Olive Oil and White Bread
Read Olive Oil and White Bread Online
Authors: Georgia Beers
Bywater Books
Copyright © 2014 Georgia Beers
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Bywater Books First Edition: June 2014
Cover designer: Bonnie Liss (Phoenix Graphics)
Bywater Books
PO Box 3671
Ann Arbor MI 48106-3671
ISBN: 978-1-61294-050-2
This novel is a work of fiction. Although parts of the plot were inspired by actual events, all characters and events described by the author are fictitious. No resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, is intended.
Olive Oil & White Bread
Contents
1988: The Way You Make Me Feel
1991: Love Will Never Do (Without You)
Jillian Clark stood in the on-deck circle, waiting for her turn at bat and reflecting on what her friend Tinny had told her.
Left center's got a weak arm. If you get the chance to go home, take it
.
It was her Thursday night softball leagueâthe third time this week she'd playedâand she felt strong. Content. It was mid-August. Summer was almost over; she was fresh out of college and ready to start her first real, full-time job. Life was good.
She took a couple of practice swings then squatted down to tighten the laces on her cleats when her peripheral vision caught movement and she stood up straight to look around. Two women walked together, chatting animatedly. One of them was Laura, a woman Jillian had met in passing. The otherâtook Jillian's breath away. All movement became sluggish, until Laura and the most gorgeous brunette Jillian had ever seen were moving in slow motion, like a scene from a romantic comedy. For Jillian in that moment, nothing existed except that beautiful woman. Body moving fluidly as she walked, she was tall and curvyâand completely out of Jillian's league. She wore cut-off jeans and a clingy chocolate brown T-shirt with a V-neck that showed a teasing peek of cleavage. The color of the shirt accentuated her large brown eyes and what had to be ten pounds of thick, wavy, dark hair. Her skin was tanner than Jillian would ever be in her lifetime, even if she spent every day in a tanning bed, and she smelled like a combination of scents that Jillian couldn't quite pinpoint, but was immediately drawn to: sandalwood, something tangy, musky, something spicy. The woman looked directly at Jillian as she sauntered by, still talking with Laura, and their eyes held for a beat longer than necessary. She gave Jillian
a lazy, sexy smile and arched one dark eyebrow as she did it. It nearly melted Jillian into a puddle where she stood.
Then the moment was over.
Wow
.
Jillian stared after the woman whose scent still lingered in Jillian's nostrils, her eyes locked so obviously on the retreating form that some of her teammates began to laugh.
“Batter?” she heard a male voice say. He sounded far away.
“Jillian.” This time it was Tinny, and Jillian blinked rapidly, looked around, felt weirdly confused. She saw Tinny's face as she gestured madly toward home plate. “You're up, Romeo.”
A quick glimpse into the bleachers told her that Laura and her beautiful friend had taken seats and were watching the game.
Now is the time to be impressive. Now or never
. “No pressure or anything,” she muttered under her breath and stepped into the batter's box. Holding up a hand to the ump, she dug her back foot into the dirt, twisted it left and right until it felt even and sure in the spot. She glanced at her teammate preparing to lead off from first, then gripped the bat, took one practice swing, and crouched into her stance.
The softball gods smiled on her. She waited for the second pitchâfollowing her cousin's advice to never, ever swing at the first oneâand the second the ball hit the bat, solid and direct, Jillian knew it was a base hit. As the ball flew into deep right field, she ran hard, stopping easily on second base and bringing in an RBI to the cheering and applause of her teammates. It was hard to tell from where she stood, but she was pretty sure Laura andâmore importantlyâthe gorgeous brunette were watching.
How about that stunning display of athletic prowess, huh? Interested yet?
She shook her head at her own cocky thoughts.
And the smiling of the softball gods pretty much stopped there.
The next batter popped out to the short stop, so Jillian stayed on second. With two outs, Tinny came up to bat. She was a big woman, broad-shouldered and thick-legged, and Jillian watched with a grin as the outfielders took a few steps back, intelligently so. True to form, Tinny crushed a pitch right down the middle toward the left center fielder. Jillian took off like a shot. As she approached third, Tinny's voice echoed in her head.
Left center's got a weak arm
.
That was all she needed for her ego to take over, and she ignored the third base coach, who was giving her the “Stop Right Here” sign as clearly as she possibly could without jumping up and down screaming. Jillian blew past her, determined to make an impression on the beautiful stranger sitting in the bleachers.
Turned out, Tinny was somehow mistaken. The left center fielder made a picture-perfect throw that Jillian heard whiz by her head. The catcher had the ball in her mitt well before Jillian had even made the decision to take her out. They collided in a billowing cloud of dust and sweat and body hitting body, an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object. The sound from the crowd was a collective wince.
As luck would have it, the catcher was roughly the size of a small mountain. The 5'4” Jillian didn't stand a chance, like a cartoon character hitting a brick wall and falling flat. That's certainly how it felt.
“Out!”
Jillian knew it before she heard it. Cheers went up from the opponents' bench. Jillian laid on her back in the dirt and groaned as the cloud of dust settled around her, certain she'd broken every bone in her bodyâor at least most of themâand wondered if she'd ever be able to breathe normally again.
“Batter? You okay?” the umpire asked, not unkindly.
Jillian glanced at the bleachers. Laura and her gorgeous friend were nowhere to be seen. “Nothing shattered but my pride,” she muttered, not quite sure if that was true. She gingerly flexed fingers and toes, then legs and arms, to make sure everything still worked. Tinny came up next to her and grasped her arm.
“You okay, Jill? Jesus, that was a hard hit.”
“Thanks for the news flash. I thought you said left center couldn't throw.”
Tinny grimaced as she pulled her friend to her feet. “Yeah, I meant right center.”
“Perfect. That's just perfect.” Jillian limped off the field with Tinny's help, in dire need of an ice pack and a beer, and trying to ascertain just how big the black and blue bruise on her outer thigh was going to be. She shook her head, irritated by the whole event,
sure that since she'd never seen the gorgeous brunette before, she'd probably never see her again. She'd blown it. Big time. She was sure of it.
She was wrong.
Angelina Righetti looked around in awe. Never had she been in a straight bar that was so completely filled with lesbians. In fact, now that she was what her friend Laura liked to call “officially out,” it seemed like she was seeing short-haired, athletic, slightly masculine women everywhere. This, she knew (from some lesson in her college econ class) was an example of the Law of Attraction. Start thinking about a certain product and suddenly you begin to see it everywhere you look. For Angie, this had been most true of cars, but lately, it was happening to her with gay women.
“Sweetie, close your mouth,” Laura said, interrupting Angie's thoughts. “You're going to draw flies.”