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  A Table For Two

  Copyright © 2010 by Janet Albert

  Author's Comments

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapty Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twent-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

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  A Table For Two

  by

  Janet Albert

  Copyright © 2010 by Janet Albert

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Parts of this work are fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, or events is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-935053-27-9 (eBooks)

  eBook Conversion August 2010

  Cover design by Donna Pawlowski

  Published by:

  Regal Crest Enterprises, LLC

  4700 Hwy 365, Suite A, PMB 210

  Port Arthur, Texas 7764

  Find us on the World Wide Web at http://www.regalcrest.biz

  Published in the United States of America

  Author's Comments

  A Table for Two is special to me because it takes place in Philadelphia where I lived for many years and also because I love to cook. My mother was a simple but wonderful cook who passed her talent on to me. I think she would have been pleased that I'd paid attention all those years as I sat at the kitchen table and watched her prepare our family meals. My culinary skills have progressed way beyond those everyday foods and Sunday dinners she used to make. In fact, I've often been told I should open a restaurant. The long hours and stressful work of being a chef never appealed to me and since I preferred my other stressful career, I chose instead to settle for a fictional one. It was a lot more fun and a lot less work. I loved writing about Dana and Tracy and the dishes they created and I loved bringing Café De Marco to life. I hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoyed writing about it.

  Thanks from the bottom of my heart to my wonderful beta readers, Norma Serrato, Judy Underwood, and Donna O'Hara-Lewis. No one does this without help and I couldn't have done it without your valuable input, sound advice and keen eyes. All my love and thanks to Mary, who supports me in everything I do and encourages me to write in spite of attacks of self-doubt and a harsh and picky inner critic. You are all worth your weight in gold.

  An affectionate thank you and a huge hug goes out to Pat Cronin, my editor, for putting up with me throughout the editing of this book. I appreciate your patience and understanding during a tough time for me, but most of all, I thank you for teaching me to be a better writer. The book as it is now is infinitely improved because of you.

  A special thank you to Cathy LeNoir and RCE for taking a chance on me and for making my dream come true a second time. Donna Pawlowski came up with an amazing cover for the book and I am grateful for her efforts. Thanks to Brenda Adcock for her editing input and thanks to RCE author, Lori L. Lake, for her support as well as her handy guides and articles on writing. I'd also like to thank authors, Andi Marquette and Nann Dunne for their advice and encouragement. And thanks, Nann Dunne, for your amazing website, JAW. (Just About Write)

  And, as I said in my first book and will say again here--my sincere thanks to all of you, the readers of lesbian fiction. You are the reason we writers persist in doing what we do.

  For information about me, more on resources and useful websites for authors and places to purchase books, please visit me at my web site-- www.janetalbert.com

  Dedication

  To Mary, the woman who sits across from me at my table for two.

  A Table For Two

  by

  Janet Albert

  Chapter One

  RIDLEY PULLED INTO one of the last spaces in the high school parking lot and sat for a minute with the air-conditioner running while she inspected herself in the rear view mirror. Her wavy auburn hair had curled thanks to the high humidity and she admired the way it fell around her face giving her that carefree, tousled hair style she wished she could have every day. She reached her hand to tame a wayward clump behind her ear and pulled off her sunglasses. In the morning light her eyes were as green as emeralds and she could easily see the tiny specks of gold scattered around the rims of the irises.

  The long summer vacation had come to an end, the Labor Day celebrations and fireworks were over and she was about to begin her first day as the new physical education teacher in a high school not too far from where she lived. She was eager to get started, especially since her friend Laurie Morgan taught English at the same school yet at the same time she felt anxious, two conflicting emotions she accepted as understandable under the circumstances.

  As soon as she lowered her long legs and planted her sandaled feet on the sticky blacktop, she heard Laurie yelling at her from the other end of the parking lot. Even though they were the only two people around, Laurie jumped up and down and flapped her hands in the air above her head as though she feared Ridley wouldn't be able to locate her without some sort of visual signal. Something about Laurie's hand movements reminded Ridley of a robin frolicking in a backyard birdbath on the first warm day of spring, but then it wasn't hard to think about robins when one thought of Laurie because she held the promise of spring in her heart and she was as reliable as she was pretty.

  "Hey, Ridley, wait for me!" Laurie hollered.

  Ridley waved back to acknowledge Laurie's request, grabbed her work bags from the front seat of her Honda CR-V and slammed the door shut. Near the rear bumper, she stopped to wait for her friend and pressed the button on her key chain that locked her vehicle. Although she heard the metallic clunk of the locks loud and clear, she pushed the button a second time just to hear the high-pitched beep that told her the doors were already locked. It dawned on her that it was a peculiar little habit and one she did quite often. Sometimes, she even pushed the button three or four times in a row to create a series of beeps.

  Laurie half-walked, half-ran to catch up, her chest heaving as she struggled to inhale the heavy air of another hot and humid morning. Once she stood next to Ridley, she set her bags down while she stopped to catch her breath. "If it isn't my old friend, Ridley Kelsen," she said after fifteen or twenty seconds of deep breathing. "Imagine meeting you here."

  "What do you mean, 'imagine meeting me here'? You're the one who told me to meet you in front of the school this morning, Ms. Morgan. Remember?"

  "Sure I remember. Why wouldn't I?" Laurie's normally pale complexion was as red as the rising su
mmer sun. "Is it hot enough for you?"

  "Yeah, I'd say so. I hate September in Philadelphia and you shouldn't be running around in this heat. You look like you're going to self-combust." Ridley looked down at her sandals. "It's been so hot I think the asphalt's starting to melt. I thought my sandals would get stuck in it when I got out of my car." She bent her right foot up and inspected her sandal. "I think the bottom of my sandals might be melting."

  Wet ringlets of medium-length, blond hair were stuck to Laurie's forehead and a stream of sweat wiggled a crooked path down the right side of her face. She swiped at it with her fingers, but that only served to send it trickling off in a new direction. "I think I'm melting."

  Ridley touched Laurie's sweaty cheek and studied the thin film of moisture coating her fingers before she wiped it off on the side of her shorts. Even Laurie's cool blue eyes looked hot. "You're sweating like crazy. Too bad this school of yours doesn't have air-conditioning because after two weeks of temperatures like these, that old stone building's going to feel just like an enormous sauna inside."

  "The entire city feels like a sauna," Laurie pointed out. "And the school has never had any air-conditioning except for a few select places." Laurie brushed at the stream of sweat on her face again. "The library isn't one of those places."

  "The library isn't air-conditioned? Isn't that where we're having our meetings?" The staff was required to come in the day after Labor Day for two days of meetings before the official start of the school year. In these meetings they'd go over the District's goals for the coming school year as well as any changes in the curriculum and they'd be treated to a video pep-talk from the head of the school district thanking them in advance for their hard work.

  "Yes, unfortunately," Laurie confirmed.

  Ridley imagined how miserable her face must have looked as she absorbed the full impact of Laurie's words. "That's great, but I can't say I'm surprised. All the older schools in the city are like that. My last one was."

  Laurie plucked at the front of her shirt. "Look at me, my shirt's soaked and we're not even inside the building. By the end of the day, I won't have an ounce of fluid left in my body."

  Ridley groaned as she thought of how hellish the next two days would be. "I'm getting heat stroke just thinking about it--as if those meetings aren't intolerable enough."

  As though Laurie felt she needed to offer Ridley a thread of hope, she added, "If it makes you feel any better, the weather report said it'll be a lot cooler by the weekend."

  "Anything would feel better than this, but first we have to find some way to survive the rest of this week." Ridley lifted one of her bags. "I brought plenty of bottled water and I'm praying the teacher that was here before me left a fan in the gym office."

  "If not, I've got an extra one." Laurie glanced briefly at her clothing and then at Ridley's. They both wore shorts and sleeveless polo shirts. "Thank God the students aren't here so we can get away with dressing like this. I don't know what I'll do if it's still this hot when I have to get dressed up to teach class."

  "That's one good thing about being the Phys. Ed. teacher. I get away with casual clothes most of the time because no one expects me to dress up."

  "And there's no need to. You'd just get dirty down in that gym." Laurie stared at Ridley for a moment and as she did she must have discovered something amusing which caused the corners of her mouth to turn up. "You couldn't pull off wearing a dress anyway. You'd look kind of funny in one. When I think of you, I think of handsome rather than feminine. It's not that you're super butchy or anything, but..." Laurie appeared worried about that last statement.

  "Relax, I know what you mean," Ridley said, to put her friend at ease. She'd made it clear to Laurie on more than one occasion that she didn't like to dress too masculine or too feminine. She preferred a more neutral appearance and was attracted to the same kind of women although she did tend to favor women who leaned a tad more toward the feminine side. "And you're right, I would look funny. If I did dress up I'd have to wear dressier pants because I don't own a dress and I can't remember the last time I wore one--twelve years old, maybe?"

  Laurie took a quick peek at her watch. "We'd better stop standing around chatting and get in there." She picked up her bag with one hand and took hold of Ridley's arm with the other as they started toward the main entrance. "When did you get back from the shore?"

  "Last night around nine-thirty. I waited until the traffic thinned out before I hit the road. As you know, there's no sense in leaving any earlier on a holiday weekend because if you do, you just end up sitting in your car on the road while you crawl all the way home with everyone else who left early. You get home just as late."

  "Bet you hated to leave. Is your Mom still down there?"

  Ridley's nod answered Laurie's question. "September's one of her favorite months. It's still summer and still warm, but the vacation crowds are gone and it's peaceful again."

  "It must be a lot more peaceful, but then we wouldn't know because we have to get back to work." Laurie let out a squeal after she said that and joggled Ridley's arm to and fro with gusto. "Speaking of work, I can't believe we're going to be working at the same school! I was thrilled when you told me your transfer was official."

  "Back when we were in college, did you ever think we'd be working together someday?" The two of them had been friends ever since Laurie chose the seat next to Ridley's in their first freshman class at Temple University. Ridley's smile evolved into a wry grin. "I do hate to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but you'll be up on the third floor teaching English and I'm going to be down in the gym so we'll hardly see each other."

  "So what? I'm just happy to have you here. We can eat lunch together and go to meetings together, can't we?" Laurie cocked her head, a habit Ridley was quite familiar with. "We can talk about the same people and we'll both know what's going on in the school. It'll be fun."

  "When you put it that way, it sounds like a hell of a lot of fun." Ridley cocked her head to match Laurie's and mirrored her friend's silly smile.

  Laurie straightened her head. "You don't need to make fun of me."

  "I was only teasing you." Ridley covered her mouth and yawned. "God, I'm so tired today. I think I slept about four hours at the most. I couldn't get to sleep, I couldn't stay asleep and then I couldn't get up once I finally fell asleep. You know how out of whack our systems get after we've been off the entire summer."

  "I didn't sleep much either," Laurie said. "Every September I go through an adjustment period for a week or two until I get back into my work routine."

  "I go through the same thing, but on top of that I think I was anxious about going to a new school. I was happy to leave my old school, but..."

  "I understand. Just don't be nervous about working here," Laurie said.

  "I know, I know. You told me how much you love it here. Still, it is a new job and you can't blame me for being a little nervous and excited."

  "No I can't, but I know you're going to love it here. That's why I called you the minute I found out our gym teacher was retiring. I..." Laurie didn't finish her sentence and her gaze became fixed on Ridley's. "I'm sorry, your eyes distracted me. I almost forgot how they change colors from one moment to the next. They can be different shades of green depending on the light and in the next second, they've got flecks of gold in them. They're so pretty they make you lose your train of thought."

  "You should be used to them by now." Ridley was accustomed to other people's remarks about the color of her eyes, although she appreciated the compliment more when it came from Laurie or someone dear to her. "They probably have dark circles under them, today."

  "Not really." Laurie paused on the sidewalk and inspected Ridley from top to bottom. "I haven't seen you in a few weeks and you may be tired, but you look fantastic and I love your tan. Not that you needed to, but did you lose a little weight over the summer? I didn't notice it when we came down to visit at the end of July, but now I can see it."

  Ridley loo
ked down at Laurie who at five feet five was a good two and a half inches shorter than she. "I lost about twelve pounds. I always lose weight in the summer."

  "I usually lose a few pounds, too, but not because I'm as active as you are. I just don't feel like eating as much." Laurie stopped when they reached the high school's massive cascade of steps that led up to the main entrance. "Here we are. Nowhere left to go but up."

  "My, isn't this is an attractive building." Ridley paused to study the dilapidated and dingy structure that loomed in front of them like an abandoned insane asylum. She'd seen the high school many times before, of course, but she'd never paid that much attention to it. In its day it must have been a stately building and in spite of its current state of disrepair, she could almost make out the ghostly image of the building's former grandeur.

  "Isn't it? It's definitely seen better days."

  "I'd say it's long past its heyday. Now I know what the 'P' stands for."

  Laurie cast her friend a curious glance. "What are you talking about?"

  "The P--the P in Calvin P. Hayes. It has to stand for prison."

  "You're totally nuts. You know that, don't you?"

  "Why do you say I'm nuts?" Ridley pretended to be wounded. "It looks just like a prison and look at the windows, they have bars on them. That proves my point." She pointed to the iron security bars on the ground floor windows.

  "That doesn't prove anything. All the schools have bars on the windows."

  "Laurie, I'm just teasing you and believe me when I tell you that I do not care how it looks as long as I enjoy working here. Anything would be an improvement over my last school. The last straw in a long line of last straws was that new principal we got last year. There's nothing worse than a bitchy woman armed with absolute power."