Read Online Getting Married by Theresa Alan - Free Book Online Page B

garage. And yes, we do need shelves in the garage, but we’ve needed shelves in the garage for the last two years, so I’m thinking we probably could have lived another weekend without them. Why did he have to pick today to go shopping for them? I was running around all day, trying to cook and clean, and you know what it’s like with kids, as soon as you have one room clean, you turn your back for ten seconds and the place is destroyed again…I just really could have used Jon’s help today, even if all he did was entertain the kids and keep them from wrecking the house…” She exhales a tired breath.

    “I’m sorry, Rach. I just…it sort of seems like you’re flirting with Shane.”

    “Yeah? Well, I don’t know, I guess maybe I am.”

    A stricken look overtakes my face.

    “Nothing’s going to happen. It’s just…sometimes it’s nice to know someone finds you attractive. Sometimes when you’re married, you feel like you’re no longer this sexual being. Every now and then you need to be reminded that you are.”

    Rachel takes a decisive bite out of a celery stalk and, with a parting smile at me, returns to the guests out on the lawn.

    For the rest of the night, even as I talk to Will and Gabrielle, my eyes drift back over to Rachel and Jon. I watch them as they orbit each other as if the other person were nothing more than a piece of furniture, something you get used to having in the background.

Chapter 6

    I ’m at home, working in my sweats. I go downstairs to get more coffee, and when the phone rings, I answer it, even though I’m not supposed to answer the phone during working hours since it might distract me. As it turns out, it does.
    “Hello?”

    “Hi.”

    “Gabrielle! How did your date with the doctor go?”

    “It went really well, I think.” Gabrielle goes on into detail about her four-hour long dinner and after-dinner drinks. I’m interested enough in her story that I only cast a few guilty glances at the clock, noticing twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes tick by as she gushes about every syllable uttered, every glance exchanged. “We’re going out again tonight.”

    “Good for you.”

    “It was the best date I’ve had…maybe ever. I just haven’t been able to talk with someone like that since Dan left.”

    “Did you guys smooch?”

    “We did.”

    “Okay, if you get some tonight, call me in the morning with all the salacious details. Even if you don’t get some, I want to know everything. Good luck.”

     

    W ill and I drive down to Colorado Springs to have dinner with his mother, Doris. She makes lasagna for us. She knows I don’t like red meat so she makes a vegetable lasagna just for me. She gives me a slice the size of a brick. It’s about twice as much food as I can comfortably eat, but I eat every last bite of it until my stomach is about to explode.
    “Can I get you some more?” she asks.

    “Oh, no, thank you. I’m stuffed,” I say.

    “Don’t you like it?” she asks, a hurt expression on her face.

    “What? No, no. I mean yes! I do like it. I meant ‘no,’ like, ‘no, you don’t understand’…” My tongue is coiled in knots.

    “I’m going to have so much extra food,” she says with a hurt look on her face. Does she think I can eat an entire pan of lasagna by myself? I finish my glass of wine and quickly pour myself another.

    “So, Mom,” Will says, “I’m getting ready to put my house on the market. I’m going to move in with Eva.”

    “Really?” She smiles. “That’s nice. Why did you decide to move into her place rather than have her move into yours?”

    “Her place is bigger.”

    “Hmm. How big is your place?”

    “We have two bedrooms and my study,” I say.

    “So you’ll want a bigger place someday when you have kids.” She nods, considering this thoughtfully.

    “Oh, we don’t want kids.”

    Her eyes bulge.

    Uh-oh. It occurs to me that was not what she wanted to hear. But it’s not my fault!