I turned the open/closed sign around and moved out of the way to let Cindy pass by me. “Have a good night,” I told her.
“You too. Don’t work too hard.”
“I’m just waiting for another sign estimate.” I laughed. “Shouldn’t be too much work at all.”
“See you tomorrow,” Cindy said and was gone.
Jodi showed up, portfolio in hand, moments later. She arrived, much like she did the first time she walked into the salon—with a huge smile on her face.
“Hey there,” she said to me.
“Hi. Come on back to my office.” I locked the front door. “Would you like some coffee? It’s decaf. Or I can make tea.”
“Coffee would be great.” She followed me to the back. I poured two cups and handed her one. I put a small bowl of single serve creamers on the desk. I added two to my cup. Jodi took one.
“Do you take sugar?” I asked her. The packets were in the break room.
“Nope. Just cream.”
“Me too.”
I kept my desk pretty neat and organized but had moved the stacks of papers that I needed to go through to the top of the filing cabinet. The office was small, but minimal furniture made it user friendly. I pulled the more comfortable chair out from the desk and motioned for her to sit. I sat across from her.
“Ready?” She slid several sheets of paper out of her case.
“Hit me.”
“Oooh, didn’t know we were going there.” She laughed.
“Shut up and show me…” I needed to choose my words carefully now, “your ideas for my sign.”
“Sorry.”
She didn’t have to be sorry. I didn’t mind the joke. I just didn’t know how to respond. “You’re fine. No need to apologize.” I didn’t want her to feel bad.
“I brought some photos of my work.” She laid several pictures down across the desk. “Some of these are from Denver.”
I leaned forward so I could see better. “Denver?”
“Yeah. I started my business there. Then started over again here.”
“Wow. These are great.” I picked up one that had the color combination that I wanted. I studied it closer. “You do very nice work.”
“See,” she said. “Extraordinaire.”
“And quite modest too.”
Her smile lit up the office. It was contagious. She showed me her sketches for my sign, and we went over pricing options. The cost was much lower than I expected, and I wondered if she was giving me a price break. In the end we decided on a figure that included a trade for ten haircuts for her and her kids.
“I’m so glad you came by, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the sign when it’s finished. I’m sure you must be anxious to get home to your family,” I said, hoping she could stay and chat a little longer.
She slipped her papers back into her portfolio and glanced at her watch. “I made dinner for them before I left, so they should be set for a while. What about you? Do you have a husband waiting for you at home? Where is your daughter tonight?”
“No husband,” I admitted. “And my daughter has a sleepover with a friend.” That gave me the whole evening to myself. Something I loved and at the same time hated. I hadn’t had a sleepover myself in quite some time. That sad fact of life seemed to echo in my mind much more when I had alone time. While I was perfectly happy with my life—mostly—I missed having someone to cuddle up to at night and share my day with, and yes, I missed the sex. A lot. While I had become very proficient at the art of self-satisfaction it wasn’t, well, very satisfying.
“Not even a hot date for you tonight?”
I laughed. “No. Not tonight.”
“But it’s Friday. Surely a woman as nice as you has the guys lined up around the block waiting to take you out.”
I wasn’t sure if she was messing with me or being sincere, so I just smiled.
“No guys lined up around the block?”
I shook my head.
“I really do find that hard to believe. Anyone special in your life?”
She was being sincere. I could not only tell by the way she asked the questions, I could feel it.
“No. Not right now. Not for a while.” I somehow felt safe telling Jodi. She was just one of those people you knew you could somehow trust. “One of these days. I’ve been so busy trying to keep my daughter on the right track that I just haven’t had the time. Not that I’ve had any offers lately.”
“Must be tough raising a teenager on your own.”
“At times it’s wonderful. No one else to contradict my parenting style. And at times it’s all I can do not to shoot her. No one ever tells you how hard parenting is. I think if we truly had a clue before we have kids then we wouldn’t have them. The human race would have died out many moons ago.”
“Wow. I like your honesty.” She leaned forward as if sharing a secret. “I feel the same way, but all the parents I run into from the kids’ school make it sound like their kids are their whole lives. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids and would kill for them. But you’re right. It is so hard sometimes. And I know what you mean about not having someone contradict your parenting style. Claire and I don’t always agree on the best way to raise the kids—or the dog for that matter,” she added.
“That must be difficult.”
“Sometimes it is. Claire is so great in a lot of other ways. I’m lucky to have her.” She leaned back. “Is your daughter’s father in the picture?”
“No. We were young.” I shrugged. “He was foolish.” My small laugh sounded more like a snort. I had gotten over it all a long time ago. It was Daniel who had missed out. Yeah, Maddie had missed out on a father. But Daniel missed out on being a father and getting to know her. He missed her first steps, her first words, her first time sitting on Santa’s lap. I had been there for all of it and reveled in every minute. Of course, now he was missing the calls from school when she skipped classes and the back talk. So, I experience the good and the bad by myself. “I was a teenager when I had her. He didn’t want any part of it.”
“Wow. So young.”
“We grew up together, Maddie and me. Sometimes I think we still are. I like to think I’m ahead of her on some things.”
Jodi smiled. “Don’t we all. You raised her all by yourself?”
I liked her. She was easy to talk to and seemed to really listen to me. Some of my friends seemed like they were just waiting for me to finish saying something so they could talk. Jodi wasn’t like that as far as I could tell.
“My mom helped a lot. We lived with her for years when Maddie was little. My dad died when I was twelve, so she had plenty of experience raising a couple of kids on her own.”
“That must have been hard losing a parent at such a young age.”
“We did all right, my mom, my sister, and I. Then when Maddie came along it was the four of us for a long time.”
“You’ve never been married?”
“No. Came close once, when my daughter was ten.” I told her about my brush with happiness that came crashing down when my fiancé decided he didn’t want me anymore, a month before our wedding.
“What an ass. I’m so sorry he did that to you.”
“Yeah. He was an ass. I just didn’t see it until that moment. It kind of made me gun-shy. It took quite a while before I dated again.” I rarely shared that story with anyone, let alone someone I barely knew. But somehow it seemed okay to share details of my life with Jodi.