Chapter 8 General Crappiness and Mediocrity
GENERAL CRAPPINESS AND MEDIOCRITY
DELILAH
A few weeks pass between Ivy’s presentation of Operation Goodbye Earl and the day we can finally put it into action, but each day feels like a goddamn lifetime.
School is out for summer, which means I’m officially the mother of a third grader.
I’m in my second trimester and no longer puking five times a day, which is a plus, though I can’t button my jeans anymore, which is a big old minus.
But the sun is out after nineteen straight days of rain, and that means I can break out my summer dresses, which should theoretically fit for at least a few more months.
My belly didn’t really pop out until the end of my first pregnancy, but I’m older now.
I have a feeling this whole geriatric thing will not be easy on me.
Raising my arms overhead, I give in to a deep, full-body stretch before I force myself out of bed.
I scrunch and release my toes, arch my back and breathe deep into my ribcage, feeling the flex of every muscle that is already accommodating the new life growing in my belly.
Everything is a little bit tighter, a little bit sore, and a whole lot more aware.
My arms graze the sheets like I’m making a snow angel on the mattress.
The spot next to me might be empty now, but it’s still warm from Ivy’s body curled up next to mine all night.
It’s been years since Earl and I slept in the same room at the same time, and I’d forgotten how nice it felt to sleep next to another person.
Well, another adult, at least. Sadie and I have been pro-nap buddies her whole life.
But there is a certain comfort in knowing that you’re not alone. Even if Grandma Millie’s bedroom is severely outdated and a little creepy, I’m sleeping better than I have in years. I’m glad that Ivy never tried to sleep on the couch again after that first night.
Out in the kitchen, Ivy and Sadie are sitting side by side at the kitchen table, two forgotten bowls of cereal pushed to the side to make room for the handheld video game devices.
“It’s not fair. The turnips are worth way more on your island today.”
“Sadie, your island can’t always be the better one. And you can sell your turnips to my store, remember? You’ll go back to Sadieville with so many bells to spend, you won’t know what to do with yourself.”
“I swear, it’s like you two are speaking a different language,” I say as I cross the kitchen. Thank god Ivy got the video game gene, because I can never keep up when Sadie tries to tell me about her cozy island and all the weird animals that live there.
I pour a splash of hazelnut creamer into a mug and then top it off with coffee from the pot. Ivy raises a brow in my direction. I give her an identical look back, the two of us having the same conversation we have every morning without words.
You’re not supposed to have caffeine when you’re pregnant, Delilah. Do you want Little Bean to come out with five legs and a tail?
I can have one cup of coffee, Ivy. And if Little Bean comes out with five legs and a tail, well, that’s just more of them to love.
“Mama, can I get my tongue pierced?” Sadie asks, and I choke on the sip of hot coffee in my mouth.
“Sorry, Lilah,” Ivy says between chuckles.
“She saw my decoration when we were eating ice cream last night and asked about it this morning.” She flicks the diamond-looking barbell on her tongue between her teeth, and an unexpected shiver runs down my spine.
I was there with Ivy at The Inkwell on her eighteenth birthday when she had the piercing done.
Ivy took the needle like a champ; I passed out from the sight alone.
The bling isn’t a surprise; she just doesn’t typically go around wagging her tongue around.
I sometimes forget about the jewelry in Ivy’s mouth, and Sadie has certainly never noticed it before.
Now that it’s been brought to my attention, I can’t seem to stop noticing my friend’s tongue piercing, nor can I stop my brain from veering down the path that wonders about all the things Ivy might be able to do with the adornment on her tongue.
Clearing my throat, I turn my concentration back to my daughter.
“Absolutely not, Lollipop. Ask me again when you turn eighteen. Actually, no. Ask me again when you turn thirty.”
Sadie sighs, then wiggles her eyebrows.
“What about my ears, Mama? Can I get my ears pierced? Please? I’m going to be in third grade soon, and I’ll be the only girl in class without pierced ears.
Please, please, please?” My kid sticks out her lower lip, pouting and clasping her hands in mock prayer under her chin.
In her soccer camp attire—black mesh shorts and a maroon jersey with the number ‘13’ on the back and her ponytail tied with a matching maroon ribbon—my baby looks like a tiny teenager but somehow just as itty bitty and brand new as she was the first time I held her.
I look at Ivy, and she throws her hands up in surrender.
“I can’t say yes or no, but I can say that if your mama says it’s okay to get your ears pierced, I’d be more than happy to do the honors. We can go down to The Inkwell and get it done the right way with high-quality jewelry and good needles. No cheap-o mall ear gun for our Sadie Girl.”
Part of me wants to say no, to keep my baby girl a baby for as long as I possibly can, but Ivy’s willingness to step in has me leaning towards the other direction.
I love my parents, but they were pretty strict about certain things.
I was never allowed to dye my hair or experiment with body jewelry.
They still don’t know that Ivy pierced my belly button in high school.
I always told myself I’d be lenient with the stuff that allows Sadie to express herself—clothes, hair, and I suppose, piercings. I didn’t think this milestone would come so soon, but I can’t avoid it forever.
And if Ivy thinks it’s a good idea, who am I to say no?
“Alright, Sadie. I’ll tell you what. If you score two goals at soccer camp this week and I don’t get any bad notes from your counselors, we’ll go to The Inkwell on Saturday and let Ivy pierce your ears.
Deal?” It should be a pretty simple thing for my kid to achieve, considering she has the legs of Mia Hamm and rarely gets bad remarks on her attitude from teachers.
“Deal! Mama, oh my god! I’m going to score so many goals, and I’ll be the perfect angel at camp. I won’t be a sore loser or threaten to kick the boys or talk when I’m not supposed to or anything! This is so cool!”
Sadie runs off, jabbering about how she can’t wait to tell her friends at camp about our deal and that they’ll have to give her ample opportunities to score, and I don’t bother to remind her to rinse her bowl and put it in the dishwasher.
Sometimes things in life are too exciting to set aside for menial tasks.
And Sadie doesn’t need to know that I plan on upholding my end of the bargain no matter how many times she kicks the ball into the net this week. As long as she behaves, we’ll be making a trip to The Inkwell on Saturday.
“That’s a pretty badass kid we’ve got, Lilah.”
And as Ivy moves around the kitchen, her hand grazing over my lower belly after she’s deposited the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher, my mind lingers on that word. We.
Is it possible that all this time I’ve been aching for a partner, someone to lighten my load and share some joys and burdens of life with, and all along, my partner has been right in front of me? How different would my life be if I weren’t once such a coward?
How different could it be now if I tried to be different?
“Yeah,” I sigh. “Yeah, we really do.”
“Ivy, why are you driving so damn slow?”
“I’m trying to keep the car quiet. If I go under five miles per hour, it won’t make any noise.”
“Vee, it’s a Rav4, not a Prius. It won’t be silent no matter how slowly you drive. And it’s the middle of the day, and we’re driving down the street that I have lived on for years. We don’t need to be discreet.”
I huff out a breath as Ivy continues to drive down the road at a snail’s pace, likely drawing more attention to us than if she’d just act like a normal person.
After dropping Sadie off at soccer camp and then swinging by the market to deliver a batch of my strawberry jam, we set forth to commence Operation Goodbye Earl.
With our supplies hidden in the depths of my Louis Vuitton tote—a Christmas present from my soon-to-be sister-in-law that she calls my ‘Hot Mom Bag’—Ivy pulls my SUV into the driveway of the home I shared with Earl.
I don’t bother asking why she bothered with her stealth driving if she was just going to park in view of the entire neighborhood, anyway.
“Alright, what do we say if anyone asks what we’re doing here?” Ivy asks as I slide my key into the front door, relieved that it still works. I thought Earl might be petty enough to change the locks, but his laziness has always outweighed his general crappiness and mediocrity.
“No one is going to knock and ask what I’m doing in my own house.”
“Lilah, please. Fox Hole is peak small-town nosiness. There’s nothing to do here but get all in each other’s business.
You think no one is looking out their window, looking for something to discuss at The Dugout tonight?
The town might be on our side when push comes to shove, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to talk.
And if we want to remain untraceable, we have to be nonchalant.
Now tell me what we say if someone asks what we’re doing here. ”
I breathe out a long sigh. She’s not wrong.
My separation from Earl will be the talk of the town for months.
People just stopped talking about my brother following his fiancée to San Francisco and he moved months ago.
Hell, they talked about the first time Stephen and Dottie Lynn broke up for the better part of a decade.
“We say that I’m just here to pick up my summer clothes that I left behind.”
“That’s my good girl,” Ivy says, patting my cheek as she strolls past me and through the threshold of my former home.
I, however, stand there like an idiot with my hand still on my keys, shell-shocked at my body’s response to Ivy’s simple praise.
My stomach twists into a knot, the strings pulled tighter as my friend strides away from me, completely unaware of the effect she has on me.
There is a part of me that always suspected I fell on the LGBTQ+ spectrum somewhere.
I liked boys well enough. Hell, I enjoyed having sex with them enough that I managed to get impregnated by my deadbeat husband twice.
But there was also another side of me, a part of my heart and my lust that called out for other women and femme people as well.
In high school, the first time I thought about kissing Ivy, I shut it down as curiosity that I would not try to satiate.
I would never try to figure myself out by using my friend, and besides, Ivy has always been so sure of her sexuality, and the two of us are so alike.
Surely, if I were bi or pan or queer, I would know it for certain.
Then when I finally had the bravery to voice my thoughts out loud in college, the person I thought I could trust shut me down and made me feel like what I wanted was just a silly impulse. I felt defeated, so I packed it all away, never to be thought of again.
But as I stand here in the doorway, heat blooming between my hips as I watch Ivy assess the living room I shared with Earl, I’m not so sure that packing my sexuality into a neat little box was the correct move after all.
Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones talking, or maybe it’s the thrill of what we’re about to do, but I am suddenly feeling incredibly horny.
It’s certainly an unfamiliar sensation, especially in this house.
It’s also extremely inconvenient, because the second Ivy turns to me, I’m sure she can see it written all over my face.
My cheeks heat and sweat forms on my upper lip.
She says something, but all I can focus on is my friend standing in my living room, all long lines and small curves that I’m suddenly itching to get my hands on.
“Lilah?” Ivy snaps, breaking me out of my trance. Who knows how long I was standing there, staring at her like a dog begging for table scraps.
“What?”
“I asked you where we should start.”
“Right,” I shake my head, trying to rid myself of this pesky wave of arousal. “Let’s start in the bathroom.”
Ivy smirks, and I follow her up the stairs, hoping like hell that whatever I just experienced was nothing more than a fluke.