Читать книгу Love On Her Terms - Jennifer Lohmann - Страница 16

CHAPTER EIGHT

MINA STOOD ON Echo’s front stoop, ice cream in a plastic bag in one hand while attempting not to clench her nerves too tightly in the other. Once, in another lifetime, she would have been bouncing with excitement at a new friend. Her body still remembered those times, and wanting them back was the reason she’d made a point to introduce herself to as many people as she could in her new town, including her cranky, handy-with-a-drill-and-friends-with-the-hardware-store-guy neighbor.

But that Mina had a different, naive understanding of the world. She’d grown up in a happy household, with parents who loved each other and their children. Maybe they were too intrusive in their kids’ lives, maybe they just cared a lot; it didn’t matter. All Mina had known about the world was that it was a place full of nice people you could trust.

The world had acquired shadows since her diagnosis. She didn’t want to go back, really, because shadows added depth and interest, but she occasionally wished she could sink into her old happy-go-lucky self, the one who found the world to be full of friends rather than potential hurts. The one fascinated by the macabre but who didn’t understand it.

She took a deep breath and knocked. Noodle started yapping from deep inside the recesses of the house, a sound which got louder and louder until the front door opened, and the dog spun and leaped at Echo’s feet.

“Welcome,” Echo said with an expansive wave of her hand and a surreptitious sweep of her foot to push the dog out of the way. “Let me take the bag from you and get the ice cream in the freezer. Come in.”

“It smells delicious,” Mina said as she stepped through the doorway and waited to be sniffed and approved by the dog. “What is it?”

“Salmon in a cilantro sauce. Given how much cream is in the dish, it should be delicious. There’s rice and sautéed squash, too.”

Mina followed Echo and the aroma to the kitchen, waiting off to the side while her neighbor put the ice cream in the freezer.

“Dinner’s pretty much ready,” Echo said, balling up the plastic bag and tossing it to the back of the counter. “The table’s even set. And there’s a bottle of wine out there, if you want to pour us some. I’ll feed the beast, so she doesn’t try to get in your lap, then bring the food out, and we can serve ourselves.”

The table was set with matching floral china, silverware and what Mina assumed to be crystal. Despite the casualness of the invitation and Echo’s manner, she felt underdressed in her jeans and cream tank top with a big black bow. It was the flats. A girls’ night in with crystal deserved heels.

“Like my china?” Echo asked as she came from the kitchen into the living room. Noodle was chomping happily on kibble in the background. “When my ex left me, I got to keep all the trappings of having once been married. The china, the crystal, the silverware. For a long time after I moved, it stayed in the cupboards, and I ate off regular plates and drank out of cheap glasses. Then I decided I was worth fancy, and I haven’t looked back.”

With a closer look, Mina realized Echo was not only older, but older than Mina had thought. “It’s nice. I won’t feel underdressed, then.”

“Feel like you deserve better. And sit, sit. Let’s eat.”

Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the good food, and maybe it was that Mina felt like herself for the first time in a week, but she relaxed into dinner and conversation with Echo like they were old friends. Well, not quite like old friends, because they were sharing basic bits of information with each other such as where they were from and what brought them to Missoula. But, much like she had felt with Levi on Sunday, Mina was immediately comfortable with Echo.

They laughed and joked as they cleaned up the kitchen together and scooped ice cream into bowls. Mina had purposely brought over different kinds of ice cream than she’d had last week, not wanting to make dinner at Echo’s feel too much like dinner with Levi. Not that she would confuse the neighbors, but one of those dinners hadn’t turned out as she’d planned.

They ate their ice cream at the dining room table, and this time Noodle got to help with the cleanup. When those bowls were put in the dishwasher, Echo poured them each a full glass of wine, and they moved to her living room for a chat.

“So,” Echo said as she curled her legs around her on the couch, and her dog settled into her lap. “Tell me how Levi came to be at your house swinging a mighty hammer.”

Mina sank into a deep armchair with plush cushions and a high back and sides. She’d probably had a little too much to drink, because the armchair felt like the closest thing she’d had to a hug in ages. “I don’t know. I introduced myself to him shortly after I moved in and was trying to meet my neighbors. He helped me get a good deal on a new lawn mower, and I was outside struggling with the raised bed when he came over to help. He said he couldn’t concentrate if he knew I was outside struggling so much. He seemed gruff and standoffish when I first met him, but after that he just seemed gruff.”

“I’ve lived here for two years, and he’s still standoffish to me.” Echo’s lips were pursed in disappointment, and Noodle looked up at her with disgust at the heavy pat on the head she got.

“Did you want something more?”

Echo shrugged and went back to petting Noodle in a way that made the dog relax in her lap again. “In reality, probably not. In my fantasy world, yes. I was newly divorced and thought the solution to my problems was someone who would stick around. Levi always struck me as the kind of guy who sticks.”

“Yeah. He does seem that way, doesn’t he?” It was the jawline, Mina decided. And the broad shoulders. The handiness with tools and that stupid hodgepodge lawn mower of his. A man who would stick with that lawn mower had to be a man who would stick in a relationship.

That was the same kind of reasoning that made a known jerk seem like a nicer person because he got a chocolate Lab puppy. That kind of reasoning got women into relationships that went nowhere but in downward spirals.

Or out the front door.

“Do you know something about him that I don’t, Mina?” Echo was looking intently at her glass of wine, as if the light bouncing off the crystal held the secrets to the universe.

Mina wasn’t the only one who’d had too much to drink tonight. She was grateful that tomorrow was Saturday, and she could sleep off whatever headache she was sure to get.

Which didn’t stop her from reaching forward and pouring more wine in her glass. At Echo’s gesture, Mina topped off her glass, as well. She drank deeply out of the garnet courage, giving the buzz time to reach her brain and cloud her thinking. She wanted the edges of her mind to go fuzzy, to stop thinking, can I trust this person?

If she didn’t say anything to Echo, then she continued to be just-Mina. The friendship would develop as if Mina were another neighbor, and, depending on how close their friendship got, eventually Mina might tell her. Maybe Echo would be upset that she hadn’t been told until then, and maybe she wouldn’t be. The problem was you never knew. Rarely did the opportunity come up naturally for Mina to hear someone’s ignorance or otherwise on HIV, and, as she’d learned the hard way, people’s words and their actions could be diametrically opposed.

Mina took another sip. But alcohol never could dull her mind. All it ever did was make her riskier.