Read Online Shy Town Girls by Katie Leimkuehler - Free Book Online Page A

obsessed with
putting all my energy into a worthless relationship.
    In my room, I slid out of my shoes, putting them
neatly back in the box. I unzipped my dress and grabbed a pair of
boxers, along with a big white sweater. My feet were freezing, so I
slipped on my knit socks. I was dying for a warm drink. Nothing
sounded better than hot chocolate and Bailey’s.
    That’s when I heard banging on my ceiling. Thump,
thump, thump. “Hello?” Barbara’s theatrical voice called down the
stairway.
    I ran to the door. “Barbara, it’s me, Bobbie. The
other girls are gone,” I hollered up to her.
    “ Come up for pie!” she suggested,
and I heard Due bark, as if to second the offer. It was one I
couldn’t refuse.
    We chatted a little bit about the weather, which had
been wonderful—bracing and cool. Barbara told me about some of her
and Meryl’s ideas for fixing up the old house: paint colors,
refinishing the floors in the entry hall. Ordinarily I love to talk
decorating, but tonight I failed to add much to the exchange of
creative ideas.
    “ You’re playing with your food,
Bobbie,” she said finally. “You look lost in thought. Or completely
exhausted. What’s bothering you, dolly? Is it the pie?” She smiled
endearingly as she sat across from me at the kitchen table. Due
rested on his own little footstool, following the conversation
intently. Or was it the pie he was so avidly focused on? He was a
curious animal, his eyes with a human-like personality behind
them.
    “ This pie happens to be some of the
best I’ve had,” I said honestly. “Ever.”
    “ From scratch too,” she said. “I
make it from seasonal Wisconsin Honeycrisp apples.”
    “ No,” I assured her, “the pie is
fantastic. Thank you. It’s just that. . .” I rested my head on my
hand. I found it hard to open up.
    “ It’s good to put your thoughts into
words, honey bee,” she said.
    “ I don’t know where to start. I
don’t really know how I got to where I am right now.”
    “ Where is that?” she asked
encouragingly.
    “ I feel so unsatisfied. I also feel
ungrateful for being so unhappy. I truly have nothing to be
complaining about. I really do like my job--even if I complain
about it often. I also have a crazy but great family, friends, good
health, and a roof over my head. An amazing roof at that! I love it
here. Yet, I am so unhappy sometimes,” I confessed. “I just don’t
know why. . . well actually, yes, I do know. I feel so pathetic
saying this, but I think I realized that I’ve been going about this
whole ‘love’ situation all wrong. . .”
    Barbara laughed to herself. “I’ll tell you one thing
honey, love is not a situation.”
    “ What do you mean?” I
asked.
    “ Love, love, love, one of the most
wonderful mysteries of the world—isn’t it?” She smiled and stirred
honey into her tea.
    “ Mystery is right. I don’t think I
even know what love is. I thought I did. But I have learned that I
don’t.”
    She looked at me thoughtfully, sipping her tea.
    “ Did you love your husband,
Barbara?” I noticed I didn’t see any photos around her apartment of
the two of them together.
    “ Oh yes, very much so,” she
said.
    “ How did you know it was
real?”
    “ Real?” She frowned at the word.
“Love is not a choice, Bobbie baby. Love takes no work to maintain
or to gain. The real choice, the real work lies in the friendship
and in sustaining the integrity. . . the purity of it.” She stood
and crossed the room to an antique cabinet and opened a drawer. She
pulled out an envelope and handed me a photo.
    “ This is my dear Donald. Isn’t he
such a handsome man?” she asked.
    I nodded. “He is.” And he was, with his chiseled
jawline, prominent nose, and clear eyes fixed upon something just
beyond the photographer. Perhaps it was Barbara herself he’d been
looking at. He looked like a man you could count on, someone you
could trust to be there when you needed him. Like Olly is for me, I
thought.
    “