Page 53 of Will Bark for Pizza
“That’d be great, thanks.”
I didn’t know her name. I wanted to fit in here, yet I didn’t know anyone but Patty herself. Was I getting anything right lately?
“We can’t have the meetings at my house,” a tall, elderly woman who sounded like she smoked two packs a day said, pulling out a chair at the table behind me. “I don’t have enough seating, and I’ll be damned if I’m listening to Carol Ann complain about sitting on the floor. That woman spends most her days on the floor.”
“Be nice, Thelma,” another woman said, her gentle tone laced with amusement. “She’s a yoga instructor, not a drunk.”
My shoulders shook with silent laughter.
“Well, don’t look at me,” a third said as layers of jewelry clanged together at her approach. “Frank outlawed book club meetings ever sinceFifty Shades of Grey. Poor man is scarred for life.”
“We told him to leave,” Thelma said unapologetically.
“What about the library?” the second woman said.
“Jodi kicked us out last time. Said we were too disruptive,” the third woman said. “Plus, our picks aren’t exactly story-hour friendly.”
“Shit, it is summer, isn’t it?” Thelma said.
“Your mashed potato pizza,” the server said, startling me out of my eavesdropping.
“That any good?” Thelma asked.
I looked back, but her gaze was on the server.
“It’s one of our best sellers.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised.Huh. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst decision I made today after all. Not that the bar was set all that high.
“It’s really good,” the third woman, the one adorned in several layers of jewelry, reassured me. “Though I only got to try one piece because Frank inhaled the rest.”
Because everyone was staring at me, I took a cautious bite.
Well, damn.
It wasn’t just good.
It was delicious.
“See?” the woman with dozens of necklaces hanging around her neck said. “We should order a mashed potato pizza.”
“I was craving the BLT pizza,” Thelma said.
“I wanted to get the buffalo chicken,” the other woman, dressed in a purple track suit and matching purple tennis shoes, chimed in.
“No way. We’re not going to finish three pizzas,”Thelma said.
“I could share?” I offered without forethought. I hadn’t come to Pizza Patty’s to socialize. If I had, I’d be sitting at the bar. Or outside in the sunshine to chat it up with the locals and tourists alike. But Iwastrying to fit in. It had nothing to do with these women being tied to a local book club.
Probably not.
“Pull up a seat,” the woman in purple offered.
“I’ll bring more plates,” the server said.
“Say, you’re that real estate investor handyman guy,” Thelma said, assessing me with an up-and-down gaze. “The one staying with the Westons?”
Handyman. General Contractor. I didn’t think these women gave two shits about the distinction. Somehow, I admired them for it. Maybe I needed my head examined.
