My Kind of Woman

3. Night Alone Pt.1

"Of course. I'm not surprised. Don't you get tired of it?" Giana asked.

"No, not ever." I grinned. "Well, I won't keep you from your delivery. See you, Giana."

"Oh! Bye, Norah. Text me!" She called as I started to pedal up the road again.

Only a few minutes later was I stopped outside of Jackie's house. I propped my bike against her inside wall and walked up to the front door. There was no car in the drive space again. It was mostly always empty, and I'd assumed that Jackie's dad owned the car that was supposed to be sat there. I'd never seen him though. He was a mysterious man to me and a few times I'd questioned his existence all together. But I knew he existed from the men's shoes in the hallway and the ring on Mrs. Reed's finger.

I'd noticed her fingers were slender, hands well groomed and her nails were always shapely. I suspected she got them done often. The paint on them was usually a dark wine red and they were a neat length.

I knocked on the door. There was a minute of wait, and impatiently I stepped through her bushes to get to the window. She'd said on Friday that she would be waiting for me but there hadn't been any motion behind the door, or the windows. As I was peering into the window, I heard the door open to the left of me.

"Oh, shit." I cursed as I hopped back through the bushes to the doorstep.

Jackie's mom was standing there, eyebrows raised as I appeared from her front yard bushes. She was dressed in her usual skirt and blouse, despite her being in her own home, but her hair was tied back in a low ponytail and her top two buttons were undone. I wasn't expecting her to be standing there so I did a bit of a double take, my heart stammering under my skin.

"Norah... What were you doing—" she glanced past me to the bush I'd emerged from, "—in the bushes?"

"Mrs. Reed! Sorry... I'm sorry! I was waiting for Jackie and when she didn't come to the door I, uhm, went to the window." I looked at her confused and faintly amused face and gulped. "I see how strange that looked now."

She smiled softly, "so what are you doing here?"

"I'm here for Jackie, she said we'd swim today and that I would stay the night—if that was okay with you, of course." I said politely, looking past her shoulder and into the hall. I couldn't see Jackie.

"Jackie? She just went out with friends an hour ago. Didn't she say?" Mrs. Reed looked confused, attractively so and I felt weirdly guilty—as if I was wasting her time. I wanted to disappear.

"Oh, no. She didn't say. There must have been some kind of mistake in the times or something." I said, feeling slightly irritated that Jackie hadn't mentioned a change of plan. I tried to remember a time where I maybe wasn't paying full attention while she was talking but I couldn't think of one.

"That's unlike Jackie. I'm sorry, Norah. She isn't here but you can still come in and swim." Mrs. Reed offered kindly. Her face and voice were so genuine it hurt.

"You wouldn't mind?"

She smiled at me. "Of course not. Come on."

My whole body felt wobbly as I walked past her into the house. It felt strange to not be welcomed in by Jackie, to not tail after her into the pool house with a brief hello to the woman who was beside me then. Mrs. Reed was smiling still when I looked back at her, like she was constantly amused at the sight of me. I didn't know whether I was unnerved or excited, the feelings felt too similar when they swirled in my gut the way they were.

She was walking at my side, both our feet aiming for the kitchen.

"Are you sure I can go and swim?" I asked, needing to hear reassurance.