“Uhm, it’s okay,” Mimi whispered, bringing her lips together, savoring the moment. “Look, I’ll call you…to see when you want to go to lunch.”
“How about tomorrow? Do you live nearby?”
Mimi wasn’t ready to tell anyone where she lived. God knows she’d be in trouble if she let him near her house. A ton of memories came rushing back of the day they had met during her first week in college and the fun they had had and the promises made. The only regret Mimi had was that she had never given him a taste of her forbidden fruit. She was the biggest tease and found herself many times in uncompromising positions, but she always managed to wiggle her way out of things, because she was saving herself for marriage…that was until Victor Christianson violated her body. She shuddered at the thought, and all of sudden she wanted revenge. “I live in Durham,” Mimi heard herself say.
“I have a business meeting in the RTP tomorrow.” Mimi wrinkled her nose. “The Research Triangle Park,” John reminded her. “You haven’t been gone that long. Anyway, I could meet you somewhere—your call. It’s a Friday, and all the restaurants might be busy, so if you want to go around two in the afternoon, that would work for me.”
“Two sounds good for me, too. I’ll let you know the place.”
“Well, it’s a done deal. I thank the gods for smiling on me today.”
“It was nice seeing you again, too, John. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Mimi jumped into her car, afraid that if she lingered any longer, another kiss might have been imminent. She had loved John once, and seeing him now only brought memories of love to the surface. Raphael would always be her only true love, and Mimi sat in the car, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t cheating on him.
She watched as John disappeared beyond the brush that led to the trail. She grinned in spite of herself, for truly the gods had given her something to smile about. Putting her car in reverse, Mimi moved out of the park and headed for the freeway with thoughts of seeing John again.
“Damn,” Mimi said out loud. She had forgotten that quickly that she’d promised to meet Brenda for lunch tomorrow. Well, she really did have an excuse this time. She’d think of something, and maybe after this second attempt to have lunch with her, Brenda would give up. “Damn.”
17
Mimi hummed, whistled, and sang herself home. How she got home otherwise was a mystery. All she remembered was that she had put the car in gear, gotten on the freeway, and now she was pulling into the entrance of her subdivision. She was too old to a let a man that she hadn’t seen in nineteen years, but still had it going on, work her nerves like that.
Looking wasn’t a sin, but the kiss she had placed on that man’s lips or the one he had placed on hers was. After all, she was a married woman—a happily married woman, and no other man would ever take the place of Raphael. Raphael was the provider, the protector, and the only lover for her because he did it so well. They were each other’s rock, salvation, the end of all ends.
So why was she thinking about John? He was her first real love, although she never had sex with him. There was no memory to make her stomach feel queasy as it did now. Maybe it was a friendly face in the midst of the warfare she had going on with Victor. Nevertheless, she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face as she fantasized about seeing John in his ultra short shorts.
Mimi pulled her car into the attached garage, still humming as she got out. Floating on cloud nine, she retrieved the mail from the mailbox and went into the house. She deposited her things on a chair in the kitchen and immediately went to the junk drawer and removed her journal and began to write.
October 9, 2008
I can’t get this silly grin off of my face. Who would have thought that I’d see him again? For the first time since arriving in Durham, I plunged back into my fitness program. I drove to Lake Johnson because I remembered the wonderful walking trails that looped around the lake. After a short warm-up session, I walked, sprinted, ran for five miles. I felt wonderful, and the day couldn’t have been more beautiful.