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I grip the steering wheel and fight the urge to scream at her. I remember being a sullen teenager. It didn’t hit until years later, when I was actually a teen, but I also didn’t have to go through my parents’ divorce and a new woman in my dad’s life. Hell, I’m a grown woman, and I’m having a hard time with my own father moving on.
I try to cut Izzy some slack. “I’ll talk to Dad about letting you have some playdates on the weekends. He just misses you. So do I. I love you, Izzy. I love you very much.”
She takes a beat before answering. I can picture her looking down at the blanket, picking at the fuzz and furrowing her brow. “I love you too.”
“Kisses. Call me after the zoo. I want to hear all about it.”
“Fine.”
A woman’s voice chimes in the background, “Is that your mom? I want to talk to her.”
“Love you, Iz. Bye!” I hang up quickly before Maisie can get her paws on the phone and talk to me. I’m not in any shape mentally to have a conversation with her.
Despite my cheery disposition when talking to the kids, I’m tired and internally cranky as fuck. I feel like I have no control over anything. Not my kids, my life’s path, my emotions. Everything is so far out of reach, and I’m spiraling into a downward shift.
Just as I emotionally hit rock bottom, I pick myself back up, slap on some lip gloss, and be the fabulous me that I am.
Because that’s how you get through the day.
It’s hard, adulting, sometimes.
three
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOUwere in the clink last night! You should’ve called me.” Tara waves her beer in the air from her place at our table at Lone Tavern.
It’s been a long day. Normally, I’d head home after a wedding like the one Jillian and I worked today. Once I mentioned my incarceration to Tara while on the phone this afternoon, she guilted me into coming out tonight so she could get the full story.
I shake my head at her. “As I recall, you drank just as much wine as I did, which means once your head hit the pillow, you were dead to the world.”
“You could have rungme,” Jillian, my friend and business partner, chimes in. “I would have bailed you out in a heartbeat.”
I place my hand on her arm. “We had a wedding to put together today. One of us had to be cognizant of our responsibilities. Besides, Tyler showed up and took care of everything.”
“That bastard. I can’t believe he had the nerve to play hero.” Tara takes a long swig of her Heineken.
Jillian places her lowball glass on the table. “Okay, we did not get a chance to properly discuss this today at work. What exactly happened last night?”
Before I can answer, Tara is answering for me. “What happened was, Melissa found out Tyler is moving Maisie into their honeymoon cottage. The one they bought together after Izzy was born. What a creep!”
I look at Jillian as I point at Tara, our fiery, loud-mouthed friend. “This is why I make bad decisions.”
Tara scoffs, brushing her curly, dark tendrils off her shoulder. “A bad decision would have been burning down the salon. Had I known you were on your way there last night instead of going home, I would have accompanied you and happily torched the place.” Her toothy grin is silly despite her harsh rhetoric.
Jillian tilts her head. “Tara, we’re supposed to be keeping Melissa levelheaded. She’s a mother, and she owns a business, might I remind you. Arson doesn’t exactly bode well for either.”
Tara and Jillian are two of the best women I’ve ever met, and they’re complete opposites.
Jillian is a career event planner, who left a large event company to open her own boutique firm and asked me to join her. She’s thirty-one with long auburn hair, skin that looks porcelain, and a wardrobe to die for. Single with one child, she’s a pillar of strength and professionalism.
Tara is my best friend. An accountant and kickboxing aficionado who never left the town we grew up in and still acts like it’s senior year of high school. She’s funny and courageous, and she has your back, no questions asked. Seriously. When I told her Tyler was cheating on me, she showed up with a bottle of wine and shovel, stating I had to pick one and she was down for either choice.
I should have chosen the shovel.
I sigh. “Quick version of the story is that Tara and I went out to dinner last night after Tyler picked the kids up. I was a little down because I had just learned about the Maisie situation. After five glasses of rosé, it was after ten, and we were solving the world’s problems, politics and religion be damned!”
“As all women do when we drink wine,” Jillian says as she and Tara clink glasses. “We seriously need a good woman president.”
Tara replies, “Yes, with that eye-patch guy as vice president. He’s crazy hot!”
