If It Makes You Happy(93)

My girls are leaving for New York in three days, and then they’ll be gone for three more. I’ve never spent this holiday without them. We have traditions. How am I supposed to run down the hallway the morning of Thanksgiving, gobbling like a lunatic turkey, without them?

I keep telling myself that I’ll be all right. It isn’t the end of the world, even if it feels like it.

Outside the high school is another table with a brown tablecloth and stacks of cans piled in a corner. I plop my grocery bag on the tabletop.

“Hanging in there, Terri?” The high school math teacher gives a sly smile, and before she can open her mouth, I add, “I’m not dating. Doughnut?”

I open the lid and turn the box around. She twists her lips to the side.

“Fine, but I have the perfect woman for you,” she argues anyway while snatching a cruller. Her hand hovers over a glazed one, and she peers up at me. I nod solemnly with permission, and she steals that one too. “She’s a blonde. You like blondes, right?”

What is with this weird assumption that I like blondes? Didn’t I divorce a blonde?

I snap the box closed. “And to think, I was gonna offer a third one.”

“Ah, Cliff, don’t be so dramatic. But I’m glad you’re—”

“Getting back out there?” I finish. “I’m not.”

“Oh, but you deserve to! You’re such a catch.”

I narrow my eyes. “Are you buttering me up for a third doughnut?”

“No, I’m being sincere,” she counters. “You’re a kind man with a great personality.”

“People only say that about ugly people.”

“You didn’t give me time to say that you’re handsome as well.”

I pop open the lid again, and she draws out a third doughnut while shimmying for joy in her chair.

“Good luck with the food drive,” I say, nodding toward my dropped-off bag.

“Thanks. And, Cliff, you know my granddaughter is—”

I hold up my hands with a half smile. “I’m good, Terri, but thanks.”

“Let me know, and I can give you her number!”

I’m already halfway down the sidewalk when I call back, “Maybe!” I shouldn’t have left that door cracked.



Back at the bakery, I slump in my office chair with my head in my hands. Carol pokes her head in the office, and I smear my palm down my face.

Her face scrunches. “Ugh, you look terrible.”

“I feel terrible.”

“Was it the date?”

I groan, flopping my head into my folded arms on the desk.

“It was a mistake,” I grumble.

“Of course it was. It wasn’t Michelle.”

The tension in my arms pulls taut again.

I turn with my cheek now on the table and mumble, “You’re more annoying than me—you know that? And that’s saying something.”

Carol cocks her head. “Why’d you go?”

It’s a good question that I’ve asked myself over and over. I went because Michelle asked me to, is the simple answer. But that’s unfair to Michelle. Ultimately, it was my decision. She didn’t force me to walk over and ask Sara out. She didn’t shove the sports coat over my shoulders. I chose to try dating. I stupidly hoped my feelings for Michelle were exactly what we’d said they were—those of two horny divorcés.

I was wrong.

When I don’t answer, Carol slides into the steel folding chair in the corner.

“I wish you knew how good a guy you are.”

I lift an eyebrow. “That was a nice thing to say.”

She shrugs. “You’re my brother. I’m allowed to be nice every two to five months.” We exchange smiles. “So, why wouldn’t it work with her? Michelle—not her sister.”

I snort. “Because … she’s got Seattle. A life she loves so much. And I’ve got my whole life here. A very busy life. I work long hours. I have two kids. She didn’t ask for that.”

Carol blinks, opening her mouth to maybe say something, but a ding echoes from the front lobby.

I grit my teeth. “If it’s someone else with a picture of some woman, so help me God.”

She snickers. “Don’t worry about it. You mope.”

“I’m not moping.”

“It’s okay; you can feel sad.”

“I’m not sad!” I insist, but she’s already left my office, which is good because I don’t have the energy to argue my obvious lie.

I wait a few minutes, until the bell over the door chimes again. I leave my office and poke my head out. Lars is in the lobby, giving a goofy wave. I groan through it.

“How’d the hot date go?”

“Don’t ask.”

“But I—hey, wait, what—”

I walk past the display cases and toward the door painted in turkeys and pilgrims.

“Where are you going?” Carol asks.

“For a walk.”

“To mope?” Lars asks.

“Yeah, yeah. Funny.”

I walk outside, and to my dismay, Lars follows. We pace down the sidewalks and through the center of the square. Little pilgrim hats rest on leftover Halloween skeletons. Standing cardboard cutouts of cartoon turkeys hide behind haystacks. Their beady eyes mock me—I can feel it.