Page 59 of Summer Romance
Me: Who?
Phyllis: Don’t be coy
“Any chance you want to come with me to check on my neighbor? She needs eggs and is a little nosy.”
“Sure,” he says, and kisses me again. I could spend theentire day this way, just standing here in my doorway kissing Ethan.
I grab two eggs from my refrigerator and we walk over to her house. I let us in with my key and call, “Hi, Phyllis!”
“In here,” she calls from the sitting room, unnecessarily.
We walk through the front parlor and I see she’s put on lipstick. “Phyllis, this is Ethan Hogan.”
“Charlie’s son?” she asks.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
“I knew your grandfather,” she says. “William. He was in my fourth-grade class. Got better looking as he got older.”
“A lot of us are late bloomers,” he says.
“I’m very hungry,” she says to me, which is a lie because she’s never very hungry. I have to sit and watch her eat half a plate of eggs each day just so I know she’s eaten something. But, okay. I pick up a few glasses and head into the kitchen, trying to make out their conversation as I go.
When I return with the eggs, Ethan is sitting in the chair next to hers. She pats his hand and says, “He’s a lovely young man.”
“Yes,” I say.
I sit on the sofa across the room and watch them talk while Phyllis eats. She remembers William’s wedding reception in the backyard of the house. Her husband was from Illinois but made friends with William because he liked to eat breakfast at the inn. See, Phyllis never liked cooking breakfast, which is why we’re all sitting here.
When she’s done eating, Ethan helps her up and she goes in for her shower. “What now?” he asks.
“I just putter around here a bit until she’s out of the shower and dressed.” We go into the kitchen, which is original to the house. Wooden countertops tell the story of a million chopped onions.
“This house is amazing,” he says.
“Yeah, it’s always been my favorite. Like since I was little. So when my house came on the market I figured it was as close as I’d get. And it’s pretty close.” I gesture to my kitchen window right outside of hers. “I want to talk with her daughters about it, like what’s going to happen.” My voice catches. I hate talking about this. The thought of Phyllis dying feels like a punch in the arm right where you already have a bruise.
Ethan puts his arms around me. “She’s really lovely,” he says. “Do we come back at lunchtime?”
This makes me smile. “No. She eats vanilla pudding for lunch, and I pretend not to know.”
My phone beeps with a text from Frannie: Just a friendly reminder that it’s Monday.
I am truly living in one long Saturday. “I have to go to the diner for a bit,” I say. “Want to come? And then we can go back to your house and do absolutely no packing.”
34
As soon as Pete and the kids leave for soccer on Tuesday night, Ethan is at my kitchen door with a bottle of Sancerre and chocolate pretzels. I love every word in that sentence. I spent the day cleaning out Deb Parker’s basement and wishing I was in Ethan’s pool watching him swim toward me underwater, waiting for him to pull me under with him. We’ve both already eaten dinner, so we sit outside with wine and dessert and listen to the creek. He tells me that Rose just got a big shipment of recalled dog food for the shelter, and he laughs because Brenda hates the new designer kibble he bought in town.
I’ve draped my legs over his and he puts his arms around me. It feels like we’ve been doing this for years. “I can’t wait to get you divorced,” he says into my hair.
“Me too,” I say.
“Want to get all your information together tomorrow? We could do it together during camp.”
I look up at his face and see it’s a sincere offer. I suspect that’s the only kind of offer Ethan makes. “Thanks, but Ifeel like I need to tackle it myself. You know I used to be a pro.”
“There’s really nothing sexier than an accountant,” he says, pulling me onto his lap and dipping his head to mine.
