She knew what was coming next. This old man standing in front of her—a man she had acted kindly toward over the past few weeks in order to make him feel welcome—was going to ask her out.
“No,” she blurted.
“I was going to ask if you wanted to go out.”
“I’m still wearing my wedding ring,” she said, lifting her left hand to show him.
She hoped it would shield her like a magic amulet.
“The rhododendron garden,” he continued. “I thought you might like to see it.”
She had already said no. Why was he still pushing her?
“Thank you,” she said. “But I’m not ready.”
She would never be ready. She needed to get out of there.
She wasn’t good at this—saying “no” to a man in a way that wouldn’t hurt his feelings but still let him know that he had no chance with her.
The problem, she realized, was that there was no way not to hurt someone’s feelings when you rejected them.
She felt so awful about this that before she left, she hugged him and said how good it was to have seen him that morning.
“It was good seeing you, too,” he said.
She walked quickly to her car, got out of the parking lot, and drove home. Walking in the door, closing it behind her, she sighed. It was so good to be safe again, home alone.
Would she ever be able to go back? Would this man keep hounding her? How awkward it will be in the future, she thought.
Maybe it would be best to find another partner so that she would be “taken” and not have to endure any more of these encounters.
That was crazy thinking.
She remembered the boy in high school who kept asking her out because she never made it clear to him that she was not attracted to him. Instead, she made stupid excuses, like having to wash her hair.
Maybe the boy thought that if she would just give him a chance, she could learn to like him. He could change her mind about it.
What is it that makes the chemistry happen in one person but not the other? Or is it stranger still when it happens to both people simultaneously?
She looked down at her left hand . . . the wedding ring. Thank god for the wedding ring.
She knew that Adrian would not mind if she found another man now. He would expect her to.
But he would be wrong.
