Page 39 of Just What She Needed

"Okay," Mel said at last. "I'm going to go change first."

"Mm." It was the only reply Rhett could muster. If it sounded rude then she was sorry, but she didn't trust herself to speak further.

After another couple of moments of charged silence, Mel clacked her way into the hall that led to her bedroom.

As soon as the thick carpet muffled her sister's footsteps, Rhett put her hands over her face and let out a wavering sigh. It had been one bitch of a horrible, depressing day. To take it out on Mel was not something she intended, but lo and behold, the second her sister walked into the house after a long day at work there Rhett was with stony silence and a martyred attitude. What a horrible person she was becoming.

As she lowered her hands, she noticed the pen still between her fingers. With a small sound of exasperation she tossed it on the end table next to her. Despite her good intentions when she got it out earlier, she hadn't so much as clicked the damn thing open all day.

Mel came back into the living room, and instead of going to the kitchen like Rhett expected her to do, she sat in the armchair and propped her bare feet on the square coffee table.

"I'm sorry I was such a bitch," Rhett said with an apologetic grimace.

"Don't worry about it." Mel waved a hand in dismissal of Rhett's earlier attitude. "Everyone has a bad mood now and then. What'cha got there?" She nodded at the notebook which still rested in Rhett's lap.

"Oh." A glance down at the notebook depressed her all over again. "I've spent the past three and half hours making a list of the jobs that interest me, things I want to pursue."

"Yeah? What'd you come up with?"

In answer, Rhett picked up the notebook and showed her sister the stark, blank page.

"Oh." Mel gave her a small smile of commiseration.

"Yeah, 'oh.'" She tossed the thing on the couch cushion next to her and gestured toward her new laptop which sat silent and accusatory on the coffee table. "I did take a break to go through the classifieds and the job listing sites to see what was out there."

"You find anything?"

"Actually, I did." Rhett banished a slight trembling in her lips. "I found out that my education and past employment history make me supremely qualified to ask people if they want fries with their meal. God!" The ornate candle holders and porcelain knick-knacks rattled as she kicked the edge of the coffee table with her heel. "I am so pathetic I can't stand myself."

"Oh, come on, Rhett."

"No, you come on. I've been sitting here for hours, and I can't think of one single, solitary thing I want to do. I even considered going back to school, but for what? I'm so boring and insipid that I can't think of anything that interests me enough to get me out of the damn house. How more freakin' worthless can I be?" She raked her hair back from her face in a violent gesture. "This move to Dallas was supposed to be my fresh start, my way to finally begin living my life, right? So far, I've got no home of my own, no job, no ambition and no man. All I've done is become your wife."

Under any other circumstances, Mel's look of shock and surprise would have been funny. "I'm sorry. My what?"

"I'm your wife. I'm Mrs. Mel Vandergriff. It hit me this morning when your housekeeper kept bitching under her breath that she doesn't have anything to do each week because I've already done it all." Rhett ticked points off on her fingers. "I spend my mornings cleaning, baking goodies, planning supper, doing the laundry, straightening things that don't need straightening, and then I spend the afternoon reading. And occasionally I'll go meet you for lunch before I stop off on my way home to buy myself something pretty, like a good little corporate wife. This is not how I'd envisioned things.

"Futhermore," she continued before Mel could respond. "Being your wife isn't doing a thing for my love life. Since I've moved here, I've had one blind date that was a total catastrophe, and one mind-blowing episode of car sex with Rhys. And he's gone now."

Still appearing thunderstruck, Mel shook her head a little. "Okay, I see your point. But, honey, Rhys is coming back."

"Yes, and then he'll be leaving again because that's what he does. I'm not complaining about that, even though it sounds like I am. I understand it, and it's fine. But if things do pick up with us, I don't want to be someone who just sits around twiddling my thumbs waiting for him to come back home."

"Well..." Mel appeared to be floundering under the flood of words. "Find someone to date who doesn't go gallivanting off all the time. Seriously, I don't mind if you divorce me."

"That's not it." Rhett let loose with a growl of frustration. "I've gotten to know Rhys so much better when we talk on our video calls every night, and I want to see where this goes. The more I get to know him the more I can't stand the thought of a man with some boring, everyday job and life."

"Wait a minute." True to form, Mel picked up on the one thing Rhett was hoping she'd overlook. "All y'all do is talk? What about sexytime?"

Though she knew her frown was censorious, she couldn't help it. "Not that it's any of your business, but yes, we just talk. Evidently he has crappy service where he's staying, and the computer screen freezes up every thirty seconds. We both agreed that wouldn't be very stimulating, right? So, we've spent the past week talking and getting to know each other, and it's been fantastic, thank you very much."

"Okay," Mel conceded. "I can see your point there. So, what's the problem?"

"What's the—have you not been listening to me? I don't want to just sit around waiting for him to call me from wherever he happens to be that night. Christ, Mel." She pounded her fist on her thigh. "I'm going to be forty-three next week, and what do I have to show for it? Besides Lilith. And thank God I must have done it right with her, because she got her education, she works at a job she adores, she's married to the love of her life, and they go out and have fun with their friends. But that's it as far as what I've accomplished. I'm done, finished, over. Just knock me in the head now and put me out of everyone's misery."

"Damn it." Mel swung her feet off the table and sat forward, fire in her eye. "If you don't stop talking like that, I am going to knock you in the head."

"I wish you would. What the hell is wrong with me?" She closed her eyes to hide the tears of rage, frustration and self-loathing that burned them. "If anyone asks you what to get me for my birthday, tell them I want a backbone. I want a purpose. I want...I want to know who I am." To her horror, a fat, hot tear escaped and tracked its way down her cheek.