Page 27 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

She pulled into the parking lot of the Y, grabbed her gym bag and headed in. The ladies were already congregating around the pool by the time she got in. The room was hot and humid and chlorine-scented. It felt like home.

Teaching her seniors exercise classes had been the one job that had stuck with Iris over the years. She would never abandon her students.

‘Good morning, girls!’ she said, getting everyone’s attention.

‘Good morning, Iris!’ the ladies trilled. Iris smiled. These were her people. Fully formed people who could tell her exactly what they wanted and needed. She didn’t have to guess what they were thinking or worry that they were starving to death. All the ladies looked fully fed and happy this morning.

‘How’s the new job?’ Carol, one of her most loyal students asked as Iris checked them off one by one on her clipboard.

‘It’s going well.’

‘Oh? How’s Olive doing?’

Iris nearly laughed. As if these women didn’t know how Olive was doing. As if they weren’t on a constant rotation of ‘just stopping by’ or ‘we were in the neighborhood’. Archer’s freezer was overflowing with ‘how’s Olive’ casseroles.

‘As well as can be expected, I guess.’

‘Of course, the poor dear.’

The women were dying to ask more, Iris could feel it. They were vibrating with curiosity. But she wasn’t about to air Archer’s life out for the whole town to examine.

‘And the living situation…’ Janet ventured… ‘Is that going well, too?’

Estelle scoffed. ‘You all just want to know what it’s like living with that handsome chef.’

Janet turned scarlet, nearly matching the giant tropical flowers on her bathing suit. ‘I did not say that.’

‘But you meant it.’

‘Ladies, we should really start class,’ Iris said, trying to steer the women back to business. Maybe knowing exactly what they wanted wasn’t always a blessing. These women wanted the details.

‘Now you’re going to hold out on us, Iris? You told us all about that fella you met at that music festival last summer.’

‘And the one from the yoga retreat.’

‘And the guy you met in the produce department at the grocery store.’

‘Yes, well,’ Iris cut in quickly before Marissa could elaborate on Iris’s sweaty weekend fling with Pablo. She really did need to learn to keep her mouth shut. ‘That was different. This is just a job, and Archer is my boss, and so far things are going well.’

Disappointment filtered through the group.

‘Now, let’s get in the pool and get started,’ Iris said brightly, leading the way to the water.

‘Heisvery attractive,’ she heard Carol whisper to Janet.

‘He sure is, but have you been to the diner lately? He’s turning the place upside down.’

‘With that body, he can cook me whatever he likes.’ The women burst into giggles and Iris jumped in the pool, wishing she could stay underwater long enough to miss out on her class of seventy- and eighty-year-olds waxing poetic about Archer’s muscular arms and broad chest. But unfortunately, her lung capacity just wasn’t that good. Instead, she cranked her workout playlist and started shouting commands.

Eventually, everyone fell into line. Everyone except Iris’s brain, which was happily playing, on a loop, its own playlist of the way Archer’s arms looked when he cooked.

Not helpful, brain. Not helpful at all.

* * *

Olive had come home grumpy from kindergarten, so they were watching baking shows when Archer arrived back later that evening. Iris had been skeptical of the appeal of this one, but she was now fully invested in whether that designer purse was actually made out of cake.

‘Hey, welcome home,’ she said when Archer entered, but neither she nor Olive took their eyes from the screen.