Another Shot At Love Read online

  I got to work, typing in claims while daydreaming of an almost-one-night-stand.

  As I feared, the entire building was soon abuzz with the news that “Richard from IT had dumped Gen from claims data entry,” either due to someone on my team having a big mouth or possibly due to Richard’s friends from IT having witnessed the scene from last night. That explained why Catherine didn’t make a trip to my desk from the executive offices upstairs. Probably, she was lying low in case I was upset with this week’s date debacle.

  After the last setup, having left a sports bar wearing most of my date’s beer and having seen more fist-pumping in three hours than I’d ever seen in my lifetime, I’d begged Catherine to let Roxanna have her turn at finding me a date. Catherine had crossed her arms, pinned me with a big sister gaze that told me not to argue, and insisted she get another chance.

  As I logged out of my computer that evening, I made a mental note to update my résumé.

  “Definitely picking up a newspaper on my way home,” I muttered. I slid the keyboard tray under my desk then stood.

  If I found a new job, Catherine couldn’t set me up with all the guys from work who weren’t right for me, and I wouldn’t have to dodge Richard in the hallway. It wasn’t like I was attached to the idea of doing data entry for the rest of my life, anyway. I was pretty sure it was dragging me down.

  Chapter Six

  The gas station a few blocks from my work was busy and I had to park around the side by the dumpster. I hurried inside for a big gulp soda and a newspaper, but the empty rack next to the counter meant I left with a soda, candy bar, and a lottery ticket instead. Balancing the items in my hands, I opened the car door while simultaneously speed dialing my parents’ house from my cell phone.

  Just as my dad answered, I sniffed something rank marinating in the dumpster and gagged. The intense May heat punched the smell against my face and I climbed inside my car with puffed cheeks. It smelled like road kill marinating on a blacktop highway in the middle of a summer heat wave. I’d never been able to hold my breath long, and ended up sucking in another lungful of air then gagging on it.

  “You little twerp! Get a job!” Dad’s words and booming voice made me choke on the saliva built up from the gag reflex, and before I could say anything, he grumbled, “Another damn crank call, Marilyn!”

  I didn’t hear Mom’s reply because Dad hung up on me.

  I quickly rolled up my windows and flipped on the air conditioning, hoping to swallow down the cough that threatened. By the time I drove two blocks, my breathing was normal again and I redialed my parents’ house.

  “Hello,” Dad boomed into my ear, daring me to be a prankster.

  “Sheesh, Dad. Use your caller ID. It’s Gen. You hung up on me.” I stopped for a red light and took a swig of soda.

  “Something wrong with you? You sound like the punk kid who’s been calling here all week. Thinks he’s a jokester or something. Jackass juvenile delinquent kids.”

  Jim Gorecki was a big bear of a man who stood six foot six inches tall and weighed about 250 pounds. He stayed in great shape working in the tool and equipment rental business he’d owned since before I was born. After Cora fired me from the art gallery, Dad asked me to help out at the store, but I declined. He was a bit old fashioned, which made him difficult to work with sometimes. Plus, he was already fully-staffed and I would have felt guilty with every paycheck he wrote.

  “I was choking, Dad. You guys eat yet?” The candy bar on the passenger seat called my name.

  “Yeah. I’m headed out to my shop.” Dad did woodwork out in a little shop in the backyard. He told me it kept him sane. If he was headed outside, it meant both my sisters were inside talking wedding plans with Mom. He asked, “You hungry?”

  “Yeah. I’m heading over now. See you in a bit, Dad.”

  “You better hurry. Your mom’ll be annoyed if you let the food get cold.”

  He was right. I said goodbye and stepped on the gas. Even though I’d be eating Mom’s food soon enough, my stomach couldn’t take another minute of hunger pains so I stuffed the candy bar in my mouth in record time.

  When I stepped inside my parents’ beige tri-level house, I inhaled the smell of fried bacon and maple syrup, and smiled in contentment. I hurried to the kitchen, salivating. Breakfast for supper was my favorite. Growing up, our family had eaten breakfast for supper once a week, switching it up with omelets or casseroles, pancakes or French toast.

  Catherine stood at a sink full of dishes and soap suds. From behind, she didn’t even look pregnant, just a lot of wavy blonde hair and long legs. When she turned, though, her belly was massive and her ankles had begun to swell. Catherine looked a lot like Lexie and me, but she was taller. She’d been an all-star volleyball player in high school, and then she’d played college ball on scholarship. She could have moved anywhere with her Masters in Business Communications, but her “anywhere” had been right here in Lincoln with her high school sweetheart, whom she’d married not long after college graduation. Tony and Catherine had a cute house just a few blocks away from my parents’ place, with a white picket fence and a tire swing hanging from a giant elm, perfect for the bunches of kids they planned to have. I hoped for that kind of happiness someday.

  Lexie sat at the kitchen table, every inch of the surface covered in bridal magazines, pictures, envelopes, fabric swatches and ribbons. A girlie war zone—no wonder Dad had escaped. Ever since the engagement announcement, Lexie had turned into bridezilla, already driving our family crazy with her fanatical planning and incessantly repeating her new mantra “anything less than perfect is unacceptable.”

  “Always with the bridal magazines,” I said, not without affection, and ruffled Lexie’s perfectly groomed hair before I made a straight-line for a plate of bacon sitting on the counter. Lexie took a break from paging through the magazine in her hands to deliver an annoyed glare, which I pretended not to notice.

  “Why is your hair still pink?” Lexie asked.

  “Because it is,” I answered, still annoyed that she’d informed me a few weeks ago I needed to nix the pink highlights before the engagement party because Jeremy’s family was conservative. As if I hadn’t noticed. Apparently, Jeremy’s mom had no great fondness for “punk rock hair.”

  I’d never really considered myself punk rock; I wasn’t a labels kind of girl. As an artist, everything to me was about color, period. And it wasn’t as if my entire head of hair was bright pink, most of it was my natural, platinum blonde; hardly anything for Jeremy’s mom to concern herself with. It was an engagement party, not the actual wedding or a presidential inauguration. Sheesh.

  “She isn’t going to my engagement party with pink hair,” Lexie pouted at Mom, who frowned.

  “Did you ever think maybe I’m taking my time just to annoy you?” I popped a strip of cold bacon into my mouth and smiled at Lexie’s huff of irritation. I chewed and swallowed. “Plus, I haven’t had time to get it done. I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy doing what? You don’t have a life.”

  I crossed my eyes, and Lexie narrowed hers, unimpressed.

  “I have a life,” I said. “I’ve been wasting it on all the crappy dates Catherine’s been setting me up on.”

  Lexie snapped her mouth shut. I’d been complaining about these dates ever since the first one. Two nights ago, I’d told Lexie the whole plus-one necessity for her engagement party was ruining my life. A little dramatic, yes, but Lexie didn’t pay attention to anything anymore unless the matter was dramatic.

  She rolled her eyes. “Make an appointment.”

  “The party is two months away. Relax.”

  “She’ll be blonde before the bridal shower,” Mom said and gave me a pointed stare.

  “Yes, Mom,” I answered dutifully.

  “Yeah, well, she better be.” Lexie’s lips puckered up in a small frown. “And you better not color it blue or something just to piss me off.”

  I only smiled and turned back to the plate of bacon
on the counter. She knew me too well. Though, to commit an act of rebellion on that level just before her engagement party would be suicide.

  “You should have called earlier,” Catherine said without turning from the sink full of dishes. “I had to get everything back out of the fridge and heated up. And now it’s cold again.”

  “Yeah, well, if you guys would have invited me, I wouldn’t be late.” I loaded a plate with bacon and scrambled eggs, French toast and country-fried hash browns. “Man, I’m starving.”

  “I told you we were stuffing party RSVPs,” Lexie said, comparing fabric swatches to different shades of purple. “I left the boutique early for this.”

  “I’m pretty sure I didn’t get the memo,” I said, my eyes on the shoebox sitting on the table, filled with envelopes. “How many people you are you inviting, anyway? The engagement party isn’t the wedding, you know.”

  “Only our close friends and family.” Lexie waved at the box. “You know how important this wedding is to Jeremy’s family.”

  The Buchanans. Right. Regular pillars of the community and all around snobs—la, la, la. I kept that bit of sarcasm to myself, but only barely. I didn’t like Jeremy’s family, or the way they put my sister on edge, or how she constantly felt she needed to impress or placate them. Jeremy’s dad, Gerard Buchanan, had decided to run for Senate in the upcoming election, and according to the media, he was a shoe-in for the seat. The Buchanans were very much about appearances, now more than ever. If I had to guess, seventy-five percent of the guest list was from the groom’s side in an effort to gain early voter loyalty.

  “Sounds like a great time,” I lied. Being surrounded by the Buchanans, who were also my ex’s close family friends, sounded a little like the kind of hell I wanted no part of.

  “Yes, well, sorry about not sending you a text.” Lexie discarded another fabric swatch. “With the boutique to run, and planning this engagement party and wedding, I’ve been really busy.”

  I ignored the insinuation that Lexie was busy, everyone was busy, and no one thought I was, what with my less-than-demanding data entry job in which I never volunteered for extra duties or participated in any special projects. Catherine, of course, snooped on my performance at work because Catherine was snoopy by nature. I was the family problem-child now, what with my botched relationship and less-than-impressive career.

  And no five-year plan.

  The words had been haunting me ever since Richard mentioned the subject. Once upon a time, before settling into a relationship with Brent, my five-year plan had involved an exciting life on the East Coast where I planned to immerse myself in art and culture. The world had been my freakin’ oyster. Now, not so much.

  Something needed to change. Both of my sisters loved their careers and were moving forward with their lives. Soon, Lexie would be married and pregnant, like Catherine, and they’d both spend their weekends in sweatpants watching TV sitcoms with their beautiful families.

  And I would be at a bar taking shots of Tequila with Roxanna, without a damn five-year plan.

  Frowning, I added more bacon to my plate. It was one of those days.

  Now that I lived alone, I seemed to have a lot more time to devote to painting. After moving into my apartment, I’d converted the second bedroom into an art studio. I spent a few hours a day, if not more, painting. Depending on my mood, the radio either blasted Evanescence or Bach; it really didn’t matter, because I was in my creative zone and eventually, sound faded and I swam through color. Art made me come alive.

  My family understood it as a passion of mine, but they didn’t understand why I’d chosen to major in it. My family was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make a career out of an art degree, and now that I was pounding a keyboard inside a gray cubicle, I imagined they were all holding in a collective “I told you so.”

  I needed to prove them wrong.

  “Warm it up a little,” Mom advised, her eyes on the plate I’d piled high with food. She then turned to point at a fabric swatch Lexie had tossed onto a pile of swatches on the table. “That one is a beautiful color. You sure you don’t want it?”

  “It’s too light. We’re getting married this fall. I need a darker purple.” Lexie covered up the swatch in question with another shade of purple. She winced at the sight of it before moving on to another swatch with little enthusiasm.

  It hadn’t been more than two weeks after Lexie announced her engagement that Jeremy’s parents pressured the betrothed to move their wedding date from a spring wedding next year to a shotgun fall wedding this year. No, Lexie wasn’t pregnant. The Buchanans thought a wedding right before the senatorial election, one depicting a beautiful, happy family, was just the political push Gerard Buchanan needed to land a seat in the Senate.

  I felt so bad for Lexie—she’d always wanted a spring wedding. She’d been dreaming of her fairytale wedding every day for most of her life, sketching it out in her scrap books, lovingly pasting in cutouts from her favorite magazines. No wonder she’d morphed into bridezilla.

  “Why don’t you just tell those voter hungry Buchanans you’re not going to be bullied into having a fall wedding?” I pushed the start button on the microwave and it hummed to life. Lexie looked up at me with narrowed eyes. We’d been having this conversation for weeks. I raised my hands. “Just a suggestion. I’ll keep my mouth zipped.”

  I leaned against the counter, my attention now on Catherine wiping the counters with unnecessary elbow grease. They were spotless. Something was up.

  “Shouldn’t you be home doing Lamaze with your husband or something?” It was all Catherine had been talking about lately. I divided my attention between the microwave timer and Catherine attacking an invisible spot next to the sink. She was so preoccupied she’d stopped washing dishes to take on the counters.

  The microwave dinged just as Catherine threw down the washcloth. “I don’t have Lamaze every day,” she said curtly.

  I leaned against the counter to really give her my full attention. She was back to scrubbing a plate in the sink full of sudsy water, as if she wouldn’t be content until she wore down the print pattern on the ceramic.

  Lexie shrugged at my raised eyebrows.

  “So…” I said as nonchalantly as possible. “What’s up?”

  “It’s nothing,” Catherine said.

  I kept a steady eye on her. She’d crack eventually.

  “Quit looking at me like that.” Catherine’s annoyance deepened her blue-eyed glare, so I quit looking. Catherine angry was a little scary, and pushing the subject wouldn’t bode well for anyone in the kitchen, especially me. Plus, I’d come for a meal, not an ass-ripping.

  I took the nuked plate of food to the table and sat down at a tiny spot not covered in magazines and fabric swatches, cards and envelopes. I dug in like I hadn’t eaten in a week because the granola bar and latte I’d had earlier, and the candy bar I’d just scarfed down wasn’t cutting it. Mom’s hash browns were the stuff foodies wrote poetry about, and I closed my eyes, savoring the garlic and onion flavors. I couldn’t help the moan of pleasure—my taste buds were in heaven.

  When I opened my eyes, both my sisters and Mom were staring at me, horrified.

  “Chew your food,” Mom said, so I made a visible effort to do some serious chewing. Mom kept her eyes on me as I ate. “Catherine told me you’re dating again. A Richard. How’s that going?”

  Apparently, Catherine hadn’t heard from way up in her fancy office just how horrible my day had been. I stuffed another forkful of potatoes in my mouth, this time mixing it up with scrambled eggs. Mom’s homemade salsa was the only thing missing.

  I forked another bite into my mouth, all the while staring at Catherine and her need for spreading news that wasn’t true. She’d always been notorious for bossing me around and forcing her ideas on me. Even if I told her how not interested I was in something, and even if I had a good reason why, Catherine didn’t care. Maybe it was a big-sister-knows-best kind of thing, but in this instance, Catherine had
definitely been wrong.

  I took a drink from Lexie’s bottled water to wash my food down. Then in a loud voice, I told Mom, “I don’t know what Cat’s talking about. She’s been a little whacko lately.”

  Operation Denial had officially begun.

  Catherine crossed her arms over her chest, resting them on her swollen belly. She still had two months before her delivery date, and she looked like she might pop any day. Her whole pregnancy had been like this, always seeming two months further than what she really was. Apparently, Tony made big babies. When Catherine told us Tony had been thirteen pounds at birth, Mom had crossed herself and mentioned cesarean about five times.

  “What?” Catherine asked. “You were just on a date with him last night.”

  I shrugged and answered in a non-committal tone, “Mmm…I don’t think so.”

  Lexie picked up on my avoidance mode—call it a freaky twin super power—and said, “You’re lying. You told me you couldn’t meet me for dinner because you were meeting Richard.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insisted. “Richard is just a guy. A guy who Cat set me up with. And who, by the way, made me pay for his dinner. That is not a date.”

  I threw out that little nugget because I knew Lexie’s stance on the whole going-Dutch thing.

  “Catherine!” Lexie admonished, and Catherine threw up her hands.

  “And he picks his nose,” I added before Catherine could defend herself. I actually didn’t know if he picked his nose or not, but he wore a helmet in his parents’ basement. The nose-picking didn’t seem too far off. And as long as I’d already gone there, I might as well keep on going. “He picks his nose and wipes it on stuff. In public.”

  Mom screwed up her nose up in distaste. “Catherine, you set your sister up with a nose picker?”

  “I did not! Richard doesn’t pick his nose.” Catherine glared at me.

  “That’s just it,” I pointed out, ready for the grand finale. “I don’t know if he picks his nose and wipes it on people’s curtains, or anything, for that matter. But neither do you.” At least I had Lexie’s attention now with all the emphasis I was throwing around. I tilted my head at Catherine and narrowed my eyes at her. “Do you know Richard personally, Cat? Or did you see him walking down the hall at work and decide, ‘hey, he’d be perfect for Gen,’ because a stranger is better than nobody at all?”