4. Diana
Balancing my phone between my cheek and my shoulder, I fold the towels by the lounge chairs, making sure we’re not making too much of a mess. Even though Barbara is away, I don’t want her to ever think I’m taking advantage of her hospitality.
“So things went well today?” Rosie asks.
“Well enough. The camp is so bougie—I think I saw a seven year-old with a designer backpack—and I got looped into some ridiculous orientation that lasted about three million hours. But the counselors and people running it were very nice.”
“They liked the camp then? Camila and Emi, I mean.”
Glancing at my daughters while neatly piling the towels on the table beside the lounge chairs, I watch as they squeal and splash in the pool water.
They look happier than I’ve seen them in the past six months—since the whole divorce process started—which fills me with a deep sense of hope.
It tells me that maybe this will work. Maybe coming here really will help us regroup, and we can head back to Denver in a better headspace before school starts.
“Yeah. They won’t stop raving about it.”
“That’s good, right? I mean, obviously,” she says.
“Absolutely,” I tell her, nodding even though she can’t see me. “It means I don’t feel as guilty as I should for dumping my kids in a camp while I study and work when I should probably be giving them love and attention given our whole situation.”
“Dee…” Rosie sighs over the phone. “You’re being way too hard on yourself.
You need to be a bit more selfish here. And honestly?
This is also good for them. You’re working and getting your certification to be a paralegal and that’s for them.
Even though I don’t get why they’re making you get this thing.
Didn’t you say it wasn’t a requirement in Colorado? ”
“No, but the law firm requires me to be National Association of Legal Assistants certified,” I clarify.
“And they’re already giving me a huge shot by offering me this job.
I mean, do you know how difficult it is to find a job as a former stay-at-home mom?
Especially in this economy. It doesn’t matter that I double-majored in Economics and Business Management from a top 50 university at the top of my class for most of my college career.
Nope. The fact that I dropped out and had to finish my last semester at a junior college ten years later only gives me the bare minimum of qualifications, apparently.
” I take a beat, sigh, and try to calm my heart rate.
“The job market treated me like I have no job experience whatsoever. Which is ridiculous, because it’s not as if I haven’t been doing anything for the last decade.
I’ve had to manage a budget, organize tasks, and raise two children—”
“Three, if you count Rodrigo,” Rosie interrupts.
I laugh once but go on. “But, yeah, these are all translatable skills for a job. If that doesn’t say prime candidate for a manager role I don’t know what does. And yet, it was impossible to find something.”
“Well, not impossible.” And I know she’s just trying to be supportive, but I really can’t stand it now. “At least you found someone in Denver to take a chance on you,” Rosie says before taking a sip of her champagne.
“The only reason I found a job at Porter, Jameson, the way his mischievous grin lit up his hazel eyes as they ran over my body.
The commanding presence he had, how even without laying a finger on me, I felt every inch of him pressed against the side of my body where he sat next to me.
My skin heats, my pulse races. Mortified, I shake my head, trying to clear it. So he was hot. Whatever. Lots of people are hot. Lots of really annoying, awful people are hot.
“Dee? You still there?”
“Yeah, sorry. I guess he was… less Marvel superhero, more Sons of Anarchy without tattoos. But maybe a little of both?”
Rosie gasps. “Hot.”
“Irrelevant since I’m not interested in any of that right now.” Or ever again. “He was just… annoying.” Her muffled laughter makes my skin burn. I roll my eyes, frustrated. “You’re really annoying, too, you know that?”
“What? I didn’t say anything!” But she chokes on a laugh, clearly struggling to keep her composure.
“I hate you. I’m gonna go. I have to make the girls dinner and then get back to studying.”
I almost hang up, but bring my phone back to my ear when I hear her yell “Wait! Hold on!”
“What?” I bite back.
“I’ll stop teasing you, I promise. But you really should consider at least being friendly with the guy—especially if what you said is true about the girls being friends. Just do it for their benefit. So they have someone else to hang out with on the weekends beside their mother.”
I heave a sigh, closing my eyes. “So I have to be nice?”
“It’s honestly much easier than you think. People do it every day, you know.”
“I guess.”
Despite what I tell Rosie, however, I have zero intentions of becoming even just friendly with Michael.
The girls can enjoy their time with Rachel and the rest of their new friends while at camp during weekdays, and then spend their weekends doing fun activities with me.
But I need to focus on making sure they feel loved and let them know that they can count on at least one parent.
I need to focus on my daughters’ well-being and health.
I need to focus on studying for the paralegal tests, studying my future boss’s clients.
Not on making new connections only for them to end after the summer.
So I steer clear of Michael for the rest of the week, looking the other way whenever we see each other in the camp parking lot, avoiding any sort of interaction.
For the most part, I’m successful—that is, until my daughters run up to me just a few days later at pick-up, Rachel in tow, big puppy eyes at the ready.
“Mami!” Cami greets me, and already I know it’s going to take everything in me not to cave. I know that look.
“So Rachel’s dad has this super cool farm with a bunch of animals and plants and flowers and food and stuff, and she invited us over to play and check it out, and we were wondering whether we could go because it sounds super fun and—”
“Whoa, hey. Hold on. Slow your roll; I can barely understand you. You want to go to Rachel’s?”
“Rachel’s dad’s farm.”
I practically see the physical effort it takes Cami not to roll her eyes at me when she makes the clarification, as if her summer goal is to also practice patience with her mother. The gall of this kid.
Emi tugs at my hand. “Rachel invited us. She was talking about how fun it can be, and it would be so cool because we’ve never been to a farm and—”
“Okay, take a breath, will you?” Jeez, these kids. “I know you’re excited, but you’re not being timed here.”
“Well,” Rachel speaks up. “It’s just, Mic—I mean, my dad—will be here any minute, and we just wanted to know whether it was okay with you before he got here. So Cami and Emi could come with me and then maybe you could pick them up later?”
I cross my arms in front of my chest and narrow my eyes at all three girls. “Does your dad already know about this?”