Chapter 13 #2
“We could talk more about orgasms, but we should do that somewhere else,” I said and she nodded.
But she had something else to clarify with me, first. “You and Nolan are in a relationship together,” she stated and waited for me to agree.
I did and felt the glow of happiness that I always got when I thought about it.
“And it’s platonic,” she continued. “Meaning, there’s no romance, there’s no sex. ”
I nodded again.
“Do you think you’ll ever want more than that? I want to have sex, immediately.” She was only mouthing the words now but she glanced over at the man using the computer to make sure he wasn’t lip-reading. “But I’m afraid that won’t be enough for me. After I sleep with him, I think I’ll want more.”
“You have to tell yourself no. Like how you might have wanted to steal the nice things that other people had, but then your inner voice reminded you that it wasn’t the right thing to do.
I think it would only be ok would be if there was a bomb about to discharge or the real owner had been swept over a waterfall, something like that.
My sister never had an inner voice that guided her to make good choices,” I confided.
“I’m pretty sure hers said, ‘Go ahead and grab her purse, and while you’re at it, check and see if there are keys inside so you can rob her house, too. ’”
“I wouldn’t steal,” she stated, “and even if I went over a waterfall, I wouldn’t want someone to take things from me, either.”
“I’m only trying to say that you need to control your thoughts and desires.
Then you can learn to make the best of what you have, instead of wishing for something else.
Because when you think about what you’re missing, you might end up acting wild, like you could sneak away to have a cheeseburger with a guy you hardly know… although, that could work out for you.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to make the best of things,” Cadence said. “I want something like a book, where someone actually loves me.”
“I hope you can get it.” Hope, however, wasn’t something I’d dabbled in much myself. It had always seemed like a waste of time.
The guy using the computer needed help and I also had to get on my way.
I did have one house to clean and then I wanted to do something nice for Nolan to come home to.
He was still having tons of groceries delivered but I thought that I could make something different.
Because I’d discovered that baking wasn’t my thing, I had decided on an ice cream cake.
It was too cold to walk around with a cone but we could enjoy a frozen treat as long as the heat was pouring out of his registers.
So after I got paid, I went to the grocery store, the one that hadn’t hired me even though I really thought I’d made a good impression with the manager.
I also hadn’t been hired at the hardware store next to it.
The spreadsheet that Cadence had started for me so I could keep track of my applications and interviews was now just a sad chronicle of how I’d failed again and again.
I had thought that getting my paperwork would be the answer, but I should have known better: I had never found one, simple solution to my problems. I just had to keep plugging away.
Ice cream cake was probably not a solution to anything but it would taste good.
I was putting a big container of chocolate into my cart when, through the glass door of the case, I saw someone familiar.
This was someone I hadn’t wanted to see ever again, and he was with another person who was also dead to me.
Kolter and his mom stopped and stared from across the frozen foods aisle and I felt frozen myself, even more than the ice cream.
“Bitch,” his mom said. “You nose-blind little bitch. All you do is cause trouble!”
“I never told the police what he did to me,” I defended myself.
“I didn’t do anything to you,” Kolter said loudly. He glanced around like he was checking to make sure he’d been overheard but we were alone, just the three of us.
I stared at him. “We both know,” I said and he couldn’t meet my eyes.
“You stay away from him,” his mother hissed. “Leave him alone.”
“You stay away from me, too!” I shot back.
“I’m getting out of here anyway,” he said. “Me and my cousin Ryker are moving to Florida.”
“And I’m going with them,” his mom added. I saw him shoot her a look of resignation and unhappiness.
I was sorry for the citizens of Florida but glad that they would be far away from here.
“Good,” I said simply. I could have added that the courts didn’t usually allow people on bond to move to another state, but I would let Kolter figure it out for himself.
Probably the authorities there would inform him of that when he had a problem with his next boss and got in trouble again.
It would happen, because some people never changed.
I slowly rolled my cart of ice cream past them, strolling as if I didn’t care about their presence.
But when I turned the corner at the end of the aisle, I pushed it hard and raced to the front of the store.
Then I paid fast and took off in the car even faster, because I had no desire to see either of those two ever again.
I knew that Cadence wanted me to get back at him, but I had never seen people get what they deserved, not through legal means and not through anything like karma.
My payback would be to have a happier life than Kolter could ever dream of and I wouldn’t waste more time worrying.
No, I wasn’t going to worry about him. But I still felt strange when I let myself back into the empty house.
I turned to ice cream cake-making to improve my mood as I waited for Nolan to get home.
He texted from along the way, once when he stopped for gas and another time when he asked if I needed anything at the store.
He was close, and then I heard the garage door opening.
It never had to mean that anything bad was happening, not in this house.
He walked in and saw me, but he didn’t move right away and he didn’t speak.
I stood there smiling but not understanding. “What—”
“I’m glad to see you,” he told me. Then he took a few steps forward and hugged me, pulling me close. “I’m very glad to see you.”
“Did something happen on the way? Did something happen with your parents?”
“No. As I drove, I got antsy and it felt like I would never get here,” he said. “I used to travel so often but that never happened to me before. I never wanted to be home so much.”
“Before, you were traveling to places that were a lot more fun and less stressful.”
“Maybe that’s it,” he agreed. He hugged me a little tighter and the worry that I’d felt over the past two weeks eased away.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” I said. “It’s a relief.”
“Why a ‘relief?’ Did something happen here?”
I didn’t want to talk about my sense that someone had been behind me on the way home from the supermarket. It was just a weird feeling and easily could have been an attachment ghost instead of a human. “No, not really. I saw Kolter,” I mentioned.
Nolan let go, stepped back, and put his hands on my shoulders. “What did he do?”
“Nothing. I saw him in the grocery store and he’s too much of a coward to act out in public.
I wouldn’t have put it past him to follow me into the parking lot and try something sneaky, but he was with his mom and she wouldn’t have let him.
She does her best to keep him out of trouble, which is probably why she’s moving with them. ”
He wanted to hear a complete rundown so I gave him one, as word for word as I could make it. “They’ll be gone, which is the good thing,” I finished.
“Why did his mother say that to you?”
“She called me ‘nose-blind’ because she hated both the candle and the perfume I got for her so she thinks I can’t pick out a good smell. There must be a better word for it.”
“Anosmic, but that wasn’t what I meant. Why did she think that you were bothering him? You haven’t seen him in months, correct?”
“Correct.” We were still standing very close and it seemed to be a great time to hug him again, which he didn’t say no to. “She thinks that he’s a magnet, like, all women should love him. She probably thought I engineered the meeting in front of the ice cream.”
“What ice cream?”
“It’s a surprise,” I said. “First, we can have dinner.”
We did that in the dining room because I wanted to make it fancy, since this was a celebration of his homecoming.
But I didn’t do it like his parents, who sat on opposite ends of the table with about ten chairs on each side between them.
I put our seats right next to each other so we could talk, and it was both fancy and fun.
But I also wanted to hear how things really were downstate, the un-fun part. “How were your mom and dad? Really?” I asked him.
“I’m not sure how they are,” Nolan admitted.
“I can’t get a firm handle on things. You know my dad is home, you know that my mom took time off to be with him for the first few days.
She hired a nurse to keep an eye on him now that she’s back at the office.
It’s a male nurse and my father’s assistant isn’t allowed in the house, so she could be more interested in monogamy now.
He may not agree but at present, he’s too sick to do much. ”
“Is he still feeling awful?”
“I think it’s what you would expect of someone who had two heart attacks, never took care of himself, and drank a fifth a day.
It caught up, but the doctors repeat that he has years of life left if he makes better choices.
” He looked down at his plate, frowning, and then repeated, “I’m not sure.
I can’t tell whether these changes are permanent or somehow performative. ”
“Why would they bother to put on a performance?”
“They always have, with everything,” he answered.
“I guess I get that. I used to tell people that my first boyfriend was an oilman.”
“As in, he owned an oil company?”