Page 13 of From Rivals to I Do

“Ow!” I hear a whine drift up from the floor, and my eyes glance from my light blue button-up and down toward the sound to see a

rather beautiful woman sitting there on the tile floor. She’s about my age, no, younger, I think. . . equally covered in pie, and the rest of

it is crumbled all around her in clumps. Immediately, I feel terrible. Her tight-fitting, red and white dress no doubt completely ruined

by the mess I’d caused.

She must be new, I think to myself as I realize I’ve never seen her face before. No one dresses like that around here. Even her hair

reminds of the old pin-up mags my grandpa used to have in the garage, pin curls and all. Almost too Hollywood to ever be from Texas.

She’s. . . gorgeous.

“Ms., I am so sorry,” I say as I put out my hand to try to help her up. “I can give you the money for a new dress or some dry cleaning or

something.” But her piercing brown eyes leer at me from beneath her doe-like lashes with an icy stare as she smacks my hand away from her, her eyes glazed over with tears.

“What is wrong with you?” she exclaims, pushing herself up to her feet and pulling off her leather gloves, doing her best to brush what

she could off the front of her—anything that wasn’t stuck to the fabric of her dress.

The southern twang in her voice revealed that she was, at the very least, from the south. But her attitude was certainly not the good

old calm, cool, and collected tone I’d come to know in my fifty-four years. In fact, it caught me off guard.

“Don’t you know how to look where you’re going?” she asks, her voice seeming to become more and more angry by the second.

“I said I was sorry,” I reply, and she shakes her head.

“That’s what you men always think solves it, huh? Sorry, as if that ever means a dang thing,” she spits and I’m taken aback by one, her

sudden affront to all men just from an accident and two, her entire demeanor in general.

Maybe she’s having a bad day, I think to myself as I try to figure out a way to diffuse the situation. “Listen, Ms., I don’t want any trouble

here, I promise. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

She begins to sob, shaking her head. “The only right thing you could have done was watch what you were doing, you. . . you. . . lunkhead!”

“Lunkhead?” I repeat, flabbergasted at her escalation. “Lady, it was an accident, it’s not the end of the world.”

“Oh, can it!” she says. “If you hadn’t been eyes deep into your phone, looking at God knows what, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“I was looking at my son’s list of things he needed,” I reply, my voice raising as I can feel the prickles of anger begin to burn in my

arms. “As if you never made a mistake in your life.”

Suddenly, her face goes from angry to upset, and she begins to sob, like she’s a living mood swing. “Screw you!” she manages to

choke out, and before I can get another word in edgewise, she’s already stomping toward the front door, her pumps clicking loudly

with every step.

“Jeezum crow,” I hear a voice say behind me, “that was intense.”

“What a nut job,” I say as a teenage boy from the checkout comes over and hands me some paper towels to wipe off my shirt.

“Thanks.”

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