The Will(146)

“Indeed. Though your last word is quite crucial. History,” I replied.

She again flinched.

I studied her closely.

Surely this woman wasn’t that oblivious. Years had passed.

“Donna, as I’ve been blunt, I will continue to be so. If you hold a candle for Jake, I’d extinguish it. He’s quite forthcoming and what once was between you is very gone.”

Another flinch.

Good God.

She was that oblivious.

“Okay, this is weirding me out,” she declared. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked to you about this.”

“Indeed, you shouldn’t have. But you did. And I’d encourage you to take on board what I said.” I hesitated to underline my final point. “All of it.”

She held my eyes and replied, “I don’t mean to be funny. Truly I don’t. Mrs. Malone was really cool and folks who know you say you’re like her. But you should know, Jake and I are complicated and the kind of history we have is never really gone.”

She was absolutely that oblivious.

I couldn’t believe it, but as it was right there in front of me, I found it very sad.

Therefore, I gentled my tone when I told her, “If you believe that, I’m very sorry. Jake and you are not complicated because there is no Jake and you. It appears you’ve been working under the misconception that that’s the case, but I advise you to cease doing so for your own sake.”

“Again, not to be funny, but he’s come back to me before,” she pointed out.

“He also left you, and since then married two other women and then met me,” I volleyed.

She shook her head, clearly my words weren’t penetrating and this was proved when she started, “I don’t mean to be mean but you should—”

“You aren’t being mean, Donna,” I interrupted her and went on firmly in an effort to end this enlightening but nevertheless wretched discussion. “But you are taking quite a bit of my time. Please, phone Jake. Discuss all this with him. I think it will be difficult for you but in the end beneficial and hopefully beneficial for Amber and Conner too.”

“God,” she whispered, her eyes widening. “You totally don’t have any problems with me talking to Jake.”

“Not a one,” I replied. “Now, again, not to be rude but I really must be getting on.”

“I…” Another shake of her head. “Okay.”

“Phone Jake,” I urged.

“I…” She shook her head yet again but said, “I will.”

“Good day to you, Donna.”

“Um…good day to you too, Josie.”

I wanted to roll my eyes at her calling me Josie again. It was true that I was getting that from practically everyone these days but from her I didn’t like it all that much.

However, I found our conversation more than mildly exasperating and I wanted it to end so I didn’t say a word. Nodding my head to her once, I turned back to my cart and my attention back to my list.

It was much later, indeed well after the children and the Taylors gave their exuberant stamp of approval not only to my truffle risotto but to the variety of bruschettas that I’d made as an appetizer, that I was alone with Jake in the kitchen making hot fudge sundaes.

It was then I told him of my conversation with Donna.

As he was stronger, he was scooping out the hard frozen ice cream. With curiosity, I was “nuking” the jars of hot fudge (three of them), a phenomenon I had not yet tasted but was very much looking forward to as Jake also had cans of whipped cream, nuts, sprinkles and cherries.

Even from jars and cans, none of this could be bad.

Involved in our activities, I didn’t feel the air until I head Jake’s sinister whisper of, “Come again?”

I looked from the revolving jars of hot fudge in the microwave to Jake and saw he didn’t find my conversation with Donna simply odd and perhaps a little sad.

No, that was not how he found it at all.

“I—” I began, my mind flying through varying options of how to handle him when he dropped the scoop in the tub of ice cream and prowled to and out the door to the garage.

I fretted over the ice cream sitting on the counter for a brief moment, thinking I should put it back in the freezer. However, as Jake was clearly angry and just as clearly intent to do something about it, I decided to leave it where it lay and followed him.

The large garage was lit, Jake was standing beside his truck parked in it, his phone to his ear and when I arrived, I saw I was too late to stop him when I heard him say, “You have got to be f*cking shitting me.”

Oh dear.

I got close and Jake cut furious eyes to me (now, under the fluorescent lights in the garage, a rather attractive shade of silver I had not seen before and, alas, couldn’t fully enjoy considering the circumstances).

“No,” he clipped into his phone. “First, you do not ever talk to Josie. We do what’s the impossible right now and sort this out eventually, you two gotta have a discussion for some reason, I might allow it. After this shit and the shit you’ve been pullin’ with Con and Amber, no. Josie is off-limits to you. I don’t care if you’re sittin’ next to each other gettin’ a pedicure at Alyssa’s, she doesn’t exist. You get that?”