Chapter 107

I left the flower shop and headed home, hopeful that the blue rose would help and worried that it might not. I was beginning to see that men and women were two different species. Or at least Jill and I were.

When I'd spoken without thinking, I'd told her the truth. Mary was not in the habit of leaving things around. Not so much because she was afraid I'd do something without thinking, although that may have been part of it, but because she and I had had it drilled into us to show consideration for each other. Not that Jill was inconsiderate. But, she was used to having a bathroom all to herself that was probably triple the size of the one we now shared. When she left a bra or stockings or a hairbrush somewhere, she was the only person she had to worry about. I'm sure the last thing John would want to do was invade her bathroom.

If Jill had told me that there was laundry in the shower and to be careful, I might still have robotically turned on the water and gotten her bra wet. But it wouldn't have taken a blood curdling scream and getting knocked into the sink for me to realize it. I would have said "Oh, Shit" and been frantically trying to turn it off before the first drops hit the floor. I knew one thing for sure; I would search the shower for obstacles before I turned on the water from now on.

So far, I'd survived well with the women around me. Mary and I just watched out for each other. It was second nature, but it was probably the result of being corrected when we were younger. And Mom was pretty much the same. I had no idea what went on in her bathroom. That was her space and neither Mary nor I went in there.

There had been some problems when Sara first came to live with us, but they were taken care of within the first few days. In fact, Jill was one of the major complainers when Sara needed straightening out.

Jill and I were both going to have to learn some things and suffer some compromises if we were going to come out of living together alive. It occurred to me that maybe I would have been better off getting a new bra than the rose. But I had no idea what made one bra different from another, so that probably would have made things even worse.

I pulled into my driveway next to Mom's Lexus. Wanda's car was nowhere in sight. That could mean she'd been and left, they hadn't arrived yet or Jill had given up on me and wasn't coming home. I said a little prayer that she would be waiting for me.

The door was locked when I got upstairs and Bozo glanced up at me as he headed down to take care of business. Jill was not in the apartment. I went into the kitchen, put the vase on the table, poured myself some ice tea and sat down to drink it. Bozo came back in and sat down next to me. He leaned into my leg as I scratched him behind the ear.

It took 4 rings before I realized the ringing I heard was in our apartment. It took another four to find the phone, sitting on the headboard in our bedroom.

"Hello?"

"Hi."

"Hi Jill. What are you doing?"

"Calling you, Silly. Is it OK for me to come home?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I wasn't very nice this morning."

"Jill,... Where are you?"

She giggled. "Downstairs. Can I come up?"

"Jill, it's your place as much as it is mine."

"OK, I love you."

I started to say "I love you," but heard dial tone before the words were out of my mouth.

I hung up the phone and walked into the living room only to have Jill jump in my arms. She grabbed me around the neck and wrapped her legs around my waist. I had no choice but to put my arms around her. Her mouth clung to mine and we kissed until we had to break to breathe.

"This isn't what I was expecting when I got home."

"It's a good thing you didn't get home sooner or you wouldn't have gotten it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. So, I got something for you."

She went over to the chair closest to the door and picked something up. She must have thrown whatever it was down as she came into the apartment. She held it out to me, a smile on her face.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"I don't know. What do you think it is?"

"Reese's Pieces?"

She smiled a little more. "Yep."

"How did you know?"

"Mary and I had a little talk this afternoon. Actually, a big talk."

Reese's Pieces have to be my most favorite candy on the planet. I remember watching Gertie use them to lure E.T. when I first saw that film and pointing at the screen saying "I want those." Mom picked up a bag at the 7-11 on the way home and I was hooked. It was so bad that Mom had to hide any if she got them for Halloween, just like she hid my Christmas presents when I was a kid. And she still didn't trust me to hand them out to the trick or treaters.

This was a piece of Saran Wrap with a handful of candy in it, tied together with some ribbon.

"Where did you get them?"

"I stole them. Or borrowed them. They were for Sunday when the kids come around. I have to replace them."

She took my hand and pulled me over to the couch.

"You know I was really mad at you this morning, don't you?"

"Yeah, I kinda got that. I didn't realize how bad it was until I talked to Sara at school. You know, we forgot to take them this morning."

She giggled for a second or two and held her hand up to her mouth.

"I didn't even think about that."

"Me either."

"Anyway, I had this big speech all ready to give you when you got home about how thoughtless you were and how you didn't care about me. First, Wanda started telling me that maybe there were two sides to the story and it was possible you weren't the most terrible guy in the world. I didn't want to hear it and I sent her off as soon as I got home.

"So, I came up the driveway and Mary saw me. I must have looked really mad because she asked me who I was planning to kill. I told her I was thinking about you and she invited me inside and we sat and talked for an hour or so. She made me think. A lot."

"OK."

"We sat down and she asked me why I was thinking of killing you. I lit into her, telling her all the things I'd planned on telling you. She just sat there and let me bitch and moan for a good five minutes and then she said 'What did he do?'

"So, I went on about how I washed my bra to wear to school and you turned on the water and got it all wet. And then she said 'Did you tell him not to use the shower?'

"I was all set to tear into her some more and then all I could do was tell her no. She just looked at me and smiled."