A Slice of Orange

By Tina Ralph

Strolling down the aisle, all dressed in black, as gorgeous as ever, was the one person in the world, April didn’t want to see. Still, the unexpected sight of him caused her to choke out his name. To her horror, he turned and looked at her.

Kirk’s face showed he wasn’t any happier to see her, but he quickly recovered.

She ignored the sudden butterflies in her stomach. “Hello, Kirk, it’s been awhile.”

He pushed his cart closer. “Not since Janet moved out. Almost a year.”

“Janet told me when your divorce was final. I wanted to call – but – well… I didn’t know what to say.” To cover her awkwardness, she rushed on. “I always consider you, my friend too. We had fun together, but…”

Embarrassed, she looked down. The divorce had been a hot item among friends. They wanted someone to blame. She’d been mentioned as a contributing factor.

“Don’t worry about it, April.” Kirk continued. “I haven’t had much time to socialize anyway. I received the house in the divorce settlement. I spent my weekend on home improvement projects. You remember our fixer-upper. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Amber was glad he’d changed the subject.

A lady with two small children broke up their conversation, as she tried to edge passed them.

“It looks like we are holding up traffic.” April pushed her cart forward, letting the woman pass. “Besides, my ice cream is melting.”

He hesitated a moment. “Maybe we can get together sometime…do something?”

Thrilled with the idea of pursuing a relationship with him, April tempered her enthusiasm with a wave of her hand. “Sure, give me a call.”

At the checkout counter, her pulsed danced at the possibilities of him calling. Kirk, with his incredible teddy bear brown eyes, made everyone feel special. He a wonderful man, except for the fact, that he was her best friend’s ex-husband.

Would Janet mind? She was dating other men.

Was it worth their friendship?

It could get complicated.

“It really doesn’t matter,” April said to herself. “He’s not going to call, anyway.”

* *

April stood in the middle of the video store with a movie in each hand, trying to make up her mind.

A rich baritone voice over her left shoulder caught her off guard. “I’d pick the comedy. Heavy drama is too depressing.”

Turning quickly, April brushed against Kirk’s shoulder as she looked up into his face. “Fancy meeting you here.”

His quick grin and the spark of interest in his eyes lightened her heart.

“I like to get my videos on Thursday. That way I beat the crowds.” He reached for the case in her hand. “Why don’t I rent this one? And you can come over Saturday and watch it with me.”

Letting him take it, she attempted to settle her racing heart. “I’m not sure you’ll like that one. It’s a chick flick.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He slid a friendly arm around her shoulders.

* *

Nervously, April took a deep breath and pushed the doorbell. Dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, she wanted to look friendly but not eager.

The door opened, Kirk stood before her holding a paint roller in his hand, paint splattered all over him.

Shock flashed across his face. “It can’t be six o’clock?”

Fascinated by the blue specks in his hair, April questioned. “Is it a bad time?”

He stepped back, ushering her into the house. “No, its just I–forgot the time.”

“I…” Seeing the living room in total disarray with furniture piled in the middle of the room, a plastic tarps lying next to a half-painted wall, April paused. “Maybe I should come back later?”

He blocked the door. “I can have it cleaned up in a minute. All I need to do is pour the paint back in the can, and clean out the roller. Then we can turn on the movie.” He hurried past her.

“But Kirk, you’re not finished. You don’t want to have to drag all this stuff back out tomorrow.” April argued.

“It’s no big deal. I can leave it like this.”

Her eyes roamed the room. “This type of chaos drove Janet wild. She likes things to be neat and tidy with no changes to upset her peaceful tranquility.”

Considering all work he had accomplished, April continued. “I could never understand why? I think it might be nice to change things up ever so often. It’s what makes a house a home.”

He studied her for a moment over the paint can before he replied. “It makes a mess.”

“Funny, I always enjoyed a little adventure in my life.”

He looked up again, their eyes met. In that moment, something passed between them. April wasn’t sure what it was, but she felt the spark of electricity.

With a wicked grin, Kirk asked. “Wanna get messy?”

Tina Ralph
OCC/RWA Membership Director

By Geralyn Ruane

My fiancé Ron puts up with a lot from me, but I never expected him to put up with Viggo.

I am thirty-four years old; I pay taxes; I am engaged to be married. My life contains several outward signs that I am an adult. Yet I have this seriously girly celebrity crush on Viggo Mortensen – the guy who plays the emotionally scarred hero Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings movies. Sure, Viggo’s also a poet, photographer, painter, and political activist (see? here I go!) – but it’s still a celebrity crush. I buy magazines such as GQ, Vanity Fair and Cowboys and Indians when he’s on the cover (and I haven’t read magazines for fun since my subscription of Highlights ran out); I order books of his photography from Amazon; I have a “Viggo” wishlist on Tivo; I visit Viggo fan websites with alarming frequency. I haven’t acted this cuckoo since I spent my middle school library time looking up magazine articles about Duran Duran! And that was over twenty years ago! Part of me is ashamed of this gash of immaturity blazing through my life . . . but the other part will talk to almost anyone about Viggo.

But Ron is cool with it.

I could never be that way if the situation were reversed. If he were to bring home magazines with . . . say . . . Salma Hayek on the cover and visit her fan websites on the net, I’d be like, “Dude, what is up with you and Salma Hayek?”

So why isn’t Ron ticked off? I asked him that very question not so long ago. He simply said he wasn’t jealous. He knows I love him.

And he also knows that I have this tendency to obsess. I went to see Bridget Jones’s Diary in the theatre 6 times, seeing how many new allusions to Pride and Prejudice I could spot each time. When I was a Lakers fan, I owned 9 T-shirts, 4 flags on my car, 3 game jerseys, 1 ball cap, and a winter jacket – and I wanted to paint my house purple and gold. When I was crazy about the show The Crocodile Hunter, I ordered an extra pay channel so I could see one more episode a day.

Yup. I can obsess. Last year, I stood outside a Borders waiting for it to open because the first customers to buy the Return of the King DVD got a free, really HOT poster of a fierce and wild Aragorn, aka Viggo. I was the only idiot waiting, but I got my poster of Viggo! For my birthday, Ron framed that poster for me. A custom, hand-made frame that he did himself at some framing place that lets you do that. All because he knew I would love it.

Ron gets me. He knows how silly and compulsive and crazy I can be, but he doesn’t try to change me or chide me or fix me. He loves me, Viggo crush and all.

By Geralyn Ruane
Author of “Jane Austen Meets the New York Giants”
in Marlo Thomas’ book THE RIGHT WORDS AT THE RIGHT TIME, Vol. 2, April 2006

By Barbara DeLong

Oh yes, I can make all the proper noises at all the proper times – the ooh’s and aah’s, the gasps of delight, the sucked in breath when mere words won’t suffice. The “wow, that’s hot,” when I just have to say something. And being a mere man, whose love of cars is barely five mph behind his love for his wife, my husband doesn’t catch on.

Okay, make that ten mph.

As he talks about his Mustang, my eyes glaze over; my mind wanders to thoughts of dinner. Will I make the halibut?

“…and I don’t think I’ll get the hi-po spark plugs…”

I shake my head. Naw, fish is not my favorite. Maybe the juicy porterhouse I’ve had marinating in those exotic herbs and spices.

“…the Flowmasters give the car a throaty roar, don’t you think?”

“Ooh, yes, yes, YES!” I enthuse, agreeing to my choice of succulent steak.

He looks so satisfied, bless his heart.

I wasn’t always this good. In that first romantic blush, during the courtship dance that’s as old as time, I blew it once in awhile.

“…then it dropped a valve into the piston.”

“Hmmm, great,” I purred, thinking about our cozy date the night before.

“Not great. Bad. Very bad,” he’d said.

What can I tell you? There was a learning curve.

Now, after thirty-five years of marriage, I’ve taken faking an interest in cars to an art form. At least, I thought I had. I may have faltered these past couple of years, which could explain how I ended up being on the board of the Mustang Club as editor of their newsletter. I had a weak moment and got sucked into his world as surely as 92 Octane gets sucked into Bosch forty-two pound injectors. Ah well, could be worse. I could be writing a romance set in the world of cars – wait a minute. I am writing a romance set in the world of cars. “Joy Ride” is my road rally romance-in-progress.

Which reminds me . . .

“Honey, I need some advice.” I trail him out to the garage, notepad in hand. “Tell me, should my hero’s ’65 Mustang have the original V8?”

“I’d give it a Cobra 5.0 engine with a Vortech supercharger and a Crane high lift cam,” he says.

Funny, as I’m listening to him, I know just what he’s talking about.

And my eyes don’t glaze over once.

Barbara DeLong

By Catherine Snodgrass

People measure romance differently. For most it’s flowers, quiet walks on the beach, a romantic candlelit dinner, or perhaps a box of candy. For me, nothing says love more than ice chips. My husband and I had been married nine years when I had to have major surgery. Now, he’s always been the traditional romantic, but I knew the man really and truly loved me more than anything else in the world when I woke up in my room and he was sitting by my side. All I could have was ice chips. Not only did he have the ice chips ready, but he also made “the supreme sacrifice of having an ice cream sundae” in order to get a plastic spoon to feed the ice chips to me. All the hospital had were wooden tongue depressors and he knew I hated to touch rough wood much less put it in my mouth.

Catherine Snodgrass
http://www.catherinesnodgrass.com
aka Cailtyn Willows www.caitlynwillows.com
Author newsletter: CatherineSnodgrassNewsletter-subscribe@yahoogroups.com