Three
SORA
If love is so great, why do I have so many exes?
—SOLO FEBRUARY CHALLENGE
My ex-husband looks surprisingly fit and well put together, which means he’s got to be dating someone, because he doesn’t bother to match his socks otherwise. He’s got new glasses—oversized wire ones—and he’s grown in bushy sideburns. Ugh. That combined with the vest (seriously, a vest?) he’s wearing makes him look a little bit like a doctor on the set of an old western gunslinger movie who will be shot in the first five minutes. He’s actually wearing a shirt with a collar, an unusual choice, and it seems like he’s lost twenty pounds at least since the last time I saw him.
Asshole.
“Uh…” What do I tell the man I was married to for four brief years after college? Nice to see you? It isn’t. You look good? Even if true by Marley standards, I’m not going to dignify MarleyDouchet with a compliment. He pronounces his nameDou-shay,but since our divorce, I thinkDouche-itis more apropos. “What…” I was about to ask what he was doing in the city, since last I heard he was living with his parents in the western burbs. But then, out of nowhere, Lululemon comes bounding up to us in all her matching yoga, kale-eating glory, and seems to be heading straight for… Marley.
“Baby? Did you get the kombucha?” she asks in a childlike voice, which she absolutely, one thousand percent, is faking.
Marley and I both turn to Lululemon at the same time, and I tighten my grip on my grocery cart. Lululemon is dating Marley? I feel like I’ve fallen into an alternate dimension designed to torture me. Or maybe I suffered a massive widow-maker back in the bacon aisle without realizing it, and this is hell. Lululemon cannot be sleeping with Marley. It would prove that he can do better than me, much better, but I am hoping he’ll die cold and lonely. I want him to understand once and for all that I am the very best he’s ever going to get, and he made the worst mistake of his life when he sent an unsolicited dick pic to Pam.
Right. I forgot to mention that’s the other reason Downstairs Pam and I don’t get along. She hates my dog for no reason, and she hates my ex-husband for good reason. Great, now everyone’s all caught up.
Lululemon eyes me with distaste. “Babe, who’s…?” The never-met-a-vegetable-she-trusted person with a cart full of salted meat and ice cream?
“This is Sora.” Marley says it while wiggling his eyebrows like he’s having a seizure or, more likely, that he’s trying to convey a secret message. Marley was never any good at subtlety.
“Sora?Thisis Sora?” Lululemon seems to be trying to hold in a laugh, but doesn’t bother to hide the sneer that curls her mouth into a mean, thin line. “Your ex-wife?” She seems to be unable to believe her eyes. Go on, believe it, sister. Now you know the truth: you’re dating far, far below your station.
Near me, Sexy Beardstache Baker has gone stock-still, eyes darting from me to Marley and then to Lululemon. This is not my meet-cute. I am not in a rom-com. I am in a horror movie. Some angry, stringy-haired ghost child is going to crab-crawl out of the deli counter and eat my soul.
This now ranks as my most humiliating moment of the week, and that includes having to convince Dan that my self-esteem actually isn’t so low that I’d be okay with him spending the night after I confronted him about being married.
So, I stand corrected: thereisa God after all. And He/She/They most definitely hates me.
If God truly loved me, I’d be endowed with the ability to teleport to another dimension. It doesn’t even have to be anicedimension. I’ll take a postapocalyptic hellscape. As long as Marley and Lululemon aren’t there.
“Uh… how are you?” Marley starts.
“Good. Good. Good.” Why did I say that three times?
Then the three of us stare at one another. If there’s one thing I know, from that management seminar I took once in the lobby of a Hampton Inn, it’s that if you cede territory to your rival, you might as well run home with your tail between your legs. And I wasn’t going to do that. For one, I don’t have a thigh gap. I have a thighsquish.If I put two pieces of kindling in there, I’d have a fire before I finished walking a full block. No tail was fitting in there, imaginary or otherwise. Thesecond thing I learned in that seminar is that saying nothing can force the other people in a conversation to be uncomfortable, thereby giving you the upper hand. So, I just stare.
“You still living at the old condo?” Marley asks.
And I just stare. Marley, why would I admit that? Because I spent every last dime I had to buy you out and can’t really afford to move? Because you might want to send Pam another backlit pic of your hot dog from an angle designed to make it look larger than it is? She wasn’t impressed the first time, Marley. But I don’t say any of that. I just stare at him. Power is all mine.
“Uh… so, you’re not then? Sora?” Marley is starting to get uncomfortable. Good.
Lululemon looks confused, her feelings of superiority temporarily fading. That’s right. You, too, will feel the power of awkwardness. The three of us stew in it. Yes, okay, now, you’re right where I want you.
“Maybe she had a stroke,” Lululemon stage-whispers loud enough for everyone to hear. “Her left side is drooping a little.”
Sexy Beardstache Baker coughs, hard.
“I’m not having a stroke.” The fact that I need to say this out loud makes this moment even more humiliating now that I know that my intimidation face looks like I’m having a serious health problem. God, why can’t I just tell Marley “Douche-it” to go love himself? Why did I have to pretend I’m happy to see himand his new girlfriend? Why won’t those words roll off my tongue? Because they sure as hell are banging around in my head.
Marley glances at my cart. “Having a party?” he asks me, eyeing the bacon and tequila.
“No,” I say. And screw you, Marley.
“Oh, mygawd,are you going to… like… eatall of that? Yourself?” Lululemon’s hand flies to her mouth as if she’s just seen the murder of a kitten with a dull, number-two pencil.
