“No.” She looked down at the pillow in her lap and frowned at a brown smudge on one corner. “Although occasionally I have seen sports clips on the evening news.”
“Well, I’ve seen him play! Do you remember Don Rogers?”
“Of course,” she said as she picked at the spot on the linen pillow. “You dated him for a few months last year, but you dumped him because you thought the amount of affection he afforded his Labrador was very peculiar.” She paused and looked back up at Mae. “Did you let Lexie eat in the living room tonight? I believe there is chocolate on this pillow.”
“Forget about the pillow,” Mae sighed, and ran her fingers through the sides of her short blond hair. “Don was this incredible Chinooks fanatic, so I went to a game with him. I couldn’t believe how hard those guys hit each other, and no one hit harder than John Kowalsky. He sent one guy somersaulting through the air. Then he just kind of shrugged and skated off.”
Georgeanne wondered where this was going. “What does that have to do with me?”
“You slept with him! I can’t believe it. Not only is he a jock, but he’s a jerk!”
Secretly Georgeanne agreed, but she was becoming slightly ticked off. “It was a long time ago. And besides, being that you reside in a glass house, let’s not throw stones at each other, shall we?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that any woman who slept with Bruce Nelson has no right to judge anyone else.”
Mae crossed her arms over her chest and sank back farther into the couch. “He wasn’t that bad,” she grumbled.
“Really? He was a wormy little mama’s boy, and you only dated him because you could push him around-like all the guys you go out with.”
“At least I have a normal sex life.”
They’d had this same conversation many times. Mae considered Georgeanne’s lack of sex unhealthy, while Georgeanne felt that Mae should practice saying the word “no” a bit more often.
“You know, Georgeanne, abstinence isn’t normal, and one of these days you’re just going to explode,” she predicted. “And Bruce wasn’t wormy, he was cute.”
“Cute? He was thirty-eight years old and still lived at home with his mother. He reminded me of my third cousin Billy Earl down in San Antonio. Billy Earl lived with his mama until she took her final journey, and believe you me, he was as twisted as a piece of taffy. He used to steal reading glasses just in case he developed astigmatism. Which, of course, he never did, because all my people have perfect twenty-twenty vision. My grandmother used to say we should pray for him. We should pray he never developed a fear of cavities in his teeth or people with dentures wouldn’t be safe around Billy Earl.”
Mae Laughed. “You’re full of it.”
Georgeanne raised her right hand. “My lips to God’s ear. Billy Earl was a nut ball.” She looked back down at the pillow in her lap and ran her fingers over the white embroidered flowers. “Anyway, you obviously cared for Bruce or you wouldn’t have slept with him. Sometimes our hearts do the choosing.”
“Hey.” Mae patted the back of the couch with her hand to get Georgeanne’s attention. When she looked up, Mae said, “I didn’t care for Bruce. I felt sorry for him, and I hadn’t had sex in a while, which is a really bad reason to go to bed with a man. I wouldn’t recommend it. If I sounded like I was judging you, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I swear.”
“I know,” Georgeanne said easily.
“Good. Now, tell me. How did you first meet John Kowalsky?”
“Do you want the whole story?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Do you remember when I first met you, I was wearing a little pink dress?”
“Yes. You were supposed to marry Virgil Duffy in that dress.”
“That’s right.” Years ago Georgeanne had told Mae of her botched wedding plans to Virgil, but she’d left out the part about John. She told Mae now. She told her all of it. All except the private details. She’d never been a person to talk openly and freely about sex. Her grandmother had certainly never discussed it, and everything she’d learned, she’d learned from a health class at school, or from inept boyfriends who either hadn’t known or hadn’t cared about giving pleasure.
Then she’d met John, and he’d taught her things she hadn’t thought were physically possible until that night. He’d set her ablaze with his hot hands and hungry mouth, and she’d touched him in ways she’d only heard whispered about. He’d made her want him so much, she’d done everything he’d suggested and then some.
Now she didn’t even like to think of that night. She no longer recognized the young woman who’d given her body and her love so easily. That woman didn’t exist anymore, and she didn’t feel there was any reason to discuss her.
She skipped over the lurid details, then told Mae of the conversation she’d had with John that morning and of the agreement they’d reached at his houseboat. “I don’t know how things are going to work out, I just pray Lexie doesn’t get hurt,” she concluded, suddenly feeling exhausted.
“Are you going to tell Charles?” Mae asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered as she hugged the pillow to her chest, leaned her head against the back of the couch, and stared up at the ceiling. “I’ve only been out with him twice.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
Georgeanne thought of the man she’d dated for the past month. She’d met him when he’d hired Heron’s to cater his daughter’s tenth birthday. He’d called the next day and they’d met for dinner at The Four Seasons. Georgeanne smiled. “I hope so.”
“Then you better tell him.”
Charles Monroe was divorced and one of the nicest men Georgeanne had ever known. He owned a local cable station, was wealthy, and had a wonderful smile that lit up his gray eyes. He didn’t dress flashy. He wasn’t GQ gorgeous, and his kisses didn’t set her eyebrows on fire. They were more like a warm breeze. Nice. Relaxing.
Charles never pushed or grabbed, and given more time, Georgeanne could see herself becoming involved in an intimate relationship with him. She liked him a lot, and just as important, Lexie had met him once, and she liked him, too. “I guess I’ll tell him.”
“I don’t think he’s going to like this news one bit,” Mae predicted.
Georgeanne rolled her head to the left and looked at her friend. “Why?”
“Because even though I abhor violent men, John Kowalsky is a stud boy, and Charles is bound to be jealous. He might worry that there is still something between you and the hockey jock.”
She figured that Charles might get upset with her because she’d told him her standard lie about Lexie’s father, but she wasn’t worried he’d be jealous. “Charles has nothing to worry about,” she said with the certainty of a woman who knew for a fact that there wasn’t even a remote possibility she would ever become romantically involved with John again. “And besides, even if I were so delusional as to fall for John, he hates me. He doesn’t even like to look at me.” The idea of a reunion between herself and John was so absurd that she didn’t waste any brain power giving it a second thought. “I’ll tell Charles when I have lunch with him on Thursday.”
But four days later, when she met Charles at a bistro on Madison Street, she didn’t get a chance to tell him anything. Before she could explain what had happened with John, Charles hit her with a proposal that left her speechless.
“What do you think about hosting your own live television show?” he asked over pastrami sandwiches and coleslaw. “A kind of Martha Stewart of the Northwest. We’d slip you into the Saturday twelve-thirty-to-one time slot. That’s just after Margie’s Garage and right before our afternoon sports programming. You’d have the freedom to do what you wanted. You could cook one show, and the next you could arrange dried flowers or retile a kitchen.”