It’s difficult to keep her on track. “Congrats on your business, Joanne, that’s really awesome in this economy. But can you tell me more about you and Chad? I’m sorta hanging on your words here.”
“Oh, right, right. Let me just—Call me Jo, by the way. No one but my grandma calls me Joanne anymore—Let me just figure out what I have to say. Is he still sleeping?” She peers over a shoulder, then turns back to me. “Alright. So after he tells me he’s gay, and after I tell him it’s okay and I already sort of knew—The real conversation was a lot more in-depth, I’m super summarizing here, sorry—we decided to get an amicable divorce. Our families were the only people we told at the time. About the divorce. Not about the gay thing. No one knows about the gay thing except the people in this house right now, you, me, and Chad himself. Well, and Millie, but she’s a dog. So …” She plucks a cinnamon roll from the plate set on the coffee table. After chomping off a bite of it, she resumes with a dot of frosting dancing at the corner of her lips. “Even though we divorced, we decided to—Mmm, these came out good—stay together anyway. Chad and his mama insisted I stay, since I’ve helped out around—Mmm, really, really good—the ranch over the years when I’m not selling my products. I’m great with the chicken coop. Those chickens love me. I named each of them. One of them’s named Dorothy Gale. Plus, we already settled here in this house together, and neither of us had a special person in our lives to make room for, so we—” She takes another huge bite, then moans. “—we decided—Mmm, really, you can help yourself to one of these if you want, they’re best fresh, really—to just stick together, and to date whomever we please, and to … well … give each other space when we needed it. Which, I guess, this morning is a horrible example of. Again, sorry. You look lovely naked, by the way.” She swallows her bite, licks her lips, then adds, “In other words, we’re totally just basically roommates here, sharing a ranch, husband and wife. Ex-husband, ex-wife, shit! Hard habits die old. Or whatever the dumb saying is. Try one.” She pushes the dish across the coffee table.
I glance down at the arrangement of seven glorious, puffy, glazed cinnamon rolls. The aroma is intoxicating.
My stomach growls desperately.
“Thanks,” I say, taking one.
“I kinda expected to come in and find half of the old wrestling team crashed on the floor. That happens sometimes. I knew they’d be at the reunion. Half the reason I didn’t want to be.” She chomps another bite off her cinnamon roll. Jo clearly likes to talk with her mouth full. “It was a surprise to find you. Not a bad surprise. But a surprise. He always keeps his dates to himself, really private … but if we’re being honest here, I don’t think he dates enough. He’s such a great guy. He deserves someone in his life, someone special. You know what I mean? Mmm, there may not be any rolls left when he finally wakes.” She checks over her shoulder again.
I take a bite of my cinnamon roll.
Either I’m starving to death, or it’s the best goddamned thing I’ve tasted in all of Spruce.
The sweet crispy-on-the-outside and soft-on-the-inside bread.
The spicy bite of cinnamon.
The thick and gooey icing, which drips over my fingers as I clutch the tasty delicacy.
I’m in total heaven.
“See?” She giggles, having noticed my reaction. “I’m a beast in the kitchen.”
I nod. “All I’m saying about these is, if your beauty product business goes under and you open a pastry shop, both Patsy’s Pastries and Billy are gonna have something to worry about.”
“Oh, you! Shush!” She lets out a chirp of laughter. “Actually, no, keep going, I like hearing that. Assertive, remember? Anyway, I don’t want to come between anything you and Chad have going on. I’ve sort of got my own thing going on with … oh, I haven’t said that part yet. Lance, can you keep a secret?” She finishes chewing her bite, then swallows it and leans forward, wide-eyed. “I got a secret I haven’t told Chaddy yet. A big one.”
I swallow my bite, too. Goodness, there’s more?
“I went away this weekend to give Chaddy space to enjoy the reunion and do his thing. He thinks I took the weekend for some kind of beauty product seminar out of town.” She puts a hand to her lips, giggles, and then her face tightens to something deadly serious and her eyes go wide again. “But that’s a lie. I wasn’t out of town for a seminar. Lance, the truth is … I met someone.”
I lift my eyebrows, then absently go for another bite while keeping my eyes glued to hers. This crazy woman might be a total handful, but she is filled with more entertaining, juicy gossip than any daytime soap opera I have ever watched, and I’m stuck on her channel just the same.