She's Up to No Good(3)

I felt self-righteous tears pricking at my eyes. “That was me. I’m not even divorced yet.”

“By choice. If you signed that separation agreement and let him file, you could be free in a couple of months instead of dragging it out for a year. And if you let him out sooner, he’d sell the condo, and then you would have money to move out, even over the summer.”

I crossed my arms sulkily. Brad absolutely deserved to have to wait the full year of separation to file for divorce. I wasn’t going to make it easier on him by saying our separation was mutual so he and Taylor could be together guilt-free sooner. Even if stalking on social media had proven that she wasn’t actually a twenty-two-year-old blonde, I wasn’t feeling particularly generous toward my replacement.

My mother wasn’t deterred. “Also, those married friends have single friends. And you should be using online dating. Set up a Tinder account.”

“Ew! Mom! That’s mostly for sex!” My dad mimed smothering himself with a pillow.

“Match, then.”

“That’s for much older people.”

“Jdate.”

“People who are desperate to get married.”

“Look, I don’t care which one you use, but it’s time to get out there and meet people. Have you even put on a bra or makeup since school ended?” My father found a piece of lint on the sofa that completely engrossed him. “I’m not saying you need to get remarried right now, but you need to do something. I get that you needed to hide for a little while, but enough is enough. You can’t live in your childhood bedroom forever. You’re not in high school. You’re going to be thirty-five in a few weeks. It’s time to get your act together.”

I rose, stung, and stormed up the stairs without a word. I almost slammed my bedroom door, but that would only prove her point, so I shut it quietly instead and edged around the Peloton, which took up way too much space in the room but that I insisted on keeping. I had found Taylor on the app, and Taylor used hers daily. That didn’t prove they were living together, but either they were or Brad had bought a second one, because he was on a four-month streak as well.

I sank onto the double bed that had seemed so big when I transitioned from my twin at fifteen but that now hurt my back because the mattress was twenty years old, and my spine was about to enter the second half of its thirties. What am I going to do?

The reality was that I had no desire to date anyone. Not that I actually missed Brad either. Truth be told, I didn’t. He snored. He was frequently condescending. He belittled my job as less important than his. And he had terrible taste in music and movies.

Instead, I felt hollowed out. Like someone had taken a melon baller and scooped out all the pieces of who I actually was. Sure, I still looked like Jenna. But realizing my life was a total lie took a toll. I wasn’t ready yet to reemerge, admit that I had lost, and start again. I just didn’t have anything to give someone new. The well was empty.

It’d serve her right if I went on Tinder and brought a guy home, I thought, imagining the look on my mother’s face when some random dude came walking into the kitchen in the morning, shirtless, to drink milk straight out of the carton. You told me to try Tinder, I’d tell her, shrugging. Not that my parents kept milk in the house. My mother used powdered creamer, and my father was lactose intolerant. But random one-night stands had to drink milk out of the carton while half-naked. Everyone knew that.

My work best friend did have a guy she wanted to set me up with. The thought filled me with dread, but maybe going on a date would get my mother off my back for a month or so. And that was all I needed. Another month. Maybe two. I’d feel more like myself then.

Hopefully.





CHAPTER THREE





I avoided my mother as much as I could for the next few days, which took a lot of careful listening at doors and sneaking into the kitchen at odd times to eat. If I was invisible, maybe she would forget I was there. Like that woman who lived in the walls of someone’s house for years before they realized she existed.

But Thursday night, I heard the unmistakable arrival of my grandmother, followed by my father tapping quietly on my bedroom door. “Your grandma has that crazy look in her eye,” he said when I let him in. “You know she and your mom are going to fight when she shows up like this. You can’t leave me alone with them.”

I sighed but agreed to come down. There was a good chance that my grandmother would take my side. Evelyn Gold’s primary form of entertainment was antagonizing her two daughters, which frequently worked to her grandchildren’s benefit. She could turn on us just as quickly but usually didn’t if our mothers were present. If torturing her daughters was an art form, my grandmother’s work belonged in the Louvre.

My grandma turned her gaze, as sharp as ever though she was almost eighty-nine, on me, her eldest granddaughter, as I slid into my seat at the dining room table. “The recluse is alive,” she said, the corners of her lips twitching into a half smile. “I was sure I’d have to burn the house down to get you to come see me from the way Anna talks.”

My mother’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “She comes downstairs. She just doesn’t leave the house.”

“Who wants to leave the house these days? You’ve got everything you need inside with the Google and the Facebook. Besides, it’s too humid.” She winked at me. “You just stay in your cocoon until you’re ready to come out.”