by Sarah Fuller
I might have been a bit harsh. The wine and steak swam to my head right then. George started in on why his new girlfriend was so “amazing,” and all I could think about was how he’d invited me on a “celebration,” looking all remorseful…or so I’d thought. I’d mistaken his tentative expression for nervousness. He’d been trying to tell me about Hooker Shoes the whole night, because the right time to do that was obviously on the eve of our divorce.
I’m not going to lie. I hung up on him.
The next morning, I awoke to the sound of two competing noises. The first was my phone, ringing with a number I recognized, but hadn’t expected—a publisher. The other noise was an incessant knocking at my door. I picked up the phone and cleared my throat.
“Hello,” I said, trying to not sound like I’d been asleep seconds prior.
“Hello, Sarah,” the voice on the other end said.
It was an up-and-coming publisher. One that I wanted to work with for more than a few reasons.
I tried to listen to the opportunity unfolding on the other side of the line as I hopped around my bedroom, trying to dress. The knocking continued downstairs. Either someone wanted to sell me magazines subscriptions badly, or my neighbor was mad that I’d parked over the line yet again. Seriously, people, I need to go back to Driver’s Ed. It’s not my fucking fault that I learned how to drive in a one-horse town. We parked in open pastures. There were no fucking lines!
“Yes, I’ve heard of the new universes you’re creating,” I said, hustling downstairs, moments away from pulling out a butcher knife before answering the door. Whoever was knocking didn’t understand that, after two minutes, move on to the next house, buddy. I don’t want your magazine subscriptions.
I listened to the publisher, anxious to hear about the new opportunity as I looked through the peephole.
Then my heart sank.
George stood on the other side of my door, his fist continuing to pound. So he had no clue and no manners. Single moms sleep in on the Tuesdays they don’t have their children. Everyone knows that. It was his day to get her to school, not mine.
I opened the door and waved him in, giving him a threatening look as I pointed him to the chair in the corner, or as I like to call it, “Time-fucking-out.”
“Anyway, if you’re interested in coming on board,” the voice on the other end of the line continued, “we’d be happy to have you.”
Happy? This was the break I’d been looking for without knowing it. I’d always thought that I’d publish solo. When that hadn’t worked and George had told me I’d better get a “real” job, I’d pretty much unfolded my ancient resume and decided that my kid would go into daycare while I worked in an office. But this… this was my chance. It was something new.
Later, I’d appreciate how my new life was ringing on the phone while my old life was knocking at the door.
George had banged incessantly on my door to get my attention on the official day of our divorce because I’d acted uncharacteristically. I’d hung up and refused to talk to him. But in my defense, it was the first time he’d asked me to a celebratory dinner to cheers to his new girlfriend, Hooker Shoes.
Fun fact: Everyone, from my dental hygienist to my stylist, still calls this poor woman “Hooker Shoes.” I can’t help it that I’m amazing at naming “amazing” people.
Although George didn’t appreciate my colorful name, he was reasonable enough to agree that we both wouldn’t introduce anyone to Eleanor until they’d been in our life for a year. Fine by me, since I wasn’t planning on introducing her to anyone for a long time. I wanted to look like the good parent, not the one ready to put my smokies back in the campfire so soon after the forest burned down.
Over the next year, the world around us got used to our divorce. I didn’t make a Facebook announcement about our status change. I just let it organically come out as I spoke to people. And, man, do I wish I would have made a Facebook announcement so that all the assholes could have gotten used to it in one fell swoop.
I get that a divorce affects more than the ones it happens to, but I had more people apologize to me that year than when my brother died. Here’s why that’s wrong: George and I didn’t give up, we grew apart. We tried. It didn’t work. We were all suffering, including Eleanor. Being apart was better for everyone.
Don’t feel sorry for me for quitting something that didn’t work. That’s like showing remorse to someone for quitting a bad habit. ‘Oh, Jim, I heard you gave up drinking. I’m sorry.’
Drinking was going to kill Jim! Don’t apologize! I get that my relationship was probably not going to directly kill me, but we were going to demoralize each other enough that heart disease was going to strike hard and fast.
I had someone contact me and say, “I’m not going to lie, your divorce was a real kick in the stomach.”
I gulped as I counted backward from ten. What I wanted to say couldn’t come out, which was, “Oh man, sorry my life change was so hard on you. I’ll consider that the next time I make a choice for my family’s happiness.”
The honest truth is we have to allow people to quit. Whether it’s a job, people, substances, habits. It challenges us when the people around us change. Them not being the same is hard, but does it have to be? I’m not entirely the same as I was before the divorce. I daresay I’m better. Happier. Free. But I challenged those who knew me before, and for that, I’m not sorry.
I’m not entirely sure how long Hooker Shoes stuck around. She was there long enough to give my daughter a few gifts, though. The first was a curling iron. Do you know what a five-year-old doesn’t need? If you guessed candy, alcohol, or hot irons, then you’re correct. My child’s baby-thin hair didn’t need to be seared at three hundred and eighty degrees.
But guess what happens when you share fifty-fifty custody: Sometimes you have to shut the fuck up and like it. So I didn’t say anything about Hooker Shoes leaving her stuff around for Eleanor to play with, even though these objects created second-degree burns. That’s how I’m the bigger person.
However, one day my fifteen-year-old sister called me. Yes, I have a sister who is twenty years younger than me. It’s how we keep things interesting.
“Hey, Weirdo,” Trix said on the other side of the line.
“What do you want?” I answered.
“So, Hooker Shoes just sent me a friend request on Instagram.”
I laughed. “Oh man, what a creep. Why would she do that?”
“Probably saw that I was connected with George and wanted to build bridges,” Trix answered.
I thought of the blasted bridge I had to cross every morning on the way to school in the backwoods of Texas. I always thought I’d die trying to get across that thing, like it would sink into the lake.
“Wonder what she said when you rejected her request,” I mused.
Silence.
“Trix?” I questioned, sensing the tension.
“I didn’t want to make Brother George mad,” she said, using her nickname for him. “I accepted, and then Hooker Shoes liked all my photos.”
“Because that’s not strange,” I said.
So now I had this crazy, obsessed person who I was afraid of getting close to my daughter going after my sister. Shit was getting real.
“Unfriend her,” I ordered.
“But—”
Big sisters call the shots. Always. “Do it now, Trix.”
She agreed, worried she was going to cause a wedge between George and Hooker Shoes.
“Not a problem,” I assured Trix.
I planned on buying the biggest wedge heels to kick this woman with if she didn’t back off my family. End of story. Trix was my sister, not George’s, and this stranger was trespassing on my territory. Back-the-fuck-up.
I told George, “How would you feel if my boyfriend sent your sister a friend request and stalked her on social media?”
He agreed that it would be kind of strange. However, my sister is a minor, so it was a bit creepier than if my imag
inary boyfriend was friendly with his sister.
I thought I was done with Hooker Shoes for a while. I even thought that the two had broken up, which, I’ll be honest, would be for the best. I told George, “You introduced her all wrong. Try with a new girl and, this time, don’t mention that she’s ‘amazing’ and don’t take me to dinner to tell me about her. Say she is a person and the best you can do, and we’ll move on. Meanwhile, I’ll know that you still cry yourself to sleep because I’m not yours.” That was the healthy approach, here.
Shortly after Christmas, a year after George met Hooker Shoes, my blood pressure began to rise steadily. Every day, I waited for him to call to arrange “the meeting.” The one where sweet, innocent Eleanor would have to meet a woman in shoes like stilts.
George had told Eleanor about his girlfriend finally, which she thought was hilarious. Me, not so much.
“She should know I’m in a relationship,” he argued.
“Because she’s Sally Jesse Raphael!”
I get that my references aren’t timely, but I still didn’t understand why our five-year-old needed to be learning all the details of her father’s romantic relationship.
That’s why I held a firm front. “Honey, I don’t have a boyfriend, because you’re all I need,” I told Eleanor. Two can play at that game.
Christmas came and went, and the time when George had all but promised “the meeting” passed. One day, Eleanor had an event at her school: “Bring A Stuffed Animal” day. I picked her up that afternoon to see her carrying a giant wolf stuffed animal she’d brought from her father’s house.
“Hey, baby,” I said, eyeing the rabid-looking wolf with unease. “That’s the animal you chose to bring?”
She nodded. “Daddy told me to bring it. His girlfriend gave it to me for Christmas.”
I halted. “Wait. Hoo—” I caught myself. “You met that woman?”
Eleanor shook her head. “No, but she sent it to me as a present.”
I nodded like that made sense, like sending gifts to children you haven’t met but want to like you is cool. I mean, what I knew of this woman so far was that she preyed on minors like my sister, so of course, I had low expectations. Oh, and I knew she was “amazing,” according to George.
“Isn’t the wolf cool?” Eleanor asked from the backseat.
“It’s big,” I said, noticing how it took up two seats. “And isn’t it nice that your father asked you to bring it to my house? How thoughtful. When we get home, leave it in the car so we can find the right place for it to live.”
Eleanor agreed. She went inside when we got home and did what children do best with worthless gifts: she forgot about it. When she was sleeping in her cozy bed, all tucked in perfectly, her sheets cleaned and pressed, I went to my car and got the stuffed animal. I then chucked it into the trash, where it belonged.
To my relief, things apparently dissolved between Hooker Shoes and George, making it so I didn’t have to worry about this strange woman entering Eleanor’s life. It’s not that I’m opposed to her specifically. It’s really that everything started off wrong with that one.
Since then, George and I have spoken about how better to handle things. Our initial wounds after the divorce have healed. And I’ve asked for his girlfriends to not stalk my sister, which I find an easy request.
Later, when George asked where the giant stuffed animal had gone, I truthfully said, “I don’t know.” It was an honest answer because I seriously don’t know where the trash goes when it leaves my house.
Chapter Three
No One in LA Has Their Own Hair
When I was six months pregnant with Eleanor, George’s company was moved to Los Angeles. At the time, we were living in the quiet Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon. The area spent half the year in fog and the other half alternating between fresh showers and cheery sunlight. I’d heard about the Californians. They sold their small bungalows in San Fran or So-Cal and moved up to unsoiled Oregon with buckets of money, buying the mansions on the top of the mountains so they could look down on the rest of us.
I was adamant that we couldn’t move to LA and raise our child there. I just knew that she’d be handed an inhaler upon entering the city and have to choose which gang to align with. Most of my views on LA were formed in the 1990’s from snippets on the news of gang fights in the streets. Compton was the central hub of the city, right? You couldn’t get through there without showing your gang signs—get them wrong, and you were going down.
However, I also knew that if we stayed in Oregon, I’d have to be the main breadwinner and, although I didn’t mind that, I really wanted to be the main caregiver. You see, I’m never happy.
George and I moved to Oregon shortly after getting married because I thought I was a hippie. I got rid of my car and joined a co-op. I took jobs working for eccentrics who didn’t value the fact that I had a Master’s in business and were more concerned with what my astrological sign was. I was seriously hired as the assistant to a government contractor because I’m a Virgo. I ended up quitting that job after six months because it turns out I’m not a hippie, I’m a fucking yuppie.
What can I say, I like wearing shoes and washing my hair.
Reluctantly, I took a trip to explore LA when I was uber pregnant. The six-lane highways were a drastic change from the streets in Oregon, which were quiet and lined with planters overflowing with dangling flowers. The beach was minutes away instead of a three-hour trek along the Oregon trail, during which I always felt sick with a unique form of dysentery, brought on by George’s bad driving. And the biggest surprise was there were options. The city stretched out like a lotus flower upon my arrival, a thousand petals bursting with unique neighborhoods.
Sure, there was crime. There were places where we kept the car moving, pretending that the buildings covered in graffiti were art exhibits. But most importantly, there was something that we didn’t have in Oregon. Something that had worried me from the moment I realized I was having a little human. Oregon, a mostly rural state, has about as much diversity as a kangaroo ranch in the outback. Although it was clean and safe, I worried that my child would have the same sheltered upbringing that I did. But in LA, there was diversity. A melting pot—which meant a wide variety of cuisines.
Let’s be honest, this was always going to be about the food.
Oregon had boutique wineries and artisan cheeses, which are the cornerstone of my existence. However, there is a frozen yogurt shop on every corner in LA, usually bordered by restaurants that have several hundred yelp reviews. I’d gone to the same three restaurants in Oregon for years. The choices in LA overwhelmed me in all the right ways.
I will forever think fondly of Oregon, where the real people are modest, the hippies are weird and the new age gurus are subtly annoying. I had one metaphysical boss tell me that I wasn’t being my authentic self. The movie I Heart Huckabees puts it best: “How am I not myself?”
I then ate those words when I came to LA and learned exactly what he meant. He was wrong because he was a dirty metaphysical teacher who spoke about souls like he was God himself, but still, I later came to understand fake. And you know what, I didn’t hate it. I found it entertaining. Funny. A part of a culture that churns out the entertainment the rest of the world relishes.
As a teenager, I watched Clueless approximately thirty-one and a half times. I wanted to be Alicia Silverstone’s character, Cher. I wanted my best friend to be like Dionne, although she wasn’t black. There was only one black person in all of East Texas, and he was banned from playing football for no apparent reason. Because what’s the worst thing you can do to someone in East Texas? Not allow them to play the holy game of football.
Even back in 1995, I found Cher’s fakery entertaining. What I didn’t find cool was the fact that she kissed her stepbrother. I don’t care how you spin that one, it’s just wrong.
Beverly Hills and the surrounding areas of Los Angeles have come a long way since Clueless came out. So much so, that it makes the
movie look like Little House on the Prairie in LA.
I’ve been in this city for several years, and still the outgoing personalities and antics of the locals are never lost on me. I moved away for a little while and was reminded of its absurdities soon after I returned. My mom friends hosted a brunch to welcome me back to LA, while our kids were hard at work at school.
My flexible schedule as a writer allows me to brunch on a Wednesday, or really any day. Well, that is until I realize that I’ve put off a book too long and have two days to write thirty-five thousand words to meet the deadline. It’s then that I wish I was into speed or Adderall.
Apparently, it’s sort of a wonder that I’ve been able to write as many books as I have without being an Adderall junkie. Imagine my surprise when I learned that high-powered executives were harassing ADHD children on the playground for their Adderall. Long gone are the days of bullying kids for their lunch money. No way. Now the CEOs want little Timmy’s prescription drugs. This is why I can’t do corporate America.
Back to brunch. At the table, my friend filled my glass with champagne while I explained how much I’d missed the city. I protested her large pour, explaining that I couldn’t show up to pick up my kid from school sauced. That’s when the woman beside me clicked her tongue. “You’re back in LA now. Everyone is on something, always.”
The point was reinforced on another day when I went to the doctor to get Botox. Yes, I’ve gotten Botox, but more for medical reasons than superficial ones. I look at the computer so much that my right eyebrow twitches if I don’t subdue it with drugs. I have to tranquilize that bitch or I can’t get any work done.
Anyway, the doctor is about to stick me with Botox, and he pauses.
“Have you been drinking?” he asked me.
I sniffed the hoodie that I might not have washed in a day or two. “No, it’s ten in the morning.”
He laughed. “It doesn’t matter what time it is. In my Beverly Hills’ office, my actresses are toasted on mimosas by this time.”