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ChapterOne
Melissa Marie McGuire
A woman who doesn’t have
time for your bullshit.
(Sorry, not sorry.)
Two and a half months ago…
There are bad days, and then there are days like this.
So far, today—the first Thanksgiving since my divorce and my first holiday without my two-year-old son—I’ve endured the following without losing my coolormy temper.
My mother calling at the crack of dawn to remind me to defrost the “extra” turkey I’d defrosted three days prior and marinated the night before.This despite the fact that I am a professional chef and have never forgotten to defrost the “extra” turkey that is actually anecessaryturkey, considering the size of our family.You can’t feed upwards of fifty people on the two turkeys Mom squeezes into her twin ovens.We need the turkey I deep fry outside and the one my brother Wesley cooks in his smoke shack to fully satisfy the hungry masses.
My father calling just as I was falling back asleep to ask me what kind of coffee I wanted with pie in the afternoon.He had enough coffee at the house for a pot of plain and two pots of hazelnut, he said, but he wasn’t sure how I felt about hazelnut.So, he wanted to ask before he drank the plain with his oatmeal and condemned everyone to flavored coffee with their pie—especially me, since he knows I’m fussy about coffee.(I’m fussy about all food—again, professional chef—but I’ve also told my father that I hate flavored coffee at least ten thousand, seven hundred, and twelve times.I would worry about dementia, but he’s always been this way.He can remember every item of inventory in his three hardware stores down to the last screw but ask him the birthday of one of his eight children and he’ll fake a coughing fit and hide in the bathroom for hours.) I gently told Dad to follow his bliss and that I would bring extra coffee for everyone, but by the time we hung up, it was too late.I was awake.Cruelly, miserably awake, only four hours after I’d cried myself to sleep and still several hours before I was due at my parents’ house to start helping with food prep.
Lonely morning coffee in my too-quiet house, surrounded by toddler toys I didn’t have the heart to clean off the living room floor.The sight of the blocks and trains and Chase’s kid-sized kitchen made me feel like my son was going to call out from his bedroom any minute, lisping, “Mama, I wuv you.Good mowning.Wus for breffest?”My son is also a foodie.A lover and a foodie and I miss him like a piece of my heart has been carved out of my chest.
A too-crowded Thanksgiving celebration surrounded by loving couples who are still living happily ever after with their shiny, happy children, who they never have to send away for the weekend, let alone a full-blown holiday.
Overhearing my aunt Gina talking about how she “always knew that Benji was as gay as a three-dollar-bill, not sure why Mel didn’t get the memo,” while I was pulling the turkey from the frier by the garage.I wanted to shout that my ex-husband’s name is Ben, just Ben—he hated it when she called him Benji—and that maybe it would have been harder for her to guess his sexual orientation if he’d been fuckingherevery other night.Instead, I bit my lip and took care of the food.Of my family.Because that’s what I do.I dig in and I get the job done, no matter how much I want to punch things or curl up in a ball and give up.
Returning home to my still lonely and too-quiet house to find that weird squirrel who’s been hanging around the house in the bird feeder again, humping the edge of the small box, successfully preventing the birds from taking shelter from the pouring rain.I try not to take it as a sign that perverted bullies always win, but it’s hard.Really hard.
Getting an emergency call from my twin brother, Matty, and rushing to meet him at my catering office, only to learn he wants me to babysit Nora Boudreaux, sister of Aaron Boudreaux, my high school bully and nemesis.This brings back memories of being mercilessly teased for being a klutz and a fashion victim by the endlessly popular, aspiring NHL player, but I swallow them and do my best to make Nora feel welcome.She’s a sweetheart.She can’t help it that her brother is a stinky, microbe-infected douchebag in hockey star clothing.She also can’t help it that she’s falling in love with my brother, who makes it his mission in life to be frustratingly secretive.
Being attacked by criminals in my place of business and barely escaping with Nora, the cat she had with her, and our lives.
My twin bullying me into taking a last-minute trip to Florida to “keep me safe,” and dumping me at the airport with nothing but my purse and a quick wave as he and Nora drove off into the night.
Calling a car service to take me home—no way am I leaving my brother without backup—only to be grabbed by a giant man in a stinky leather coat and tossed into the back of a windowless van.
This is where I currently find myself, agony flaring through my shoulder as it makes impact with the van’s wooden floor.I emit a startled squawk of pain, and the jerk who grabbed me laughs from the open doors behind me.
And that’s it, the straw that kills the last of this camel’s cool.
“Fuck off, you fucking fucker!”I roll back into a seated position and launch myself at the man like a rabid spider monkey, determined to claw the smile off his stupid brace face.
I’ve listened to enough true crime podcasts to know that if the man succeeds in moving me to a second location, the odds of getting out of this with life and limb intact decrease significantly.
Even if that weren’t the case, I’m not the kind to go gentle into that dark night.
As a teen, I kept pushing for a place on the varsity basketball team, even though I was the shortest girl and had to run twice as fast to keep up with my teammates.In culinary school, I battled for the top spot, determined to graduate head of my class to make up for the fact that my genius twin brother wasn’t living up to his potential.And when it came to my marriage, I fought with so much burning intensity that Ben was finally forced to tell me that he liked men to prove all the fighting was pointless.
I just couldn’t understand how our love, ourfamilywasn’t enough for him.He said he liked men, okay, but he clearly liked me, too.Our sex life had always been wonderful—playful and fun, if not always as passionate as I would have liked.But I had no complaints.
At one point, when I realized how close we were to falling apart, I offered to open our marriage.I didn’t want to be with anyone but Ben, but if he needed to express the part of himself that was attracted to guys, I promised I’d try to be okay with it.I was so in love; I was willing to settle for less so I wouldn’t lose it all.
But Ben didn’t want to share.
He wanted to fall desperately in love with a pastry chef named Radcliffe, askinnypastry chef, the kind of sick, sugar-peddling, whole-food-eating creep who should never be trusted with anything—especially a vulnerable man’s heart.
As Ben left with his bags, I sobbed from the front door that I gave their relationship a month, two if they were lucky.
Now, they’ve been together nearly a year.Ben moved in with Radcliffe nine months ago and with every passing day, they sink deeper into domestic bliss.Radcliffe even gave up his home office to make a bedroom for Chase.He filled it with a toddler bed shaped like a sea turtle and fancy toys his mother sent for her “new grandbaby.”
