into his mouth and move back to my seat, fastening my seat belt. Joe laughs.
Back at the farm, Joe walks me to my car. I’m not sure how to take my leave. Tossing my bag in the car, I turn to him. “I had a great time.”
“Good,” he answers. He looks at the ground.
“Did you?” I’m not sure and I want to know.
He thinks for a moment. “I guess I’m confused.”
“About?”
“What you want.” Joe puts his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “In the barn. On the couch last night.”
Couch? I don’t remember the couch.
Joe says, “You start. Then you stop.”
I stopped. Good for me. Bad for Joe. I say, “What happened to letting things develop naturally?”
Joe says, “Making love to you would be the most natural thing in the world.”
That makes me—and the diva—smile.
But wait just a minute. “Joe, I need to take things slowly.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve made some bad decisions in the not too distant past.”
Joe nods, seemingly unimpressed. “And?”
“And I don’t want to start a relationship that’s only about sex.”
“Me, either,” Joe says.
“Oh, please.” I laugh, and Joe laughs, too.
“Listen, Mimi. I like you. You like me. How are we going to know where this can go unless we, you know, go with it. What’s the point in waiting?”
“I don’t want to wait on the relationship. I want to wait on the sex.”
Joe says, “Sex is part of an adult relationship.”
“But sex confuses the issue. I’m trying to be logical.”
“Logical?” Joe leans toward me. “Where’s the excitement in that? Where’s the passion? A relationship is an organic thing between two people that needs to be nurtured and fed or else it doesn’t grow and blossom. Isn’t that how you find love?”
More M&M’s
“Love and sex are two different things,” Madeline says.
Midafternoon, before I have to go to work, Madeline and I are relaxing at the pool in The Garden. Needing analysis of my twenty-four hours with Joe, I called her the minute I got home.
Our towels spread on lounge chairs, Madeline is dousing herself in full-bodied, Italian SPF 30 with citrusy aroma. I opt for a refreshing California SPF 15 that has a hint of wood and olives.
Madeline puts on her cat’s eye sunglasses, which are studded with rhinestones. She continues opining. “Joe was either being very romantic, or he wanted to get laid.”
“Harsh,” I say.
“Realistic,” Madeline counters. “You were talking about sex, and he used the L-word. ‘Maybe I’ll love you, Mimi, if you boink me.’ Please. Do you really think he’s in love with you? You hardly know each other. And since when are you a Jersey girl?”
“Since always. No matter where I’ve gone in the world, I’ve always been a Jersey girl. Now that I’m back home, I’m rediscovering my inner Jersey girl.”
“Speaking of Jersey girls, where’s your mother?” Madeline asks.
“Down the shore with her boyfriend,” I say. “She left me a note that she’s spending a few days in Cape May with Sid. They are staying in a Victorian bed-and-breakfast.”
“Now that’s romantic.”
“Whatever. Can we talk about me and Joe?”
“Sure,” Madeline says. “I think you’ve come down with a serious case of chastity, and I’m not sure it’s healthy. Is it because you are living with your mother?”
“My mother is not chaste. She’s probably having sex with Sid right now.”
“Ugh, gross.”
“And so I repress,” I say.
“Bobbi’s dating bothers you?”
“I know it shouldn’t,” I say.
“How you feel is how you feel,” Madeline replies. “You know what your problem is? Your parents never divorced.”
“Having happily married parents is a problem?”
Madeline lowers the straps of her bikini bra. “I went through the whole ‘This is Uncle Ted’ or ‘Meet my new daddy’ thing when my parents divorced.”
“I don’t have a new daddy,” I say. “Mom’s not going to get remarried. She only just started to date.”
Madeline smiles and backstrokes to the subject at hand. “Anyway, Farmer Joe is right that sex is part of an adult relationship. You may want to wait, but he may not want to wait. It sounds like he’s got his seduction routine down pat and another Jersey girl might go for it before you decide you’re ready.”
“You think the whole thing was a seduction routine?”
Madeline turns her cat’s eyes to me. “You think he just happened to have a guitar?”
Watermelon vs. Potato
Ah, the serenity of my restaurant mornings. Okay, midmorning. It’s eleven o’clock. Café Louis is clean and the sun pours in through the windows. With XXX coffee in hand, I go into the kitchen. Aaron is standing there, talking with Grammy and