Country Love

You don't know them well enough, you're intruding, they're only putting up with you to be nice, they talk about you behind your back.

When I moved here, I joined a gym as my first course of action. I met Chanel Reynolds in the locker room and nervously complimented her leggings. She made a blithe comment about hanging out that evening and I had jumped at the chance.

I don't think she actually meant for me to show up at the bar that night. But I didn't have anywhere else to be, and I had no friends to speak of.

One problem with being a rolling stone, gathering no moss, is that it makes it really tough to gather long term friends.

Chanel had seemed startled to see me that night, but she gamely introduced me to her long-time friends Dayna Howell and Hayleigh Perkins. Nervousness made me drink a little too fast, dance a little too wildly and dance a little too crazily that night and from then on I was in.

I think.

We hung out, anyway. But it was usually me who had to make the plans. Like right now when I sent out a group text, demanding that we go out and eat some real food before I got sent off to Heath County, where chicken-fried steak was considered haute cuisine.

Thankfully, they all said yes. It made me feel that maybe, just maybe, the loneliness that followed me everywhere might finally be over and done with.

"Back to the homestead, then?" Hayleigh grinned at the table of the outdoor cafe I had chosen. She leaned over, poking me in the upper arm with a perfectly manicured fingernail. "Do you have to get your overalls out of storage?"

I rolled my eyes as Dayna and Chanel fell out laughing. "I don't have to worry about that," I sniffed, playing along. "They issue overalls at the airport when you land. Like leis in Hawaii."

The girls burst out laughing again, just as the waiter smoothly stepped in to retrieve our plates. It was a balmy spring evening and the scent of flowering trees could be detected in between the whiffs of exhaust.

Dayna wiped her eyes and discreetly checked her makeup in the reflection of her cell phone. She needn't have bothered. In the few weeks since we started hanging out, I never once saw her with her makeup out of place. She was a girly-girl, from her pink cell phone case right down to her pink Cosmopolitan. "I'm honestly jealous," she sighed dreamily. "Tanner Brock is hot as hell."

"And Mo is totally his biggest fan right?" Chanel teased. "You're a country fan from way back, aren't you Mo?"

"Ugh," I groaned into my appetizer. "Twangy guitars. Kill me."

The girls fell out laughing again, but I didn't join them. Instead I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes for a moment.

Holcum Texas. My family had spent three years there, the longest I had ever lived anywhere so I guess I could call it my hometown. Country girl, just one of the many identities I had tried on over the years.

When everything went to shit in Holcum, I found I needed a new identity, just like always.

City girl was the one I was attempting now. I love it here, I reminded myself as a bus whooshed by, belching out a cloud of black fumes. A car horn blared, echoing off the canyons of the skyscrapers that surrounded us. Dayna, Chanel, Hayleigh, they all grew up here, jaded and used to the hustle and bustle that surrounded us. They were true city girls, so I was trying to follow their example. I would never admit it, but a tiny part of me still jumped when the horns blare.

There were a million indignities in city life. And as God as my witness, I would never admit this out loud, but there might have been a small part of me that missed the slower pace of country living. There were a few good memories of Holcum, like nights out in the back yard with LeeAnne, giggling and being a normal girl.

Normal girl was an identity I never got to wear for long.

My eyes popped back open before I could give away the fact that I was daydreaming. Dayna just said something clever, obviously, and I joined in the laughter, fidgeting in my chair to try to dispel the strange unease that settled in my stomach.

"Well, if you change your mind," Dayna went on, "I have someone I want you to meet."

"Oh?" My ears perked up. "Is he employed?" Dayna was a hopeless romantic, and took my single life as a personal affront to her matchmaking skills. Since I was new in the city, she considered it her job to fix me up with this brother of a friend or that nephew of a colleague and for the most part I allowed it.

I was self-aware enough to know that guys tended to find my outspokenness and - well - my admittedly terrible temper, intimidating. But I had a few rules.

"Gainfully employed," Dayna nodded.

"Have all of his hair?"

"Mmm," she hedged, "it's a little thin, but he styles it nice."

I twisted my lips. "Okay, I'll allow it. How about teeth?"

"Oh come on, really? Would I steer you wrong, Mo?"

"Just checking," I grinned, relaxing and enjoying myself. "How do you know him?"

"Jonathan," Dayna practically swooned when she said her new boyfriend's name and we collectively rolled our eyes, "plays racquetball with him at the gym."

"Racquetball? Is he a time traveler from the eighties?"

Dayna opened her big blue eyes innocently. "He...might be a little bit older than us."

"Ugh, come on Dayna," I sighed. "Spill it. How much older?"

Her eyes darted everywhere before she finally sighed. "Eleven years?"

"That's not too bad," Hayleigh piped up, ready to defend sweet, well-meaning Dayna.

I pressed my lips tightly together. "Uh oh, I know that look," Chanel said warningly. "She’s pissed."

"I'm not pissed," I protested.

"Yeah? You going to go on the date?" Chanel challenged.

"I wouldn't steer you wrong, would I?" Dayna practically batted her eyelashes.

"Er, Jeremy Fatone?" I reminded her.

Chanel and Hayleigh hooted like talk show audience members. "Busted," echoed Hayleigh.

Dayna nearly spat out her drink. "I totally apologized for that, come on Mo," she shrieked. "I had no idea he had a thing for toes." She lowered her lids meaningfully. "And come on, fetishes can be fun!"

"Not when he's stealing my shoes on the first date," I shook my head. "I had to run out of there barefoot. Thank God I was wearing my cheap flats that night."

"Well regardless," Dayna fluttered her hands, dismissing the last disastrous date she set up for me, "this guy is different. He just got divorced and...."

"Divorced too, huh?" I sighed. "Old and divorced. The hits just keep coming...."

"He's not that old!" Dayna squeaked.

"I already said I'd go, Dayna." Then I paused as a worrying thought occurred to me. "Wait, you told him I’m black, right?"

"Riiight," Dayna hedged.

"Oh come on," Chanel butted in. "You can't spring that on people, they get thrown off." Chanel leaned back, touching her tightly braided head. "Don’t you remember what happened the last time? Gotta tell him she's black, Dayna."

"I'll tell him," Dayna sighed, looking irritable.

"I'm serious though," I added. "I'm glad you're looking out for me, babe, but I'm not into hiding things. I am who I am and if they can't handle it...."

"Hell, I can barely handle it," Hayleigh interrupted my tirade by pulling the weariest, most over-it face I've ever seen.

I had to laugh and conceded. "That's my problem, no one can handle it," I moaned.

"Maybe Tanner Brock can handle it?" Chanel laughed. "He can use his lasso to tie you down and then play banjo songs until you give up and start wearing overalls again."