Page 28 of For The Weekend
I toss the kitchen towel over my shoulder after drying my hands with it. “You’re impossible.”
“That’s what my kids say.”
“Which is why we get along so well.” Leonard’s a bit older than my parents, his two adult children in their early forties, and I’ve met both of his sons. They’re great. I even celebrated Passover with the whole family last year.
Though Leonard told me his eldest has been going through some things recently. “Max is still married, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But Ezra’s single?”
Leonard turns to me, his bushy eyebrows raised. “He started dating somebody. Why?”
I shrug, waving off the question.
“Eloise!”
“Don’t you go yelling at me like that.”
He puffs out that amused sound I love, straight from his chest, shaking his head at me. “What’s going on?”
I paste on a grin and fold my hands in front of my chest. “You wouldn’t happen to have plans on October 16th, would you?”
“I don’t exactly have much of a social calendar,” he intones, and I can’t help my laugh.
I love this grumpy guy.
Then again… Do I have a thing for grumpy guys?
I literally shoo the thought away when Leonard elbows me so he can use the sink, my mind having wandered to Roman. Yet again.
“I told you about my cousin’s wedding, right?” I ask, pulling out ingredients to start on pumpkin scones. “Her shower is this weekend, and I know I’m gonna get harassed about not having a date, let alone a boyfriend, and I’m just really tired of hearing it. You know?”
Leonard lets me ramble, both of us working, as I unleash ten minutes of pent-up irritation at my cousin, my aunt, my mother, my situation, my waiting too long to remember I need to buy new shoes for the cute jumpsuit I bought to wear on Sunday. It’s black with daisies all over, wide-leg, and a perfect fit. Except I don’t often wear high heels, and none of my flats look right. I’m in the middle of telling Leonard how I’d reallylike to find some type of tall black sandal, but I’m not sure if I’d be able to with most stores having switched over to winter, when my cell phone buzzes on the counter.
“Speak of the devil,” I murmur and move to tap my pinkie on the screen to ignore the call from my mother, but with my fingers covered in wet dough, I accidentally drop some on the screen, and in my panic about somehow ruining the phone, I swipe the side of my palm on it, answering the damn call instead.
I grit my teeth and flap my hands as Leonard watches me, obviously wondering what the hell I’m doing, as I can hear my mother on the other end of the call. “Eloise? Eloise, are you there?”
“It’s my mom!” I whisper-shout at Leonard, and he wipes his hands off on the closest rag.
“Do you want me to talk to her?” he offers in full volume, and I roll my eyes.
“No, Leonard!”
He sighs, muttering something about me being nutty as I fly around the kitchen, washing my hands and wiping off my phone, all the while planning how I’ll refute the oncoming lecture on any various topics, from my work to my inability to properly answer a phone call.
“Hey, Mom,” I eventually say when I have myself together.
“What are you doing, Eloise?”
“Working.”
“Oh yes,” she says, dragging it out like it’s a chore. “Well, I can never remember. You’re always all over the place, bouncing here and there. I never know when I can call you. Since you never call me.”
I prop my hand on the counter and mentally count to ten before I answer. “I am not all over. I’m at the same place I am pretty much every morning. In my bakery.”
“Well, why don’t you call me?” She skims over the fact that she doesn’t want to acknowledge she’s wrong.
