by M. E. Carter
* * * *
Getting a Grip
#MyNewLife Series
Copyright © 2017 by M.E. Carter
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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To My Future Greg
I know you’re out there somewhere, and I can’t wait for you to find me.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Acknowledgements
About the Author
“Stop looking at yourself like that.”
I glance from the mirror to my BFF sitting in the corner chair of the dressing room. She’s scrolling through her Facebook page on her newest iPhone. The iPhone she didn’t want but her husband got her anyway, because he has to have all the latest upgrades. Every time. No matter how expensive.
We can’t have a conversation anymore without that damn thing distracting her in one way or another.
“I’m looking at the clothes I’m trying on,” I say, yanking a horizontal-striped dress over my head and tugging it around my hips.
Horizontal stripes? Who am I kidding? I don’t have the figure for this anymore.
Callie huffs and locks the screen of her phone, dropping it into her purse.
“Don’t give me that shit,” she rebuts, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?” I feign ignorance, twirling around and pretending to care about the cut or fit of the umpteenth dress I’ve tried on in the last ten minutes.
She cocks an eyebrow at me. “Glaring at yourself and all those so-called imperfections that douche of an ex threw in your face. That’s what.”
I sigh and yank the offending dress over my head. She’s right. Ever since James critiqued almost every square inch of my body as an excuse for trading me in for a younger model, I can’t look at myself the same way.
Your hips are so wide now.
Those stretch marks kind of gross me out.
Your stomach wasn’t that flabby when I met you.
It wouldn’t kill you to have a boob lift to take care of some of the sag.
I’m just not… turned on by you anymore.
It’s like small daggers in my gut every time I think about those remarks.
“This one is a no.” I throw the dress at Callie’s head. She catches it one-handed and starts putting it on the hanger so I don’t have to do it later, and she will make me do it later. Callie used to work in retail. She’s a strong believer in cleaning up after ourselves when we shop.
“Yeah, I hate that horizontal stripes are in style.”
Oh good, I think to myself, we’re moving onto a new topic.
“Seriously, Elena…”
Or not.
“You need to stop letting him get to you.”
I grab my shoes, praying I can get out of this dressing room sooner rather than later so the racks of clothing will distract her. I’m hoping to distract myself as well.
When it comes to my body, I’ve always been my own worst critic. Aren’t we all? But eighteen months ago, it got exponentially worse. That’s when my husband of fifteen years informed me he was having an affair with his secretary. I was blindsided. I have no idea how I missed the signs. Maybe it’s because I was busy raising our three young girls, but I had no clue he was getting a piece of ass on the side.
Before I could even wrap my brain around the information, he dropped another bomb… it wasn’t only sex. He was in love with her and wanted a divorce.
I tried to talk some sense into him, but he decided his best defense was to add insult to injury. He threw every insecurity I had in my face and used them as his reasons for not wanting me anymore. Because according to him, it was all my fault.
I’ve come to realize, over time, what an asshole he was, and continues to be. But that doesn’t mean I’ve gotten a grip on the damage he left behind. I still struggle with the fact that he got married again so quickly, ironically. But mostly, I still struggle with body self-loathing. While I recognize shopping is a necessary evil, it’s still a big trigger for me. Even when Callie reminds me of all the reasons I’m being irrational.
“First of all, he was trying to make you feel guilty for him cheating, which is ridiculous. Second, he’s no looker himself. And third, none of it is true. You’ve had three babies for God’s sake. And you’re like, a thousand pounds smaller than me.”
I snort and roll my eyes. “Poundage doesn’t mean anything when you have a husband who adores your body and wants to work it out on a regular basis,” I reply, grabbing a handful of clothes from the “no” pile and turn to leave.
“I would be perfectly happy if he didn’t want my body,” she says while following me to the exit. “It’s hard to get off when the last thing he says before sexy time is how lazy I am for not cleaning the kitchen after work.”
“He said that?” I whip around to look at her. “Even after the therapist told him to back off?”
She purses her lips at me. “Elena, it’s going to take more than a few therapy sessions to fix the problems in my husband. Sometimes I envy you for getting two hundred pounds of narcissistic asshole out of your life.”
I shake my head and keep browsing through the women’s section of Kohl’s. Callie introduced the department store to me last year, and now it’s our favorite place to shop. “Retail therapy,” she calls it. More like “adult time” therapy for me. I usually don’t buy anything. I don’t see the need to. My weight is like a yo-yo and it always feels like I’m throwing money away. Instead, I come along for the ride as Callie indulges herself.
She likes to shop. A lot. She has more clothes than anyone I’ve ever known. But she also has a husband that never seems to understand how badly words can wound you. She
makes up for it by doing a lot of retail therapy and doesn’t feel the least bit guilty about it.
The one thing she does feel guilty about is her weight. Since her son Christopher was born almost three years ago, she hasn’t been able to shed the extra pounds. She’s tried every diet known to man… Atkins, juicing, some crazy diet about eating according to your blood type. She even went to the gym six days a week last summer and ate a thousand calories a day. She lost one pound.
One.
As soon as summer was over and she went back to work in the high school administrative office, she gained five back.
“I’m not working my ass off to gain five pounds again,” she’d said. “I can do that sitting on the couch reading a good book.”
While Callie always seems to feel guilty about the weight, she neglects to notice the rest of her.
She’s gorgeous. I mean, stunning.
With long, thick dark hair with waves that just won’t quit, light brown inviting eyes that shine when she’s happy, and the most beautiful smile… I’ve seen men stop dead in their tracks when they see her. She may be heavyset, but she rocks it.
She is also the funniest person I’ve ever met, with some of the quickest wit, and that is something to be appreciated. Not everyone gets my sense of humor. But Callie is one of the only people who has ever understood my snark and shoots it right back at me with amazing cleverness.
Sometimes, when we get caught up in something funny, listening to her laugh makes everything hilarious all over again.
But she doesn’t notice any of that about herself. Nope. All she sees is the weight.
The good thing about her shopping obsession is that she knows how to hide said weight and that works to my advantage when we have our retail therapy sessions. She always knows what will work on me and what won’t. What will hide that flabby gut and show off my arms. With my littlest one’s third birthday party next weekend, I’m practically desperate to find something to make me look pretty. Not sexy, or smokin’, or anything like that. Just pretty.
James is coming to the party. And he’s bringing that little bitch Keri with him. She never lets him out of her sight. It’s really annoying. And kind of sad in a weird way.
You know the Barbie aisle at almost any store? If you look closely, you’ll see that iconic doll is made up for every occasion or occupation known to man… Veterinarian Barbie, Movie Star Barbie, Home-Wrecking Husband-Stealing Barbie. That’s Keri. All plastic and made up and making sure to look and be better than anyone else, as if she has something to prove even after she’s won the prize. The “prize” being my husband, of course.
But that’s the thing about women who steal other women’s husbands. They think the fight is getting their claws into the man, but it’s not. The fight is keeping your claws in him, because despite winning that round in the game of love, they always seem to forget the most important rule: There is always someone younger and prettier than you.
Callie’s phone buzzes in her purse… again.
“Ugh,” she says, rolling her eyes. “It’s like he can’t even take a shit if I’m not there to wipe his ass.”
Her husband, Ben, is the neediest man I have ever met in my life. The way she tells it, when they were dating, it meant being wooed. Once the “I do’s” were over, it meant her job was to take care of his every whim.
And work full time.
And be the mother of a rambunctious son.
She pulls out her phone and swipes to open it. “Really?” She turns the screen for me to see.
When are you coming home?
It’s the same text she gets every time we’re out.
“Tell him when we’re done shopping,” I say, turning back to the rack of tops I’m filtering my way through.
She types for a few seconds. “Done. I swear to you, Elena, if I go home and see he has destroyed the kitchen again, I’m going to go ape shit. I just know it.”
I’ve heard all this before. I’m no stranger to the tumultuous relationship Callie has with her husband. I saw it all firsthand at childbirth classes when we first met. Ben had been a dick then, too. He was just a part-time dick then. When a child was added to the mix of what he considered an already stressful life, it threw him over into the full-time dick category. And when she quit her job this year because Christopher kept getting kicked out of daycare, it made things that much more tense at home. Mostly because according to Ben, being a stay-at-home mom isn’t work. Callie, being the one who is trying to raise the most hyper little boy in the world, disagrees.
“Omg,” Callie says, throwing her head back like she’s shouting to the gods as, yet another, text comes through. “How long will that be? Christopher needs to go to bed,” she reads the message aloud.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say.
“I wish I was.” She doesn’t look up. “So put… him… to bed,” she reads out loud as she types. “You’re the dad… Man… up.” She clicks the phone closed and drops it in her purse. Apparently, she’s done with that conversation.
“Callie,” I walk over to her, holding a short, strappy black polka dot dress, “remind me again why you stay with him? I get that you’re Catholic and such, but I’m pretty sure the priest would forgive you considering all the verbal abuse you take. Probably without even so much as a Hail Mary!”
I’m always poking fun at her about her faith. I respect the hell out of her for being devout, but I don’t really understand it. I don’t believe that Mother Mary has nothing better to do than stand around and be an answering machine for God. Is Heaven really that boring? When I get there, I plan to run up and down those streets paved with gold and eat whatever food they have while enjoying my perfect body. I’m sure it’s the best food ever. And I love my food.
“You know why I can’t leave, Elena,” Callie says quietly. “For all his dick-ness, he’s still my husband and that counts for something. No,” she corrects herself. “It counts for everything. Now try that one on,” she says, pointing to the polka dot dress before continuing. “Happiness is only an emotion. It fluctuates due to hormones and weather and what kind of music you’re listening to. Sure, I’m not happy all the time in this marriage, but when I made the commitment to him, I didn’t expect to be.”
“But did you expect to be unhappy all the time?” I challenge.
She sighs and hands me a beautiful peach tank top. It’s covered in rows of ruffles in different peach shades. Perfect for covering that baby gut I’m self-conscious about.
“No, I didn’t expect to be unhappy either,” she admits. “But reality is, if I leave him, I’ll have to get a job and I like my vacation time with Christopher.” She winks and walks to another rack.
Her vacation quip is an obvious dig at Ben’s belief about what motherhood really is, and it makes me snort a laugh. I love bantering with her. We understand each other well. No, she’s not happy in her marriage, but she’s not about to leave her husband. She’s not ready. And frankly, he hasn’t really done anything that can’t be fixed.
Is he a dick? Yes. Cheater? No.
Provider? Yes. Best friend? No.
The cons still vastly outweigh the pros on the divorce scale for Callie, and I know it. So I’ll never say a negative word about her husband. Will I continue to tell her she deserves better? Absolutely. But I respect her enough to treat Ben courteously as long as they’re married.
The whole, “I’m the only one who can say something bad about my sibling” argument applies here, too. Except this one involves her spouse, so I’ll quietly keep the names I call him in my head.
Until she’s ready to leave him. Then the gloves may come off.
I cringe and freeze as my keys clatter across the table next to the front door. My mom-ears try to hone in on any sounds from upstairs that may have resulted from my noisy mistake.
Around here, bedtime is a very delicate process. If one thing goes awry, all bets are off and there’s no guarantee if or when anyone will sleep again. I know everyone sa
ys that. But until they’ve stayed up past two every night for a week because of impromptu dance parties breaking out in my children’s bedrooms, they really don’t have any idea.
Fortunately, it seems no one is stirring upstairs. “I got lucky,” I mumble to myself while practically tiptoeing to the den to greet the babysitter, also known as my mom.
Rounding the corner, I roll my eyes at her choice in television show. “Really, Ma?” I chide as I flop down on the couch next to her. “The Kardashians?”
“Don’t judge me.” She smacks me on the thigh with one hand and picks up the remote with the other, turning the volume down. “Watching their family makes me feel better about my own.”
“Pretty sure that’s why most people watch it, Ma. Although I think we have our own brand of crazy around here.”
“Doesn’t everyone. But this,” she points her finger at the television, “this is something else.”
“Yeah, as much as you and I butted heads when I was growing up, I’m thankful I didn’t end up with Kris Jenner for a mother.”
I absentmindedly brush invisible lint off my burnt orange couch. Yes, burnt orange. When my mother first pitched the color idea to me, I thought for sure it was the weirdest color choice. Turns out, it goes great with the slate floors in this room. Really draws out the similar specs of color in the tiles. Go figure. I didn’t even realize there was orange in the floor at all until she pointed it out. Visual design is not my strong suit.
“I feel bad for poor Bruce Jenner.” She shakes her head and sighs. “It’s no wonder that poor man had to become a woman.”
“What?” I ask with a laugh. My mother is always spouting off random shit.
“If you had your choice of being married to that woman or wearing a dress for the rest of your life, I’d choose the pantyhose, too.”
A laugh barks out of me before I can stop it. “I hope you don’t say stuff like that in public.”
“Of course not. I may not be politically correct, but I am a lady.”
My mother didn’t just grow up in a different era. She grew up with a really uppity stepmother. While my mom is one of the least judgmental people I know, and I have literally seen her give someone in need the coat off her back, she’s not terribly couth. She subscribes to the belief that because she doesn’t offend easily, no one else should either. And she calls it like she sees it.