Chapter 6 #2
“Oh, it’s all about the lube. I can give you some recommendations if you want.” She pops her gum. “I’m sure you need it more than anyone, all that health-class diagram baby-making you’re probably soldiering through.”
Natalie may fuck anything with a face now, but she hasn’t forgotten the first commandment of her megachurch past: thou shalt make others feel harshly judged whenever the opportunity arises.
“You’re being safe, right?” I ask, pivoting away from her dig.
“Oh, come on, give me some credit. Yes, Mom!”
“All right, all right.”
Far be it for me to give a shit. It’s not like anyone else is lining up to help Natalie.
Her lobbyist ex is already engaged again (don’t feel too bad—he pays enough alimony to cover all her rent).
Her parents are still mad about the divorce, and from the way she talks about her other friends, it sounds like they’ve all settled happily into their own newlywed routines.
I would’ve cut her loose a long time ago, too, if it wasn’t for Fritter.
She leaves him alone so often, he’s basically half mine.
“You know I’m always happy to take him if you can’t make it home,” I say, nodding down at him as he eagerly investigates patches of U Street grime. More than once, I reach over and jerk him away from a chicken bone. You’d think Natalie might get the hint and start paying attention.
“I know, girl. You’re the best. But we were at my place last night.”
Now I feel bad that Fritter probably had to witness all that. I shoot him a sympathetic look.
It’s twelve forty-five and the crowd at the farmers market is already starting to thin.
Some vendors are packing up. I hustle over to the produce section for carrots and thyme; then I hit up the dairy lady for a container of fresh butter.
(The weekend market in Grovemont has a much better selection than this—and it’s so much cleaner.)
I spot Natalie at the smoothie stand, leaning into the counter just enough to push up her cleavage.
The guy working there—he looks barely out of college—crouches to pet Fritter.
I wonder if that’s why she keeps him around, for the extra attention he attracts.
While I wait for her, I rummage for my phone in my crossbody bag. Still no word from Ian.
“Everything okay?” Natalie asks, a heaping acai bowl threatening to drip down the front of her white zip-up.
“Oh yeah, it’s nothing.” I stash my phone again. “Just an annoying email from a client.”
We pick up the pace on the way back since the sky has turned angrier.
I remind Natalie that I have a work event this Thursday—one of her late-shift nights—but that I’ll still come by to let Fritter out as soon as it’s over.
We say goodbye on the street, and I detour to Whole Foods for the rest of my dinner ingredients.
The lights are off when I get back to the apartment, the whole place cast in the same stormy gray as the clouds outside the floor-to-ceiling window. Part of me expected him to be here by now, parked on the sofa, waiting to apologize—he’s almost always the first one of us to say sorry.
Before him, I’d been a magnet for assholes (“daddy issues,” any armchair shrink would say). But I could tell right away that Ian was different.
When we first started dating, he lived by himself in Chinatown and I had two roommates in Columbia Heights, so we spent a lot of nights at his place.
It didn’t matter how little notice I gave him that I was coming over, if it was after dark, he would be there waiting for me at the Metro.
And every Sunday, rain or shine, he’d meet me at my place to go grocery shopping.
Neither of us had a car back then, and that way, he could help me carry the bags.
Ian shows up. It’s just what he does. So where the fuck is he now?
At five o’clock, I give in and send the first text: Are you coming home for dinner?
I stare at the screen, willing those three little dots to materialize. Nothing.
I mix myself a Manhattan—drinking cocktails again is one perk of pregnancy purgatory—and put the chicken in the oven. At seven, I text again: Can you let me know you’re okay?
This time, the three dots do appear, but only for a second before fading away.
So he’s deliberately ignoring me then. A twinge of fury jabs into my ribs.
The apartment smells like Thanksgiving and my stomach sounds like a diesel engine, so you know what?
Fuck him. I’m not going to sit here and starve.
I carve into the perfect golden bird and take a plate to the couch, along with a bottle of Malbec. Time to open Pinterest and design our dream home.
The kitchen is almost exactly what I want already, though I’m not sold on the oversize lantern-style pendants over the island.
They’re a statement, sure, but are they the right one?
I pin two alternatives: simple milk-glass globes with brass canopies from Schoolhouse, and a solid brass dome-shaped option from Shades of Light.
Zoe Estelle’s Instagram has persuaded me that painting the wainscoting in the dining room a high-gloss deep jewel tone is the only way to go.
Then I’ll wallpaper the rest of the way up to the ceiling.
I peruse the options on Farrow a sharpness drills into the backs of my eyes.
Am I still on the couch?
More sounds in the doorway. Keys hitting the shelf. Sneakers kicked off. I squint up at the ceiling; then a figure comes into view, lit only by the blue flickering of the television.
Ian.
“You made my mom’s chicken?”