I look down at the stroganoff Thea wants me to pass off as my own, trying to put it together. “I don’t know. We have a good time together. We’re on the same page about almost everything. He’s like the nicest guy ever, Thee. That’s the truth. But there’s just no . . . spark.” I wipe my hands on the dish towel and remove the apron she insisted I put on. “You and Jamal would have lasted like five minutes without that.”
“Hmph.”
We carry the dinner out to the table. Derrick pulls out my chair and waits until I’m seated before he takes his own. His manners are impeccable. He is one of the politest men I’ve ever met.
“Wow. That smells delicious,” he says as we fill our plates.
“You have totally outdone yourself,” Jamal says to Thea. At her glare, he amends it to, “Yourselves. Outdone yourselves.”
“What’s your favorite meal?” I ask Derrick as he takes his first bites.
“At the moment, it’s definitely this one.” He takes another bite and smiles his approval. “I’m always grateful for a home-cooked meal.”
We eat and talk. Laughter comes easy.
When we’ve finished the main course, Derrick excuses himself to take a phone call from the office. The three of us carry dirty plates into the kitchen.
Jamal looks between Thea and me. “What’s going on?”
“Jazz here has already relegated Derrick to friend status,” Thea huffs. “She’s hardly given him a chance at all.”
“I like him a lot,” I reply. “He’s a genuinely nice guy and really good company. But we don’t seem to have any real chemistry.”
“That just makes things . . . restful,” Thea argues. “And friendship is an important part of any relationship, and especially a marriage. Derrick is smart and kind, and he has a great sense of humor. He’s such a good man. Shouldn’t those things matter more than chemistry?”
“But we have all that and chemistry,” my brother-in-law points out to my sister. “We’ve got mountains of chemistry.” He waggles his eyebrows. “We got chemistry out the . . .”
“Okay, you can stop right there,” I say to Jamal. “You guys definitely got it going on. Sometimes I’m even jealous of how right you are together. How you light up around each other. But it shouldn’t be an either-or situation, Thee.” I lower my voice. “It doesn’t matter if someone’s perfect on paper. Or even perfectly nice.” I tap Jamal’s chest and then Thea’s, right where their hearts are. “If it doesn’t feel perfect right in here.”
Thirty-One
Sara
It feels incredibly weird to even say this, but my mother-in-law is dating. Dean Francis’s profile photo is very attractive if you go for men with iron-gray hair, eager smiles, and tortoiseshell glasses. As opposed to men in their, say, mid-forties who have brown hair and secret families.
According to Dorothy, Dean is even more attractive in person than he appears online. She’s met him for coffee three times at three different Starbucks. I dropped her off the first time they met and actually watched through the window just in case, as if she were seventeen and not seventy-five. But you hear such awful stories about romance scams and con men who prey on lonely older women that I wanted to have eyes on him. She used her newly installed Lyft app to get to their second and third coffees. Yes, Dorothy is using Lyft, Uber Eats, and SilverSingles. So much for “old dogs” and their inability to learn new tricks.
I’m dressed for my shift at Between the Covers and have just enough time to down a bowl of raisin bran and a piece of toast.
“I have my own reusable coffee cup now,” Dorothy says. “And I get ten cents off every time I bring it in. Plus, I got a Starbucks card and I registered it, so that adds another 8.33 percent discount and free refills every time I use it.”
“He doesn’t buy your coffee?” I look up from the bowl of raisin bran that I’m shoveling in.
“Oh, he always tries to pay,” she says. “But I wouldn’t want to be beholden. You never know what a man might expect in return.”
I am careful not to laugh, partly because my mouth is full of raisin bran. But it’s hard to imagine just how much a man might feel entitled to in exchange for a cup of coffee and an occasional blueberry muffin.
“He’s made me promise that I’ll go to dinner with him next time. And he’s already warned me that he’ll be paying.” She harrumphs and attempts to hide her happiness behind her normal crusty exterior.
“Where do you think you’ll go?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says airily. “But Dean is used to dining at the best places. He’s had such an exciting life. After Harvard he was an investment banker in New York. On Wall Street. And then he was in LBOs, that’s leveraged buyouts, when they were becoming a thing. He ended up in Atlanta on a deal and never left. Now he serves on charitable boards. And consults. But what I love most is how fondly he speaks of his wife. But then they were married for over thirty years. I think that says quite a lot for his character.”
I choke slightly on my cereal at the mention of character, which my own husband, her son, so sorely lacks. “What part of town does he live in?”
“Oh, somewhere up off 85, I think he said. Around Duluth.” Her brow furrows as she tries to remember. “Sugar Coat Club? Or something like that, I think.”
“Sugarloaf Country Club?” I name the well-known and affluent suburb.
“Yes, I think that’s it. Although he has complained about rattling around in the huge home where they raised their children. Now that they’re both grown and living outside of Georgia, he’s thinking of downsizing.”
“How nice.” I don’t point out that we may soon be forced to downsize to no home at all, if my divorce doesn’t go as I hope.
“Did you know Annell met someone online, too?” Dorothy asks.
“Um, no.”
Dorothy’s hands flutter. A smile flickers on her lips. It’s amazing what a real smile can do to a person’s face.
“She texted me all about it.” This is another new skill my mother-in-law has developed in order to be able to communicate with her online heartthrob. And, apparently, with Annell. “He’s divorced, I think.” This is clearly not as attractive as being a widower. “But he loves to garden and read almost as much as she does.”
“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to ride with you to the store.” Her smile flickers back to life. “Annell asked if I’d come help with story time. And I’m eager to see photos of the man she met online. It’s really quite exciting.”