Page 2 of Never Marry the Best Man (Whatever It Takes #4)
Ranney walked on silently. This was a topic she tried to avoid thinking about.
Her life was full and it ran fairly smoothly: She had a good job that she loved; she had her mother and her daughter, and her brother and his family lived nearby.
She had a very nice three-bedroom condo in a midrise building in Back Bay, a place she bought before real estate went through the roof and would thus–hopefully–make a killing on someday.
She played pickleball maybe once a week and had enough old and dear friends that if she wanted to go out for drinks or dinner, she only had to make a phone call, or two at the most.
Why would she want to introduce the element of risk? She’d certainly had dates over the years, good ones and not-so-good ones, as you would expect. No one exactly enjoys a bad date, but her attitude was, if you at least get a funny story out of it, no harm done.
And she had plenty of funny stories, no question about it.
At a wedding she’d worked on, the widowed father of the bride tried his charming best to woo her, filling her hotel room with flowers and Southern delicacies, but he lived in Mobile, Alabama, and neither of them was likely to thrive in a different biome.
Humidity was not her friend, and on the two occasions that he flew north to see her, he was visibly appalled by Boston traffic and by the grimy, cold slush of late February.
Buell Pickett was a hoot. They exchanged Christmas cards with wistful notes, but at the end of the day, they both realized that they were not a match.
Plus, the thought of being his daughter's stepmother gave her the vapors.
More recently, there’d been her pickleball instructor, but that story basically wrote itself.
Jack was a retired wealth manager, with thick, dark hair graying at the temples in a devastatingly handsome way.
As a lifelong athlete, however, his idea of a great Saturday was teeing off for eighteen holes at 5:30 a.m., followed by a game of doubles in the afternoon, then a quick swim.
After drinks and dinner, he wanted to go dancing.
When she suggested sleeping in and going to brunch, he looked at her quizzically. Before long, he met an energetic 35-year-old and jogged off into the sunset.
Ranney switched racquet clubs.
Once, right after Nessa left for college, Ranney had gotten a call from a professional matchmaker, the kind that wealthy men hire to connect them with interesting women who aren’t out hunting for wealthy men. The gentleman pays the fee so, Ranney thought, why not?
Saul turned out to be a breakfast cereal magnate who was passionate about his product.
“How’s the bran ambassador?” Nessa would ask, but whether this was snark or genuine admiration Ranney could not say.
They saw each other when he was in town, but Saul was consumed with work. Never married, childless, he saw whole grains as his legacy. Ranney tried, she really did, but she saw whole grains as dry and boring. Ultimately, she saw Saul as dry and boring, too.
The problem with mid-life dating, she thought, is that you’re both fully formed .
When you meet in your twenties–even your early thirties–you learn about life together, develop opinions and habits and quirks together . Even truly odd behaviors might not be questioned. Maybe you actually love your partner a little more for their eccentricity.
If he prefers to drink out of a child’s sippy cup, you know it started when he fell off the ladder while cleaning the gutters and broke his jaw, and you don’t give it much thought. But if you start dating a middle-aged man and the first time you go to his house, you see the sippy cup situation?
You cannot get out of that house fast enough.
But it might not be all that eccentric. Your new boyfriend insists on scented dryer sheets; without them, his clothes feel scratchy and uncomfortable. But Spring Rain/Ocean Breeze/English Garden, as interpreted by the chemists at multi-national labs, makes you gag.
You alphabetize your spices so you can grab them quickly. He perceives this as obsessive/compulsive. His cinnamon sits next to his Mexican oregano and he claims he has no problem locating what he needs when he needs it.
There’s no end to it: the proper contents of a glove compartment, the weight of a comforter. Coke/Pepsi! Whole milk/two percent! Flannel/percale!
Is this what compatibility comes down to in mid-life?
Ranney’s laundry was unscented, her sheets were crisp, and her life was conflict-free.
Why rock the boat just for the fleeting pleasure of waking up in the arms of a naked man?
Would she trade the reliable comfort of sipping wine by herself while watching The Crown for the excited flutter of hearing a key turning in the lock of her front door?
Is hot coffee, delivered to you in bed, worth giving up four feet of closet space?
Well, is it?
“Sweetie, that’s a complicated question.
It’s different for you and Matt. You’re young and healthy and biologically driven to mate up and create a family.
If I found a partner, it would be more about creating a wine cellar.
Maybe we’d get a golden retriever. No, too active.
A Havanese. He'd have to enjoy combing long hair. "
"Mom."
"It’s not the same as it is for you and Matt.”
“You make yourself sound so old ,” Nessa protested. “It’s ridiculous. You have more energy than I do.”
“And do you know why that is? It’s because I am not dealing with the stress and strain and emotional chaos of being in love with some guy who’s just going to break my heart in the end!”
There was a brief pause, then Nessa said quietly, “They’re not all like Carmine, you know.” Calling her father by his first name was a fairly recent development and it still took Ranney by surprise.
But so did her daughter’s insightful comment, and she was greatly relieved to look up and see that they’d arrived at the market. Handing Nessa a plastic basket, she said, “Here. Go see if they have any of those little French olives you like. My treat.”
Nessa knew when she was being redirected, but she loved those picholines, so she did as told, muttering something about how she couldn't believe Ranney was one of those "men is too headache" women, whatever that was supposed to mean.
That left Ranney standing by herself in the crowded aisle, pondering her choices, both grocery and personal.
Sighing, she took out her list and headed for the dairy case, where she snagged the last two honey vanillas, but then had to scan the shelves for other non-fruit-flavored options.
“Excuse me,” she said to the person standing next to her as she reached across him for a small cup labeled caramel sea salt.
“Is that a good one?” her neighbor asked with a British inflection. “I haven’t been in the States long enough to know any of these brands except Yoplait, which doesn’t taste the same here anyway.”
“I usually look for the smaller, regional dairies but I guess you just have to experiment.” What he was saying sunk in, and she added, “That must be overwhelming, coming into a store and having no idea what brand of anything is the one you want.”
“Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s frustrating,” he smiled. Aging ginger, blue eyes, hooked nose. Looked like he'd played plenty of football, say... thirty years ago. Liverpool accent.
She restrained herself from humming Beatles songs.
“I think it will be more fun when my wife gets here. But thank you for the suggestion.” Picking up a container of the brand Ranney had chosen, he added it to his basket. When she looked down, she saw that he had one container each of six different yogurts.
“I’m my own focus group,” he went on. “Next is washing-up soap for dishes. Any thoughts?”
“Maybe ask for a mixed case?” she suggested, both of them laughing as he moved off.
Nessa appeared beside her and silently, but eloquently, raised one eyebrow.
“He’s married! ” Ranney said, exasperated. “And besides, I don’t like British accents.”
“Everyone likes British accents,” Nessa retorted. “I was going to talk to you about a dating app, but you don’t need Tinder. All you have to do is go for a walk. I have never seen anything like this. My friends aren’t going to believe it.”
“He had a question about yogurt, Ness. He would have asked anyone standing next to him.”
“Funny, because I was standing in front of the imported olives for a good four minutes and no one so much as cleared their throat.”
“Maybe I look more approachable than you do.”
“I have 957,000 followers on Instagram.”
“Okay, that’s not it, then. I don’t know why, but people talk to me.”
“They sure do. You’ve had enough meet-cutes today to write a whole rom-com series. Considering what we do for a living, maybe we should think about that. It could be a new income stream for Wedding Protectors, in case the day comes when brides and grooms stop worrying about what could go wrong.”
Ranney chuckled, happy to shift the conversation away from her own uninspiring love life and onto a more general topic. "Hah. We have plenty of job security, my dear. Weddings and worry go hand in hand."
“Problem is, no one would ever believe it,” Nessa said. “Sounds like we’ll have a few more stories after the Sanderson wedding next month. Or at least, you will. How did you get lucky enough to get assigned to this one? All I have coming up is the daughter of a frying pan inventor.”
“No kitchen in the developed world is without one of those frying pans. It’s not nothing.”
“It’s not English royalty , Mom. Everyone is envious–you definitely scored.”