A Girl Like You by vinnie Kinsella (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

get Joe to follow, that they had a cat named Noodles, but never any children. They’d been on so many cruises Joe had lost track, but on one seven-day trip he’d gained fifteen pounds, which was what precipitated the diet. If she knew about the almost daily Brew Coffee baked goods, Ellen would probably cry.

Joe stood up and walked around the counter to sit with the men. I picked up my cell to discreetly text Eddie to see if he wanted to go out for some bad karaoke Friday night. To everyone’s surprise, Joe folded his arms on the table and put his head down. Wes, Sal, Paulie and I looked at each other, waiting for someone to say something to him. Jerky came out from under the table and laid a paw on his leg.

“Aw, what is it, buddy?” Sal asked.

“I think she’s left me,” Joe said, suppressing a sob. “She wants to stay with her sister.”

Thunder rumbled outside and the sky darkened. It was Farmers’ Market day, and it always rained on the vendors’ tents.

“Well, shit,’course she wants to stay in Florida, the sunny state—who wouldn’t wanta?” Paulie said.

Joe shrugged his shoulders but didn’t pick up his head.

“I tell ya what,” Sal said. “You hop on a flight and go down there and fetch her. Bring her back home.”

“How am I gonna do that?” Joe looked up briefly. His eyes were rimmed in red.

Wes rubbed his hands together briskly. “Let’s think on this. Between the five of us, we can come up with something.”

I realized the men were including me in the conversation, so I stowed away my cell.

“How about you bring her flowers?” I said.

“I dunno.”

“What kind does she like? Roses are always good.”

“Daisies,” Joe said glumly. “She carried them in her bouquet at our wedding.”

“There ya go, that’s the spirit,” Sal said, patting Joe on the back. “What else you got?”

“How about a Hallmark card?”

“Or one of those edible arrangements? She likes fruit, doesn’t she?” Paulie offered.

Joe sat back in his chair. “She does love her cantaloupe,” he said thoughtfully. “And that fresh sliced pineapple, that’s her favorite.”

“You’re a woman,” Paulie said to me. “What would you do if your man flew down to surprise you with flowers and melon and asked you to come back home?”

Melt, I thought.

“Well, you can’t make her come back, but if you tell her you love her, you miss her, and life isn’t good without her, then she would have to listen,” I said.

Joe pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Goddammit, I’ll do it,” he said resolutely. “There’s gotta be an afternoon plane down to Fort Lauderdale. I’ll buy her gifts when I get down there. She loves those key lime chocolates too.”

“Don’t forget about the diet,” I warned him before he got carried away.

“Oh, hell, you’re right—she isn’t eating candy since the last cruise.”

He clapped his hands together, grabbed his jacket and picked up his umbrella. Jerky was wagging his tail furiously.

“Hold down the fort, Jess?”

“Of course.”

Joe stopped and turned back toward us.

“Thanks, guys. I owe you big time.”

“Cinnamon buns!” Paulie yelled at him, but he was already gone.

Two days later, Joe and Ellen flew back home. She said the daisies had done the trick. She never knew her husband remembered her wedding bouquet. Within a month, they were planning their next cruise, this time on a ship offering healthy foods and plenty of activities on shore to keep Joe’s weight gain under a pound a day.

36

“I want you to meet someone,” Madd texted me while I was at the gym.

I hit the stop button on the treadmill and jumped off while it was still moving, stumbling a little, but I didn’t think anyone around me noticed.

“Ohhhh,” I texted back, already showing too much excitement. “Who is he?”

“His name is Cameron. He’s a psych student at SUNY.”

“I want all the details…how long have you known him?”

I walked to the locker room, taking a quick look at my ass in the full-length mirror. Was it getting smaller, or was I imagining it? Maybe it was just a flattering mirror. Whatever. I’d take it.

“We met two weeks ago.”

“Two weeks?! And you haven’t said anything?”

“I really like this one, Mombo.”

A woman in the locker room got off the scale with a big smile on her face.

“Five pounds down,” she told me happily.

“Congratulations!”

I knew the day was coming when I would be brave enough to weigh myself too. Soon.

When Maddy brought Cameron over the next night after dinner, I liked him instantly.

He was at least 6’ tall and had a cute mop of dark curly hair. Best of all, he never took his eyes off Madison.

“Coffee?” I offered Cameron.

“Do you have tea?”

A tea drinker. I liked him even more.

“So, you guys met online?” I asked.

“Yeah, but we’ve been saying we need to make something up more interesting to tell people,” Cameron said, reaching across the table to take Maddy’s hand. “It’s not very romantic to say you met on Bumble.”

Madison laughed, the high, musical laugh she’d had as a kid. When she was turning seven, a friend let us hold her birthday party on a long dock on Campbell Lake. It had been a quintessential summer day, bright sunshine, made all the more perfect by a Barbie Doll cake I’d had made by the best bakery in town. There was a real doll in the center; the cake had pink buttercream frosting that looked like a flowing skirt.

The wind picked up out of nowhere, blowing fast across the water, and paper plates began flying off the dock like frisbees. Then a chair got knocked over, and to my horror, the table holding the cake began to wobble. It felt as if everything was moving in slow motion as I ran to grab it, narrowly missing it as the table crashed and the Barbie cake slid into the water, sinking.

Horrified, I turned to Maddy to tell her we’d get another cake. But she was laughing so hard she had to hold her stomach,