Page 11 of Seasoned
“What if I fail?”
“But what if you succeed?”
Jackie nodded her agreement.
“We’ll see.” Adelaide placed four equal-sized balls onto the silicone mat spaced evenly apart. “Like that.”
“Got it.” Renee duplicated what her friend did with the next row.
“Look at you, baking cookies for your man,” Jackie teased.
Renee glared at her. “Don’t start. Honestly, it’s the least I could do. He not only fixed the door, he’s hanging my fans and doing some other little things around the house.”
Jackie perked up and arched an eyebrow. “Wait a minute, you never mentioned that.”
“I didn’t?” Renee asked, knowing good and well she hadn’t.
Resting a hand on one hip, Adelaide asked, “You have him completing your honey-do list? This sounds serious.”
“It’s not serious in the least. You guys know how much I can’t stand that guy. I’ve complained about him constantly because he’s the worst kind of neighbor, but he’s being nice, so I figured it wouldn’t kill me to get the cookies he wanted.”
“Are you trying to be wife number two?” Jackie asked.
“No. Because that would make him husband number four, and I’m absolutely not interested in getting married again.”
“Right, because you’ve sworn off men.” There was no missing the sarcasm in her voice.
Renee stopped working and stared at her friend. “Yes, Jackie, I’ve sworn off men. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s possible.”
“Forever?” Adelaide asked skeptically.
“I don’t know if it’s forever and ever, but certainly for the foreseeable future. I’m fine the way I am and don’t need a man in my life right now. Remember what happened with the last man I slept with? The poet, who left me that scathing voice mail about my intimacy issues?”
“That’s because you wouldn’t let him spend the night after you had sex,” Adelaide pointed out.
“You treated him like a whore,” Jackie said.
“I did not!”
Jackie raised an eyebrow in rebuttal.
Shaking her head, Renee laughed and continued scooping.
“I was impressed with all the words he used to rhyme with bitch. He’s quite talented,” Adelaide mused.
Renee shot her a dark look and Adelaide shrugged.
“Did you keep the voice mail? If he’s ever famous, that poem could be worth some money,” Jackie said.
“No, Jackie, I didn’t keep the voice mail,” Renee said with a roll of her eyes.
“Too bad. But tell me this, don’t you want someone for companionship?”
“That’s what you ladies are for.”
Fifteen years ago, Renee and Jackie met through mutual friends and became close. Adelaide joined their friendship circle when her daughter was a student in Renee’s English class. Adelaide had been an involved parent and the two of them eventually became close friends. The trio shared everything during their get-togethers, squeezing in time for each other between kids, work, hobbies, and other activities to gossip and find out what was going on in each other’s lives. At their age—she and Adelaide were forty-seven and Jackie turned fifty-six in the fall—she didn’t expect to find anyone else she could connect with as well as she did these women.
Renee looked down at the completed product. “All done.”
