Chapter Four #2
I open my mouth to ask the questions piling atop my tongue but forget every one of them when I spot an unfamiliar person.
Head slightly ducked, hands gripping the speckled tile countertop on either side of her.
With sausage roll bangs and a silver and gray braid that lands near the pockets of a denim jumper in style long before my birth.
She looks as though she’s stepped out of a cult documentary with all the wives.
“Oh yeah,” Wanda says, right next to my ear and loud enough I would’ve heard her had I still been in my car. “You haven’t met Arlene yet!”
Arlene’s eyes fly wide, leading me to believe she wasn’t ready to be thrown into the spotlight, which happens enough around this group that I recognize the signs.
The fixer within immediately surges forward, extending an arm and returning the attention to myself.
Not because I want it, but because she so clearly doesn’t.
“I’m Mia. And you should know that whatever they’ve said about me”—I jerk a thumb over my shoulder and Vonetta yelps as though I nearly poked out her eye despite the protection of her glasses—“has probably been greatly exaggerated.”
Grandma Helen pinches my cheek. “Not about the cute, though. Check out this gorgeous bone structure.”
“Yeah, that’s what I tell the men I go out with. If only you could get a look at what’s beneath the skin and see these sexy bones I’m rocking.”
“I’m starting to understand why you never answered my question about having a boyfriend,” Tia Rita says.
It stings the tiniest bit, despite knowing she’s only teasing.
We all have our ways of deflecting, and for months I’ve assured myself the reason I’ve struggled to connect with my dates came down to my hectic work schedule.
Because otherwise it’s me, hi—and I don’t want the problem to be me.
I’m too much. From deep within comes a notion I’ve suspected for as long as I can remember. It clogs my throat and thickens the blood in my veins.
Without fail, my inner control freak rears her anxious head and ruins everything, but if my dates couldn’t deal with that side of me…
Well, I can’t figure out how to be any other way, and I don’t understand why that’s not okay.
Through the compulsive churning that definitely doesn’t do me any favors in the dating department, I flash Arlene a grin and say, “See what I mean?”
Titters and cackles ring the room. For all my quirks and flaws, I can ease most situations with a touch of humor. Not only does it relax those around me, it allows me to focus on something besides my faults and failures for a while.
Ice cubes rattle as Bubbie Bette passes her drink from one hand to the other and slings an arm around Arlene. “Our new friend is recently divorced and having a hard time adjusting. So, we’ve come together tonight to—”
“Show her the perks of being unattached,” Grandma Helen says.
“Give her a pep talk about dating again,” says Bubbie Ruth.
“Assure her that her soulmate could still be out there,” Gertie chimes in, her features all dreamy as she snuggles closer to Vonetta.
“It’s about finding balance and joy within,” Vonetta adds in her rich bravado, self-assuredness rolling off her in waves. Someday, I seriously need the woman who built a skincare empire to teach me the ways of the self-assured. “Once you’re vibrating at a higher frequency, you’ll attract similar.”
Arlene doesn’t argue, something I instinctively know she wants to do because we’re wearing the same dubious, pursed-lip expression.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Wanda waves a hand through the air and hiccups. “While I’m all about peace and love and letting the universe take the wheel, what Arlene really needs is a good lay—her ex-husband was a selfish lover.”
Groans and gasps follow, a cacophony of frustration experienced by females everywhere.
“!Què horror!” Rita tsks. “What is it you call it, Wanda? Two-pump chump?”
Wanda nods, an enthusiastic bobblehead doll with a wonky screw, and Arlene’s pale skin blotches red. She throws a hand over her face, causing her words to come out muffled. “I never should’ve told you that.”
“Tell me? It took a month and two margaritas to pry out that much.” Wanda sips and swipes her tongue across pearly pink lip gloss that never seems to fade or smudge. “And once we find eligible candidates to scratch that itch”—she waggles her eyebrows—“you’ll be thanking me.”
My grandmother shifts closer and stage whispers, “Big surprise, Arlene still needs a little convincing.”
I pivot and lean against the counter on Arlene’s other side, beneath a framed needlepoint that says i don’t cook but i like to stir the pot in blue and pink thread.
How very on-the-nose and, since I’ve been there before—hell, I’m there now—I hook my elbow through hers in solidarity.
“Me too, girl. Let’s get there together. ”
The sloppy smiles that spread across their faces have canary-eating edges, and my spidey senses start tingling.
“We’re so happy to hear that,” Wanda cheers, bouncing on the balls of her bare feet, the boobs she bought after kicking breast cancer’s ass challenging the spaghetti straps of her top. “Because we planned a similar pep talk for you.”
My gut dive-bombs. “Oh no,” I say, desperate to stop the interference train before it fully leaves the station.
“But after running into you earlier today”—Wanda charges on with a scary amount of determination—“we thought we might not have to.” She leans in, curiosity gleaming in her eyes.
It takes longer than it should to click, and while I wouldn’t normally celebrate them jumping to the wrong conclusion, I’m secretly grateful for anything that’ll delay a discussion about the community.
“Oh, come now.” Vonetta arches an eyebrow and pins me with the glare that made board executives cry for their mommies. “What’s up with you and that yummy doctor?”
I gasp in her direction. Of the lot of them, I thought she’d be the one on my side.
Not that there are sides.
“We’re pointing fingers, are we?” This is it. The unavoidable moment I have to not only announce there’s an elephant in the room, but that she also has HPV. “Because all that happened is Dr. Vasquez—”
“Oooh, did you hear the way she said his name?” Bette bumps shoulders with Rita and grins at Grandma Helen, visions of a wedding and unborn grandchildren dancing through their heads.
As if the bubbies don’t already have enough. Between all three widows—who share the giant house at the end of the cul-de-sac—they have four dogs, two cats, a hamster who’s frequently replaced but never renamed, and twenty-three grandchildren.
“Told you there was a spark,” Vonetta whispers to me—no, to Gertie, as evidently I don’t get a say in how I feel about the doctor with the delicious dimples.
I cluck my tongue and huff. “You guys are such middle schoolers, I swear.”
The whistles and hollers escalate, and I had no idea the biddies were so up-to-date on their crude gestures. Someone’s bound to pull a hip if they keep this up.
Rita hands me a glass with fat salt crystals on the rim, and with the ladies closing in and the temperature of the kitchen skyrocketing, I gulp down the contents, forgetting about brain freeze until it hits.
“What happened is,” I shout over the razzing, squeezing an eye closed and pressing a couple fingertips to my temple, “Dr. Vasquez offered to show me to the main office so I could start my new job, but halfway there we ran into you. At a protest.” Since we’re flinging accusations, I throw one of my own into the mix. “In your underwear.”
“We live here,” is Grandma Helen’s reply, and honestly, fair.
Still, what I say is, “Yeah, that’s what concerns me. That and what you get up to in your spare time.” I wince, wishing for the ability to revise my words as thoroughly as I do an email or text. People teased me about being the slowest replier on the planet, which isn’t even close to true.
I was just the grammatically correctest.
Headlines featuring the community drift up once again, their click-bait titles as irksome as they are clever.
Elderly Escapades: Study Reveals Senior Love Lives as Active as Their Twenty-Year-Old Grandkids!
Seniors in Lakeview Retirement Village Are Taking the Little Blue Pill in Bulk—and It’s Leaving Experimenting Residents UP for anything.
“Sorry, that came out judgy,” I try again, holding up my hands to show I don’t want to fight. When I sort through the tangle of emotions, I realize it’s mostly worry, so I pause and reframe. “I’m just concerned.”
“We are too, hon.” Wanda snags my hand and squeezes. “That’s why we’re so glad you’re here to stay for a while.”
Rita nods her agreement, causing her large beaded earrings to snag in her dark copper curls. “You work too hard, never taking any time for fun.”
“You’re so busy with your career that you’ve forgotten life’s for living and loving,” Grandma Helen says, and I can’t help my scowl. “You don’t want to wake up twenty to thirty years from now and regret the fun you never had.”
Would this be a good opportunity to bring up the tumbleweeds rolling across her dating life?
As fate would have it, I’m saved by the patio door.
It slides open with a whir and puff of warm, sticky air, and in strides Nonna Sophia Cappelli.
With a toss of her pink and gold Versace scarf and a minor adjustment to the giant, blinged-out sunglasses acting as a headband for winged caramel-and-espresso strands, each staccato clack of her kitten heels brings her closer to me.
As polished as ever, her olive complexion boasts a deep bronze from hours laid out reading by the pool. The buxom beauty once informed me she wears her tiniest swimsuit whenever she wants free landscaping or handyman help. Queen can slay and, much like my grandmother’s cat, is well aware of it.
“Ciao bella.” Sophia snags both of my hands in hers and pulls me into a hug and cloud of jasmine and mandarin perfume. With a grazing kiss on each cheek, she asks, “Did you hear about Edmund?”
Automatically, I glance toward Grandma Helen and Wanda for help. Last I heard, Sophia was dating Antonio from Cougar Lane, a real street in the neighborhood the Cronies joked should’ve been theirs.
I don’t realize I’ve got my head tilted like a confused puppy until I catch my reflection in the oval lenses of Sophia’s pin-thin frames—she always wears two pair, light and dark so she’s ready for every occasion, and I find that oddly comforting.
“I’m so sorry?” I venture as I peer into pale green eyes lined thick with charcoal.
“No need to be, darling. The man’s worth a fortune, and he proposed with a rock I couldn’t see without my glasses and a prenup smaller than his penis.”
Giggles erupt, and Grandma Helen asks, “Are you talking the document or the settlement amount?”
Sophia tsks. “Oh, I’ll kiss and tell every time, but I never settle.”
Attempting to stifle my chuckle causes a snort that makes everyone else giggle harder, and I stop caring if I should laugh and just do. Then we’re dabbing our eyes with napkins and advising one another to check for salsa shrapnel before blotting.
“Anyway”—Sophia tosses her hair, but the grin that spreads across her face is missing its usual ease and glow—“if he’s shocked I refused, that’s on him.”
For all her talk about money and diamonds and penile size, the problem with every man Sophia dates and even goes on to marry is they’re not Fred.
An Italian war bride, she lost her first husband in the Korean War and was left to raise three small children in a foreign country that threatened to deport her without them.
While she claimed she’d never forgiven Fred for dying and leaving her behind, she loved him so intensely she never fully let anyone in again.
With four subsequent marriages and divorces under her belt, she now dates for sport.
Men do the wildest things to win her heart, too. For instance, Antonio went by Tony his whole life until Nonna Sophia convinced him otherwise.
“Wait, we can’t go switching topics,” Gertie says. “Not before we convince Mia to—”
My pulse and blood pressure spike in unison as everyone starts talking at once, and I’m no longer in control of any situation.
No one is—not until my grandmother places two fingers in her mouth and whistles loud enough to have Ruth and Gertie tweaking their hearing aids. “Let’s take our dinner and drinks outside on the patio, where we can snack and finish our discussion while overlooking the lake.”
Now that I can fully get onboard with.
Grandma Helen slings her arm around my shoulders, curling me closer and propelling me toward the patio door with surprising force. “You see, we’ve been pondering your situation and ways we can help—”
I drag my feet, gently applying the brakes. The last thing I want is to display my faults and mistakes for all to see. Can’t I just gesture in the general direction of my shambled life and call it a day?
I inhale a centering breath, exhale as much carbon dioxide and anxiety as I can, and debate whether this is a battle worth picking. Given my exhaustion and the awkwardness surrounding the other subject, I figure I’ll at least hear them out before telling them no.
The bubbies make their excuses, apologizing for ducking out early despite the fact they very rarely stay out past 9:00 p.m. and claim to turn into pumpkins by 10:00 p.m. We wish them a good night and then my grandmother renews her nudging me outside.
Since I’m a big believer in heading into combat prepared, I say, “If we’re having that chat, I think I’m going to need another margarita.”
For some reason, it provides no comfort when Grandma Helen signals to Rita and adds, “Better make it a double.”