6. Six
Six
Friday is my dessert. The sweet spot at the end of every week.
My mornings are spent with a woman named Mabel, and in the evenings, I indulge in all my favorite self-care rituals.
Mabel is seventy-five and the sauciest woman I’ve ever met. Maybe even insane.
To look at her is like looking at something that doesn’t make sense but somehow works. Like a piece of wild abstract art that turns into something depth-filled after enough study.
There’s her hair, which she still dyes a vibrant color best described as Merlot—her bright white roots always just showing. Then there’s jewelry. Loads of it, gaudy and gold, which hang from her neck, ears, and wrap around her fingers. Her lipstick wouldn’t be so bad, even in the bright red shade called Sinful, but it always puts a streak across her front teeth that she never seems to notice. Even her obnoxious animal-print leggings that would be dubbed tacky by most people suit her. And, of course, she’s also obsessed with trashy romance novels starring Scottish men.
Oh, and Mabel is a former nun.
I’m not much of a reader, but each month she picks a book for me to read so on Fridays we can discuss. Two years into this unofficial book club and I’ve learned way more about Mabel’s preferences in the bedroom than I ever cared to know. She swears the reason she left the convent was because she couldn’t handle the rules, but the more I read these books with her, the more I’m convinced that there was only one rule she didn’t like: celibacy. Mabel is just plain horny.
This month, we are reading Kilted Love.
“What did you think about the fellatio?” she asks as we sit on her plastic-covered couch, books in hand.
“Hmm...” I look at the kilted, shirtless man on the cover, recalling the scene she is referencing, not wanting to discuss fellatio with Mabel. Again.
She holds up the book and points at the half-dressed man on the cover. “I bet that Gavyn looked like a snack standing only in his tunic, making any woman hungry. I don’t blame the lass for letting him squirt her in the back of the throat.” When she fans herself with her book, I pretend to get a phone call and walk out of the room, giving her two minutes to calm down.
“Let’s go on an adventure, Birdie dear,” she says when I return.
“Where to?” I ask .
She looks around her small house, thoughtful. “A nursery. I think I’d like to get a plant. Jungle the place up a little.” She wiggles her ring-covered fingers.
I do a quick search that leads us to a nursery on the outskirts of Asheville. The website says it has the best selection of exotic plants. Once Mabel heard the word exotic , there was no talking her out of it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t saying erotic.
Armed with her walker she doesn’t need but uses sometimes in case “the spirit moves her,” a small notebook and pen she always keeps tucked in the waist of her leggings to “take notes,” and a fresh coat of lipstick, Mabel takes off toward the succulent section—emphasizing suck when she says the word. I leave her to it, stopping under a sign that says carnivorous plants, instantly thinking of Huck.
A little girl stands next to me staring at the same plants with about forty glittery butterfly clips in her hair.
She looks at me, eyes big and blue. “Do you know anything about a penis flytrap?”
I laugh, looking down at her. “I think you mean Venus flytrap. And a little.” I kneel next to her so I’m at her eye level, looking at the bug-eating plant she’s holding. “My friend Huck told me that they have little hairs on them to let them know when a bug is walking around so they can eat it.” I snap my fingers together like a clam.
Her eyes widen.
“Will it bite my finger?” she asks, breath smelling like peanut butter .
“You know, I just don’t know, maybe we should find out.” I put my finger on the tiny hairs of the plant. When it pinches down, I wiggle my finger around gently, pulling it out to reveal it’s intact.
“Phew!” she says.
“Right?” I pause dramatically. “I was worried there for a minute.”
“Which one are you buying?” she asks.
“I think this one.” I hold up a bushy plant with little pitchers all over it. “It’s called a pitcher plant and there’s sweet, sticky stuff that traps the bugs before they die at the bottom of these pitchers. I’m giving it to my friend Huck.” I tell her with a smile.
A man’s voice calls, “Lucy?” and she spins around, plant in hand, and takes off running.
“Daddy!” she squeals “Look what I found! And this lady showed me it won’t even bite my finger!”
Laughing, I turn around.
And there, with the same stunned eyes as mine, stands Bo.
“Bo,” I whisper, hoarse.
“Birdie,” he says, cool.
I look down at Lucy. “You have a daughter.”
I’m 99 percent sure I say that out loud because he says, “I have a daughter.”
“Do you know her, Daddy?” Lucy asks.
“I do, she’s a friend of Gran’s,” he says, giving her a genuine smile and rubbing the only spot on her head not covered in clips.
Pulling my boneless body back together, I reach my hand out to her. “I’m Birdie.”
“I’m Lucy!” She shakes my hand with too much enthusiasm.
“How old are you?”
“Seven.” She smiles, showcasing her tiny-toothed smile and missing front teeth.
Seven . Looking at Lucy is like looking at a dream stolen, and it has me blinking.
She tells Bo something about her plant, but I’m not sure what. My ears, eyes, and internal organs have all turned to some kind of sludge.
It’s only once Mabel’s, “Hubba, hubba. What have we here?” registers in my ears that I can function again.
Her walker scrapes against the concrete floor of the nursery as she gives Bo a red-toothed grin while she circles him like a shark.
“Mabel, this is Bo and his beautiful daughter, Lucy,” I say.
She eyes Bo like he’s the highlander of all her wildest fantasies.
“Mabel, it’s nice to meet you,” he says, reaching out his hand with a handsome smile that carves dimples into his face.
When she takes it, she looks at me. “Birdie, you’ve been keeping secrets from me,” she murmurs, holding his hand for much longer than necessary. “We might need to read some of that lumberjack erotica I was telling you about.” Her eyes slice back to Bo and she bites the air .
His lips press into a line—he’s either terrified or amused—and I squeeze my eyes shut. This woman—no filter or shame.
“On that note,” I say with a slight laugh. “Mabel and I have to get going.” I hold up my plant. “Lucy it was nice mee—”
“We’re going for ice cream next door if you want to come with us.” Her little voice cuts me off as she tugs Bo’s hand, begging. “Please, Daddy!”
My eyes meet his. There are a million and one reasons why I do not want to do this.
Mabel doesn’t care or wait. “I love ice cream, lead the way, dollface.”
The decision is made.
Bo smiles, but it almost looks forced. Like he’s as unsure about this as I am. If he’s thinking what I’m thinking, then we’re both thinking: that night in the minivan ruined my life.
Lucy’s walk-skip stride and Mabel’s scraping walker lead us to the registers, out the doors, and across the parking lot to the ice cream shop. The door opens, greeting us with the aromas of waffle cones, coffee, and too many sweet things to name.
While everyone is distracted looking at the menu on the wall, I pull it up online and find they have a raspberry sorbet with minimal ingredients. Juice, sugar, and water. It’s as close to perfect as a dessert can get for me.
At the register, Mabel, Bo, and I all pull out our wallets.
“Mabel, please, my treat,” Bo offers.
“Bo y—” Before I can finish, Mabel is in full force.
“I have no problem paying for a Mountain Man like you.” When she wiggles her eyebrows, I give Bo a look that says, don’t bother . He listens, slipping his wallet into his back pocket.
“Well, I have no problem eating an ice cream bought for me by a woman like you ,” he says, giving her a wink that earns him yet another saucy look from her.
Treats in hand, we find a picnic table outside. I’m quiet as Mabel tells Lucy mostly PG-version stories of her life. But when she starts with, “One time I was in Scotland, and I met a man…” I cut her off.
“Lucy, why don’t you tell us something about you,” I say, shooting Mabel a warning look that she scoffs at.
Once Lucy starts talking, she never stops. She tells us about every kid who was in her first-grade class and who she hopes she is with in second grade. When Bo gets ice cream on his beard, she tells us about how he always gets spaghetti noodles in it too. When she notices the tattoo at the neckline of my shirt, she tells us that her dad has tattoos on his back. I hide the fact my mouth waters at this visual, but it earns a sensual, “Ooh la la!” and lengthy wink from Mabel.
“Lucy Goosey, you can’t tell these ladies all my secrets,” he says to her, giving her a playful nudge before taking a lick of his ice cream that makes her giggle.
“Speaking of secrets,” Mabel says, white sheen of vanilla covering her lips as she pulls her notebook and pen out of her waistband. “Would you say you prefer top or bottom, Bo?”
Oh my God!
My jaw nearly hits the picnic table.
“Mabel!” I hiss, but she ignores me, eyes staying locked on Bo.
Instead of shying away, he grins, props his elbows on the table, tucked hair falling in front of his ears, and his brown eyes dance.
“Well now, Mabel,” he says coyly. “I’d have to say that depends on the circumstances.” His eyes cut to mine before he adds, “And the space available.”
My face lights on fire as Mabel says, “Flexible, I like it,” and writes something down in her notebook. Why she needs this information I’ll never understand, and God knows I’ll never ask, but she scribbles with the intensity of a reporter at a White House press conference.
“Top or bottom what?” Lucy asks between licks of her ice cream.
“Bunk beds,” Bo says, his gaze staying on mine a beat longer before looking back at her.
“Daddy’s always on top,” she says, matter-of-fact.
I can’t help it, I laugh. We all do. Because what is even happening here?
By the time ice cream is over, I realize it was fun. Really fun.
I secure Mabel and her walker in the minivan while Bo straps Lucy into her booster seat.
Lucy is screaming invitations for me to come over and play, and Mabel is shouting her home address for Bo to make a house call. We slam the doors on both of them.
“Sorry about that,” I tell him as we stand between our vehicles.
His, “I’m not,” comes with a cheeky grin.
“You have a kid,” I say .
“And you have a nymphomaniac,” he replies, nodding toward where Mabel is staring lewdly through the windows.
“That I do.” I laugh.
“Do you want to join us for dinner?” he asks, leaning on the side of his cherry-red Jeep. “It would be rude not to extend the invite Lucy so graciously keeps screaming.”
As if scripted, Lucy’s muffled shout comes from the other side of the door.
“I can’t date you, Bo,” I tell him with a lift of my chin.
His laugh surprises me. “In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t date you either.”
My eyebrows pinch and he reads my confusion.
“Birdie, I have a kid. And wife…” He shakes his head. “But you seem like you can use a friend.”
I scoff, not bothering to hide my offense. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“For starters, you told Gran and I you don’t have a social life. And you spent your birthday alone at a bar pretending to be someone else.” My chin pulls back, mouth gaping, but he doesn’t stop. “You need help.”
“Hel—”
“Gran told me about your situation,” he says, cutting me off. “Your surgery. And decisions. And what this year means to you…”
My face heats, and I don’t know if it’s anger or embarrassment or both. “And?” My arms cross over my chest.
“And you seem to be someone who wants to stay alive but doesn’t know how to live. Alive but not living. Not really. ”
Alive but not living? Is he right? No… No .
Again, I scoff, because he doesn’t know me. I’m living. Alive and living.
“Just because you spent one night with me doesn’t mean you know me, Bo. I’ll have you know the reason I can’t have dinner with you is because I have plans. Which, I’m guessing shocks you since you apparently think I’m some kind of lonely loser with no life.”
He laughs. “I didn’t call you a loser.” I try to ignore the fact he leaves out the lonely part. “What kind of plans does Pam Beesly from the Rockies have on a Friday night?”
“I go grocery shopping on Friday nights, thank you very much.”
“Grocery shopping?” he asks incredulously.
“Hey!” I say, voice rising slightly. “Don’t knock it ’til you try it. There’s hardly anyone there, and you can read all the labels without worrying about being in someone’s way. Then I go home and prep everything for the next week. There’s satisfaction in filling glass containers with the perfect amount of sliced bell peppers in a well-organized fridge, I’ll have you know.”
His eyebrows pinch, voice lowering, “You really spend Friday nights buying groceries?”
“And meal prepping,” I add. “And then I have a self-care night. I go for a long walk with my dog and soak in a bath, sometimes I watch a nature documentary with David Attenborough’s relaxing voice. It’s a whole magical thing.”
I give him a look, my wordless, See how much I’m living ?
He shakes his head, hair falling into his face, but his eyes are smiling.
“Okay, Birdie, if you say so.”
“I do,” I say firmly, opening the driver’s door to the minivan. “And you don’t have a toothpick in your mouth today.”
He grins, eyebrows raised. “I’m unpredictable like that.”
With that, he’s circling his Jeep, opening the driver’s door as I drop into the seat of the minivan before I can say anything else.
It’s only after I’m driving away that I let myself wonder what it would be like to have dinner with them.