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Rita hands me my plate and then I follow a good distance behind Seven towards the kitchen eating nook where a round table with four chairs sits.
I take the seat the furthest away from him. It puts us directly across the table from one another so that we have to face each other but at least we're not close.
Rita finishes filling her plate and then joins us.
We all dig into the food that Rita must have slaved over all day. Every single bite I take is even more delicious than the bite before. I've never had Creole food, which means I can barely wait until we head back to Seven's and I get to check off "Try a new dish" off my "Fix-me" List.
"And what about your family? Where did you grow up? Do you have siblings?"
"I grew up in Oklahoma City. My parents were high school sweethearts and they now both teach at the high school where they met. I have one older brother, but he's nine years older than me and lives in Boston with his wife and twin girls. He got my dad's brains and works as a software engineer for a big tech company. He and I don't stay in touch as much as we should. Sometimes it feels like we weren't even raised together with our big age gap."
Not that I'd ever say this out loud but I know my dad understands my brother so much better than he understands me and my passion for being an author. At least my mom gets it. But I wish so much that marrying Daniel wasn't his highest achievement for me.
"Seven has an older brother too. What is the age gap between you two?" Rita asks.
Seven looks down at his plate as he flicks a piece of shrimp over with his fork. His jaw clenches just slightly for a second. Does he not get along with his brother?
"Eli and I are four years apart," he says and then scoops up a bite of dirty rice and jambalaya.
"Seven grew up in the Midwest. His family owns a farm equipment repair shop, right?" Rita says.
"Something like that," he says between his next bite of food, scrounging down his food like he usually does.
Only this time, I have a feeling he's eating as fast as he can so that he can end this night as quickly as possible.
"That's why he's so good at fixing things. I probably rely on him more than I should. I probably ask for too much help."
He finally looks up from his plate.
"I never mind when you call me to fix something. You know I'm here for anything you need."
Rita reaches over and squeezes his wrist.
"I know, I was kidding. You're a godsend," she pats his forearm and then grabs her glass of wine and takes another sip. "Have you gotten the boat back for mooring it out at sea?"
"I called earlier this morning and they'll have it docked for me by tomorrow. Cammy already asked if we can take it when she gets here. We'll probably go fishing the day after tomorrow once she's settled in. Unless you have her on the schedule already?"
"I have her on for breakfast that day, but I can move her. It's not a big deal," Rita offers.
"No, that's fine. It's her first day out since last year. I'll just pick her up after the breakfast rush, and we'll take it out for a half day."
Hearing Seven talk about his boat and fishing with Cammy, reminds me that I only have a small amount of time to complete my "Fix-Me" list before I head back home. Now is the time to get serious.
For the rest of dinner, Rita regales us with stories of all the adventures she and Bart have experienced since they married fifty years ago. She spoke about the letters he wrote to her as a young nineteen-year-old medic in the army before they got married and how he proposed by mailing home a simple silver ring that he had purchased in a small village in France. He couldn't wait another minute to get home and ask her. He needed to know that they would be together forever once he got back home… if he got back home.
Their story should be told on a Hollywood movie screen.
I hung onto every word, and so did Seven. I was grateful to have a distraction from the tension between me and the man sitting across from me.
Rita and Bart's love story made me think about my own.
Bart couldn't wait even a couple more months to ask Rita to marry him, so much so that he took the last little bit of money that he had to buy her a ring and risked it getting lost or stolen in the mail, all to ensure that Rita knew of his intentions and affection for her.
As the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side. But when I think about Daniel's proposal… and then his reversal, it has me wondering what kind of story I'll get to tell fifty years down the road.
Bart knew that Rita was the one. He had no idea when he would return from the war or even if he would return, but he refused to allow distance to dictate their future. Rita and Bart sent letters back and forth, sometimes not getting a letter from the other person for months, whereas Daniel and I can text and call at any time of day or night, and yet we don't.
Everyone has their own love story, and before I heard Rita and Bart's, I believed that Daniel and I had one of the strongest. But have I based our entire love story on one commonly shared moment in time? Does surviving a tornado and moving across the country together make for a box-office smash love story? Would I even write that as the premise for any of my romance novels?
