On the Rocks(30)

“Yeah. I thought it’d be a nice change of scene. I’m getting over a breakup and thought getting out of town would be a good idea.”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth I wanted to take them back. I’d gone to Newport so that people wouldn’t know what had happened to me. Not so I could tell people within five minutes of meeting them. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who couldn’t shut up about her relationship problems. The problem was that I’d been one of those girls who couldn’t shut up about her relationship problems for the last six months. I needed to add that to the list of habits that needed breaking as soon as was humanly possible.

“Ah, a breakup escape hatch,” she said as she once again stared blankly out the window and fidgeted with the wedding band on her left ring finger.

“Kind of. Anyway, I don’t want to harp on it. I’m happy I’m here, and if I can help you out with the store, I’d like to.”

She stared at her hand and started to slowly twist her wedding ring around in clockwise circles. “Well,” she said with a slight smile, “I think that sounds like a good plan. Anyway, this is great! How funny that our paths would cross again like this.”

“I think it’s a sign,” I said somewhat awkwardly. “We Milton girls need to stick together.”

“You’re not going to start singing the fight song on me, are you?”

“No,” I admitted. “Probably only because I don’t remember it.”

“You’re lucky. All those years of cheerleading has it burned into my brain. So I really need help organizing the store. It’s small, but we carry a ton of stuff, so I’m going for a shabby-chic, overcluttered type of look. How are your organizational skills?”

“Well, I teach kindergarten for a living, and since the kids in my class don’t seem to care too much about being orderly, I’ve sort of mastered it,” I laughed.

That was only partially true. I was a highly organized person, but it had as much to do with my profession as it had to do with my breakup. After everything happened, I had tried to restore some kind of order to my life by becoming obsessively neat. I color-coded my closets, folded all the clothes in my drawers, even my socks, and actually went so far as to alphabetize my spice rack. None of it really helped to ease the pain of losing Ben, but it was kind of comforting to know that I could locate the cinnamon right next to the cloves should some sort of spontaneous bake-off erupt in my apartment.

“Great! I need help unloading the inventory and marking all the prices, plus I’ll need some help working the register and with the occasional gift wrap. Things like that. Obviously the store is small, so I only need someone part-time. Ideally I need someone to work Wednesdays, when our new inventory arrives, and Saturdays to help with the weekenders. Does that work for you?”

“That sounds perfect.”

“Good! The pay isn’t great, but it’s more than you’d make babysitting.” She told me the hourly rate, which wasn’t much above minimum, but I didn’t care. I just wanted the job. “So if you’re still interested, I have a shipment coming next Wednesday that I’ll need help unpacking. Do you think you could start then?”

“No problem, I’ll be here at nine o’clock, is that okay?”

“That would be perfect.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you next week.” She waved good-bye as I slowly pushed open the screen door and let it close quietly behind me.

I put my hands in my pockets and turned to walk back to the house, feeling pretty good about myself for taking a step, even a small one, into my new life without Ben. It felt strange, having a part-time job be such a big step for me at this stage of my life. I thought about why the relationship road was so easy for some people and, for reasons unknown, so exponentially harder for others. Now that I was in my thirties, I worried that I was going to be one of those people who never really knew true love. I was pretty sure the dictionary would not call my relationship with Ben true love, or it wouldn’t have ended the way it did. I actually don’t think the English language could possibly define whatever the hell that was.

Leave it to me to stump Webster’s.

I was deep in my “time to face the music ’cause the fat lady is singing” thought when my phone beeped, displaying a text message from Wolf.

Hey little Abs, me and some European friends are heading out to watch the German team play in the Euro Cup football games. European football, not American football. I don’t understand that game. Come meet us at the Red Parrott. We’ll be there in fifteen. P.S. It’s an important game. I repeat, the Germans are playing. Auf Wiedersehen.

I checked the time: 2:00. I debated ignoring Wolf’s invitation, if for no other reason than to avoid Bobby, who no doubt would be there, hitting on European women who probably didn’t speak English all that well. I knew that these were the types of things I should be going to if I wanted to meet people on this side of cyberspace: friends of friends, smaller groups, specific sporting events. The problem was, I really wanted to go home to my book, a hot shower, and maybe, if I was being honest with myself, a dish of ice cream. This was the typical tug-of-war that I had been fighting with myself since Ben and I broke up. I wasn’t twenty-two anymore. Most nights I didn’t want to be out in the bars mingling and flirting in the hopes of finding a guy. I wanted to be home in comfy pajamas drinking wine on the couch. The real big problem with this was that I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to meet anyone sitting on my couch with a glass of wine, unless of course someone broke into the house and decided to stop and have a glass of Cabernet. Although stranger things have probably happened. This was Rhode Island after all—the criminals were probably more refined.