I pushed it open, went out onto the sidewalk, did a routine scan of the street and stopped dead.
Raiden was across the street standing beside his Jeep, making out with a very pretty, skinny-minnie, petite, big-haired, large-chested blonde.
My breath caught in my throat and my stomach churned.
She had high-heeled boots on, but still, she was so petite he was deeply bent into her. They were in a serious clinch. The only way I could see she had big br**sts was because her clothes were skintight, her jacket was open and I could see one pushed out the side where it was pressed in his chest.
Oh God.
God!
She was skanky and I could tell this, too, what with the high-heeled boots (which weren’t normal-person fashionable, they were skank fashionable), skintight clothes and big hair, but also, even in profile and across the street I could see she had on a lot of blusher and thick foundation.
But she was one of those skanky skanks who looked cool. Who worked her skankedness. Who made skankdom something you’d consider aspiring to.
Not to mention, her skankedness got her in a clinch with Raiden Ulysses Miller.
And he looked no less fabulous than he always looked. Tight-fitting long-sleeved thermal over cargo pants and boots, his shades pushed up into his amazing hair. No jacket, as if his level of testosterone was so high he didn’t feel the cold.
God.
God!
I tore my eyes away, and blind, my stomach feeling hollow, I moved by rote to my SUV, swung in and luckily made it home without incident.
Though I didn’t know how.
Because that hurt.
It hurt.
Oh God, why did it hurt so much?
Still battling what I knew was a self-inflicted wound, I got into my house and went directly to my girlie, frou-frou, countrified splendor living room. I sat cross-legged on my couch, stared at nothing and felt the pain.
Time passed by and finally it came to me.
I knew what it was.
I knew it was like when you crushed on an actor or some athlete and you found out he was single and you let yourself have crazy dreams that one day he’d run into you and fall head over heels.
Then you’d find out he got married, or got someone pregnant and then (maybe) got married, and your fantasy would die.
And it hurt when fantasies died.
A lot.
But that was exactly what it was.
The death of a fantasy.
Raiden Ulysses Miller was not a famous actor or athlete, but still.
He would never be mine.
I knew this because he was into women who could make skanky cool.
Big-haired, blonde, skinny-minnie, big-chested, petite women who could make skanky cool.
I had nice hair. It shone with health, it was thick and it was one shade up from blonde, but it wasn’t big.
And I had an ample chest, but not that ample.
I was not skinny-minnie.
I was absolutely not skanky and could never be, no matter if it was cool and could get you Raiden Miller. I just knew I was the kind of girl who had no latent skank huddling deep inside, waiting for the makeup, hairspray and tight clothes that would let her out.
I was also not petite.
“Chère,” my great-grandmother always stated (more than once), “thank the good Lord above He gave you those legs. Women the world over would die for your legs. They go on forever, precious girl, and trust your old biddy of a grandmother, she knows, one day, you’ll be glad for those legs.”
That day, as much as I loved Grams and knew she was (almost) always right, was not today.
Slowly I pushed out of my couch and moved through the house to the bathroom. I switched on the light, stood in front of the basin, leaned in and looked in the mirror.
I’d had three boyfriends, and all of them, obviously, started with dates.
They also always went long-term.
Not one boy who asked me out didn’t ask me again and again.
But they always broke up with me.
And staring into the mirror in the bathroom, just like I suddenly figured out why Raiden Ulysses Miller making out with a skanky (but cool) blonde hurt so much, I figured out why my boyfriends broke up with me.
Because I sat in cafés hoping for a glimpse of handsome guys and didn’t do anything about it.
Because I didn’t poof out my hair big.
Because when I was in high school I stayed home and studied. I didn’t go out to parties. And when I wasn’t studying, I was at the movies or reading. When I got older I didn’t go to bars and do tequila shots and flirt over games of pool. I hung out with my ninety-seven year old great-grandmother, my friend KC, or again, went to the movies or read. I didn’t take fabulous vacations where I could have ill-advised but delicious holiday flings that gave me good memories and better stories to tell. I went to my parents’ house in Tucson, visited my brother in California or rented a cabin two hours away in the Colorado Mountains and, yes, you guessed it, I sat around and read.
I was living a narrow life and that narrow life made me uninteresting.
Boring.
Nothing.
I was twenty-eight years old and my great-grandmother, who had lived nearly a century, had a more active, fun-filled life than I did.
This was insane.
It was even more insane than falling in love from afar with a nine year old boy and hoping like heck I got picked for his tug of war team at my Grams’s annual picnic. Which I did, sickeningly gratifyingly, three years in a row, even though he never noticed me and thus didn’t care. It was more insane than harboring that crush all through high school and even when he was away for years.
It was certifiable.
“And now it’s done,” I told my reflection.
Then I did what I never did.
I made a decision and acted on it.
I went to my kitchen, got a pad of paper and made a to-do list.
Once done, I immediately started on my list.
First up, I called Betsy at the salon and told her I needed a new style and she was in charge.
“Ohmigod, Hanna! I’m moving people around right now! You have to come in tomorrow! I… can’t… wait!” she exclaimed.
I went in the next day and got a trim, flippy layers and highlights.
Then I drove straight to Bob’s car dealership and bought myself a pearl white Nissan Z.
It was awesome.
The next day I drove my new Z into town, walked into the travel agent and booked a vacation on a cruise ship.
After that I walked down the block. Something caught my eye at the bike shop, and, even though it wasn’t on my list I turned and went right in.
I did not go back to Rachelle’s except for the occasional coffee, but those were only flybys.
I did not see Raiden Ulysses Miller.
Not for five months.