"Hi Brian, what are you wearing right how?" The voice on the telephone was low and rough as if she wasn't quite awake.
"Not much." He answered her, but couldn't figure out who she was. The voice sounded faintly familiar, but he was not sure he knew who it belonged to. Brian wasn't doing much. In fact, he was standing in the bedroom, wearing only a towel around his neck, trying to decide if he wanted to go to bed early, or pull on some sweats, fix a late supper, and then open his briefcase and read for a couple of hours.
"Did you go to the gym tonight?"
"Yeah, but not for long." Brian hadn't felt like doing much more than the regular cardio workout. He'd had a very late lunch and had been lethargic most of the afternoon. However, he promised himself he would make up for it after the weekend. This woman seemed to know his schedule.
"Have you had your shower, yet? Did you shave?"
"Yes-s-s." He answered her questions cautiously. He still could not put her voice with a face. Damn, who was she? Not many women knew he usually shaved at night. Brian had a heavy five o'clock shadow and often slept on his stomach. A full day of stubble bothered him when it rubbed his pillow.
"I thought I'd see if Lugo would fix me some enchiladas. Maybe a margarita would taste good, too. Are you interested?"
Dadgum, this was even worse than he thought. There couldn't be five women who knew Brian liked good Mexican food. Lugo's wasn't the kind of restaurant where you would take a date. It was a hole in the wall, always full of families, and the loud salsa music was worse on Friday nights. For at least fifteen years, Lugo's had been his favorite restaurant when he ate alone, or picked up a meal to take home. This late in the evening would mean an hour waiting for a table. However, an order would be ready much faster when called in or ordered at the drive through window.
Thinking he had a better solution, Brian offered, "I'll do you one better. I'll call in the order and put it on my card. You can pick it up, and I'll make the margaritas."
"Yum," sounded like her consent, but still didn't give him a clue to who she was.
Just to make sure there was no misunderstanding, he added the clincher. "Pack a nightgown."
Her heavy throated giggle did not tell him any more than he knew before she called. "I don't wear a nightgown."
Before Brian could make a comment, at the same time he was staring at his telephone and listening to a dial tone, he felt an erection growing.
Brian pulled on sweat pants, not bothering with shoes, shirt, or underwear; thinking he wouldn't be wearing them very long, anyway. In a few minutes, he made sure his bedroom was neat, picked up some things lying around the living room, and had the blender on the kitchen counter. By the time he found the bottle of margarita mix at the back of the refrigerator, and collected the tequila and the triple sec, he heard his doorbell.
He simply opened the door and stepped back. Okay, so maybe he stood there for a moment too long with his mouth open, but he recovered quickly. If he had looked through the peep hole he would have been a little more prepared. The twenty-something year old young woman who walked into his house, and dropped a small over night bag inside his door, was not what he was expecting.
"Shelly?" Brian knew who it was when she bent over to pick up the large bag of take-out food and her long hair fell over her shoulder. He would have known her with short hair, too.
"Hello, Brian. How have you been?"
Brian mumbled something, but ten seconds later, he could not recall what he said. The memories rushing through his head did not leave much room for short-term memory.
** ** ** **
Six years ago, rather than stay in a hotel, Shelly and her mother had spent a few weeks with Brian, when some repairs had to be made to their apartment after the neighboring apartment had a small fire. At the time, Shelly was an undeveloped fifteen year old and Brian had been in a semi-exclusive relationship with Shelly's mother.
He
thought the relationship was exclusive,
but
Shelly's mother didn't seem to think so. Shortly after they returned to their apartment, Brian broke the two-year relationship and had seen Shelly only once since then. That Karen was seeing other men was not the ultimate reason for the break-up. Karen was a high maintenance woman, with very expensive tastes, who expected frequent gifts, more than her share of attention, and would pout, or become verbally nasty, if she did not get her way.
Brian was a young good-looking bank officer working his way up the corporate ladder when Karen made a concentrated effort to make herself an important part of his life. He wasn't exactly overwhelmed, but he did enjoy being seen with Karen and she appreciated having him as her escort. He represented the bank at city and social functions where she could rub elbows with members of the city's elite social and business circles. The people, particularly the men she became friendly with, benefited her in her career. That she saw those men outside of the social functions was something Brian came to realize slowly and painfully.
** ** ** **
Now, the once undeveloped young woman who was carrying their meal into his kitchen was a very
well
developed woman. Shelly was not much taller than she had been as a gangling teenager, but her hair was still long enough to caress the top of her hips. She no longer wore bangs across her forehead and the dark brown hair had some dark golden highlights as if she had spent many hours in the sun.
Six years ago, the young girl lounged around his back yard in shorts and an oversized t-shirt, often without a bra. If Shelly tried to do that now, Brian would have every man in the neighborhood, single or married, peeking through the fence to see this luscious young woman.
She was not particularly well dressed. She was wearing sweat pants with the logo of the local high school on the upper thigh of one leg. Her t-shirt listed the dates of the games for last year's football season for the state university. Shelly was also wearing an expensive pair of sneakers but no socks.
"Shelly?" Brian repeated, and then he cleared his throat, either to give himself time to think of what to say next, or because he was still having trouble getting over the surprise of seeing her again. As she walked into the kitchen, he may have stood a little longer that usual, watching this very industrious young woman put their meal on the table.
"Come on, Brian. Let's eat." Shelly walked around the kitchen, as if she knew where to find whatever she needed then she dished food onto plates and put utensils on the table.
"Yeah, let me put on a shirt," Brian suggested as he turned to leave the room.
"Oh, don't bother," Shelly said. "It's not the first time we've had an informal meal like this."
Shrugging his shoulders, Brian went to sit down on what had always been his chair, as Shelly was filling one glass and the blender with ice. "I guess you still want yours on the rocks, huh?"
"Yes, please," he responded and watched as she expertly mixed his drink while she added the same ingredients to the blender. One of her favorite things to do on Saturday night had been mixing a pitcher of margaritas and she was thrilled that Brian would teach her how to make the frozen drinks in the blender. Shelly would fuss because he did not allow her to have tequila or triple sec in her drink. She complained that it wasn't really a margarita without the alcohol. He knew she often had a drink or two from her mother's glass, but it was something she did when she thought he wasn't looking.
When she put their drinks on the table, and took her seat, Shelly asked, "You knew, didn't you?"
"Knew what?" Brian asked after taking a sip of his drink and nodding that she had the proportions correct.
Shelly blushed when she admitted, "That Mom let me have sips from her glass."
"I think it was a little more than sips, wasn't it?" Brian asked and watched, as Shelly's blush increased. "Yeah, I knew."
"She really wasn't that bad a mother, Brian."
"No, she wasn't. I didn't mean it that way, Honey," he replied. Brian didn't realize he had used the sweet name until he heard Shelly's breath catch and saw the look on her face.
** ** ** **
Almost the last time Brian had seen Karen, their evening ended with a difficult argument when Karen opened her front door and walked inside, with Brian following. She continued down the hall slamming her bedroom door so hard Shelly ran out into the hall and looked at Brian standing with a surprised look on his face. What followed was almost an hour of Brian consoling Shelly, who cried because she knew whatever was bothering her mother wasn't going to get any better, and additionally, she knew that the relationship between Brian and Karen was probably over. Her mother had mentioned she could do a lot better than someone who would never be anything better than a mid-level executive in a bank.
Shelly called Brian the next day, but he would not allow her to come over to swim in his pool, although she had done so many times before that day. She may have called him a few times after that, but the conversations were difficult for both of them. During the two years Brian regularly dated her mother, he and Shelly had developed a close friendship. Karen was seldom ready when he went to pick her up, which meant Brian and Shelly spent some time talking to each other, with Shelly sharing confidences with Brian more openly than she did with her mother. They had spent a few weekends together and had been almost as close as a family, with Karen and Shelly spending a night or two at Brian's house, on many weekends and most holidays.
He saw Shelly one more time, a little over a year later, not long after her eighteenth birthday, at her mother's funeral. Brian left town in a frenzy to get to Shelly, when she called to say Karen and her boyfriend died in an airplane accident. Karen's boyfriend had a license to fly and the airplane he was piloting did not gain enough height when taking off. One wing clipped some overhead power lines, crashed to the ground, and bust into flames, killing both occupants instantly.
Brian stood outside the funeral home, with his arm around Shelly as her mother's casket was loaded into the hearse. He could not let go of her and she would not take her arms from around him. Finally her grandmother shamed her into letting go, telling her Brian was no longer part of her life and there were other people and relatives who wished to offer their condolences. Brian left the funeral home, but he did not go to the cemetery, he could not bear to see Shelly hurting.
He had often thought about that day, how he held her and enjoyed knowing she accepted comfort from him. He did not feel like an adult being protective of a child. Yet, he would push those thoughts out of his mind as if he had no right to care for her, as he wanted to do. It was a mixture of relief and loss when Shelly said she was going to spend a few months with her grandparents before starting college.
** ** ** **
When Shelly asked if Brian knew, he thought she was asking if he knew how she felt about him, rather than about her mother allowing Shelly to sneak drinks of her margarita. However, he pretended he did not know what she was referring to.
Shelly looked down at her plate, then pushed it away from her. She picked up her drink, swirled her glass a couple of times to mix the floating icey slush with the liquid, and took a good mouthful of the semi-frozen mixture, allowing it to melt before she swallowed. All the time, Shelly looked straight at Brian.
"You knew, didn't you?" The second time she asked the question, Brian knew it was about another totally different subject.
Brian did not bother to lie to her. "Yes, I think I knew."
"Did it bother you?" Shelly's question sounded so innocent, Brian was answering before he gave much thought to what he was saying.
