Saturday, September 8 #2
She closed her eyes and pinched her nose with one finger and a thumb. “Yes, I did. I also texted you about it. Twice.”
“I don’t think so. I would have remembered that.”
Antonia tucked a lock of her sensible dark blonde, chin-length hair behind her ear and told herself to take three long, slow breaths, like she used to tell her patients to do (back when she used to have actual patients and not ‘guests’).
Three deep breaths, all the way into your belly, hold for four, and exhale slower than the inhale.
You must calm your mind in order for it to function at its best.
Xavier had the audacity to look offended. “Why are you box breathing? I haven’t even done anything wrong.”
“I’m just a little stressed out,” she said, swiping through her summery dresses for something that might fit over her widening hips.
She was turning into her mother, who had been slim right up until she turned fifty when she promptly turned into a Bartlett pear.
“Anyway, we’re leaving in thirty minutes and we’ll be back next Saturday.
No parties. I’m serious. We will actually evict you this time. ”
Ted chose that moment to saunter into the room, rubbing his flat belly, which was a habit he picked up after he started hitting the gym the year before.
One of the things Antonia resented most about Ted (and there were so many to choose from) was that he could drop weight at will, and at fifty-four was in the best shape of his life.
His face lit up when he saw their son. “Hey, champ! How’s the market today? ”
Xavier wrinkled his nose and shook his head in response. “It’s a good time to buy. Listen, I was thinking I should set up in the Kauai house for the winter. It’s closer to Asia so I can be on top of the foreign markets a little better from there.”
Antonia let her shoulders drop. “Hawaii is behind us. Asia is ahead.”
Xavier gave her a sheepish grin. “But I’m pretty sure if I could relax more, I’d get back in the groove.”
“What groove?” Antonia asked. “You’ve lost over thirty thousand dollars.”
“Mom, you know that wasn’t my fault. Even the biggest traders in the world got caught up in Volmageddon.”
Oh God, why had she said anything? The last thing she needed was to have her son launch into a twenty-minute tirade about the crazy dip in the market earlier that year.
“Your mother and I know that, champ. Besides, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Ted said, strolling into the closet. He returned with his Briggs and Riley expandable suitcase and put it on the bench at the foot of the bed.
Ignoring him, Antonia gave her son a glare. “You’re not spending the winter surfing and smoking pot in Hawaii. If you’re not going back to school, it’s time you got a real job.”
“Toni, maybe now’s not the time for this discussion. We have to leave for the airport in a few minutes.” Ted lifted his thick-framed hipster glasses and casually rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
Antonia hated those glasses. The woman at the store told Ted they were for young men with strong personalities, and he ate it up, spending two thousand on frames that looked as if they cost seventy bucks.
“Ted, our entitled son is informing us he’s planning to spend yet another winter living off us in paradise. Do you seriously have nothing to say to that?”
Ted’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly at his wife, and in that moment, there was a truth they’d never spoken.
They could barely stand each other anymore.
It was as if all that love they used to have had slowly been turned into disdain, like a ripe peach that fell from the tree and proceeded to rot right there in the soft grass. “Priorities, Toni. We’re in a rush.”
“If we’re in such a hurry, perhaps you should start packing.”
Xavier and his father exchanged a ‘bitches be crazy’ look that made Antonia want to murder someone.
“That’s what the suitcase is for,” Ted answered, winking at their son.
Nope, do not do it, Antonia. Do not strangle him with your bare hands. Turning to her son, she spoke in a soft, yet firm voice—the one that indicated she was about to blow. “Xavier, no parties. And when we get back, be ready to give us your plan for the future.”
With that, she walked into the en suite and shut the door, so she could pack her toiletries in peace.
Taking a moment to stare at herself in the mirror, she hated what she saw—a bitter, aging woman who let her children get away with murder, then snapped at them as punishment for her own failings.
And if that weren’t bad enough, she was starting to look her age even though she’d spent a fortune on laser skin treatments and oxygen facials, and covered every white hair with blond.
It was the heaps of stress that were aging her, and unlike her husband, whose fine lines and salt and pepper hair made him distinguished, she was just getting old.
But maybe, someday, if she could free herself of the treadmill, eventually she’d recognize the woman in the mirror again.
Lifting her eyelids, she whispered, “Just get this over with. You don’t have a choice.”