by Flynn, Avery
Boxes, sewing mannequins, piles and piles of books, bolts of cloth, and baskets of yarn and ribbon cover every available spot.
“You sure you guys want to do this today?” I ask. “We could go downstairs and make margaritas and chocolate chip cookies instead.”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning,” Nick says.
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” I joke.
Nick takes a step closer, and the nice, wide upstairs hall gets a whole lot narrower. “Nope, just noting the time.”
“How about we make a plan to clear half the room today?” Sarah says. “We uncover the bed and tackle the side of the room closest to the door. Once we’ve done that, lunch—and margaritas at the Mexican restaurant down the street—is my treat. I found out a couple of weeks ago that they make really good virgin piña coladas.”
“Margaritas for lunch it is,” Nick says.
I look from them to the stacks and stacks of stuff crammed into every nook and cranny, then back again. “Or dinner…”
“Or dinner.” Sarah laughs as she turns in the doorway and takes a step into the hallway and a deep breath. “But I say we all take a box of trash bags and do our worst between now and one o’clock. Whoever manages to fill the most bags wins.”
“What do they win?” Nick asks.
I peek into the room—well, as much as I can because it’s just stuff from the floor to the ceiling.
“Winner gets their pick of whatever treasures we uncover in here.” I spot a pyramid of yarn in a million different colors. I’ve cleaned out so many rooms in the last week that standing here, trying to come up with a plan of attack for this room, feels overwhelming.
“Oooh, good idea!” Sarah does a little clap-dance move. “I want the hat.”
She points at the giant Kentucky Derby–style hat on the mannequin in the farthest corner of the room. My jaw unhinges. What in the hell? It’s hot pink (Aunt Maggie seems to have had a favorite color) and covered in pink roses and two nearly life-size flamingos that are also wearing flowery hats. It’s a monstrosity. It’s amazing. It’s sooooo Aunt Maggie.
“Sorry, I want that hat,” Nick teases her with an easy grin that makes my heart go pitter-patter even as I wonder what’s up.
He’s never been as easy around me as he is with Sarah. He smiles at her, laughs with her, and teases her while he’s all tense and grumpy and smoldering whenever he and I are alone together.
He is helpful, absolutely. Even thoughtful. But there’s definitely a lot more grump and smolder when he’s dealing with me. Then again, as I watch him literally reach up and tweak her ponytail, I admit that maybe I’m okay with the differences.
If Nick is going to tweak something of mine, I definitely don’t want it to be my ponytail.
Not that I want him to tweak anything, I assure myself. The last thing I want to do is add a new man to my life before I’m even officially divorced from the old man.
I clear my throat—and my mind—then say, “So it’s agreed. The hat is the prize.” I give Nick the side-eye. “I’ve got to admit, I’m kind of dying to see you in it.”
“Hot pink is my favorite color,” he shoots back.
“Mine too!” Sarah rubs her palms together and squeezes her way into the room. “So get ready to lose, buddy.”
He rolls his eyes in response, but he’s grinning, too, even before my newfound sister starts the countdown. “On your mark, get set, go!”
I’d like to say we leap into the room and get to work at the word “go,” but the truth is, beyond Sarah, we can’t get into the room. Instead, Nick and I each bend down and start grabbing stuff and pulling it into the hallway while Sarah does the same just inside the doorway. In an unspoken agreement, Nick and I make sure to grab the heavier stuff, leaving things like pillows and small material bolts for Sarah to lift.
I’m all for getting help cleaning out this room. But I draw the line at letting the pregnant woman lift anything heavier than her purse. Apparently, Nick feels exactly the same way, because anytime Sarah reaches for anything bigger than a shoebox, he magically gets there first.
Twenty minutes later, we have a ton of boxes and other things piled in my hallway and we’ve—kind of—made a path to the bed in the center of the room.
“Now what?” Sarah asks as she looks around with wide eyes.
I get it. It seems like a lot when it’s all piled up in one room. Now that it’s spread out, it’s completely overwhelming. But if the last week has taught me anything, it’s that you just keep sorting and pitching. Sorting and pitching. Eventually you get to the bottom.
“I say we sort,” Nick says. “Trash in one pile. Things for charity in a second pile. Things that need to be saved in a third pile. And everything we’re not sure of in a fourth pile that we can look at once we’ve got the first couple of rounds of items clear.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” I open the lid on the first small box I get to and let out a yelp.
“What’s wrong?” Nick rushes to my side and pulls the box away.
He takes one look and nearly drops it entirely.
“Not so brave now, huh?” I say as we look down at dozens of dismembered dolls’ heads staring back at us with blank eyes.
“I thought it was a rat or something.” He starts to close the flaps back up on the box. “This is so much worse.”
Sarah comes over and stops him to look in before taking a step back, her palm pressed to her chest. “Sooooo much worse.”
“I say trash,” Nick decides, careful not to look inside the box again.
I can’t blame him.
“Like there was ever a doubt?” I hold open my half-filled trash bag so he can empty the box into it. “What in the world could Aunt Maggie have possibly had planned for those?”
“Uh, sorry to break it to you, Mallory.” Sarah takes the now-empty box from Nick and starts to break it down. “But I’m pretty sure she didn’t have a plan for any of this stuff.”
I stare down into the bag full of disembodied heads. “I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing.”
A few of the items are total what-were-you-thinking-Aunt-Maggie, but honestly, we try to treat everything as special to her. With kindness regarding her hoarding compulsion while we decide what to do with the item. After all, these things meant something to her. I can even pick out various collections as memories of things she did over the years, memories she couldn’t bring herself to part with. But the disembodied baby doll heads? That’s just straight-up creepy. Sorry, Aunt Maggie.
“Definitely not a bad thing,” Nick agrees as he holds up what looks very much like a stuffed raccoon. And not of the fluffy stuffed-animal variety, either.
“Was that—” I break off in horror, taking as many steps back as possible before I’m butt-to-headless-torso with a mannequin.
“Once alive?” Sarah lets out a squeal of glee instead of horror. “Oh, yeah. Mr. Buttons here is definitely the result of a taxidermist.”
“Mr. Buttons?” Nick and I ask at the same time.
“That’s what Aunt Maggie used to call him when she brought him out for our breakfast dates. She would make him dance on the kitchen counter.”
Nick and I exchange vaguely nauseated looks.
“Because that’s not weird at all,” I say.
Sarah shrugs. “It didn’t seem weird when I was little.”
“I’m not even sure what to say to that,” I tell her. “Except here.” I take the raccoon from Nick and hand it to her. “My gift to you.”
“Should she even be carrying that thing when she’s pregnant?” Nick’s brows hit his hairline.
“It’s not a litter box,” I answer with a roll of my eyes. “It’s not going to give her toxoplasmosis.”
He leans in closer. “You sure about that?”
“I thought I was sure,” I say as d
oubt creeps in. “You know what? I’ll hang on to him until you have the baby. Then I’ll give him back.”
Sarah laughs, but she dutifully relinquishes her hold on Mr. Buttons. And I dutifully add him to the brand-new pile for saved items. I’m proud I don’t toss him, even if I do hold him out as far as my arms will allow.
Nick gives me an amused grin before diving into the closest box to him. I grin back before doing the same.
We work pretty much nonstop for the next hour, the only sound being one of my aunt’s Cat Stevens albums drifting up the stairs and an occasional squeak from one of us.
At least until Nick opens up the top of a large, fancy chest and then drops it right back down with a muttered curse. Several seconds go by before he bends and opens the chest again; then he stands over it, peering into its depths as he laughs and laughs and laughs.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“What’s so funny?” Sarah asks as she maneuvers around one of the piles between them so she can also peer into the box.
A shocked look comes over her face for a full fifteen seconds before she, too, busts out laughing.
I’m really hoping to finish the basket I’ve been working on for the last ten minutes, but now my curiosity is totally aroused. I toss the items in my hands—a giant bag of what looks to be used batteries—into the trash, then walk around the clutter until I can see into the box.
And like Nick and Sarah, it takes me several seconds to comprehend what I’m seeing. “Is that…?”
“Yeah,” Nick says with a wide grin. “It definitely is.”
“Huh.” I bend over to get a closer look. “And the blue one is—?”
“Yep. It’s definitely what you think it is,” Sarah says like she’s got some kind of insider knowledge.
And what do I know? Maybe she is an expert in sex toys—like apparently Aunt Maggie was. Because inside this chest is what has to be a lifetime supply of vibrators, fur handcuffs, and just about every other kind of sex toy one can imagine. Like, every kind. I had no idea vibrators came with a glitter option.
“Did she make these dance around at your breakfast dates, too?” I joke as I swipe a clump of hair out of my eyes.
“Now, that would have been a sight to see.” Sarah cracks up all over again. “What do you think we should do with them?”
“Um, throw them away?” I suggest in my most obvious tone. “I mean, do you really want to hang on to a vibrator Aunt Maggie used?”
The second the words leave my lips, all three of us start laughing again, because it’s not actually that big of a surprise to think about Aunt Maggie having a chest full of sex toys. What is a shock, though, are the breadth and variety of her selection.
“Honestly, most of these don’t even look like they’ve been used,” Sarah says, reaching down to pick up a giant veiny purple vibrator with an extra enhancement for clitoral stimulation. Which, not going to lie, are two words I never thought I’d use in a sentence when thinking about my aunt. “This one is brand-new.”
“Thank God,” Nick mutters from beside me.
I shoot him an incredulous look, but he holds up a hand in a wait-a-minute kind of gesture. “Don’t give me that look. I have absolutely nothing against female self-pleasure. Nothing. But I don’t want to imagine my friend, your sweet, old Aunt Maggie, having anything to do with that.”
I have to acknowledge that he has a point. “Yeah, I don’t really want to think about it, either.”
“Well, I think it’s cool,” Sarah says, picking up a bright blue anal plug—also still in its original packaging. “I mean, Aunt Mags lived the life she wanted to live. She traveled where she wanted to, hung out only with the people she wanted to, only did the things she wanted to. And if that included giving herself a whole bunch of regular orgasms with a pink vibrator—”
She grabs the vibrator in question—a long and slender wand, with balls of varying circumference placed at adjustable intervals along its length. “Then I say, more power to her.”
I snicker. “I take it you mean that literally.”
She giggles as she tosses the unopened vibrator back in the chest. “At least now we know what Angela meant when you mentioned she took a chance inviting you to the Stella and Dot party, since it wasn’t really Aunt Maggie’s style.”
My eyes go wide as I remember puzzling over the strange comment. “You don’t think this is what she meant, do you?”
“I think it’s exactly what she meant,” Sarah answers. “I’ve been to enough bachelorette parties in Newark to recognize Lovewinx and Pure Romance as two different at-home-sales brands.”
“And Maggie went to enough of these that women in the neighborhood knew to invite her?” Nick asks, his dark-brown eyes looking slightly bemused.
“There’s a couple thousand dollars’ worth of products in here easy,” Sarah says as she bends down and picks up a giant gold vibrator that looks more like an ancient scepter than it does an instrument of female pleasure. “So my guess is yeah.”
I look more closely and realize my sister is right. There are a lot of products in this trunk, and all the ones I can see are completely unopened. “You don’t think she went to those parties just because she was lonely, do you?”
“Ummmm, she has a trunk full of sex toys to prove just the opposite.”
“Yeah, but even you said they aren’t used. What if she just bought them so people would keep inviting her to the parties, so she wouldn’t have to be on her own all the time?” Suddenly I feel incredibly guilty for all the weekends I planned to get over here to see her and then couldn’t because something came up with Karl or the firm or the life I built for myself in New York.
“I said most of them weren’t used,” Sarah reiterates. “Not all of them. Because judging from the state of these two—” She holds up a short, fat vibrator in a vivid green and another, longer one that sparkles. “They’re very well used.”
“Good on her, then,” Nick says.
No one is laughing now, and I find myself nodding along to Nick’s pronouncement. Hey, it’s kind of cool to realize a woman as old as Aunt Maggie still thought of herself as a sexual being. Especially since I felt like that part of me has been dead for longer than I’d like to admit—right up until someone started to bitch about the length of my grass.
“So what do you think?” Sarah asks after she tosses the used vibrators in the trash. “Should we donate the brand-new ones or throw them away?”
I have no idea. Is it even legal to sell or give away someone’s sex toys? Forget the HOA; do I really want the police on my front porch? That would definitely make the tristate local news and kill any chance of getting a fair divorce settlement.
“Don’t stress, sis. I’ll take them,” Sarah says, sweeping several sex toys still in their original packaging into one of the empty boxes. “I’ve sworn off men, not orgasms.”
I have absolutely no idea what to say to that. Judging by the amused but still wide-eyed look on Nick’s face, neither does he. The universe, however, finally smiles on me and my doorbell rings, rescuing me from having to say anything more.
I hustle down the front staircase, eager to get to the door before the porch ends up eating a human sacrifice. Who would ignore all the signs I left? Prepped to yank the person inside, I throw open the door. My mom stands on the other side in a pale-pink sheath dress and matching bolero jacket. On her face is a stiff almost-smile. In her hand is the extra-large roller suitcase sitting next to her.
“Really, Mallory,” she says as she walks inside, leaving her suitcase on the porch—no doubt for me to bring in. “You’re going to scare your visitors half to death if you answer your front door like that.”
Fuck.
So much for the universe being on my side for once. Part of me figures that at least it can’t get worse, but I know better than that.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“So, Mom,” I say as I roll her suitcase inside. “Any particular reason you brought a suitcase with you?”
Please let it be because she wants to lay claim to something of Aunt Maggie’s. I don’t care what it is—cooking magazines, hair clips, her entire sex-toy collection. She can have anything she wants, just please, please, please let it be that my mother needed a convenient way to pack something up. Not because—
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mallory,” she says as she stands in the middle of the front room and looks around disapprovingly. “Obviously I’m moving in.”
And the hits just keep on coming.
Of course she’s moving in. I mean, why wouldn’t she be? After spending the last however many weeks haranguing me about the sanctity of marriage and how important it is for me to go back to my husband, she’s left hers.
The irony of the situation is almost more than I can stand…especially since it seems to be completely lost on her.
For a second, I think about hitting my head against the nearest wall until I knock myself out, but that’ll just lead to a lecture on my very non-ladylike behavior, which must be the reason I can’t keep a man. And while such lectures are always a barrel of laughs, the truth is I’m just not up for it today—or ever again.
“Is there any particular reason you’ve decided to move in here?” I ask.
Mom surveys the room, which I admit is still a work in progress. “I haven’t suddenly gone senile, so I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t treat me as though I have.”
Her gaze lands on Sarah as she walks down the stairs with Nick, and Mom’s mouth puckers up like she’s just sucked a five-pound bag of lemons. “You must be the mistake.”
“Mom!” I am so mortified that the volume it comes out at is close to a yell. But I’m also astonished, because how did she even know Sarah was staying with me? “Don’t talk to her like that!”
I turn to apologize to Sarah, but she’s already fleeing to the kitchen. I start to go after her, but Nick puts a hand on my elbow.