill said but didn’t look up from her phone.
“Hi,” Melinda greeted her as she sat down across from Myra and next to her fiancée, while Jill sat down next to Myra. “She’s texting with Willa,” Melinda added in explanation as she nodded toward Jill.
“Actually, I was messaging Enid, who had a work question,” Jill replied. “But now that you’ve mentioned it, I will go ahead and message my girlfriend, too, because I want her to come over tonight.”
“Isn’t she there all the time anyway?” Kyle asked, wrapping an arm around Melinda’s chair.
“Not all the time,” Jill said. “And like you two can talk; you moved in together after, like, five days.”
“It wasn’t five days,” Melinda said as she laughed. “And moving in?”
“What? No,” Jill replied as she shook her head.
“We’re not doing that yet. Maybe in the future.
I mean, I hope we do in the future, but she’s just starting that new job.
I’ve got my mom, whom I’m still a little worried about, Juni is changing schools, and I’ve got a new job, too, now that you’ve finally promoted me.
That’s already a lot. Besides, I’m meeting her sister this weekend, and that’s a big step. ”
“Just the sister?” Myra asked her.
“To start. She’s also one of those super successful older sisters that you want to impress. Willa’s really cute about the whole thing, wanting to make sure I’m prepared for her lawyer sister to grill me on the witness stand.” Jill smirked. “It’s led to some really hot sex for us this week.”
Myra laughed and took a drink of the sweet tea she had grabbed for herself from the back.
“I’m not nervous. Should I be nervous?” Jill asked them then.
“I don’t think so,” Melinda replied.
“Yeah, it’s just her sister, not her parents, right?” Kyle asked.
“Not yet. They’ll be next, I’m sure. Willa said that once I meet Wallis, it’s her brother after that.
Wade is just on a trip right now, so I can’t meet him first, but he is a little more laid back, from what I’ve been told.
Once I meet Wallis, though, she’ll fill their parents in that Willa has a serious girlfriend, and they’ll expect a meeting. ”
“That’s good,” Melinda noted. “It is serious, so you’ll want to take those steps with her.”
“I just want her . I’ll take all the steps, but I just want Will.
I know it hasn’t been long, but I can see us together for the long haul, kind of like you two.
That’s the point, right? If you want to find one person and not date around, if you don’t see anything happening in the future, it just ends.
I don’t want this to end. Same, I assume? ” Jill nodded toward Kyle and Melinda.
“I still can’t believe how it all worked out,” Kyle said. “I only came here because my grandmother died, so I needed to find some things out about my family history, but I ended up staying and found the love of my life at the same time.”
Melinda just smiled over at Kyle before she leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
Myra watched the exchange and felt that familiar jealousy she had whenever she was around these two.
She missed it, what she’d once had with her wife.
It hadn’t worked out, and they clearly weren’t meant to be, after all, but she’d once believed that she had found the love of her life.
She still wasn’t sure how she had gotten the thing so wrong.
“Our life is just so boring,” her ex had told her the night they had had the big talk.
“It’s boring?” Myra had asked.
“Yes. We work, and that’s it. We don’t have pets.
There are no kids. We don’t go on vacations because you need to be here for work all the time.
I finally got a job where I get to travel, and it’s nice.
I know it’s business hotels and per diems, so nothing like a vacation, but it’s still better than just sitting around at home talking about nothing, which is what we’ve been doing for years. ”
“And she’s not boring?” Myra had asked.
“No, she’s not. But it’s not just about that, Myra. I’ve changed. I don’t want the same things I wanted before.”
“You mean kids?”
“No, not just kids. I haven’t even met hers yet, but I’m looking forward to it. Now that she’s leaving her husband, it’ll be us, and we’ll be a family. I want that, but it’s also more than that. She’s not a workaholic. We can go on vacations and travel the world if we want.”
“With three kids?”
“With or without them,” her ex had said. “Their dad will have them sometimes, and we can afford to have a nanny or something.”
“We?” Myra had said, shaking her head. “You’re already a we? We’re married.”
“I know. I have a lawyer, Myra. I have the papers ready.”
That had been it. Myra had hired her own attorney to look over the papers, but since her ex hadn’t wanted any part of the business and only asked that they sell the house and split the money, the process had been fairly simple, which made no sense.
How could someone declare lifelong love to someone else, taking them more than a year to plan the day when they would make it official in front of their friends and family, only to have it all dissolved with a few signatures and money paid to attorneys and the courts?
“You okay?” Melinda checked.
“Sorry?” she asked, refocusing on her friends and their lunch.
“I just asked if you were okay. You were kind of zoned out there.”
“Oh, sorry. I’m good. I was just thinking about this job I have later.”
“What is it?” Kyle asked.
“Just some storm damage to repair, but it’s at my new neighbor’s place.”
“That’s convenient,” Jill noted.
Myra nodded and said, “It is, yeah. I’m too busy to just take it on, though, so I’m working on her place at night and on the weekends until it’s done.”
“Her? The neighbor?” Kyle asked.
“Her name’s Elisa, yeah,” Myra said. “And I have a little problem.”
“What kind of a problem?” Melinda asked.
“Well, she’s drop-dead gorgeous.”
“Oh. Suddenly, I’m more interested in this lunch.” Jill put her phone down on the table. “Tell us more.”
“She’s straight.”
“Oh. Bummer,” Jill replied, sitting back in her chair. “I was hoping for some hot gossip.”
“You have a hot girlfriend now, remember?” Melinda teased.
“I know. I didn’t mean that I wanted this Elisa to be hot for me, but for Myra, obviously, and I wanted the hot details if there were any.”
“There aren’t,” Myra said and sighed. “It’s a little confusing.”
“What’s confusing?” Kyle asked.
“She’s lived there for months now, but I’ve never paid much attention.
The summer is always so busy for me. I’ve been putting everything into the business recently, and it’s finally really taking off.
Like, we’re making a real profit now for the first time that I can use to reinvest in marketing or hiring. ”
“Or, taking a break,” Melinda suggested with a lifted eyebrow. “Like, even just one day off.”
“I take days off.”
“Really? Name one day you took off this month.”
“Well, not this month, but…” Myra thought back to the previous month. “And not last month, but I took the afternoon off for my mom’s birthday.”
“Because she told you that she brought you into this world, and she could take you out of it if you didn’t,” Melinda noted.
Myra laughed and replied, “That does sound like her.”
“Back to hot Elisa,” Jill said. “What’s confusing?”
“Not confusing. I think that’s the wrong word. It’s just that she is beautiful. She’s got this brown hair and bright-blue eyes. I’m a sucker for that combination. I don’t know if she’s Italian or Hispanic or maybe–”
“She’s hot. We get it. Tell us about the confusing part,” Jill insisted.
“Does your girlfriend like your impatience?” Myra asked through her laughter.
“She doesn’t know about it. I’m not impatient with her.” Jill shrugged.
“Not even in bed?” Melinda asked.
“ That’s none of your business,” Jill said.
“Turnabout isn’t fair play, I suppose,” Kyle noted with a lifted eyebrow aimed at Jill.
“Myra, back to you.” Melinda motioned for her to continue.
“There’s not much else to say, really. I’ve only been over there twice for work, and she’s nice.
She’s sweet and just out of a complicated divorce, I think.
She has twins: a boy and a girl. They’re eighteen and about to go to college, but they are kind of acting out because of the divorce and the move here.
It seems like she’s just doing the best she can to start over, and I can empathize with that. ”
“But she’s straight?” Jill asked.
“I assume so. It’s not like I asked her. She’s technically a client who just also happens to be my neighbor. I don’t want to make things awkward. When I told her about my ex, though, I did mention she was my ex- wife , and Elisa didn’t really react to that.”
“So, she doesn’t have a problem with it?” Kyle asked.
“I don’t think so. It didn’t seem that way. Although, I am giving her a hell of a discount on the work, and she probably knows that if she did her research. She seems like the kind of woman who would. So, she might not want to say she has a problem with it because she needs the work done.”
“You could always try talking to her about it,” Jill suggested. “Like, casually as you’re hammering things.”
Jill made a motion as if she were holding an invisible hammer.
“Is that what you think I do? Hammer things?” Myra laughed.
“I don’t know. I can barely cook a meal. I’m not sure how you build an entire house. You do that, right?”
“I have, yes, but not usually,” Myra said, still laughing. “And I do less work in the field than I used to because I now have payroll and business things to do, but yes, I also hammer things still, just not all the time.”
“But you’ll be there with a hammer, probably, and she’ll be there because it’s her house,” Jill said. “You could just talk to her.”
“Get to know her,” Melinda added.
“And see if it’s a friendship,” Kyle said.
Melinda and Jill both looked at her in confusion.
“What? I’m pragmatic.” Kyle shrugged a shoulder. “If she’s straight, Myra doesn’t want to get her hopes up, right?”
“Right,” she replied. “I’ve been burned before.”
“By a cheating wife who didn’t have the guts to tell you that she wanted something more or different before she had sex with someone else while you were still married and then didn’t tell you for years,” Melinda said.
“And, honestly, Myra, that’s on her, not you.
I wasn’t there, but from what you’ve told me, she never even talked to you about being unhappy or that she had changed her mind about kids. ”
“She didn’t. I would’ve considered it,” Myra replied. “I never really saw myself with kids, but I would’ve at least listened to her.”
“Elisa has kids,” Jill noted.
“Elisa isn’t my wife.” Myra laughed. “Besides, they’re eighteen. I wouldn’t have to raise them.”
“I can’t wait to raise ours,” Melinda said to Kyle.
Kyle smiled at her and replied, “Same.”
“They’re annoyingly cute,” Jill said.
“Willa was in the office yesterday, and I saw you making goo-goo eyes at her,” Melinda replied.
“I do not make goo-goo eyes. I don’t even know what those are,” Jill argued.
When their food was brought to the table, and they all started eating, Myra tried to pay attention to what her friends were talking about next, but she kept thinking about Elisa, who was probably at home right now since she’d told Myra that she didn’t have a new job yet.
Myra considered bringing something to the house for Elisa for a minute, like a bottle of wine, but Elisa had wine.
She had even offered it to Myra last night.
Flowers weren’t an option. It was a job, not a date.
A plant? It could be like a housewarming gift or something.
“Hey, what plant means, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood,’ or something like that?” she asked.