AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What?”
“He’s dumping that cowface,” she pointed out.
“Manon, don’t call Myrna a cowface. She isn’t a cowface.”
“Okay, I’ll call her what she is. He’s dumping that bitchface.”
She was funny.
She was also entirely inappropriate
“Is this the girl I raised?” I asked.
“Mom, she was not cool and I’m so glad she’s gonna be gone. She was just like…weird with me all the time. Sometimes, when Dad was teasing me or giving me a hug or something, I’d catch her watching us like she was watching him flirt with another woman, and it made my skin crawl.”
What?
Euw!
“You’d never told me that.”
“Because you’d probably say something to Dad about it and then you guys would fight, and it didn’t matter because Dad didn’t miss it and he liked it a lot less than me. He wasn’t ugly to her in front of me, but I knew when he’d address it because she’d be sugar sweet for a while after.”
Well, at least there was that.
“And anyway, I got the hint that he was just not ever really into her,” she went on.
I did not care about this (lie).
This had nothing to do with me (truth).
Bigger truth: I needed to let this slide and steer this conversation into different waters that included putting the kibosh on the kids thinking, now that Myrna was out of the picture, their dad and I were reuniting.
I didn’t get the chance to do that.
“They didn’t fight,” Manon said.
“Sorry?”
“They didn’t fight. It was creepy.”
I’d grabbed a Q-Tip and some makeup remover to begin the preparations to repair the mascara swipe, but I stopped moving when she spoke.
“This is why I’m obsessed with Benji,” she declared. “We fight all the time. I totally get it now.”
Oh boy.
“Manon—”
“I’ll spare you the specifics,” she allowed (thank God). “But the first time I didn’t take his shit, the look on his face, Mom. Whoa. It was like some veil had been ripped away. He’s hot. He’s tall. He’s smart. He’s going to get his Ph.D. I’m sure in the classes he teaches, the girls write things on their eyelids like that chick did in Raiders of the Lost Ark. So, he’s twenty-four and acting like I’m five and he has to guide my way, when I’m twenty. I have a job I don’t need because my parents can afford my college, but I know I need to learn how to go to work and earn money. My grades are great. I’m gorgeous. And he isn’t the only bonbon in the box. Which was what I told him. And he realized he couldn’t steamroll me and seriously, for him, huge turn on.”
Oh Lord.
“Manon—”
“So yeah, I get it. A woman doesn’t want to be a Myrna, where you’re just kinda…there, for company or whatever she was to Dad. She wants to be a Wyn, where she’s half of the dynamic of a relationship, with emphasis on the word dynamic.”
This was supremely annoying.
Because it told me that Remy was right all those years ago, and at least one of our children learned that strength and passion and knowing your own mind and asserting it were essential to any relationship being healthy.
“So. You? Dad? What?” she prompted.
“Your father and I are divorced, Manon,” I said gently.
“Yes, I know that. So why was he sitting on your chair and holding you at his side?”
“It was an emotional evening.”
“Mom.”
She wasn’t buying my crap.
“Just because we’re divorced doesn’t mean he’s quit caring about me, honey,” I told her. “And something had upset me before I showed at his house, he knows me well, he noticed it, and he was concerned about me.”
This was my guess, but I was sticking with it like it was etched in stone.
“What upset you?”
“I’d exchanged words with Bea.”
“Good,” she said sharply.
Wow.
Manon too?
“What do you mean, ‘good?’” I queried.
“Mom, she’s your friend and she can sometimes be sweet, but only if you have a vagina. Mostly, she’s bitter. Jordy left her and she swallowed that pill whole. It was like she joined a cult. The bitter cult. And she’s a zealot. Every man is Jordy for her, even though I’m now seeing why Jordy said, ‘This is for the birds, life’s too short. I’m outta here.’ I mean, like I just said, a woman doesn’t always have to make things roses in a relationship. But Bea’s always been a pretty negative person, and that’s a serious drag.”
I had, for a long time (or until recently), wondered why Jordy had called it quits.
They had never been lovey-dovey, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t cheated, she hadn’t either, he didn’t have some other issue like an addiction or something, neither did she. I didn’t even know they were having problems.
He was a quiet guy, but when he talked, he had a wry sense of humor and an interesting, if twisted way of looking at life that I found fascinating, but he was also a nice guy.
