Page 7 of Happy After All

“You know what I mean!” I hiss, looking back over at Nathan, who is now headed down the path that will take him through the courtyard and right past—

“Excuse me, darlin’,” Wilma calls over to Nathan. “Could you help us with something?”

They all like to run their mouths, but Wilma will run it loudly and without shame. I should have known she’d cause me trouble one day.

Nathan looks ... caught in a way I certainly haven’t seen before. Apparently even surly hermits are powerless in the face of requests made by octogenarians. He starts to move in our direction, and I’m at once filled with horror and relief. Relief that he’s a decent human being—as I do think there’s a level of callousness you have to carry to ignore a woman like Wilma—and horror since I never know what to do around him, and I feel that particular brand of not knowing reads as exactly what it is: unwilling attraction.

I don’t have experience with this, and I don’t like it.

Mostly because there’s no ...this. I think he’s attractive, but I’m never going to do anything about it, mainly because he has caution tape all around him, but also I’m not supposed to be thinking about men right now.

“We don’t have a problem,” I whisper as he begins to walk closer to us.

“I’ll think of something,” Wilma says out of the side of her mouth, then brightens. “We need your help fixing the string of lights!” She shouts this, as if suddenly hit with a stroke of brilliance.

She’s lucky it wasn’t an actual stroke. I’m not quite so lucky.

Nathan looks up, and so do the rest of us, and indeed, the string of lights above us is twisted and crossed with the one next to it.

He approaches, and I freeze like a meerkat sensing danger. He looks at me, and our eyes meet, and I think maybe it’s time for me to introduce myself. Then I wonder if out here in the dim light he even recognizes me as the woman from the front desk. I’m mousy brown, after all. While I’m okay with this, I also accept that I don’t stand out.

So I don’t say anything even though he’s looking right at me, and when he looks away, it’s a relief. He reaches up over the table with ease and uncrosses the light string, and I can’t help but notice the way his T-shirt separates from the waistband of his jeans and shows just a little bit of skin.

Then in a moment, he’s done. He leans back, and the air rushes from my lungs in a gust. I’m still a little dizzy when he nods to Wilma. “Better?”

“Yes, very.” She bats her eyes like the coquette she is. “Thank you.”

He turns to walk away, and Lydia chuckles and says under her breath, “Hate to see you go, love to watch you leave.”

I turn to her sharply. “Lydia!”

“What?” she asks, overpronouncing thehin the word. “It’s true.”

“At our age we don’t get embarrassed if we’re caught leering,” Gladys says, her voice deep and no-nonsense. “First of all, no one thinks that’s what we’re doing. Old women couldn’t possibly be sexual. Us sweet old dears.”

“Second,”says Wilma, “even if they did ...”

“Who cares?” Lydia adds cheerfully.

“We’re past the age of caring what anyone thinks,” Gladys says.

“I want that,” I say. “I want to bottle that and make it mine.”

“Sorry, dear,” says Gladys. “I think it’s a thing that takes time, gray hair, wrinkles, heartbreaks, and all kinds of moments when you cared too much. Then one day you realize ... it never got you anywhere you wanted to go. The people who only want you when you bend and twist to suit them don’t stay anyway, and the ones who want you as you are settle in, and so do you.”

I’m far too familiar with people who don’t stay when you can’t bend. I’m much more familiar with heartbreak than they know.

But I left it behind me on purpose. Speaking it out loud would bring it here, and I’ve never wanted that.

“Settle into what?” I ask.

“Yourself.”

That is what I’m trying to do. It’s why I’ve taken my vow of celibacy and all of that.

It hasn’t bothered me once in all this time. It shouldn’t be bothering me now.

It’s just ... him. And he’s a problem I’m having trouble solving.

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