Heart-strong (10 page)

“It’s James,” I answer, reaching for the pastry. “He came
over Saturday and insisted I put the house on the market.”

“Good riddance,” spits Dolores. “Once you move, you’ll be
free of every reminder about that scum-ball.”

“But I’m alone, all alone,” I wail.

“You’re sooooo emotional. Calm down. You have me,” says
Dolores as she puts her arm around my shoulders and offers a tissue. “We’re
amigas
, aren’t we?”

In the mirror over the sink, I see myself and Dolores
reflected, two well upholstered female figures. One (me) has a face that looks
like it has been in a collision with a truck or a brick wall, so marred and
damaged are its makeup and expression. The other (Dolores) sports black hair
bound under the hideous hairnet required by her job but also displays features
softened with sympathy.

The sight is horrendous enough to dry up any waterfall of
emotion. My lip quivers, but I mop up the final traces of tears. “Yeeees.”

“Well, then? Men! Who needs ‘em?” Dolores is just over her
fifth live-in boyfriend. “Only to start the kids off.”

Dolores abandoned marriage after her second steady liaison.
Marriage laws cause more problems than they solve, she maintains with some
credibility. Without legalities, Dolores can drop her boyfriends as soon as she
discovers that the current one is as despicable as the previous. The causes of
these partings range from lack of child support to other women. Yet she
continues to search endlessly for romantic liaisons, much like a risky
addiction she can’t live without.

“You on break yet? When you didn’t show, I hightailed it up
here to find you. Come on down,” Dolores urges, steering me by the shoulders.

We take the elevator to the second floor. Mid-afternoon is
the slow time in the cafeteria, so Dolores joins me at a booth for coffee.
Well, actually not for coffee—that’s the euphemism covering the range of
comfort food she totes—a package of corn chips, soft drinks, and the remains of
the luncheon special, lasagna dripping with sauce and cheese.

“You need a new guy like a birthday needs a cake.” Dolores
plunks her generous derriere on the maroon plastic seat and continues the
conversation from where we’ve left off. “Someone to take away the bad taste of
that
James
.” She purses her lips into
a crumpled circle. “Someone
boing!
To
get your juices going again.”

I tear open the orange and red bag of snacks and pause to
consider. “Who’d have me? My father left me years ago, now my husband takes
off. I must be cursed.”

From the wall of windows facing west, Dolores squints in the
streaming sunlight to study me. “You’re nice looking. Pleasantly plump. Many
men prefer that. Gives them something to hold onto during the cold winter
nights. My brother, for instance, he likes solid women.”

With a wave of my hand, I dismiss Dolores’s brother as a
prospect. “Him? You’ve told me about his drinking and his four children and
ex-wife. Not to mention his lack of a job. You can’t complain about him all the
time and then suddenly spring him on me as a suitable romance. Anyway, James was
my one true love.” I sigh from my toes up.

“Speaking from experience, one true loves come many times in
a woman’s life. If you’re open to them.”

“I’m terrified,” I admit. I chew some chips slowly until
they’re ready to dissolve, then lick the salt off my fingers one by one. “Not
just at the thought of being a single in a doubles’ world. But of maybe never
finding my soul mate.”

“Hmmm. I don’t believe in this soul mate babble,” says
Dolores. “But it sounds like you’ve decided to toss in the towel about James.”

I open my mouth to deny this when the image of James
standing on the porch, demanding that I sell the house, comes to mind. The
infuriation I felt at his sudden decision, the desolation at my isolation,
rebound, redouble, resolve into a blazing rage. “Yes,” I say, “yes, I have.”

“Good,” replies Dolores with the self-satisfaction of a
vindicated prophet. “Now all you need to do is practice taking some chances.”

“I’m not a chance-taker,” I respond, feeling myself shrink even
as I think about dipping into that great squalid pool of people known as
“singles.” Sleek, well dressed, confident, flirting, chatting, petting, having
sex. I turn my mind from that direction at once.

“What do you mean? Isn’t your name Joan?” says Dolores.

“Yes. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Your patron saint is Joan of Arc. There was one lady
loco
enough to face being burned at the
stake for what she believed. Surely you can follow her lead a little?”

“I’m not Catholic,” I point out.

“But surely you know her story? She marched forward bravely,
proudly, to show the world what she could do. Nothing phased her, nothing
stopped her.” Dolores holds her bag of chips in front of her like a shield.

The bell on the cafeteria door tinkles as someone enters.
I’m facing the door and I freeze, chip-clutching hand mid-air, every nerve
ending on full alert. My mouth drops.

“What’s wrong?” Dolores asks.

“Him,” I croak, breath fighting for territory with food.
“That man.”

Dolores swings in the booth to see what I’m watching. Gray,
pin-striped suit, shoulders broader than Mr. America’s, russet wavy hair, firm
nose, all smoldering in one neat bundle like a package of dynamite, walks into
the food line of the cafeteria. “Who’s he?” she asks, turning back.

I possess the female skill of motionless verbal response
like a ventriloquist, in which a tooth-baring smile provides cover for a
sotto voce
rejoinder. I murmur, “A new
attorney in our suite. Scott. Not really part of the firm. He’s sub-leasing an empty
office.” I maintain the smile until it feels frozen on my face, hoping and
fearing the man will look in my direction.

“No soul,” Dolores throws her instant judgment over her
shoulder as she gets up to return to the cashier’s station at the end of the
food line.

I sit paralyzed where I am. Because the entire interior of
the cafeteria lacks walls and is open to a wide-angle view, I can see the food
preparation area, the metal counter beside which customers walk and slide their
trays until they reach the cashier. The object of my fascination must believe a
tray to be unnecessary, for he balances a container of yogurt and a banana in
one hand and reaches for a coffee cup with the other. No soul? I wonder. With a
face like an angel’s? Or at least a Greek god’s. Dolores is crazy. Well, maybe
not so crazy. For a moment, every thought of my “one true love” has fled faster
than soap bubbles burst in air.

The man exits from the cafeteria line and strides to a
nearby table. His disinterested look sweeps over me, not even registering my
presence, just as it passes over plastic booths, slate walls, signs advertising
the special of the day. Well, what did I expect? My hand flies up to my hair,
light reddish-brown, fine as cotton candy, slicked back into a scraggly ponytail.
Since James split, I’ve lacked the energy to bother with curlers, blow drying,
even hair cuts.

Dolores returns and catches me staring at the man as if he
were a chocolate sundae and I haven’t eaten in a month. Dolores claps her hands
and I jump.

“I’m back. Now stop looking starved. Where were we? A
boyfriend.” She slides into the opposite side of the booth, her back to the
man, and helps herself to one of my chips.

With the dignity of the innocent in a court of law, I speak.
“Dolores, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But I have to go through the
grieving process for my marriage before I start mixing with new men. You
know—denial, acceptance, all that.”

“The way you’re eyeballing that guy, you’re well on the road
to recovery. Anyway, you read that self-help garbage in some women’s magazine?
Listen, girl, what you need is
fun
!”
Dolores snaps the fingers of both hands high in the air and wriggles her torso
in a gravity-defying shimmy. “You got tied down way too young. James was your
first? And your only?”

“Ssssh,” I hiss. “The world doesn’t need to hear this.” But
then I nod, despite embarrassment about my lack of experience. “We were in high
school together. Married right after graduation. Then three years in the
service, in San Diego. Then back here to Denver. But we had a good marriage at
first. And we did have fun,” I insist.

“You
have to
believe because you don’t want to face up to the facts. Was it fun to work as a
waitress putting him through college?” demands Dolores. Her brown eyes flash a challenge,
as if daring me to fib.

In my mind, many voices echo from the course of six years of
waitressing, demanding instantaneous food service. “Not exactly,” I say,
remembering days that started at five a.m., the smell of ammonia-tinged
cleaning water, the roughness of perpetually chapped hands.

“You’re telling me. My feet feel like huge sores at the end
of the day. And I never can get the smell of fried hamburgers out of my hair.”

“I prefer to look at my glass as half-full, rather than
half-empty, even a container as leaky as my marriage. There were good times,” I
continue. “We went to movies, bowling. I thought we were happy. My God, he
should have been.” I sit straight up abruptly. “His word was my command. I
catered to him like royalty. Clean, ironed shirts organized in the closet by
colors. Dinner on the table when he came home. Visits with his family every
week. I thought that’s what men want, to be the boss, to have the full support
of their wives.”

I get hot under the collar again just thinking about my
marriage, the one-sided sacrifices, James’s cowardly exit, and Dolores can
tell, probably from the steam coming out my ears and the sputters issuing from
my mouth as my voice rises. “That’s right,” she urges. “Get good and mad. But
then, get even. What is it they say is the best revenge?”

“Living well. Living well is the best revenge.”

“So go live well. Hot damn, you’re named after most ballsy
woman who ever lived. Joan of Arc. Didn’t fear crap. Copy her. Get out there
and raise hell for a while.”

I throw my paper napkin down on the table. “Okay. You’re
making sense. That’s just what I’ll do.” I leap to my feet like an eager
grasshopper, rocking back and forth from the vigor of my response.

Dolores looks up at me with a trace of alarm on her face. “I
didn’t mean right this second. What are you up to now?”

“You’ll see.” I head straight for Scott’s booth and he looks
up at the sound of my approach, his absolutely blank expression changing
second-by-second to one of bemused unease as I near his table. I stop, my
insides shaking, but my exterior as erect and high-chinned as I can manage.

“Mr. Clark?”

“Yeeeess?” His response ends as a question. In his
beautiful, sea-green eyes, shot through with shards of black, fringed by the darkest
lashes, is not a glimmer of recognition or interest. I cast desperately around
for some topic of conversation, some reason for approaching him.

“I’m Joan Nelson, the receptionist in your office,” I
babble. “I just wanted to welcome you and tell you that I’ll route callers to
your voice mail when you’re not in.”

“Thank you. Joan?” He says my name as a question, as if
wondering if I exist. Those same sea-green eyes rake up and down my body, the
one that’s somehow, without my knowledge or consent, assumed the burden of
twenty extra pounds over the last few years. Unable to think of anything else
to say, I nod, whirl around, and return to my booth. I slide back in, shaking.

“Wow!” Dolores says, wide-eyed.
“I’m impressed. When you make up your mind to something, you move right out
there. What did you say? What did he say?”

Want to find out
what happens?
A Saint Comes Stumbling In
can be purchased through all major eBook retailers, or directly from the
publisher at
http://www.prismbookgroup.com
.
Thank you for sampling this novel. Please read on for more information about
the author and her works.
Do you enjoy Bonnie’s witty
writing and penchant for telling humorous tales casting everyday women?

Stay tuned for
Playing with Fire
by Bonnie McCune, a
contemporary novel about a woman who fears she’s destined to be homeless and
loveless, a brusque small town mayor, and how a raging forest fire brings them
together.

Bonnie McCune credits her tenacity for the
successes in her life. Since fifth grade, she has been determined to be a
writer.
A Saint Comes Stumbling In
was her first published novel, but her interest in writing led to her career in
nonprofits doing public and community
relations and marketing. She’s worked for libraries, directed a small arts
organization and managed Denver's beautification program. Simultaneously, she’s
been
a freelance writer with publications in local, regional, and specialty
publications for news and features.
Her
main interest now is fiction writing, and her pieces have won several awards.
Her civic involvement includes grass-roots organizations, political campaigns,
writers’ and arts’ groups, and children’s literacy.

F
or years, she
entered recipe contests and was a finalist once to the Pillsbury Cook Off.
A special love is live theater. H
ad she been nine
inches taller and thirty pounds lighter, she might have been an actress. For
reasons unknown (an unacknowledged optimism?), she believes that one person can
make a difference in this world. McCune lives in Denver, Colorado, where she’s
been married to the same man forever, has two children and three grandchildren,
and is working on a humorous novel about aging.