I had stopped by with V., who's still home sick from school, to pick up an order that had come in. I knew the cashier by sight but not name, so chit-chat was at a minimum, but then Dave walked by.
Dave is one of the book buyers. He's also dreamy. Curly dark hair, blue eyes, handsome, sweet, charming, my age, and -- get this -- raised two children on his own after he and his wife split when they were little and she didn't want them. They're now in their mid-teens, which means he must've been barely out of his when he got hitched the first time.
Amazingly, he almost always seems to be in a good mood. He's one of those people whom everyone loves because he's so nice. His hotness is significant, but even that is overpowered by the sheer force of his goodness. And with a bio like that, he's a single mom's wet dream.
Regrettably for all the voracious single moms like me would've snapped Dave up like coyotes would steak, he's also remarried and the proud papa of a five-month-old boy. Which is great for him, really, and I'm not even shedding tears over it since I (unfortunately) don't tend to go for the nice type. I like them a little mean. Just a little. And I'm not necessarily proud of that fact (more on this later). I'm just hard-wired that way. Guys like Dave I hang out with and love as friends. Guys that make me want to drop trou tend to be a little rougher around the edges.
Anyway, lest you think I'm a crazy, lovelorn bookstore employee stalker (a breed not unknown in this town), let me explain that I know many of the employees of this particular store pretty well because a)I used to work at another branch of same in MY teens and some of my coworkers transferred there, b)my boyfriend way-back-when worked at this store, and c)the ex's uncle-by-marriage works there currently, and we are on cordial terms. Plus, d)my good friend and also long-ago ex W., who is an independent book dealer, is in there a lot. So I get to shoot the shit with these guys without coming across as a desperate former housewife.
Anyway, Dave's cool and I like him. I had quite a few distressed and TMI-filled conversations with him about being a Divorce Survivor while my divorce was fresh. I wanted to know how his single parenting experience was, etc. But I haven't seen him in a while and it's not like I ever talk to those guys outside their work, so I try not to importune them.
Today, though, he was in a mood to talk. And he was laughing. "W. cracked me up the other day," he said, "he told me something funny that your daughter said and I almost spit out my drink."
"Oh yeah?" I asked. I imagined that it was the anecdote about how my daughter turned to W. when he was over one day and, referring to her brother, remarked, "He's stupid." W. thought that was hilarious and called me the next day to tell me about it.
"Yeah," Dave said. "He said that your daughter saw that picture of the Christian Militia that's been making the rounds, pointed at one, and said the name of your ex's girlfriend."
"Oh, that!" I replied. "Yeah, she saw it on my Facebook page, pointed right at it and was all 'Mar-o-lyn, that's Mar-o-lyn.' I told her it wasn't, but she insisted."
"That's awesome!" Dave laughed. "Out of the mouths of babes."
"Shhhh!" I said, "You know my ex comes in here!"
He smirked, took a swig of his coffee.
"So do you think I should tell him?"
That was when we had to get the paper towels.
But despite the damage to my sweatshirt, I have to say that incident buoyed me up for the rest of the morning. And I belatedly realized why: because it means those guys are pulling for me. They're rooting for me. And it's not that they'd ever be rude or insulting to my ex, but they watched us together and they watched when he left and they see me with the kids and him without and nobody there truly dislikes him, but they're also not overcompensating, the way so many mutual acquaintances do, by pretending that the playing field is equal and there are no bad guys and everybody needs validation and blah blah blah insert more of the kids of things my mother-in-law would say here to explain why she was buying presents for the ex's girlfriend, whom he started dating before he left me, just weeks after my father-in-law and I found, aghast, the sexy text messages he'd sent her while still married. (To her credit, she started wooing the girlfriend after she stopped urging me to win him back and buy some condoms against the diseases he might've picked up.)
These guys -- Dave, another guy, Josh, and the ex's uncle Alex -- are in my corner. It's not even that they're against the ex. It's just that they're behind me. And they're not shy to say so.
It's nice to know.
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