AllIneeded was the smell of highway diesel exhaust of a two-day, windows-down road trip, and theColoradomountain air to clear my head.
“The next door neighbor has been really helpful,”Isaid by way of circumventing the emotional early mid-life crisis.
Mom’s face pinched in intense thought. “It’sbeen decades sinceIvisitedAuntJuniper.Ithink the last time was when you were five or six.Idon’t remember the neighbors.Ifigured all the houses out there would be vacation rentals by now.”
“Most of them are.It’sjustAuntJuniper’sandJack’shouses that are left.”
“That’s sad, butIguess it’s just the way life goes.”Therewas a twinkle in her eye. “So,Jack. . .That’sthe neighbor?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you and this neighbor have gotten to know each other?”
“What makes you think that?”Iclipped defensively.
Her laugh startled me. “Becauseas much as we’re different, you andIare a lot alike.Neitherof us would let a man so much as carry a bag if we didn’t like or trust him.”
She had a point.
My stubbornness was due to the fact thatIhad been raised by a strong single mother who refused to settle, and taught me that very valuable lesson.Maybethat’s why we were both single.
“He’s a good guy.”
She wore a knowing smile, but didn’t press. “Verywell, then.”Thescreen glitched, andMomfrowned. “I’msorry, sweetie.Thismeeting wasn’t supposed to start for another fifteen minutes butIneed to jump in now.”
It took me a minute to figure out what day it was.Ihad no structure to my weeks, andJackworked weekdays and weekends alike. “Youhave meetings on aSaturday?”
She nodded. “Theworld never stops spinning.I’lltalk to you later.”
“Okay.Loveyou.”
“Love you too.”
As the call disconnected,Ithought about my mom and her gray-toned suits, the constant barrage of spreadsheets, weekend meetings that weren’t really that pressing, and corporate drivel.
She loved the structure of office life.Thepredictability of it all.Shethrived in it.Butwhat she saw as safety and security,Isaw as mind-numbing monotony.
Saturday . . .
I had buckled down this week to get the house in a good spot, and had gotten a little landscaping done this morning before it was atrociously hot.Icould afford to take an afternoon off.Eventually,I’dhave a regular job and the perk of making my own schedule thatIwas used to would disappear.
I thought about throwing my laptop in my bag and driving down the coast to that country barJackhad taken me to the day we went to the library.OrmaybeI’dgo toErnie’sand see if he had any doughnuts made.Thebeach was always an option, butIwas a little sunburned afterJackandIhad gone down to the water and talked.Ididn’t want to make it worse.
Honestly, a soak in the clawfoot tub on the second floor would be heaven.Ididn’t have wine, butIhadWillow’snext book sitting on my eReader and cold pizza from dinner atErnie’stwo nights ago.
I skipped down the stairs to gather my reinforcements.Thebrown cardboard box in my bedroom made me pause whenIwas halfway out the door to head back up.
Hmm . . .
I pawed through it and found the vibrator the girls had tucked in there.Itwas waterproof, after all.Andit would be a shame if it never got used.
The giant dildo, on the other hand—that was better left to being used for home defense.
I skipped up the stairs with a slice of cold pizza hanging from my mouth, and dipped into the bathroom.
It was a little strange that a bathroom was one of my favorite rooms in the house, but this one was magnificent.
Checkerboard floors thatIhad carefully cleaned led to a completely impractical clawfoot tub.Ihad scrubbed and reglazed it, thanks to a handyDIYtutorial and a trip to the hardware store that only set me back about fifty bucks.
