One more awkward lunch could end it, and I hoped this one act would redeem the mistakes I’d made in not blocking her to start with. Give them purpose, you know?Gee, if I’d blocked her, she would never have offered my ring back, and I would have lost it forever. Good thing I let her keep bothering me and causing strife with my jealous husband!
No one wants to be in the wrong. I’m as fallible and mortal as the next guy. I’d made mistakes. I wanted to shine them with meaning and tie a positive bow on them to show I’d done the right thing after all. I wanted my ring back. I wanted it over.
My phone had grown noticeably hotter. I typed in a reply but it refused to send. It might have sputtered into the system after the fourth attempt.“Where?”
Whether she’d gotten my message, or she’d just decided to send the information and hope for the best, I didn’t know.“Olde World Bagel on Lake. Noon. I’ll get a table outside if there is one.”
“I’ll be there,”I tried to reply.
Then I prayed to the phone gods as I swapped over to Jackson’s texts and typed out a hasty message.“Joan has my grandfather’s ring. Meeting her for lunch @noon Olde World Bagel on Lake to get it back. Wanted you to know. I love you.”
One of my students came up to my desk. “Mister Hendrick? Can you help me with something?” she asked.
I looked up from watching the progress bar on the message. There shouldnothave been a progress bar on a short, text-only reply, but my phone hates me. “Sure, Caitlin. What is it?”
She’d lost her train of thought in favor of staring at my phone. “Mister Hendrick, you need to take that to a phone shop. It isn’t supposed to be swelling up like that. It’s dangerous.”
A quick glance at my phone showed me why she’d forgotten her question. The battery pack had started to pull away from the phone. That distortion I’d doubted I’d seen no longer left any room for denial. It had grown into an obvious prominence in the time it had taken to send a few messages.
It seemed my phone was as sick of Joan’s shit as I was.
* * *
I sent my class to lunch early so I could stop at a phone store on the way to meet Joan. The tech there confirmed what Caitlin had said: a bulging, overheated battery is hazardous and holy shit, you kept that in the pocket next to your junk, sir? You’re lucky it didn’t send your frank and beans into orbit.
Comforting. Very comforting. They took my phone away and offered to put me on the priority replacement short list. I told them not to worry about it, since I had an appointment to provision a military supply phone the next day. I asked if they could pull my data off the old one. The tech looked at me like I’d asked him to mold a Fleshlight out of plastic explosives. Guess not.
Olde World Bagel sat on the end of a strip mall. The tiny shop has a few tables indoors, and a couple of metal mesh tables outside for nicer weather. Joan had taken one of those. A couple of white-paper food packages sat in front of her, wrapped bagel sandwiches and tart dill pickle wedges. She’d gotten two drinks, too, pre-empting my plan to take the ring and exit, pursued by bear.
She would have looked beautiful, if I’d had eyes for her. Joan has no problem turning heads. Not just her rich brown hair, or her toned body that requires gym time as a sacrifice for its slenderness. It’s the way she carries herself, the confidence and fearlessness about owning her sensuality. I’d always appreciated that, but especially in the times just after the accident with the Jeep.
I’d felt like a broken man. Joan had seen past that. She’d worn her attraction to me on the surface and that, in turn, had coaxed my self-worth back out of hiding. Joan had reminded me I had a right to want, and to be wanted. If not for what came after, I would have loved her forever for that.
Probably because I never would have met Jackson. Joan had taught me I had a right to desire. Jackson had taught me I had a right to be myself without shame. Joan had used her lesson to get what she wanted, but Jackson had set me free.
“Hey, Bastian,” Joan said, with a smile that had once melted me.
I couldn’t look at it now without seeing the trap’s jaws behind it. “Hi, Joan. Can I please have my grandfather’s ring back?”
A testy frown turned her lips down. “Could you just sit down and have lunch? Please? I know you’ll end up hungry if you don’t eat now, because you’re running late. I wondered if you were coming at all.”
“You didn’t wonder that. You knew I would.” I sat in the metal chair. My hip immediately protested. Physical therapy had eased a lot of my symptoms, but metal chairs suck no matter how many exercises you’ve done.
“I’d started to wonder.”
“I sent you a message that I’d be here.”
She held up her phone. My texts marched down her screen. All but the last two I’d tried to send, anyway. “No, you didn’t.”
I swore. “My phone finally died. I guess the message didn’t send.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.” Again with the smile. She knew me, or thought she knew me, and I’d told her more than once how I loved it when she smiled at me. “How have you been? I hear you got married. I admit I’ve got some mixed feelings about that. I’m glad you’re happy, but-”
“Joan, please stop.” I held up both hands to fend off more of her words. “I can’t with this. Dana has hounded me for weeks. She showed up and started a fight with my husband last night.”
Joan turned big eyes on me. “She did? That’s such a shame.”
“Cut the act. I’m not stupid. She would have told you, and we both know it. Hell, maybe you sent her. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.” I settled both hands palm-down on the table in front of me. “These games are beneath you and are insulting to me. We are theoretically adults. Can we act like it for the next ten minutes? Set the nonsense aside and end this like grown-ups?”