by Julia Kent
“Not sure there’s enough for this situation, Mom,” Shannon answers in a high, reedy voice.
It feels so good to slap the bastard. No, really. It’s as if my arm has been coiling, waiting like a hunter sits for days before slaying the perfect beast.
Andrew is a beast. A perfectly gorgeous, one-hundred-percent selfish, modern-day Adonis who thinks he can just kiss me in private and I’ll let him. Like I’m on a kissing retainer and he can access me at will.
“I’ll thank you to stop kissing me. It’s not in the corporate contract between our respective companies,” I snap. My heart is pounding so hard it’s like it’s boxing with itself, my ribs the punching bag, my pulse throbbing in time with some rhythm set by the pure fury of being wronged by a man I can’t stop being attracted to.
Damn it.
His jaw is open, his hand pressed to the growing red spot on his face where I hit him. My palm tingles from the scrape of skin against five o’clock shadow, and the humiliation of realizing all that passion I felt was just a game to him. Those deep brown eyes stare at me with an intensity that belies everything I’m feeling.
“It should be,” he growls.
And with that, he turns and leaves.
“I’ll walk you out,” Declan mutters.
Shannon gives him a look. Declan walks to the door Andrew’s just exited and sighs.
“Salted caramel this time? Two pints or three?” His fingers curl around the doorframe as he waits for an answer.
She looks at me with the deep intensity of a psychotherapist analyzing a feral child. “One bag of marshmallows. One bag of Cheetos.”
Declan’s eyebrow goes up.
“Mom!” Shannon calls out. “Do we have any butter?”
“Yes. Two sticks,” Marie calls out.
Declan flinches. I can see the calculation in his eyes. Dare I ask about the butter? He’s a smart man, though, and chooses the path of least resistance.
Silence.
Andrew uses silence, too, I realize as I will my pulse back to a beat that doesn’t involve breaking the sound barrier. He uses his mouth to silence me.
Why?
“Fine. I’m buying marshmallows and, uh...Cheetos.” Declan’s hand is on the doorknob. He’s giving Shannon a look that says, Please don’t make me buy tampons again.
“Aren’t you sending Gerald?” she asks in a surprised tone. Gerald is Declan’s primary limo driver. Notice that phrase? Primary limo driver. The man has back-ups. I’m sure the back-up limo drivers have back-ups, like understudies for Broadway show stars.
Billionaires live lives of fluid grace, where other people are in charge of smoothing all the wrinkles, preventing any hiccups, and making sure they don’t, you know...
Have to buy marshmallows, Cheetos and tampons at a convenience store on a Friday night.
It’s a wonder Andrew didn’t just send his limo driver to kiss me and shut me up. When you hire someone else to do all your dirty work for you...
The tiniest sliver of panic blooms in Declan’s moss-green eyes. He controls it quickly. I have to give him credit.
“I could use some air,” he mumbles. “So I’ll just go.”
“Coward,” Shannon says with a chortle.
He clears his throat meaningfully. “I prefer the term ninja.” A swift peck on the cheek and a flick of the wrist and Declan’s out the door before she can argue.
Smart man. All the IQ points must have gone into him and his older brother, Terry. Andrew was left with a hot ass, that sultry grin, and a coal-covered soul that whispers evil sweet nothings to his conscience.
Kiss her in the closet in your office, it says. Kiss her in the hospital closet, it murmurs. Kiss her to shut her up, it hisses.
Bet it wasn’t expecting my little slap.
“I should feel triumphant,” I whimper as Marie rushes over, glass of white wine in hand, offering it to my lips like she’s a priest giving First Communion. “I stood up for myself. I made it clear in no uncertain terms that I am not a woman to be trifled with.”
“And it only took you two years,” Marie says, nodding. I guess that’s supposed to be comforting. Marie can be kind of hit-or-miss like that.
“And three kisses!” I groan between guzzles of white Zin.
Shannon does a double take. “Three? There was a third incident?” She scrunches up her face, making her cute little rabbit nose poke out. “When did you—”
“Was it that time Jason and I saw you at the hospital during Poopwatch?” Marie asks. She’s wearing this gorgeous, flowing lilac silk wrap and her eyelashes are so long it looks like she contracted them out to an asphalt company. She leans forward on the counter between the kitchen and the living room, eyes wide and fascinated.
Shannon gives me a deadly stare. “You made out with Andrew while I was in the emergency room choking to death?”
Busted.
And then she turns on Marie. “And quit calling it Poopwatch.”
“Honey, that’s what everyone calls it.”
“No, Mom, that’s what Jessica Coffin called it.” Shannon frowns. “Wait. You just used the present tense. Calls. Not called. She’s still making fun of my...of the...of you know—”
“Poopwatch,” Marie and I say in unison.
Her hands go up in the air in a show of exasperation. Either that, or she’s turned into a gospel singer. “That’s not funny!” Jessica briefly dated Shannon’s ex, Steve, and had the hots for Declan. As a trend setter in the Boston social scene, Jessica’s tweets can make or break a restaurant, though she has lost some of her power. Humiliating Shannon online seems to be Jessica’s favorite hobby.
Marie and I look at each other and burst into giggles. We can’t help it, even though we shouldn’t. Marie places one perfectly manicured hand on Shannon’s shoulder, her fingernails a deep purple with a lilac tip.
“Poopwatch will never, ever not be funny, honey.”
Shannon’s eyes narrow like she’s at the OK Corral and ready for a showdown. “You have one word that pushes my buttons. I have one for you.”
Marie laughs even harder.
“Elope.”
Marie stops laughing and blanches.
“You wouldn’t!”
“Try me.”
“But honey, Poopwatch is—”
“Elope!”
Marie’s mouth tightens like a drawstring pouch. Her nostrils flare. Her eyes go small and she looks like one of those apples carved and dried to look like a shrunken head.
Except one with the smooth, shiny forehead of a Botoxed woman.
“Fine,” Marie says with a sigh. “No more Poopwatch jokes.” She reaches for a To Do list with a mad rush of scribbles and cross-outs, additions and arrows. “Does that include the pre-reception slide show?”
“WHAT? What on earth would you have in a slideshow about my...about the ring getting caught in my...about Poopwatch?” Shannon screeches.
Marie smirks. “Gotcha to say the word.”
“Elope.”
Marie’s face falls.
“And you know Declan will jump at the chance if I even whisper that word once,” Shannon adds.
“I don’t know what to do with you!” Marie says with a sniff, playing the wounded mom. “You’re so selfish that you won’t have a bridal shower—”
“Selfish? I asked everyone to donate to charity in lieu of gifts and a shower, Mom!”
“—and now you’re joking about elopement. It’s as if you don’t want a big, fancy society wedding with all the glamour and mystique and thousands of eyes on you.”
“I don’t! That’s the point!” I can see Shannon’s getting wound up in a way that only Marie can wind that key in her back.
Marie turns to me and, as if it weren’t at all a non sequitur, asks, “Andrew is stringing you along again?”
I burst into tears.
Marie is a pro. Shannon’s so outclassed.
“I slapped the CE—, er, a major client! Greg is going to explode when he learns
what I just did to Andrew!” I wail, my tears curling down my jawline as I shove a cookie from a tray that Marie made into my mouth.
That’s it. I am done. He has firmly taken every cell of my body, melted it, turned it to dust and shaken it so hard I am now just particles on the wind, clinging wherever I land.
“Greg?” Marie and Shannon exchange a look, then burst into laughter. “Your boss?”
“Honey, Greg doesn’t explode,” Shannon says with a quiet mirth. “He’ll just bumble along and say nothing about it. Besides, Andrew kissed you without your permission.”
Good point.
“But she let him. I saw that. They were evenly matched, tongue for tongue,” Marie counters.
“Ewww, Mom!”
“What? Like you and Declan couldn’t see it? You don’t get close up views like that watching The Bachelor on an iPhone while maximizing the screen.”
I stop crying and stare at her.
“Not that I do that,” she mutters, shoving a rescue cookie in her own mouth.
“That was so unprofessional,” I say, chiding myself. “He’s a major client. I need to keep my tongue in my mouth.”
“And your hands off his ass,” Marie adds.
“And my—what? I did not touch his....oh., no.” A vague, yet remarkably visceral, memory of my hands scraping against the fine fabric of his trousers, the cashmere turning into butter as my fevered palms met his hot marble thighs and ass makes me pant.
Shannon’s frown is like a nonverbal tsk tsk tsk.
I guess I did take the opportunity to explore the, uh, terrain.
His spin trainer should be given a Nobel Prize for Sculpture.
My phone buzzes, jolting me. I look at my text messages.
“My mom,” I groan. As if the night couldn’t get any worse.
“Has Pam learned to say the words ‘toilet paper’ out loud yet?” Marie asks with a snort.
I sigh. “She can’t even say ‘menopause.’”
Marie goes quiet and eats another cookie, then mutters, “Can’t say I blame her.”
It’s 11:06 p.m. You said you would be home by eleven, the text reads.
You know where this is going, right? So do I.
I’m at Shannon’s place. I am fine. I am running late, I text back. But the text just says Sending, and doesn’t go through.
“Has she microchipped you yet?” Marie jokes. I look at her, all blonde and coiffed and smiling. Marie is the opposite of my mother in every way, from energy level to assertiveness, and while I know I should answer my mother’s worried missives, and I know she’s struggling tonight, I can’t. I just can’t. Andrew has tasted me, again, and that takes precedence.
Speaking of tastes, I reach for a rescue cookie. At this point, I need a rescue buffet. Where the hell is Declan with my Cheetos and marshmallows?
And...pause. Because I know, right? Cheetos and...marshmallows? Here’s the trick: you make rice cereal marshmallow treats. The kind with a box of rice cereal, a bag of marshmallows and a stick of butter, all mixed together and pressed in a greased pan.
Except instead of the rice cereal, insert crunchy Cheetos.
Unpause so you can marvel at the amazement that is this delicacy. I know! It’s like you’ve been living a culinary lie all these years.
You’re welcome.
Marie waves another cookie at me. “Earth to Amanda!” She points to the dining table. “Declan was just telling me that he loves the idea of a wedding cake in the shape of bagpipes.” On the table I see schematics of wedding cakes so complex they look like an architecture firm has designed blueprints for them, complete with pulleys and fire sprinkler systems.
Shannon gives me a look that says anything but. “No, Mom, he was saying the opposite.”
Marie inhales, the air whistling past her back teeth. “No, he didn’t! He said he’d love a cake made in the shape of bagpipes as much as he loves me.” She gives Shannon a doe-eyed look. “There’s only one way to interpret that comment.”
Shannon and I exchange a look and say, in unison, “Right.”
My phone buzzes again. I look.
Mom.
Please respond before I call 911, she texts.
Declan walks in just as I’m texting back the words, I am fine. Will be home late. This time, the text goes through. Whew.
He plunks the marshmallows and Cheetos on the counter. Shannon opens the refrigerator door, bends down, and searches for the butter.
Declan “bumps into” her from behind and bends over her, whispering something I imagine is quite dirty in her ear, given the Lauren Bacall laugh that emerges from her.
I watch them, my earlier beers fading, the taste of Andrew McCormick lingering on my tongue, the burn of his cheek etched into my palm.
Shannon gets it all. The awesome, charismatic mother. The billionaire fiancé.
A father.
I don’t even have that. Mine left when I was five.
The green cloud of jealousy that fills me feels like a smoke bomb, as if emotional terrorists appeared out of nowhere in a flash mob and pulled the pins, tossing the bombs like hail in a sudden storm cell.
I’m jealous. I can admit it. It’s not as if there’s something wrong with that. I can hold two opposite emotions in my heart at the same time. I am capable of feeling joy for Shannon and her new life and sorrow for my own trainwreck. Life doesn’t have to be either/or. It can be both/and.
As Declan nuzzles Shannon’s neck and touches her ass in ways that make me feel like I’m watching the opening to a Showtime after-hours special, I text my mom back with a single line:
In twenty minutes. On my way.
“I have to go,” I announce.
Marie’s face falls. Shannon and Declan are butting up against each other like horny goats in springtime. I’m seriously worried about how they’re both eyeing the stick of butter in her hand.
“But we were just about to look at the plaid gel nails for the bridesmaids!” Marie whines, holding up a full-color brochure from a local spa with—yep—plaid gel nail fills.
“You seriously want the bridesmaids to have fingernails that look like kilts?” I ask, knowing the answer.
“Everything will look like kilts!” Marie gushes. “I’ve even found plaid matching bra and thong sets for the bridesmaids. And a garter for Shannon.”
I swear I hear Declan mutter the word elope. Then he distinctly says, “Garters?” in a gruff voice.
“Will we throw plaid rice?” I joke.
“Is there such a thing?” Marie gasps.
“Check out Etsy,” I say as I walk toward the door, trying to ignore the lustfest going on in the kitchen. My phone buzzes over and over. Probably Mom, whipped into a panic. “You can find anything on Etsy.”
Even if you shouldn’t be able to.
“Hey! What about the Cheetos and marshmallows?” I hear Declan call out as the elevator doors close.
I close my eyes and slump against the elevator wall, wondering how my night opened with dog butts and ended with plaid fingernails.
Chapter Four
Living with Pamela Warrick is a physical, and emotional, landmine. She’s always been high strung. Neurotic. Tightly wound. A Museum Mom. So anal retentive you could put coal up her butt and get a diamond.
But only in private.
Mom’s OCD is like tree pollen in Massachusetts in May. It is just there, a fine layer that coats every surface, appearing with a spectral green hue when it is at its worst. It makes your eyes water and your throat itch, a malady you can’t escape. No amount of drugs can stop it. Trust me. I tried, back in high school. And not the kind you buy at a drugstore.
I have heard—and told—all the jokes about her uptightedness.
But when you add the fibromyalgia that hit her my senior year of high school, it’s like taking obsessive compulsive disorder and living with that on double speed.
With pain.
When she’s so picky I can’t do anything right, including breathing, I remin
d myself it’s not her fault. And it’s not. Getting rear-ended in a compact car by a guy driving the biggest SUV on the market and who didn’t even apply the brakes isn’t something anyone causes.
Except for the asshole driver who was—that’s right—texting.
Sexting, we learned, in the trial. You really do not want to watch those exhibits being paraded around a courtroom.
Neither did his wife.
Because the sexy pictures he received while texting weren’t from her.
Mom’s settlement covered her medical bills, some of her ongoing massage and physical therapy, and about half my college tuition.
But there’s never enough money to cover the change in her.
I extracted myself from Shannon’s place with promises to return tomorrow. They’re not empty assurances, though Declan’s look of appraisal made it clear he didn’t care so much about the fool’s errand of buying weird grocery items at the buttcrack of the day, but did find my flimsy excuse for leaving to be about as sturdy as Donald Trump’s sense of feminist principles.
I get out of the cab and walk up the front steps of our house, a rented duplex in Newton, the journey as familiar and comforting in a damning sort of way, as if my life is on infinite repeat and all I can do is march along the deep grooves that my own feet created long before this moment.
“Amanda? Is that you?” Mom’s voice is a mixture of concern and anxiety.
“Who else would it be?” I say, realizing my mistake as the words come out.
“Who else? You could be a robber,” she answers, outraged at my insouciance. “A rapist. Someone trying to steal that nice computer your boss gave you.”
“Right.” The less said, the better. Did I mention what my mother does for a living?
She’s an actuary. Working right now on terrorist insurance for large corporations. It’s like having Josh Duggar work in costume design for Hooters.
Nothing like picking a line of work that feeds into your greatest source of weakness.
“It could be Tommy Lee Jones,” she says.
“Right—wait, what?”
Mirth fills her voice. “Hah. Gotcha.”
One joke. One little, not-funny joke is all it takes for me to understand her mood. I’ve cultivated a series of coping strategies for understanding where she is emotionally at any given time.