Page 22 of Old-Fashioned

I nodded and then chuckled, “That fucker. Thought he was trouble.”

She snickered, “So yeah, that’s how I came out here, and the rest as they say is history.”

“I’d love to have met that woman and make her a drink,” I told her as I pulled my plate closer to me.

She smiled, “She would have liked that. But with that drink, she would have looked deep inside you and parted you with some of her wisdom.”

I chuckled, then opened a packet of mayo, dumped it on my plate, and grabbed the ketchup, and added it.

Using a fry, I swirled it around as she ate a fry.

“What was something she’s said to you?” I popped the curly fry in my mouth.

“There’s a lot of things, but I think what she told me on my sixteenth birthday has really resonated inside of me. She said, Dearie, every girl needs something beautiful. You’re already beautiful but this is to always remind you that beauty is only skin deep. I want you to always remember that you are gorgeous on the inside.”

I nodded, yeah, that was damn good advice, “What did she give you?”

She smiled and pulled a heart-shaped locket from inside her t-shirt. “This. I never take it off, unless I’m sleeping, or I take a shower. I had it protected in my shirt while we worked on her yard.”

“May I?” I asked her.

At her nod, I took the locket, opened it up, and had to smile at what I knew to be a younger version of the beautiful woman sitting across from me and a woman in her mid-sixties looking grand. “It’s extremely nice.”

She winked at me, then grabbed her burger, took a bite, swallowed, and then “So,” she tilted her head to the side, “Can I ask you a question?”

I dipped my fry in the mayo-ketchup mixture she had turned her nose at and nodded, popped the fry in my mouth, chewed, swallowed, and then said, “Ask away.”

She grinned, “What’s the meaning behind Virgin Mary’s?”

“So, back in the late early seventeen hundreds, apparently, witches weren’t found and slain in only the Salem Witch Trials. Anyway, back then, there used to be this little shack and inside lived a young woman. Who was otherworldly in beauty and looks. The tale goes, that by laying your eyes upon her face, a man could fall prey to evil. And it was only evil if they had committed a crime before. The crime they committed; it would happen to them. A lot of the men back then, for fear of what would happen to them, committed suicide. And since all the men back then were assholes, most of them anyway, she remained a virgin for all her days. And her name was Mary.”

She looked at me, blinked, and then muttered, “That’s so sordid and yet melancholy at the same time.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it really is. Isla was going to have some slogans made for shirts, but she hasn’t yet.”

“I’m so helping her. That sounds like fun.” She giggled.

And damn if it wasn’t music to my fucking ears.

And with that, we talked a little more, nothing heavy, but keeping it light, and by the time we ate our food, I had to ask her, I just had to, “Now, tell me, where did you put all that food?”

She chuckled, “In my ass.”

I shook my head at her and tagged the check, I was about to pull two twenties out of my pocket, when she asked, “How much is it?”

I looked at her, and saw she had some cash in her hand, “You put that away. You're with me, you never pay.”

She shook her head, “Abel, that’s not right. You didn’t plan for me to eat with you.”

I shrugged my shoulders, “First, sometimes, the best-laid plans can get fucked up. Second, a lot of the time, it’s for the better. Third, I would have rather eaten with you than those knuckleheads. And fourth, you can take the final matter up with my father. He laid a lot of wisdom down on me and my brothers. A woman never pays. She never opens her own drink. And she never opens her own door. So, unless you want to offend him, and your guardian angel, you won’t say another word on the matter.”

And that alone told me the kind of person Birdie was.

Because she showed respect.

She put her money away and didn’t say another word about it.

I stood up then after placing the money on the table, offered her my hand, and helped her from her chair.

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