Grocery shopping wasn't one of my favorite things to do, but like anyone recently divorced and in their early fifties, it became a weekly past time and got me out of the house once a week at least.
I wasn't really dating either. Not that I wasn't trying, but I think there's some sort of unwritten rule of the universe that says a man recently divorced less than a year is either too needy, or someone that is unapproachable until a proper period of availability is achieved. Whatever the hell that is. So around the office at least, I was "the guy who just got divorced," as I was often whispered about by the few available single females, most of which were all considerably younger than I was anyway. I was half tempted to legally change my name from Brian, to Divorced Guy, just so people could at least address me directly. But even that wouldn't have helped much under the circumstances. Being fifty, even if I was still in reasonably good shape and didn't really look fifty in many respects, it still didn't give me a lot of dating options, especially as I wasn't the going out to the clubs or the bar scene type either.
I'd just about finished up with my weekly shop, heading over to the meat counter to treat myself to my one real decadence, which was a nice thick steak. As I walked up to the counter, there was a very attractive looking woman standing there ahead of me, the look on her face told me she was indecisive about what it was she wanted to order, along with the butcher's, who'd given me an apologetic look briefly before turning back to the good-looking brunette as she stood trying to decide between some thick cut pork chops or a pork roast.
"If you're out to impress him, go for the roast," I told her smiling as she glanced up with a somewhat startled look on her face, though she immediately returned the smile.
"No him to impress," she said simply, still smiling. "Just cooking something for my sister and me," she informed me.
"In that case, go with the chops. They're easier and honestly more flavorful if you barbeque them correctly," I added. Even the butcher agreed with me on that one.
"Not so bad in the kitchen, but lousy at trying to barbeque."
"I bet you're not bad in the bedroom either," I thought silently to myself, giving her the once over as I stood talking to her about chops, realizing as I stood there that my hormones were working overtime, it had after all been a while, but it had also been a while since I'd allowed even the simplest of fantasies to run free like they were now, and I had every intention of allowing them to do so. After all, I was just thinking, I wasn't doing or even suggesting it, until she did in a rather odd way.
"You cook?" she asked.
"Not in the kitchen really," I answered back, once again the words in my head saying something else. "But I do fire up a mean barbeque, and I'd be more than happy to show you how to prepare those," I then added, surprised at my own boldness, though totally expecting a "That's nice of you to offer, but no thanks," sort of a response. I mean after all, we were two total strangers who didn't even know one another's names yet, let alone anything else. To my surprise however, she didn't say "no", though she hadn't said anything else to me either, just standing there looking at me curiously.
"You mind if my sister came with me?" she asked now surprising me with her own boldness, though I took her sister coming along as some sort of safety in numbers sort of a thing, which I certainly couldn't blame her for either."
"The more the merrier," I answered back, even more surprised that the two of us were actually discussing this, and still not knowing one another's names. "And by the way, my names Brian," I said offering her my hand, which she took shaking it.
"Myra," she answered back introducing herself. "And my sister's name is Mattie," she added to that. "And she's going to think I'm crazy accepting an offer for dinner from a man I just met at the meat counter, but ever since my divorce all I've done is sit around the house cooking or cleaning, so I don't mind surprising her and showing her that I can meet someone on my own without hanging out on a bar stool all night feeling like one of these pieces of meat here."
"I know what you mean, I'm recently divorced myself," though wishing I hadn't said it the moment I did, especially when I caught that knowing look for her, confirming her suspicions.
"Thought you might be," she stated with a hint of a smile turning one corner of those gorgeous full lips of hers. "You sort of had that look about you," she included, "and...you're obviously shopping for one. Only a single or divorced man buys one single baking potato," she said eyeing my grocery cart.
"Ah, I'll have to remember that and buy two next time," I said grinning broadly now, actually feeling my face redden just a little. "So, you're serious? You'll really let me cook dinner for you and your sister?" I asked half expecting her to have changed her mind suddenly now that she had a minute to think about it.
"Sure, why not? As long as you let me prepare something to go with it, you cook the meat, and Mattie and I will do the rest."
"Well, that sounds like a plan then, only one more question remains, your place...or mine?"
#
As we stood in line to check out together, we decided it might be prudent to get to know one another a little better, doing so over a cappuccino in the coffee shop next door. I learned that since her divorce she'd been living with her sister who was a little over a year older than she was. Her sister had never married, though she had been engaged twice. Mattie as I further learned was a business professional, more married to her work than willing to settle down and become some guy's wife, for the moment at least anyway. But even as she told me about her, as well as about herself, it was Myra that I was truly interested in and curious about. She told me she would soon be turning forty-four, she had no children as she hadn't been able to have any, nor did I as I had become sterile due to a childhood disease early on, though it was years before I'd discovered that. As she spoke, I sat there admiring her shoulder length hair, the fullness of her lips, and of course the fullness of her breasts though they were demurely concealed beneath the sweater and jacket she was wearing. Myra had the deepest brown eyes I'd ever seen too, almost black if you caught them just right, giving her a real sultry look that was enhanced by her olive complexion, a mixture perhaps of Spanish decent somewhere in her background as exotic as she looked to me.
But I honestly had to admit, it was her smile and friendly carefree attitude that was the most disarming about her. Obviously she'd already proven her boldness and sense of adventure by agreeing to let me cook, or rather barbeque the pork chops for her, and though we'd initially started out with her coming over to my place, we soon amended that to my coming over to her and her sister's place instead, since she felt Mattie would be more inclined to go along with her recklessness as long as it was on their home court, and not on mine the first time. Luckily, they did own a barbeque, though she said they rarely if ever used it.
We next decided on my coming over on Saturday early evening, giving her a day in between to soften her sister up to the idea of a strange man coming over for dinner, though I also made her promise to call me and let me know if her sister would prefer meeting me over coffee someplace first before agreeing to it, which she said she would.
I was surprised when I did in fact receive a call from Mattie herself later on that same evening, chatting with me briefly, asking a few pointed, but probably very necessary questions before agreeing to my coming over on Saturday. She had indeed seemed pleasant enough, though nowhere's near having the bubbly personality I thought Myra had, but under the circumstances, I fully understood where she was coming from.
I arrived with the chops and two bottles of a nice light white wine to go with them, wondering only upon my arrival if they even drank wine, realizing I still knew very little about either one of them, though nervously excited that I was actually standing on their doorstep about to cook dinner for the three of us. And though Myra and I certainly wouldn't be alone or anything, it had been several months since I'd even been out with anyone, so spending it with Myra, even if her sister was there and chaperoning us after a fashion, still wasn't half bad either.
What I hadn't expected, or even really thought about, was how attractive Myra's sister would be too. Perhaps it had something to do with my perception of her as Myra had described her sister's personality and business, more than her personal self. And because of that, I had mentally painted an entirely different picture of her than the one that soon greeted me at the door.
"Brian? Hi...I'm Mattie," she said taking my hand. "Please come in," she said cordially in greeting, though her smile was just as beautiful as her sister's was, and for being the older sister, even if it was only a little over a year older, to be perfectly honest, she looked the younger between them, though I later chalked that up to how divorce can age anyone more quickly, especially after seeing photos of the two sister's together when they looked more like identical twins of the same age rather than being born over a year apart. "So...you make it a habit of picking up women at the grocery store?" she asked.
At least she was smiling when she said it, though I could also see in those same dark eyes that she was half serious about it when she asked.
"Not generally no," I said smiling back trying to maintain my boyish charm which was one of the few things I felt I still had going for me, aside from a full head of dark hair that held only a touch of gray at the temples. "Usually I prefer hanging out in front of the beauty parlors, and picking up women that way."
For a moment she actually wondered if I was being serious, but then I smiled at her with my eyes, turning on that old boyish charm of mine, and seeing her smile back with her own, adding a bit of color to her cheeks as she did. "Ah, that way you get to see us at our best," she actually did grin then.
"And their worst too!" I told her, "When they first go in, that way I have a much better idea of how they really look."
"In the morning no doubt, afterwards..." Mattie said surprising me a little with her candor, though by now we'd arrived in the kitchen area where Myra was just finishing up with the prepared salad she'd created, saving me an awkward response.