Good Time(31)

The more you know, right?

Vince gives me a stomach full of swans.

I wonder if my mom’s first husband made her feel like doing crazy things in the hopes that he’d get it, that he’d catch her. That he’d want to be a little crazy right alongside of her.

I wonder if my mom’s first marriage felt like serendipity but ended in heartache. I’ve never asked much about that guy. I was ten before I even comprehended that my father wasn’t her first marriage, he was her second. They’d long since divorced by then and she was newly engaged. A relative had made an offhand comment about the third time being a charm and my life had tilted off its axis a bit. Third? She’d had a life before the union that produced me? A husband before my father?

Looking back I have no idea why it was unfathomable to me. I have an older brother courtesy of my father’s first marriage. I’d always understood that my dad had been married before, but the idea that my mom had also been married before had thrown me for a loop. The feeling had been much like discovering that Santa wasn’t real. I’d figured that one out during the Christmas of my seventh year when “Santa” had duplicated two of his gifts at both my mom’s and dad’s houses. The old man made a list and checked it twice, but he couldn’t figure out how to split my presents in half and drop them in two different locations without error? And why did Santa have to make two stops just because my parents couldn’t live in the same house? It didn’t add up to me.

I’d called bullshit.

‘Bullshit’ is a word that adults don’t like to hear from a seven-year-old’s mouth. My dad confiscated my new Lego set as punishment. It’d taken everything in me not to roll my eyes and point out that I’d just explained that I had the exact same thing back at Mom’s house, so as far as punishments go, it was dumb.

Meghan doesn’t tell Carol any of this, obviously, since this is her appointment and not mine. Meghan tells her about her career aspirations and a timeshare she wants to buy in Mexico.

“What about your personal goals?” Carol asks and Meghan falters.

I feel you, Meghan. I feel you hard.

“You have issues with intimacy,” Carol tells Meghan and my heart stops because so do I! Who runs out of a post-cuddle session with a sex god? No one. No one does that. Not even if the sex god is their brand-new husband whom they’ve known for something under thirty hours. A well-adjusted normal person would never run. Granted, a well-adjusted normal person wouldn’t be in that situation to begin with, but still. He was playing with my hair and telling me he likes it just the way it is—without a time-consuming blow dry—and I ran out.

Speaking of blowing, I am blowing this all the blows. He probably won’t even want to date me after our annulment, which is going to be a real big problem for me because my ovaries strongly believe he’s meant to father my children and you can’t fight biological urges, it’s like trying to fight with fate. Perhaps I’d be able to fight the lust if he was annoying, but he’s not. He’s so not. Everything about him draws me in, makes me want more.

I know, I know. I’ve known him like ten minutes.

Crazy person, table of one.

“Your life isn’t randomly happening to you,” Carol is telling Meghan. “Your life is a compilation of the choices you make, both emotional and logical. Leave space for both. Don’t let your head talk your heart out of something you really want.”

Gah, Carol is so wise. I’m really glad I found her.

“Leave room for the unexpected, Meghan.”

Right, right, right.

Then Carol starts droning on about changes in the real-estate market and leaving room for growth in income properties. Then I miss a bunch of it because a group of teenagers have descended onto a nearby table so I’m now getting a mix of life coaching and homecoming plans.

In any case, I’m starting to wonder if Meghan and I want the same things out of these sessions. Still good advice though.

Carol and Meghan wrap up their meeting, agreeing to meet again on Thursday. I stay for an extra half hour because I am procrastinating like a boss and also because these homecoming plans are quite dicey.

When I get back to my apartment Vince is gone and I’m melancholy. The taco mess is gone too, the table cleared. The plastic cup from my iced coffee has been rinsed and placed in the recycle bin. He’s basically killing it as a husband. Good in bed, cleans up after himself, recycles.

In my bedroom the stuffed shark has been placed back onto my pillow. I take him with me to the sofa where I spend the remainder of the day binge-watching a reality show in which strangers paired up by relationship experts agree to marry each other at their first meeting. I’m not sure which is crazier, marrying a stranger you picked out yourself, or marrying a stranger a team of relationship experts picked out for you. I decide it’s a toss-up but it does make me feel better about my life choices.





Chapter Sixteen





“What’d you do this weekend?” It’s Monday and I’m at my desk working on quoting a wedding for next fall. I’d like to tell the client that they can get this entire package on a much smaller and more neon-lit scale at a variety of chapels across Las Vegas, but I like having a job so instead I input the numbers for a balloon drop as requested.

“I married the hot guy from the lobby.”