Juliette: That would probably be best.
Setting my phone aside, I take a fortifying sip of my soda before starting again, determined to get some words on paper, metaphorically speaking.
For the next fifteen minutes, I write. And it’s… not bad. Not good either, but at least it’s something. I reward myself with a cherry Starburst, sucking on the sweet and tart candy as an idea comes to me.Oooh, he could—
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.
With closed eyes, I do my best to ignore the door and concentrate. It’s right there on the tip of my brain. Something to do with the way he uses his tongue to—
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.
“Ugggh, fiiiiine,” I whine, stomping my feet in a mini hissy fit before answering my front door to find my elderly neighbor standing there.
“Ms. Mijares, how are you?” I ask, suddenly remembering what I was going to write before I’d been interrupted.Please hurry, Ms. Mijares, before I forget again.
“Juliette dear, do you think you could run me to the market? I need to pick up a few things. I haven’t gotten my new glasses since my cataract surgery, and I’m not supposed to drive yet.”
I hesitate for only a second. Ms. Mijares is an absolute sweetheart, and none of her grown children live nearby, so I really can’t say no, right?
“Of course. Just let me grab my shoes and purse.” After seating her on my couch, I jog to my writing nook, which is really just a spare bedroom, but writing nook sounds so much fancier. I quickly jot down a few words in my notebook so I’ll remember the idea I had, and then we’re off to the market.
When Ms. Mijares said she needed to get a few things, what she meant was,I need to buy half the store.We spend an hour and a half in the Mexican market while she lingers over cheeses, chiles, tortilla masa, and vegetables.
I smile and do my best to be helpful, even though I’m as antsy as a chihuahua on crack. My deadline is a dark cloud over my head, raining down huge drops of anxiety.
“Thank you for the help. You’re such a good girl,” my neighbor says when I help her carry the bags of groceries into her house. “You want to help me make tortillas?”
I love making torts with my sweet neighbor, but if I don’t do some work on my book, I’m never going to get it done on time. I’m already way behind.
“I would love to, but I have a lot of work to catch up on. You know, for the summer reading program,” I kind of fib. We do have a reading program for the kids at the library where I work, but I’ve had that planned for months.
I’ve only shared my side career as a romance author with a few people in town, and my seventy-year-old neighbor isn’t one of them. Not that mature women can’t read romance, but Ms. Mijares definitely isn’t the type. She once told me she couldn’t finish a John Grisham novel because the language was, and I quote, “just way too foul for me.”
If she read one of my books, she wouldn’t make it ten pages before she’d feel compelled to set it on fire and pray for my eternal soul while sprinkling me with holy water.
“That’s okay,” she says with a kind smile. Her big, brown puppy-dog eyes look up at me as she pats my arm. “I just thought it would be nice to have some company. I’ll bring a fresh batch over to you when I’m done.”
Gahhhh! Why is she so darn nice?And why am I? Because the next thing I know, I hear myself saying, “You know what? I can stay for a few minutes.”
Two hours later, I enter my house with warm tortillas separated by foil, a bowl of freshly made salsa, and a container of Ms. Mijares’s orgasmic queso blanco.
“At least I don’t have to waste time cooking dinner,” I tell myself, slathering some butter on a tort and dipping it into the salsa. I finish two of them and am contemplating a third when my phone rings. I smile at my little sister’s name on the screen.
“Jordie!What’s up?”
“Hey, Juli. I was wondering if you could swing by and pick me up tonight. I don’t have a lot of gas in my car.”
“Pick you up for—” I start to ask when it hits me.Dad’s birthday.I quickly cover with, “Of course I can. Um, what time did we decide?”
“You forgot, didn’t you?” She sounds amused, and I check my reflection in the mirrored surface of the toaster. I have a chunk of strained tomato in my hair.
“Hush your mouth, or I’ll write you as the villain in my next book,” I warn, swiping at the red stain, which only serves to smear it.If I can ever get to work on the damn book.
“That’s cool with me. And we’re supposed to be at the restaurant in an hour, dingbat.”
Her nickname doesn’t bother me because it’s true. I’m the quintessential dingy blonde. Not stupid, mind you. I’ve got a brain; it just tends to go in a million different directions at once, leaving me with stretched deadlines and salsa in my hair.
“Does Xander want to ride with us too?” I ask, referring to our brother who goes to the same college as Jordie.
