"I would assume you’re just excited about next weekend except you don’t look excited. You look like a frazzled alley cat. Are you nervous about meeting that guy?” -Holly
“Oh…no. No, you were right. I was being silly over nothing at all. I have zero interest in meeting any man these days, much less some limp wristed flower vendor.” -Fiona
"He sounds like Superman on a platter! You should be calling him five times a day!” Holly shouts gleefully, then hesitates. “Wait a minute, he’s not Ulysses all over again, is he?”
“No!” Her question causes me to sit bolt upright. “No way. He’s as refined and selfless as any gentleman I’ve ever met.”
“Careful there princess,” I try to warn her.
“Princess? What do I look like to you, some kind of a nice gal? You think I’m a sweet old-fashioned mannerly lady you can pick up with all your…charm and…good looks?” she asks, sweepin her eyes up and down me like a predator.
“I think you’re a damn wild woman,” I answer, catchin Fiona's waist with both my hands as she almost stumbles backward into a crepe myrtle bush, “and I hope to pick you up with everything I’ve got.”
“Hey, how’s everything with you?” the lady asks.
“Couldn’t be better,” Fiona replies in a tone that strikes me as phony. “The store is booming, I’ve got a fantastic new designer, and my ex-husband is stalking me while I sleep. How are you?”
“Maxine,” Giovanni starts in, gazing at me while we stroll, “I think I’m ready to explore that life, and I wanna do it with you.” He grips my hand a little tighter, and I feel an almost infernal heat rising in my body.
A bombardment of perfect angles, perpetually shifting before me…
As he glances, sips, converses in an alert and inquisitive way.
He’s a live wire if I’ve ever seen one.
"I just thought I’d ask him flat out if he has a girlfriend, but I didn’t. I don’t think I wanna know really. But we didn’t talk about anything that would indicate that either way, so—”
“Why don’t you wanna know?” I ask Elise, pretty much knowing the answer.
“Because if he does, that still doesn’t mean I couldn’t have him. I mean…maybe he’s in an old dried out relationship, or maybe he thinks he’s with the right one but that will all change after he finds out he could have me.”
“Well, what if he is with the right one, but he gets distracted and thrown off course by having to go to work with a super hot chic who’s hitting on him all the time?”
“Well…then he’s not really with the right one.” Elise gives me a wink and a flippant little ‘oh well’ shrug.
“You look hot. What were you all dressed up for?” -Ivan
“Oh you know, just another day at work. Combined with a psychic premonition that the man of my dreams would appear on my porch tonight.” -Maxine
Coming Soon!
— A Letter to Elise of Finding Love Again Series