Mack (Haven MCC #4)

Chapter 1

"Gabriella, I don't know why you won't let me set you up with my grandson," Mrs. Norris says.

It's midafternoon and the air is still thick with the smell of cabbage rolls from lunch.

I'm not sure how it happened, but the new cook at Shady Lake Rest Home is German, complete with a thick accent, an affinity for sauerkraut, and the tendency to bang pots around.

The food is good though--even if Mr. Cromwell down the hall keeps muttering indignantly about her being a Kraut.

"That's real sweet of you, but I'm seeing somebody," I say, pushing Mrs. Norris’s slight frame down the hall. She usually walks, but she's a bit tired today. I'd sweet-talked her into the wheelchair by telling her I'd park her right next to Mr. Humphreys.

Shady Lake was originally built as a family resort camp in the nineteen-fifties, back before parents realized they could ship their kids off to summer camp alone. It changed hands numerous times under numerous owners who all had a different idea of how to use it.

Even though I’m a nurse now, I grew up here.

My parents got the place cheap at auction in the eighties, after it had been repossessed from a hippie nudist commune.

Back then it was sixty-five acres of lakeside Texas wilderness.

My parents spent the next ten years clearing brush, evicting snakes, and painting every inch of the place.

They did ok--they rented out the small lakefront cottages and ran a boat rental marina along with a cafe.

Diorma Corp bought the property from my parents eight years ago and turned it into what it is now--a continuing care retirement community.

The ‘continuing care’ part means that people move in once--usually into one of the individual cabins dotting the lakeshore--and stay for the rest of their lives, moving through the different levels of care as they need them.

Needless to say, the coroner's van doesn't have to ask for directions when we call.

There’s three large main buildings that face the lake, and I’m a registered nurse in the nursing home section of things.

The fenced-in memory care building has its own medical team, so I don't get over there much.

The other building is split into apartments for people who are still mostly independent, but those residents still usually walk over to the cafeteria in our building for all three meals.

As far as assisted living places go, Shady Lake is really nice.

It’s clean and comfortable, and they refresh the paint, carpet, and furnishings regularly.

We have an activities director who is fresh out of college, with tons of energy.

She plans outings on the bus and theme dinners and a dance every other friday night.

I know a lot of people say they couldn't be a nurse, but I couldn't do what Cathy does.

"Don't you lie to me, young lady," Mrs. Norris says tartly, sitting up, her slight shoulders straightening with her umbrage. "If you were seeing someone, I'd know."

I can't help but laugh. "How would you know?"

"You would have that glow about you."

"I thought that’s only for pregnant women."

"It's for women who are getting it on the regular."

This is why Mrs. Norris is one of my favorites--she's like a snarky forty-year-old beamed into an elderly body.

"It?" I ask, in a teasing tone. "What do you mean by it?"

"The dingle, the salami." She waves her wrinkled hand dismissively. "Whatever you young people are calling it these days."

"If you don't think I'm glowing, maybe I should try a different moisturizer."

"That's a lot to ask from Oil of Olay. It might be good, but it's not orgasmic. Let me set you up with my grandson. I think you'd make a lovely couple."

I shake my head and bite my lip to keep from laughing. Mrs. Norris isn't the first person to offer to set me up, not by a long shot. Like many of the residents, she seems to think that my singleness is a problem to be solved.

I don't take offense to it. In their generation, things were different.

But just because I'm a relatively attractive young lady doesn't mean I need a man. In my albeit limited experience, the ones that are left in my age range have been left for a reason. Dating in this day and age is like shopping in the clearance section of Ross--if there’s something good, it’s nearly impossible to find amidst all the junk.

"He's a really nice young man. Very gentle. I think he's a pacifist." She says this brightly as if it’s a mark in his favor.

I'm glad she can't see my expression, but my lip curls. I picture a reedy, sun-starved young man with biceps incapable of lifting my carry-on into the overhead bin.

"I'm sure he's very nice," I say, picking up my pace.

There's only so many ways to politely decline a blind date, and I've already used them all up. Mrs. Norris has been particularly tenacious about her grandson.

"He was named after his grandfather, MacArthur. I think he's technically a third, but nobody's clear on whether or not you have to be all in a row to be considered a third, or if your ancestors count."

I give a non-committal humming noise. "I'm not sure."

She flaps her hand listlessly. "None of us are dear. That's why he's called Junior. He's very sweet. He took me as a date to a wedding only a few weeks ago."

I suppress a grimace. What kind of a guy brings his grandma as a date? I mean, Mrs. Norris is nice enough, but if she's his best option for a date, I don't think ladies are knocking down his door. Probably for obvious reasons.

"Did you have a nice time?" I latch onto the topic.

"Don't try and change the subject, dear. We're talking about my MacArthur."

I sigh. MacArthur--the name conjures up plaid, maybe a tweed if it's a special occasion.

"I'm sure he's very nice. I'm just not looking to date right now."

It's as if she doesn't hear me. Selective hearing is one of the best weapons of an old person. If they don't like what you say, they just pretend you never said it in the first place.

"He's very sensitive," she insists. "He even tried veganism, because he loves animals so much."

I add a limp, greasy blond ponytail and the smell of patchouli to my mental image. I'm all for people being nice to animals, but double standard or not, I love a good bacon cheeseburger. I don't think I could ever love anyone enough to pretend tofu tastes like meat for the rest of my life.

And unfortunately, 'sweet and sensitive’ isn't my type.

Not that I don't want to be treated nicely--of course I do.

But in my experience, when a man is described as sweet, it's because he's frail or fat or ugly.

It's probably shallow of me, but I have a type--tall, dark, ripped, manly, and handsome. Some clichés are classics for a reason.

I'm not saying I want to end up with Rambo, or anything. He'd be a nightmare of a cohabitator--he’d probably leave his socks and Bowie knives everywhere. No woman in her right mind wants to marry Rambo, but most wouldn't mind spending a few nights with him.

"Here we are," I say when the door to the rec room comes into view. I'm barely able to keep the relief from my voice. "I hope you enjoy your virtual hike."

She good-naturedly says, "It's not the same and you know it."

"It's still pretty. And Mr. Humphreys loves those things. I bet he's front row right now."

At the handsome older gentleman's name, she gives a little tsk but doesn't argue anymore. I know she's one of the women angling for his attention. As one of the only men still walking around this place, he's prime grade, and she's not the only one who's interested.

Right now, Mrs. Phillipelli is in the lead, 'cause she bakes and still has a car--she takes him to bingo across town on Tuesdays. But Mrs. Norris has a dry, biting wit that makes Mr. Humphreys laugh. So really, it's anyone's game.

I wheel her into the rec room and sit her right next to Mr. Humphreys. He's at the end of the front row and there aren't any seats next to him. From two rows back, Mrs. Phillipelli frowns at me. But hey, there should be some perk for being in a wheelchair.

I glance back and straighten my scrub top. This one's a little tight across my chest. It's a downside of buying cheap scrubs--they're cut the same for women and for men. So my options are to either have a huge top, or one that fits in the waist and is a bit snug upstairs.

I head to the linen closet. When a bunch of people are in the rec room, it's a great time to change the bedding. We have nursing assistants that do that, too, but they’re always overworked.

Besides, I helped pay my way through nursing school by cleaning hotels.

In some ways, this job is really similar.

I grab a stack of clean sheets and shake my head, thinking about the conversation with Mrs. Norris. I've had about a dozen offers to be set up over the past year alone.

About six months ago, I was really low because Alex's parole hearing had been pushed back another two months. Mrs. Abernathy caught me in a moment of weakness and I agreed to a date with her nephew.

It had seemed safe enough. He was a dentist from Tamsley, divorced, no kids. Once you start getting into the late twenties, it feels like that's the best you can hope for. Everybody has baggage--I know I sure did.

I met Edward Cubbins at a small Italian place downtown where the city council is trying really hard to convert old porn shops and abandoned buildings into a place for the upwardly mobile to spend their money on the weekends.

It was a cute place--red checkered tablecloths and candlesticks made from old wine bottles with straw bottoms. You could tell that the candlesticks had been there for a long time because the bottles had wax dripped all over them--the tears of candles long gone.

I supposed that spoke well for the food. Despite the city council’s efforts, you had to have excellent food to get people down to this part of town, especially when Ernie's Adult Emporium was only three doors down. Ernie wasn't going out without a fight.

My date wasn't bad looking. Edward carried maybe ten extra pounds that weren't on his picture, but that's fair enough. I'd put on an extra five pounds somewhere along the way, too.

He seemed immensely relieved when he saw me, standing and giving me a broad smile. We did the initial chatting over the basket of complimentary bread, and Edward ordered us a bottle of Chianti. Not the most expensive thing on the menu, but not the cheapest one either.

The smell of sauteed garlic and onions slowly sunk into our clothes as we got the preliminaries out of the way. He was a dentist, and while he didn't own his own practice yet, he was partnered with an aging periodontist, who was going to sell him his practice when he retired in three years.

“Or at least that's the plan,” he’d said with a sheepish smile.

I smiled back at him and tried to tell myself that I couldn't possibly know whether he was the one or not this early. But my gut said it wasn't going to work out, that I wasn't going to be the future Mrs. Cubbins.

Even as I smiled and chatted with him, I was arguing with myself.

Why shouldn't he be the one? He had a nice smile, excellent dental hygiene, was gainfully employed, and he had let it slip already that his wife and him had made a clean break.

She had left him and already remarried, so he didn't pay alimony.

“I got out as clean as I could have, considering,” he said with another little sheepish shrug.

Maybe that's what it was. I didn't like how he was giving that apologetic, wincing smile every time he made a statement about his life. But I valiantly battled through the rest of the meal, even though I took far more pleasure from my chicken alfredo than the conversation. Edward didn’t seem to notice, which made me nervous.

It’s one thing to be on a lackluster date where both parties agree it isn’t a good fit. It’s another thing altogether to surprise someone. And by his smiling and energetic story-telling, I thought Edward might be shocked to hear I wasn’t having a great time.

At one point I thought, I wish I were on the same date he’s on.

I heft the linens and shake my head at the memory. The aftermath of that was messy--still is messy--and a good reminder why I don’t accept set-ups or blind dates. Maybe it ends well for some people, but not for me.

The only good thing was that Mrs. Abernathy got transferred to memory care soon after, so I didn’t have to see her disappointed frown every time she saw me. It was just my luck--the woman didn’t remember who the President was, but being mad at me was one of the things that stuck.