Free Running Northwest by Michael Melville

inappropriate or that you did not want, he was never pushy or forceful. He opened up to you in ways that he never had with any other women before you. He did more than any other man ever did to try to win your heart. You and he were in each other’s lives for more or less three years and the last two years very consistently. I think that’s about it so far right?” Karen said as she eyeballed Stephanie.
    Stephanie had, by this point, pulled her knees up to her chest and was hugging a pillow feeling horrible .
    “Yeah, pretty much…in a much shorter, less emotional version than what I told you – and managing to call me stupid,” she said squinting at her friend as she took a sip of her wine.
    “Sweetheart, that’s my job. My job is to make your lonely dumb ass feel stupid so that maybe you do something about it,” Karen said to her friend.
    Stephanie sighed, took a sip of her wine , gazed over to the picture of Thomas and lost herself in thought as she looked at it. Karen was watching her as she looked at the picture on the table.
    “Okay, the picture then,” Karen started saying, “You said it was taken in Florida when he took you there on vacation, to meet his mom, right, and that was right before the shit hit the fan and it totally ended.”
    “So tell me about Florida, tell me what happened down there…or didn’t happen,” Karen said as she went to refill her and Stephanie’s wine glasses.
    Stephanie thought quietly for a minute or two as she tried to recall events that had happened years before.
    “He was nervous about me meeting his mom, I remember that. I actually brought it up to him a few times before he did it. He and his mom were close. Meeting her was a big deal to him, as well as to her and to me also, for some reason. He did not take it lightly, because he rarely introduced women to his mom. He thought about it for a long time. Then there were a few weeks where we didn’t talk a whole lot because I started spending time with this other guy,” Stephanie said quietly as she looked off into space as she spoke.
    “Go figure. I could have seen that one coming,” Karen said.
    “Shut up and let me finish!” Stephanie said.
    “Okay, okay – fine, finish,” Karen said annoyed.
    “Anyway that whole other guy thing ended quickly and turned out to be nothing and Thomas was, as always, still around. We started spending more time together again, and talking more. He asked me if I still wanted to go to Florida with him and meet his mom. I had wanted to for a long time, so naturally I said yes,” she said and before Stephanie could finish, Karen interrupted her with a well-placed jab.
    “Yes, naturally… of course you said yes. Because it’s normal and perfectly natural for a woman to go on vacation to meet the mother of a man who’s in love with her that she won’t date,” Karen said, looking away from Stephanie.
    “Anyway s , Karen!” Stephanie exclaimed.
    “We had long talks about it before we actually went there. And things were really great then, but we were still just friends,” Stephanie said as she paused to take a sip of wine, looking up at Karen who had raised an eyebrow at her.
    “We went down to Sarasota towards the end of July. His mom Grace picked us up at the airport. She was so sweet and nice and hugged me before she even hugged him. She and Thomas had talked a lot about me and she was anxious to finally meet me. We did all kinds of things down there. We went hiking, and shopping he took me to the Ringling Brothers art museum. We went to little bars on the ocean, we walked around downtown Sarasota, went to different beaches and keys. He took me to this local art show and farmers market in Venice that went down an entire street. We went to different restaurants every day. We spent a lot of time with his mom. I got to hear all kind of stories about him when he was growing up and about his ex-wife and ex-girlfriends, and when she went to visit him out in Oregon when he lived