The Next Best Thing (Gideon's Cove #2)(25)
When I got home, my apartment was still dark, as I hadn’t pulled up the shades. I decided to keep them down, too glum for sun. Then I tripped over Fat Mikey in the gloom, earning an outraged hiss. I heaved a sigh: 10:00 a.m. on the day when I’d officially be older than my poor dead husband. Please, God, let this next year be better, I prayed. Let me have a little fun. I hadn’t had much fun since Jimmy died, as God well knew.
Yes. I straightened up. The next year—and all the years thereafter—should be fun. Wicked fun, in fact. Jimmy wasn’t coming back, the selfish jerk. (That would be the anger part of grief—it reared its ugly head every once in a while.) I’d have fun, dang it all. I deserved a little fun, didn’t I? “I deserve some fun, Fat Mikey, don’t you think?” I asked my cat. He twitched his tail in agreement, then yawned.
“You’re right,” I said. “No one deserves fun more than a tragic widow. You are one brilliant cat.”
Thus resolved, I opened my fridge, revealing coffee milk, the Rhode Island state drink, sour cream, lemons and a jar of pickles. My freezer contained six pints of Ben & Jerry’s, a bag of peas and a bottle of Absolut vodka. “Perfect,” I declared to my cat. Vodka and coffee milk…an Ocean State version of a White Russian, which, if analyzed, seemed almost to be a healthy breakfast…a little dairy, a little coffee, a little vodka. The drink went down so smoothly that I made myself another. Delicious. I took a few slugs, then poured a teaspoon of coffee milk into Fat Mikey’s dish (no vodka…didn’t want charges filed against me for getting a cat drunk), and he lapped it up. “Only alcoholics drink alone,” I told him, stroking his silky fur. He turned and gently bit my hand, then continued drinking.
Time to do a little inventory. I would greet my new age armed with a perky attitude, sure I would. Slightly dizzy, I decided to take a good hard look at myself, see what needed to change so I could have more fun. Tripping once more over the large mass of fur and fat that was my pet, I went into my bedroom, stripped na**d and stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of my door.
Gah!
My eyes looked bigger, courtesy of the bluish circles underneath them, which I’d acquired the night the state trooper had come to my door. The skin on my face was white, and a little flaky, especially around my chin. Oh, man! When was the last time I’d exfoliated? Bush’s first term? And my hair! I’d had it cut here and there over the past few years, of course, but when was the last time? I couldn’t remember. Just because it was in a ponytail at work didn’t mean it had to be so flat and lifeless…I chugged the rest of my White Russian, needing a little liquid courage, then continued my self-perusal.
And what was this? Cellulite? I didn’t have cellulite! Well, ten pounds ago, I hadn’t had cellulite…How had this happened? And oh, crap, look at those legs. Had shaving been outlawed? Now, granted, I didn’t go around wearing skirts or shorts, not when I was dealing with four hundred degree ovens, but there was no excuse for this. I needed to go to the beach and get a little sun, too, because my skin was so white that I could’ve modeled for med students studying the circulatory system. Bluish veins ran under my white skin like mold through a wheel of blue cheese. Those legs hadn’t seen the sun for years. Years! How had that happened?
On to the feet…ew. Hey, if Howard Hughes didn’t need to cut his toenails, apparently neither did I. And my God, those heels! So rough and dry! Gah!
In a sudden frenzy, I pulled on Jimmy’s old robe, yanked open my bathroom cupboard and rummaged in the back. Scissors, terrific. Oh, great, a pumice stone. Forgot all about that thing. Hadn’t used it since I was a newlywed. Here was some crusty old mud mask guaranteed to minimize my pores and give me “the radiant glow of the Swiss.” I’d never been to Switzerland, but they couldn’t look worse than I did.
The last thing I unearthed was an unopened bottle of spray-on sunless tanner. I checked the expiration date: 08/2004. Well. It probably wouldn’t work, but it was worth a shot. I had to do something. I couldn’t hit twenty-eight looking like something left in the basement for the past decade or so. Besides, what said fun more than a tan? Nothing.
“This calls for another drink, Fat Mikey,” I said. “And yes, you can have some more. But no vodka for you, my feline friend.” White Russians were fun. Girls who drank them…ditto. Fat Mikey watched me, his eyes slits of appreciation, I thought.
Yes. Things in the mirror were better when I studied myself a long while later, though that might’ve been because my eyes were having trouble focusing. I’d only intended to cut my bangs, but I’d done such a good job that I kept going. I looked cute in a ragged, Japanese animé kind of way, the bangs shorter on one side, falling in little points. Adorable. Elfin, really. My face was shiny clean, though I couldn’t seem to get the dried mud off one ear. Even so, it was an improvement.
The tanner hadn’t worked—I was still fish-belly white—but that was okay. At least my heels had a little color now, pink instead of gray…oops, one seemed to be bleeding a little, maybe got a little too energetic with that pumice stone. And the cherry-red nail polish I’d applied was kind of gummy, being that it was quite elderly, so my toes (and fingernails) were maybe a little smeary, but still and all, better. My legs bled in a few places, since my razor was a little dull, but I was smooth, at least. Much better.