Mrs. Fletcher(30)

“They are who they are,” Eve agreed. “All we can do is love them.”

Hobie glanced down the bar, toward the older couple. The man was holding his arm in the air, like he was trying to hail a cab.

Hobie sighed. “Excuse me.”

While he was attending to his duties, Eve took out her phone and texted Brendan.

Do you remember Daniella Hobie? I just ran into her dad. Your old coach from the Daisies.

“What about Brendan?” Hobie asked. “What’s he up to?”

“He’s at BSU.”

“Still playing lacrosse?”

“Not anymore.”

Her phone dinged and she picked it up.

Ugh she gave that brutal speech the daisies were so gay

“Speak of the devil,” she said, slipping the phone back into her purse.

“It’s nice that he stays in touch,” Hobie observed. “I don’t hear much from my kids these days. Their mom and I got divorced about ten years ago.”

“Same here,” she said. “It’s tough.”

“Irreconcilable differences.” Hobie laughed sadly. “She hated my guts.”

“Mine was a cheater,” said Eve. “Nice guy otherwise.”

“Can I ask you something?” He looked a little shy, like he knew he was broaching a delicate subject. “Does Brendan have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t think so. He had one in high school, but they broke up over the summer. I wasn’t crazy about her, to be honest.”

“Only reason I ask is because Dani never mentions boys. Never. If I ask her straight up, she just says she’s too busy for a relationship. But then you read these stories in the paper about the kids binge-drinking and hooking up at parties and friends with benefits and all that stuff, and it sounds like a nonstop orgy.”

“They’re adults,” Eve said. “They get to make their own mistakes, just like we did.”

“Friends with benefits.” Hobie shook his head in rueful amazement. “I don’t even have a job with benefits.”

“Good one,” Eve said, toasting him with her almost empty glass.

He asked if she wanted a refill. Eve said what the heck, it was still pretty early. She was enjoying the conversation, which had confirmed the value of simply getting out of the house, and elevated the status of her night from small experiment to minor accomplishment.

Hobie mixed the drink with his back turned, giving her an opportunity to admire the snugness of his jeans and the tailored fit of his tucked-in white Oxford. He was in good shape for a man his age.

A man my age, she reminded herself.

“You’re a nice surprise on a Wednesday night,” he said, placing the fresh cocktail in front of her as if it were a trophy. A trophy just for showing up, like the ones they gave to the Daisies.

“I went to a wake. Didn’t feel like going home.”

“Sorry to hear it. Somebody close?”

“Just an acquaintance. Guy I knew from work. He was eighty-two.”

“Oh.” Hobie seemed relieved to hear it. “What can you do?”

In the mirror, Eve watched as the therapy session in the booth came to a conclusion, the two woman friends putting on their jackets and heading for the door. A few minutes later, the baseball fans made their exit as well. Only Eve and the old lushes remained.

“Slow night?” she asked.

“About average.”

“I guess you make up for it on the weekends.”

“Saturdays are pretty busy,” he said. “But that’s not my shift.”

Eve made a sympathetic noise, but Hobie shook her off.

“My choice,” he assured her. “Weekends are sacred. That’s me-time. Necessary for my mental health and well-being.”

He told her about the pickup basketball game he played on Saturday mornings, a bunch of Haddington High alums, former varsity players of all ages. Hobie was one of the older guys, but he could still keep up.

“Can’t jump as high as I used to,” he conceded. “But I still have a decent outside shot.”

“Sounds like a good workout.”

“The best.” Hobie grinned. “Sundays I do a group bike ride with a few buddies. Usually thirty or forty miles. We did a big charity ride this summer.”

It was easy to imagine him on a fancy bike, decked out in spandex like it was the Tour de France, breathing hard as he crested a steep hill, his face glowing with cheerful determination.

“My ex-husband did that a couple of times,” she said. “You gotta really be in shape.”

“I try,” Hobie said with a touch of false modesty that Eve did her best to ignore. “What about you? What do you like to do on the weekends?”

“This and that,” she said, wishing she had a sweaty and exciting activity of her own to boast about—rock climbing or kickboxing, even tennis. But all she ever did was read and watch movies and go for slow walks around the lake with Jane and her arthritic bichon frise, Antoine. In the summer there was yard work, cutting grass and pulling weeds and watering her little garden, meditative tasks she would have enjoyed a lot more if she wasn’t so worried about ticks. These days she was looking longingly at the trees, waiting for the leaves to change so she could go outside and rake on a chilly autumn morning, pathetic as that sounded. “I just like to relax, I guess.”