Page 49 of If This is Love

Because that woman was too perfect to be real.

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I snuffedout the cigarette in the coffee can I still hid behind the potted flowers, and Gunner and I went inside. I kicked off my shoes and was about to sprawl out on the couch for a mid-afternoon nap when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Ruth Washburn

I’m so sorry for what just happened. Could we maybe meet somewhere this week and talk? :)

I stared at the message. Mia had never apologized once for any of the terrible shit she did, and here was Ruth apologizing for somethingIdid wrong. She was a different breed for sure.

Ruth.

Loyal woman of virtue.

I swiped the message away, pocketing my phone, and then drifted into sleep with my hand resting on Gunner’s back.

I dreamed of the day Mia left. I dreamed of the suitcase rolling over the petunia blossom, but then Ruth was suddenly there, showing up in my dream as the imaginary girlfriend I created that day. She gracefully lowered herself to kneel on the path and cupped the blossom with her beautiful hands. And just like magic, it lifted itself back up and stretched tall toward the sun, once again perfect and even brighter pink than it was before. Like all that little blossom needed after being crushed was someone to acknowledge andcarethat something awful had happened to it, and now it was thriving again. Better than it ever had.

I woke up a couple of hours later with a feeling like Ruth’s message was burning a hole in my pocket, and I pulled out my phone.

Wed. Noon. Old Point Bar.

13

RUTH

ALGIERS POINT, NEW ORLEANS

Ipulled open the rickety old door to the Old Point Bar, feeling so nervous that my stomach was almost sick. I wished I didn’t have to do this, but after such an uncomfortable situation thatI causedat the Sunday lunch, I just had to swallow my pride and do it.

So here I was, at a bar in the middle of the day to make amends and explain myself. And hopefully I could explain myself well enough that Gabe would understand, but also not think I was totally crazy.

Even I could admit now that the world I came from was totally crazy, but that had taken a lot of work and a lot of time with people who were actually normal. And those people had already been familiar with where I came from, so I didn’t have to explain it.

This was going to be interesting for sure.

Even at midday on a Wednesday, the Old Point was bustling and loud. TV noise was coming from one direction, and jukebox music was coming from the other, and raucous conversation, laughter, and clinking glasses filled all the spaces in between. The air smelled like ancient wood, fried food, and the heady scent of various types of alcohol. Even with all the noise and the scent—or maybe because of it—I liked it. It was comfortable and homey, which wouldn’t make any difference to all the people I was worried about explaining to Gabe. They would just call me a backsliding sinner if they knew I was in a bar at all—even when I was just here to make amends with a friend, or for a meeting like the first time I came here.

Gabe was sitting at a high-top table in a far corner of the room, and he caught my gaze immediately because he was already watching the door when I pulled it open. I didn’t know if that was a coincidence, or if he was watching for me, or if he just liked making sure he could see who all was coming in and out of the bar. That seemed like something a former Marine would do—even though I had never really known any former Marines before him and the other men in my new town.

I approached the table, smiling as warmly as I could to mask my nerves. “Hey there, friend.” Yes,friend. I had to remember that. I stooped to offer Gunner a rub behind his soft, silky ears. “Hi, Gunner, you good boy. How are you gentlemen doing today?”

Gunner looked at me with his typical, pink-tongued smile and thumped his tail on the floor.

Gabe offered a simple nod. “Good. Thanks for coming.”

“Of course.” I stood up and set my hand on the chair across from him. “Is it okay if I sit with you?”

He canted his head slightly and blinked slowly. “I mean, yeah…” His eyes shifted like he was a little confused. “I sat here so we could talk. Like you asked.”

His statements came out sounding like questions, and I could’ve scoffed at myself. Of coursenormal peopleunderstood that if you were meeting someone to talk, you could just sit down at a table with them even if they were a man and you were a woman. I didn’t need Gabe’spermissionto sit with him. Therolesdidn’t apply here. Normal people didn’t have chaperones, especially not at my age. Nobody around here cared about any of that stuff because they didn’t believe it was their job to make everybody fit into a role insisted upon by scary old church men.

I shook my head at myself instead and pulled out the chair to sit. “I am so sorry, Gabe. See, this is why I wanted to—”

“Hey, darlin’!” the bartender, a woman with gray hair and a face weathered by a lifetime of smiles and laughter, hollered at me, waving a white rag in the air from behind the bar. “What can I getcha?”

“Oh!” I laughed, partially because it was so ironic that this bar had more of a comfortable, friendly, familial feel than even my old church “family”.I waved back at her. “Hi there! Just water would be great,” I called. “Thank you.”

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