Excerpt:

After they had finished, Gail saw Ann in the main office area and said, “That kid’s going to be alright.”

“Is that that the only reason you’re happy?” Ann said. “Or is there something more to it?”

Gail didn’t know what Ann was talking about.

Ann must have noticed Gail’s puzzled look, because she clarified. “How was your date last night?”

“Oh,” Gail said. She had not really had a chance to talk to Ann yet, because they had been going nonstop since they got into the office that morning.

“The date was a non-starter,” she said. And then, before Ann could say anything, “Do you know who that guy was you set me up with?”

Ann looked confused. “He’s a friend, someone we met a few years ago. A nice guy, but a little flighty.”

“He’s my ex-husband!”

“No!” Ann said, eyes wide. And then, with all seriousness, “No way. You were married to Juh-- something, began with a ‘G’ or a ‘J’...”

“George Edward Chase.” Gail filled in the missing info.

“Oh God!” Ann covered her mouth with her hands. “I’m so sorry,” in that melodramatic cadence girls sometimes use to indicate sincerity and urgency.

Gail wanted to put her friend at ease. “It’s okay. We had fun, caught up, had a good time. And then...”

After a few beats, Ann apparently couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “And then... What?”

And Gail told her all about the kiss, how George opened the door for her, how he made her feel special, how he was going to give her a peck on the cheek, how she turned and kissed him on the lips, how she wanted to feel him, to taste him again, how it turned out to be much more than either of them had expected, how she would have kept going, had he not stopped it, and how she feared what would have happened if they had taken it farther. How he apologized and left without another word.

Ann listened intently, only interrupting to urge more details out of her friend.

Gail shook her head in dismay. By this time, she had sat down, because of the intense feelings she was bringing back to the surface.

“I never expected that to happen,” Gail said.

“Well, yeah,” Ann answered. “So, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how I really feel about it. I feel funny. Confused. Not love, though. I like him a lot. He’s always made me feel funny, special inside, like no one else.”

“Sounds like love to me,” Ann said.

Gail didn’t want to hear that. “We had some good food and good company. It was fun to catch up with an old friend. Why do we have to make more of it than it is?”

“Because you nearly sucked the guy’s face off!”

“An anomaly. An accident.”

“You ‘accidentally’ nearly sucked the guy’s face off?” Ann used the air quotes around the word accidentally.

“Look, I don’t know that he wants to start anything, and I certainly don’t.” Gail felt confident about that, now that she had said it. “We ended up miserable and divorced, because we just couldn’t make a life together. Why would I want to go into that again? I mean, yeah, maybe it would be fun for awhile, but I’d always know that...”

Gail remembered George’s sad eyes, whenever they had a fight, or more often when they didn’t fight. She remembered when she told him she wanted a divorce. She couldn’t stand to put him through that again.

“I just can’t do it, okay?”

And that was final.