Chapter 1

I was having my groceries checked out when I noticed, and I mean really noticed, the bag girl helping with my order. I had seen her around the store before, but maybe not this closely. There was something fetching about her. Something that caught my eye, and I couldn’t let it go. I hate to compare it with the couch I bought last year, but that couch, the matching loveseat, and the recliner that go with them, are now in my house. I guess I don’t hate to compare, I just shouldn’t. Thing is, I wasn’t shopping for a couch that day. I just needed some different end tables and lamps. But they caught my eye, and here I was, and it was happening again.

She was remarkable. Cute with the promise of beauty. Pretty with the promise of glamorous. I looked at the nametag. Gloria A.

“Darlene, would it be OK if young Gloria here helped me to my car with my groceries. I won’t keep her, I promise.”

“Of course, Miss Courtney. No problem. Gloria, can you carry Miss Courtney’s things out, hon?’

The smile she gave back to Darlene was gorgeous. Such a beautiful girl. Darlene, an older woman, fifties probably, always smiled. Genuine smiles. Not the fake, icckky, businesslike smiles. It was hard not to return them. In any case, Gloria A nodded and returned Darlene’s with a beautiful, bright, genuine smile of her own.

When all the groceries had been rung up, and in the bags, Gloria placed them all in a cart and as I put my card in the machine and paid for the purchase, Gloria started to push the cart toward the door. I followed her when the transaction was finished, admiring the beautiful little blonde girl in the bottom enhancing miniskirt, ankle socks, Keds, and her little tailored uniform shirt, highlighting her slim hourglass figure and small but still substantial bust. I finally got my card back into my billfold and succeeded in not tripping over anything, or worse yet anyone, on the way out. That would have been a disaster in my work clothes, a sleeveless silk blouse, tight above the knee pencil skirt and four-inch pumps.

At the time, I was a five-foot seven-inch tall, thirty-five-year-old spinster. I’d never married. I’ve had boyfriends, girlfriends, and alittleofbothfriends, but never found that one. The one that has everything. At the time, I didn’t know what to call it. Everyone else calls it love. I hadn’t found it. Lord knows it wasn’t from lack of trying. I started to think I was an ugly woman, until that very day. Then things changed. When they did, my world was turned upside down. Figuratively, but wildly and completely.

When we got to my car, I popped the trunk and watched as she placed the bags back there. When she bent over, I saw the tops of her thighs and I knew I was in lust. The point was, however, I wasn’t looking for lust. I can find that anywhere. I wanted to know what love was. Maybe I never would. I wasn’t going to stop trying, though.

“Miss Courtney?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Why do you look at me like steak and potato?” She smiled. “I think maybe you try to eat me or something. Am I seeing wrong? Before, I have boyfriend in Kiev. He is looking like that, but he is no more.”

“Oh, God, Gloria, honey, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m so sorry. I just ... I just...”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You are beautiful and nice and your smile ... Your eyes ... I’m sorry. I’ll...” She interrupted me.

“Thank you. You take things home and in fridgerador. It is warm. You come back someday, yes? Gloria will be here for you look at.”

I handed her my card. Patricia Courtney, Vice President, Courtney Holdings, LLC. It had my number and my email address on it.

“Your accent, honey. Where? Kiev, you said?”

“Yes, close to Kiev, in Ukraine, Miss Courtney. Now I am live with my uncle and his mistress until I become US citizen and go to school again.”

“If I come back, Gloria ... Uhmm, Gloria ... What does the A stand for, Gloria?”

“Alexandrov, Miss Courtney.”

“Please call me Patty, Gloria Alexandrov. To hell with this. What time do you get off, Gloria, and if I come back, can I buy you dinner or something so we can talk?”

The little tart giggled. She giggled at me. So I did, too.

“I am afraid, Miss Courtney. Patty. You are beautiful, and I see your car. You are beautiful and rich of means. I am a peasant girl from Ukraine who came to live with uncle and his woman to help them in house. I am nothing, and you are ... Society? Popular? What is it I am trying to say?”

“I am none of those things. I help my father run our manufacturing company, and that’s all I am. You are far prettier than me. Now, back to my question. Yes or no? If I come back, will you go out to dinner with me?”

“I am not prettier than you. You are the gorgeous they say. I am off at ten in pm. Is that too late at night for you to come for me?”

“If you will talk with me, hell no, it’s not too late. I’d come at two in the morning, but it would narrow our selections for dinner. Gloria, I’m sorry for being this forward, but I see something ... I feel something, and I need to know. I need to know if there is something there.” I reached my hand out and took hers in a touch. It wasn’t a shake, it was more of a manual embrace. I have no idea why, or how it happened, or what the hell I was thinking, but I raised her hand to my lips, and I kissed her knuckles. I flushed. Burning all though my neck and chest. I could feel it. If she saw it and knew anything about women, she could own me. “Ten. I will be back at ten. Gloria, do they let you take tips?”

She nodded with one of her brilliant smiles, so I handed her a twenty and told her I would be back in a few hours. Then I really shocked myself. “Thank you, Gloria Alexandrov, for giving me this opportunity.” That was not like me. Normally I would be telling the other person they were lucky I was giving them the time of day. Yes, I’m probably a stuck-up bitch. Certainly not my worst fault.

She walked away, pushing the cart, as I stood there. Just as she was going back into the store, she turned, looked at me and gave me, just me and me alone, one of those brilliant smiles, and waved with her fingers. I need to go change. Quickly.

I got into my SL63, kicked off my pumps, and drove home. Thankfully I was able to concentrate enough to get everything where it belonged. I almost put the butter in the pantry. This little Gloria girl was getting to me, and I didn’t understand it. Was it chemistry? Was it visual? The way she sounded? It happened before I heard her accent, so it’s not that. It has to be chemistry. I’ve been out with beautiful women, and men, really. I dated the homecoming queen from our local high school a few years back. It’s not her looks. Oh, she was twenty-two at the time. I was thirty. Not a problem. I wonder how old Gloria is. She looks like early twenties or so. Around that, anyway. It should be OK.

I showered and changed, being very careful not to do anything more. My hair was clean and still looking all right, so I used my poof and the Dove and was careful not to linger. Then I had a decision to make, and I decided to go natural. I needed to know if this was what I thought it might be. I wore little cuffed shorts, high heeled sandals, and a T top. I had a little sweater if I needed it, but it was late May, the twentieth, just two days before my thirty-fifth birthday, to be exact, and I didn’t think I’d freeze to death. I touched my lashes up with a little mascara and applied some barely there dusky pink lip gloss and looked at the clock. Eight o’clock. Shit! Why does time go by so slowly when you’re looking forward to something and so quickly when you’re trying to relish in something and you don’t want it to?

I puttered around the kitchen, watching the news and cleaning out the ‘fridgerador’, as Gloria referred to it, read an article in the paper on corruption in Ukraine, and before I knew it, it was nine-forty-five. Finally! The sandals had ankle straps I didn’t want to bother with, so I carefully backed out of the garage, thumbed the button to close the door and nonchalantly drove to the store. She came out the front at ten oh five, wearing a smile. I got out, went around and opened the door to let her in. I did so, holding her arm to set her down in the vehicle, then went back to my seat.

“Thank you, Patty. This really is pretty car. I am fraid. Afraid, sorry. I will need to talk to you and to tell you things about Gloria Alexandrov that a pretty woman like you might not want to know.”

“Hush. Over dinner. Nothing you could say right now, short of being a murderer, and not quite done with your work tonight, would make me change my mind about wanting to get to know you.”

“No, Patty, that is not a problem. I have killed a chicken only. I did not like it and I was made not to have to do it again. Now I buy them in the plastic and put on the stove. No blood, no feathers. Like normal American girl.”

I had to laugh. I’d never killed a chicken. She was right. Normal American girls don’t kill chickens. Yes, I know there is the one percent of us women who grow up on farms and hunt and weed their gardens and kill chickens and live wonderful free lives, but that’s not normal. It’s better than normal to grow up with that kind of an education, but it’s not normal.

“You laugh?”

“Hush. Over dinner. God, you’re cute.”

I pulled us up to IHOP, the trusty 24 hour one by the interstate, parked, went around for her. I handed her out and walked her in, again holding her arm, to get us a table. The hostess seated us and for God’s sake, I can’t tell you why, but I put my hand in the small of her back and walked her to the table. I am a woman. I am a girl. I am not a dyke. I am not masculine. I hate spiders. I will move out of my house if a mouse moves in. I put my freaking hand in the small of this little woman’s back and walked her to the table. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but when she felt my hand, she turned, looked up at me, and smiled. She noticed. Shit!shit!shit! Gloria Alexandrov now owned Patricia Courtney. If she knew anything at all about relationships, she owned me. SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!

“Miss Patty,” she started as the waitress poured us coffee and said she’d be back in a minute for our orders, “I need to tell you, then, if nothing else I want to be your friend. You are beautiful. You are kind. You are generous. Did I say you are pretty?” She giggled. Cute giggle. “Patty, I...” I interrupted her.

“Let me speak, Gloria, then you can. Please. I don’t care. I don’t even know what you are going to say, but I don’t care. I know you’ve just gotten to this country. I can tell that, and you alluded to that. Not a problem. I will tell you this. I have never been married. I have never found the person I want. I have also never approached anyone like I did with you today. I have been approached. A lot. I have always thought it was for other reasons than my looks.” Gloria held her hand up.

“If you wear the baggy jean pants? And the t-shirt with big sweater and old brown boots, you will get date. It is not your money, Miss Patty. You are a beautiful woman. I am not. I am try to be a woman since I am six years. I have never been a good boy, but always I feel like I am the good girl. I am sorry to interrupt you, but you need to know before any more is being said. I am transition girl. You understand that?”

Worse than putting my hand in the small of her back, I stood, went to the other side of the booth, knelt with one knee, put my hand behind her neck and pulled her to me for a kiss. Not a salacious, wet sloppy kiss, but a clean, chaste, full, lover’s kiss. Swiping my tongue across her attractive, full, desirable lips. Yes, I know that was redundant. Those were my thoughts. I didn’t care. I knew I didn’t care. “I don’t care. I’m having an omelet. What would you like, dear?”

“The special? Two of every one they have? It looks good to me. You want to see me again, Patty?”

“God, yes. When can we spend time together? A date.”

“Sunday, I do not work this week. Can you take me then?”

I handed her a card and asked her to put her address and phone number on it. She asked for my phone.

“You are old fashioned woman. I like that.” She put her address and phone number in my phone. “Call me, Patty, please.”

“I will, Gloria, there really is something...” She interrupted me.

“Yes, I know. I want that, too, Patty. You are a most pretty and nice woman. I mean now. Call me now. We will check the phone can call.”

“Oh. OH!” All I could think at that point was how freaking giddy and stupid I was acting under the influence. Under the influence of Gloria Alexandrov. Stupid Patty, stupid Patty. I called her. It worked fine.

The waitress took our orders and left us with water, and more coffee. She said she’d be right back with our juice.

“Would you like me to put on the phone, the map to find home of Uncle Sergei?”

“Not necessary, baby doll. My car will get it.”

“Yes. That is a very nice car, Patty.”

We talked about very little, and yet everything, while we waited, then while we ate. Afterwards, I asked what she’d like to do on Sunday.

“Can we go to a dinner and a movie? Eat popcorn and drink soda? That is the American date, yes?”

“Absolutely. Do you want to eat before or after?”

“Before, so the popcorn does not ruin the dinner, even though I understand the popcorn is costing more than the dinner.” We both giggled at that. I love this woman, I swear I do, and I don’t even know her.

“Gloria, do you have a middle name?”

“I have two. Anna and Maria. I am born Yuriy Andrey Maximilian Alexandrov. I have changed to Gloria Anna Maria Alexandrov when I am just twelve years and last year I come to America with that name.”

“I love your name. Names. I love your names.”

“Your middle name is?”

“Ann. No a, no e. Just plain old Ann. Patricia Ann Courtney. Gloria, why are you so willing and ready to have a date with a woman. Aren’t you a woman? Is this something you desire?”

“You call the woman who likes the woman the lezbeen. I am lezbeen. I have a boyfriend in Kiev, and he is mean, and he tries to take me before I want to and before he knows I am not born the woman. This is why now, I tell you early, so you do not beat me, or rape me, or...”

“OH, God, no! Did that happen to you, Gloria?”

She hung her head and nodded. “I fought back, and he is no more. And my auntie has sent me to my Uncle Sergei to live. Can start new life in great country. No one will want to be with the girlboy that killed Alexi Popov, son of mayor of small town near Kiev. That is my story.”

“What time on Sunday?”

“Are you the brave woman, Patty, or are you the stubborn woman? You do now to try to save Gloria?”

“No, Gloria. There is something. I need to know what it is, but I am not asking you out on a date for pity’s sake, nor to fool myself into thinking I’m doing something good for someone. This is entirely selfish, and about me, and what I think I feel around you. No ulterior motives save the ultimate one. If you are what I think you are, I want you. Period. We’ll see. What time on Sunday?”

“I think Gloria understands. Ten o’clock. We will walk in the park and talk. I will tell you my fears. You can tell me your dreams. Dinner. I have been at the Roadhouse place one time. I like it if you do. If you want something else, please take us there. I just tell you that so if you ask me for the opinion?” I nodded. “Then you will have to pick a movie. I do not know any movie. And, Patty, I work at the store. I have very little money and what I have, I use for clothes and soap and things. I give money to Sergei to keep me. We are not people with money.”

“No problem. I have that part covered. Ten o’clock on Sunday. I want to know everything, though. I have to know everything.”