“You’ll never guess who I ran into at the RSL yesterday,” she says as she supervises me choosing mushrooms at the supermarket. I only pick out the whitest and firmest ones. I’ve learnt from her and her son that almost all fruit and vegetables require a little squeeze test.
“Who?”
“Pete Barker, Blake’s dad. His wife passed away six years ago—breast cancer—and he’s one of Jeff and my friends who didn’t become too busy to see me after the divorce.”
Blake’s dad? I remember him from the engagement party. Just like his son, he must be a sexy beast to his contemporaries.
“Anyway, we got to talking and we’re watching a film on Saturday.”
“You have a date?” I ask and Heather actually blushes. Meanwhile, she’s weighing a kiwi fruit in each hand like she’s testing Mr Barker for prostate cancer, making me turn beet red.
“Do you think it’s a date?” she asks me with a barely contained smile.
“Is it just you two going?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a date,” I confirm with a happy grin for my friend.
The shy smile on Heather’s face tells me this is going to be different from her other dates, and I actually hug her. It’s weird. I’ve never been much of a hugger but there’s something about Heather McAllister that just makes that gesture seem normal. She returns the gesture warmly, like she really needed it and appreciated the gesture. And to my surprise, it felt good for me, too.
“Do you have anything to wear?” I ask, trying to hide my discomfort at my show of affection.
We’ve culled the dowdy crap from her wardrobe, and replaced them with new outfits that suit the dramatic, slick bob she’s now rocking. But that was May, it’s now July—totally different seasons, and I need to make sure Heather doesn’t throw on something warm and shapeless for winter.
“It’s just dinner and a movie—nothing fancy.”
“Doesn’t matter. Do you like him?”
“Pete’s a nice man.”
“Just ‘nice’?”
She blushes but doesn’t elaborate. I need to lend her my copy of Sex and the City. Though on second thoughts, I’m not sure I want her to share that much. It’s bad enough when Jillie recounts her usual weekend and gives me a blow by blow—pun totally intended.
When we reach Heather’s house, we unload the vegetables on the small wooden table in the middle of her kitchen. We’re about to cook an early dinner. Today’s all about learning to put together another new dish for me. Earlier, I helped Heather box up Mr McAllister’s things for donation. Only one box of his things, kept for his sons, remains in the house. The rest I’ve stacked in the garage, ready for a trip to a charity shop.
I couldn’t help but check whether Keats’ car was in the driveway when we first arrived. I don’t want him to be a third wheel to my time with his mother. Yet, there was a pang in my chest when I realised he’s not here.
Every time Terry the terrier barks, I look up and half-hope, half-dread it’s Keats coming home. I specifically chose today to hang out with Heather because Thursday night is his swimming night. I’ve made lame excuses to cancel my scheduled driving lessons with him since we got back from the resort. I’ve even screened his calls. I’m surprising myself with how strong I’m being.
If only I can stop missing him.
***
“Hey, Mom, do I have any clean going out underwe—?” Keats abruptly stops when he opens up his mother’s bedroom door and sees me standing behind her doing her hair. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes flick over to his mother’s reflection on her vanity mirror, then back at me, then my hands which are currently running a straightening iron through her hair.
“Jess’s helping tart me up.” Heather giggles when her son winces at the word “tart”. “And your good underwear is in the clean clothes basket, pet. I just haven’t had the chance to sort them and put them away yet.”
Colour spreads through Keats’ cheeks, and I have to bite my lower lip to stop myself from chuckling.
“Um, thanks, Mom.” He shifts his attention to me like I’m pimping out his mother. “So, why are you ‘helping’ Mom?”
I could hear the quotation marks in his voice.
“I have a date. Well, Jess thinks it’s a date. I think Pete just wants to see the new James Bond film with someone.”
“Pete? As in Pete Barker? Blake’s dad? You’re going on a date with Mr Barker?” Keats’ voice gets higher and higher pitched with each question like his throat is being wrung tighter and tighter till I almost expected him to pass out if he had just two more queries to make.
“Yes, dear.”
“But, but…what about Aunty Ana?”
“She died six years ago, pet.”
Keats rests his fists on his hips like he’s about to deliver the argument-ending response. “Well, it hasn’t even been a year since Dad…”
“Your father divorced me four years ago to be with his childhood sweetheart, Keats,” Heather interrupts him. I almost clap and cheer. “I think it’s time I moved on. Don’t you?”
“Well…” That’s as far as Keats gets in terms of actual words. He backs out of the doorway without another intelligible utterance.
“Gosh,” Heather says to me with a sigh of relief. “I’m enjoying this empowerment stuff. A woman in her fifties should be more able to stand up for herself. I used to, you know? I was backpacking around America by myself when I met Jeff. But he wanted to look after me, and I let him…until I was convinced I was incapable of looking after myself again.”
“All right if Jess and I come with you, Mom?”
We both look up and
