by Unknown
Her father pitched the frosting over her head and into the garbage with a remarkably deft shot for someone who was seventy- two. “She said you gotta meet her tomorrow at Trophy, nine o’clock sharp.
Which means no sugar for you or you’ll be up all night with the jit-9780425245507_WaltzThisWay_TX_p1-344.indd 32
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ters. Can’t have that. I made you a nice salad and some pasta. Just like your mom used to cook. No more junk or you’ll rot your teeth.”
“My teeth will survive. I had them all capped at Stan’s request.
My butt, on the other hand, probably could use less frosting.”
Joe chucked her under the chin. “You knock that off. I won’t have you wanderin’ around the house callin’ yourself fat anymore. You’re not fat. You’re beautiful. No daughter of Joe Hodge can be anything but.
Just like your Mama was. Now quit buyin’ into all that crap Stan the Ballerina fed you. What does he know about beautiful when he’s porkin’
a woman who looks like the skeleton I hang on my door at Halloween?”
“Dad!” Her father and the word “porking” were too much after tonight and all the seniors’ sexual innuendo she’d heard while she’d drifted from table to table. Who knew you could utilize a walker like that?
Joe’s face held no apology when he shook his head at her, the wrinkles in his face deepening. “It’s true. I don’t know who you are anymore, little girl, but you ain’t the kid I sent off to New York all those years ago who told me she was going to pursue her dream whether I liked it or not. Even after your mother and me argued with you about it for weeks before you left. Remember that?”
Mel’s eyes fell to the fl oor in self- disgust. No. She wasn’t even a mere shadow of the girl he’d sent off to New York to audition for a Broadway play she couldn’t even remember the name of now. This was somewhere Mel didn’t want to go. The place called “Who Mel Used To Be.”
Her father grabbed for her, pulling her into a bear hug and kissing the top of her head. She buried her nose in his shoulder, inhaling the scent of Old Spice and spaghetti.
“Hold your head up, meat loaf. I’m tired of seein’ you staring at the fl oor all the time. You got nothin’ to be ashamed of, Mellow-Yellow. You were a good wife to that shit. He was a bad husband. Stop 9780425245507_WaltzThisWay_TX_p1-344.indd 33
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beating yourself up about it by abusing your body and eating all that garbage.”
Mel tipped her head up, tears glimmering in her eyes. “Have you been going to some sort of therapy I don’t know about, or did you get that from the divorce books you’ve been reading?”
Joe chuckled and ran his knuckles over her scalp. “I’m not above watching those doctors on TV or reading a book so I can fi nd a way to help my kid. You’re eating all that garbage because you’re depressed.
That’s gotta stop, and you have to get to bed at a decent hour tonight instead of sitting up and watching Hoarders all night long. You’re not getting enough sleep. You’re not eatin’ right. You’re not dancing.
You’re worrying me, Mel.”
She gave him a squeeze and a pat on his broad back. “Don’t worry, Dad. Please. I promise my will to live will come back. I’m just not sure when that’ll be,” she joked.
Though these days, since her life had changed so dramatically, she wasn’t sure that was really true. She’d been drifting since she’d arrived in New Jersey— going through the motions because she wanted everything to be all right again.
It just wasn’t. She had a hole in her soul and nothing to fi ll it up with.
She missed her rundown studio. She missed the children who’d attended her dance classes. She missed her house and her bathroom with the antique claw- foot tub. She missed the ballet barre Stan had installed in their basement.
She missed.
Oddly, in all of the things she missed, Stan didn’t so much factor into the missing she was doing as of late. Stan and his lies were something she defi nitely didn’t miss.
So many lies. Lies she’d so foolishly bought. She no longer knew when he’d begun to lie or if he’d always lied and she’d just been too stupid to know. The rumors were endless, and while it didn’t take 9780425245507_WaltzThisWay_TX_p1-344.indd 34
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away the sting of his public betrayal, it made missing him an item at the bottom of her list.
“Listen to your pop. Being the newly informed guy I am, I’ve learned something about your divorce, and not just from TV and a book. From Maxine, too.”
Mel pushed away from him, placing her hands on her hips.
Maxine … the Zen to all things divorced. If you listened to her father, Maxine’s ex-trophy wife advice to divorced women was considered on par with the soothing chants of Tibetan monks.
Just the idea that she’d been labeled an ex-trophy wife by the press made her want to dig a hole and climb in. The label implied she’d never done anything but shop and drip diamonds, which was totally untrue. Sure, she’d had some diamonds and credit cards with no limit, but most of her time had been dedicated to teaching her kids to dance and staying out of Stan’s critical line of fi re.
“Oh, more Maxine insight. I’m on tenterhooks.” At her father’s request, when Maxine had hired Mel part time in the Village, she’d also given her the Trophy Job Employment Agency pitch.
A pitch fi lled with uplifting messages and words Mel would rather gag on than utilize. The divorce journal being high on her list of gag-worthy suggestions. Writing was never her thing— all her creativity fl owed through her limbs— not a pen and some paper fi lled up with emotions she didn’t understand well enough to describe in meaningless adjectives. In fact, she’d come close to failing English her junior year.
Joe’s gray eyebrow rose in disapproval. “Maxine knows where you are because she’s been there, too. I remember what she was like when she fi rst moved here, and she was just like you. Don’t put her down for doing something about it. She scooped—”
“Poop. Jake’s poop. Big poop. I remember.” Mel heard the pride in her dad’s voice when he spoke of Maxine. He made her sound like 9780425245507_WaltzThisWay_TX_p1-344.indd 35
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she’d saved the world in her Donna Karan dresses and Louboutins instead of just surviving an ugly divorce.
Joe ignored her pettiness. “I’ve learned that you should be sad your marriage is over. Especially after the way it ended, so sudden and all. But you should have lots of other things that fi ll you up and make you happy, sweet face. Things that help you get through the sad. I’ve fi gured out, you don’t have them. All you had was Twinkle Toes— he was your priority, and that’s a cryin’ shame.”
Her throat clenched tight. That wasn’t entirely true. “I had the studio, and the kids …”
“ Yep— all owned by that shit of an ex of yours. He pulled all the strings, and he only let you keep the studio because it looked good in the press for his wife to teach kids people considered underprivileged. But he complained about it all the time, didn’t he? No, don’t answer. I know he did. When he decided he didn’t want you to have those things anymore because he wanted out for a younger chippie, he yanked the rug from under you and took it all away. You let him have all that control. Not a good thing in this day and age.”
Mel sank to the captain’s-style kitchen chairs, resting her elbows on the table. If Stan havi
ng all the control meant he had his business manager, Jerry, handle everything fi nancial, then, yes, he’d been in control. If never making it her business to know what that included was at best naïve, then stupid her.
Yet in all the years they were married, Stan had never withheld money— he’d never threatened to take away her credit cards because she’d overspent. Though to her credit, she wasn’t much of a shopper to begin with. Her studio had been her passion.
“I think you should stop watching all those talk shows. It’s easy for Oprah to say, ‘Have your own checking account apart from your spouses, ladies’ because Oprah probably owns at least ten fi nancial institutions. It wasn’t like Stan would have told me I couldn’t. I just 9780425245507_WaltzThisWay_TX_p1-344.indd 36
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didn’t feel like I needed control of our fi nances because Stan never, ever made money an issue.”
And he hadn’t, which made leaving her with nothing so much more painful. She’d been a good wife— supportive, low maintenance.
A real Suzy Sunshine in a world where wives of rich men spent more on Botox injections than they did on a year’s worth of groceries.
“Don’t you defend him, young lady! I think you don’t like hearin’
the truth, but that’s too bad. Twinkle Toes stiffed you the fi rst opportunity he could.” He shook his stout fi nger at her.
“I …” Yeah. Stan had stiffed her. There was no defense she could summon for the truth. No matter how good he’d been to her in their marriage. In the end, he wasn’t living with her father in a two-bedroom retirement home.
Joe gave her a pointed look. “Exactly. So now you have to go out and get your own life, Mel— and your own checking account—and start all over, but in the process, I don’t want to see you mopin’
around. You never leave the house unless you have to walk Weez or help Maxine at the rec center. I know it’s been tough trying to fi nd a full- time job in this economy with no work skills, and I know you and Maxine have been lookin’, but there are other things you could do in between— things you enjoy.”
She had agreed to let Maxine do some job searches for her and make inquiries into some college courses she might be able to take in order to fi nd a job. God, being broke sucked, and even if she had money, she was still a little fuzzy on how to handle it without Stan’s accountant.
That was another reason she didn’t want to attend any of the group meetings they held at Trophy Jobs, because the titles alone for each self- empowerment class made her feel pathetically naïve.
“Discover Is the Name of a Credit Card— Not a Shopping Journey: How to Establish Credit in Your Newly Single Life Without Falling into the High- Interest Trap.”
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“I don’t have any money to spare to enjoy anything right now, Dad. I have just enough to buy Weezer’s food and contribute for some groceries.”
Clearly, her Father was accepting no excuses. “You don’t need money to take a walk in the animal park. You don’t need money to go to those singles get- togethers they have at the VFW hall every month.
You don’t need money to dance. But you don’t dance anymore, Mel.
I remember when I used to have to climb over you to get past you doing all those stretches in the living room of our old house. I haven’t seen a single stretch since you got here. Won’t you lose all those pretzel moves you do, if you don’t keep those muscles limber?”
Who cared if her muscles stayed limber? She had no students to be limber for. So her muscles could just eff off. “Listen, Mr. Answer for Everything, I’m still trying to adjust to not being half of a couple.
Almost all my adult life I’ve been half of a couple. I don’t know how to be any other way. It’s kind of taken the wind out of me, and somewhere along the way, I can’t fi nd a reason to dance, okay? And not a chance I’m going to some singles get- together.”
Her father went to the fridge, pulling out a plate he’d covered in cling wrap. “That’s part of the problem. You’re not supposed to be half of anything. You have to be a whole you all by yourself.” Joe dropped the plate in the microwave and pressed some buttons.
“I think you should quit hanging around Maxine.” Please, please, please quit hanging around Maxine.
“I think you should quit bein’ resentful because she has it together and you don’t,” he retorted with a stern tone and a frown.
Ow. Yet, there was a niggle of truth to what he said, and she found herself resenting the hell out of it. She’d heard all the stories about how Maxine had one- upped her ex-husband and begun her employment agency. She was legend here in the Village, and if Mel was honest with herself, a nice lady and easy to work for. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m being petty.”
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“You sure are,” he agreed, dropping the plate of soggy noodles slathered in red sauce in front of her. “Now eat something decent for a change, or you’ll hurt my sensitive feelings. I’ll get your salad.”
Mel twirled her fork in the pasta and, while her father wasn’t looking, held it under the table for Jake, and then Weezer.
You couldn’t drown your sorrows properly in soggy pasta— even when it was made with love and the wish for you to hurry up and heal.
Chocolate frosting made everything almost bearable.
That it had so generously given her back the ten pounds she’d been down just before her divorce was neither here nor there.
Who cared what her ass looked like?
!
Maxine Barker smiled her perky, meant to inspire motivation smile at Mel as she made her way across the tiled fl oor of Trophy Jobs Inc.
“Mel! I’m so glad you came. I love that color on you.” She pointed to the deep turquoise of Mel’s sadly pilling sweater. “It’s starting to get chilly enough for a sweater. Can you believe it’s this cool on the last day of August?”
Mel contemplated Maxine, trying to remember her father was her biggest fan, but was hesitant to show anything in the way of enthusi-asm for fear Maxine would take it as a sign she was an all-systems-after-divorce-therapy go. “It’s defi nitely cooling off.”
Max hitched her jaw to the left, putting a relaxed hand in the pocket of her tailored taupe slacks. “Let’s go talk in my offi ce.”
Without waiting for an answer, she took confi dent strides toward a door along a white hallway strung with pictures of seniors from the Village who donated their time to Trophy.
One plaque in particular made Mel pause momentarily to stifl e a laugh at the absurdity of it all. It had a cracked tiara on it and read
“Suck it up, Princess.”
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Max ushered Mel in, waving her hand at a pair of leather chairs.
One was fi lled by a woman with wavy auburn hair and a chubby baby in blue overalls slung over her shoulder. On the couch positioned at the other side of the room sat the most perfect female Mel had ever seen— and coming from L. A., she’d seen.
“Mel? This is Frankie Antonakas, her baby Nikos Junior, and Jasmine Jones. Both Trophy Jobs success stories.”
Well and fuck. This was one of those ambush interventions, and she’d walked right into it like someone had told her there was a case of Suzy Q’s in Maxine’s offi ce.
“You want me to block the door while you run interference, Frankie?” the beautifully surreal creature named Jasmine asked.
“She doesn’t look like the kind who’d take out a woman with a baby, but you just never know.” Her bright red lips, the perfect color to compliment her creamy features, curved into an amused smile.
Frankie tipped her head full of gorgeous auburn hair back and laughed, stirring the baby who stuck a thumb in his mouth and nuzzled against her neck. “Come sit down, Mel. What you suspect is right. We’re here to help. All you have to do is listen. If you don’t like what you hear, you can go back to sulking and pouting. We’ve all done it. It was all kinds of awesome. Well, except for the smell. I thank God every day Max made me fi nally shower.” The women all giggled together while Mel frowned, perplexed by her comment.
Maxine sat behind her desk and motioned for Mel to sit, too. The clink of Maxine’s bangle bracelets sang in the air that had become suddenly oppressive. “Sit down, Mel, and relax. I know you’re reluc-9780425245507_WaltzThisWay_TX_p1-344.indd 40
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tant to participate in anything, much less listen to a bunch of women who you think want to advise you on how to Krazy Glue your life back together, but that’s not the only reason I asked you to come.”
Mel slid into her chair, her glace at Max wary. Maxine was her boss. She didn’t have much of a choice but to sit and listen if she hoped to buy Weezer more food. Saint Bernard’s ate buttloads of food. “Does it have to do with the Village and the rec center?”