Chapter 4

Chloe and Amanda helped me string clear lights through the trees in the backyard for a more festive atmosphere. The former owners had done a good job with the landscaping, trees and shrubs around the perimeter giving privacy while leaving the rest of the space mostly open with a few benches and a small table tucked into a secluded nook. My favorite spot was under a huge cedar tree, a rustic bench wrapping all the way around it. I loved to sit in the shade of the fragrant branches and read.

The food was prepped, the nibbles plated, and I had part of the eight cases of beer I’d bought iced down. There were also eight bottles of wine, half white and half red available for the ladies and at least one man that didn’t like beer. I deliberately left out the hard stuff, wanting everyone relaxed but not trashed. There would be twelve couples plus a few singles, relatives and friends. Chloe was an inverterate matchmaker and she used these parties to try to hook friends up, to varying degrees of success. Amanda thought her hobby hilarious and absolutely refused to get involved in her machinations.

People started showing up and Mark was surprised at the amount of people I knew. If he would have walked with me a little he wouldn’t have been. It was the first time he’d met most of them and ticked him a little when Jim swept me up in his arms and twirled me. Jim was Chloe’s husband and seemed a giant when he stood beside me. He was 6’8” tall and weighed over 300 lbs. and none of it looked like fat. I was 5’4” and weighed 110. He then kissed me on the top of the head and proceeded to rave to Mark what a treasure I was. “If I wasn’t married to Chloe and she was available I’d chase her just for the cinnamon rolls.”

Mark tried to smile but it came out as a grimace. I compared them as I stood there. Mark was 5’10” and weighed 180, the beginnings of a spare tire around his middle. Another reason I tried to get him to walk with me.

Most of the guests had arrived, the drinks flowed, the finger foods consumed, groups doing what they always do in these situations, clustering for conversation before breaking apart to form new ones and talk about different things. Chloe was an avid gardener, and you could look at her yard and tell. it looked like it ought to belong on the covers of magazines. She was promising some of us cuttings from different plants and instructions on how to root them.

Mark and Adam, the guy that gave me the creeps, had disappeared but the back yard wasn’t that large so they had to be around here somewhere. I was into a discussion about the value of fresh vegetables and the girls were promising to take me with them to the local Farmers’ Market next week when we heard it.

“You asshole!”

“Slut!”

It was followed by what could only be the sound of a fist hitting something solid, then a man came out of the little alcove with the table dragging a woman behind him. A woman trying to get her top up. The didn’t say a word as he dragged her past everyone, literally threw her into a car, and spun tires leaving.

Of course we went to investigate to find Mark on the ground out cold. Adam was holding his bleeding nose. His pants were down and he was trying to get them up. His wife took one look and slapped the hell out of him. Then she coldly told him to find somewhere else to spend the night.

She turned to me with a sad look. “Jenny, we seem to have a shared problem. Our husbands seem to be jerks. I love you to death, honey, but I won’t be coming by any more unless I know for a fact your husband is nowhere around. I’ll be leaving now.”

After that the party kind of petered out until it was just me, Amanda, Chloe, and Jim. All of them hugged me and Amanda sighed. “You’re going to be all right, right? Any way you look at it, you have some decisions to make.”

I assured them I would be and they left with stern orders to call them if I needed anything.

So here I was, picking up the hubris of my broken dreams.