“Well, I’ve got one on you now.” He wiped his face on the tail of his T-shirt and hoped that she thought all the sweat was from the weather.
“For real?” Her eyes widened.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “It took all the courage I had to ask you to go on a boat ride next Sunday.”
“Bullshit!” she said and then put a hand over her mouth. “You were so popular in high school, and so self-confident.”
“That’s just the way you saw me,” he said. “I’m going to get another beer. Want one?”
“Yes, I do, and let’s have it inside. It’s damn hot out here.” She wiped her face on her shirtsleeve.
“Okay.” He stood up and offered her a hand.
See there, that wasn’t so hard to admit, was it? His dad’s voice was in his head.
She put her hand in his and let him pull her up to a standing position.
“I want you to know that I meant it when I told Kayla it’s over between me and Rita. My ex-wife came by my office yesterday, and I told her the same thing.” He kept her hand in his all the way to the kitchen, only letting go of it to get the cold beers.
She sat down on a barstool and sucked down several gulps before she came up for air. “That really tastes good, and you don’t owe me any explanations about Rita.”
“I like being with you, Mitzi, and I want to be honest with you. All I felt was relief that I wasn’t still with her.” Graham turned his head and their eyes locked. “I realized that I never really loved Rita, and that makes me feel guilty in a way.”
“Why?” Mitzi asked.
“I married her, and you’re supposed to love someone if you vow to be with them in sickness and health,” he answered.
“You’ve grown since she left. You had the girls to take care of and a business to run. Now you see things clearer than you did back then,” she said.
“Thank you for that.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, without the need for words to fill the vacuum. Then Mitzi finally asked, “Did you ever want to do something with your life other than stepping into your father’s shoes at the dealership?”
Graham shook his head. “No, ma’am. I didn’t even want to go to college, but Mama wanted me to have that experience. After Rita left, I got my business degree by taking online courses at night. Experience and what my dad taught me was far more helpful. How about you? Ever want to do something other than what you do?”
It was her turn to shake her head. “Mama wanted me to be a high school home economics teacher, only they don’t call it that anymore. I think it’s called FCCLA. Never can remember what all the letters stand for, but it’s the same as the old home economics classes. I made it through one semester of college, wondering the whole time why in the hell I needed American History 101 to teach young girls and boys how to cook and sew.”
“Or English Composition 101 to learn how to run a car dealership,” Graham chuckled again. “So what did you do after that semester?”
“I got a job doing alterations in a fancy wedding-dress shop in Amarillo,” she answered. “Paula, Jody, and I’d dreamed about putting in our own shop and catering to plus-sized women for years. Then”—she frowned, as if she wasn’t sure if she should go on—“Paula was dating the father of her baby and it became a bad breakup. She needed a change, and after we’d made her sister’s wedding dress, we really got serious about wanting to put in our own shop. Jody was more than ready for us to come home and put in a shop, so we finally said it was now or never and we did it last December. We figured we’d have to build up the business for two years before we’d start seeing enough profit to pay our salaries, but we were wrong. We’ve made dresses for women from four states already, and we never lack for something to keep us busy. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”
“Well, y’all have been a godsend to my girls. I’ve never seen them this happy,” Graham said.