Page 10 of Not My Finest Hour

“About an hour, not including cook time.”

“That’s probably why. When we were growing up, she didn’t have an hour to spend making garlic bread for our meal. She’d spend that long on the main dish, but never a side.”

“So, when are you going to tell me about last night?” Fern asks, getting right to the point. I bet she’s been waiting to say that all night since she didn’t even bother to find a decent segue into her question.

“What do you want to know? I met a guy at a bar, he was really nice, we slept together, I ended up staying at his house, and then he dropped me off this morning.” Fern looks at me but stays silent. She takes a bite of her pasta, chews it slowly just to emphasize that she’s the one controlling the conversation, then speaks.

“Is this the first guy you’ve been with since the French guy?”

“Yes. Alain was the last guy I was with, and he left for France four years ago. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Why’d you wait so long to move on? Were you hoping he was going to come back?” Her tone isn’t accusatory. I think she’s genuinely curious to know my reasoning since I doubt we’ve ever really talked about it. Fern and I have never been the type to share all of our secrets with each other. We’ve never been that close.

“Because he told me he’d come back for me, and I thought that what we had was true love.” I look away because the truth hurts, burns even. I waited way too long to move on from Alain. But I was young, naïve, and thought I’d found The One.

Fern drops her fork and gets up from her chair. She motions for me to do the same. Once standing, she wraps her arms around me and holds me tight. The tears I didn’t know I’d cried soak into her shirt, and when we separate, I brush the remaining tears from my cheeks. I’m touched she hugged me. Fern and I may not have always gotten along, and still have our differences sometimes, but I know deep down, she’ll always have my back.

We both take our seats again, and Fern starts in with another question. “This new guy? Are you going to see him again?”

“I kind of alreadydidsee him again.”

Her brows knit together. “How do you mean?”

“I saw him at my doctor’s appointment this morning.”

“So what? Is he a patient there or something?”

“No, he’s a resident there.” I look down at my plate when I say this next part because I’m still embarrassed by the encounter. “And my appointment this morning was for a Pap test.”

Fern’s mouth gapes open, forming an almost perfect O. “So he’s going to be an ob-gyn?”

“I guess so. Although that part didn’t come up last night when we were together. So I was more than a little surprised to see him walk into the exam room as I’m sitting there in a hospital gown on the cold-ass exam table.”

“And you’re not at all weirded out by his chosen profession?”

“Not really. I already see a male gynecologist, so that’s not the part that bothered me. It’s just that when Dr. Tarlton asked me if I was okay having a resident in the room, Justin was the last person I’d expected to see.”

“So now he’s seeneverything, right?” Fern is trying so hard to keep a straight face, but her lip keeps twitching.

“No. Thankfully, Justin was able to leave the room by faking some family emergency.”

“I bet that was a relief for you.”

“It was, but to be honest, if Justin didn’t leave, I wouldn’t have let the exam continue. I would’ve said that I wasn’t comfortable with him being in the room. But he beat me to it.”

“When do you think you’ll see him again? That’s assuming you want to see him again.”

“I do want to see him again. I feel like he and I had a connection that I’d like to explore more.”

Fern gets up from the table and takes my empty plate and hers to the sink. “You need to keep me posted. I want to know how things go with The Doctor,” she says, wagging her brows at the worddoctor.

I get up from my seat and take over at the sink. Fern spent all that time making dinner, the least I can do is wash the dishes. “I’ll keep you posted with The Doctor if you promise to involve me more in your wedding plans. We live together now, and I feel like I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Deal.”

Later, when I’m alone in my room, I send Justin a quick text telling him that I’m free this weekend if he’d like to meet up. Throughout the evening, I check my phone again and again, irritated that none of the notifications coming through are from him. I hope he’s not freaked out by seeing me at the doctor’s office this morning, and there’s another reason for his silence. Hours go by. Down the hall, I hear Fern getting ready for bed, and it’s time I do the same. Right before turning out the light, I check my phone again.

Nothing.

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