Burning Down the Spouse (8 page)

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Authors: Dakota Cassidy

Tags: #Separated Women, #Greek Americans, #Humorous, #Contemporary, #Women Cooks, #General, #Romance, #Humorous Fiction, #Fiction, #Cultural Heritage, #Love Stories

BOOK: Burning Down the Spouse
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Frankie flipped through the pamphlet Maxine left her just before she’d skipped out the door of Gail’s and off to the loving arms of her rich hubby.
“Messages of hope,” was what the pamphlet proclaimed. Inspirational speeches of the “giving up your Ferrari for a used Yugo didn’t have to suck” variety littered the pages. Phrases like “big girl panties” and “Walmart can be your friend” left her more desolate that she’d been to begin with.
The words began to spin and blur. Her eyes were grainy from so much awake-and-not-allowed-to-wallow time, and her stomach was a sea of roiling acid. “Oh, look, Kiki.” She held up the pamphlet, which Kiki assessed with calm eyes along with her owner. “Maxine says cash is cash, and there’s no shame in starting at the bottom of the job chain.”
Nikos’s offer had been generous, considering a prep chef was an entry-level position. When Maxine heard the salary he’d offered her, she’d whooped—loudly, making Frankie wince. But she couldn’t summon up the kind of excitement Maxine apparently felt over the idea that she’d be able to afford her own cell phone and tampons in no time.
“Where would we be without Maxine, Kik?”
“I see you got Maxine’s Survival Guide for Ex-Trophy Wives.”
Frankie grunted at her aunt. “Whether I wanted it or not,” she said on a wide yawn.
Gail glanced at the clock on the wall with the Amish couple in the center. “You’ve been up a whole three hours. Takes a lot out of a girl, eh?”
She was too tired to care that she was being poked with a stick. Her fingers tugged at the elastic band holding her ponytail, yanking it out and running a hand through her hair. “Just breathing takes a lot out of me.”
Gail sat on the arm of her plaid couch, placing an arm around her niece’s shoulder to give her a squeeze. “Did you even read the pamphlet? I spent a week typing that up on a computer, sunshine. Used to do almost a hundred words a minute back in the day.”
Frankie pressed it tight to her chest. “I’ll treasure it always,” she teased.
Gail pinched her cheeks and smiled. “Don’t be a smarty pants, young lady. So tell me all about how you nabbed this job and on your very first interview while I make us some dinner. Pretty impressive for someone who’s been in the crapper for six months.”
Her shoulders lifted as she followed Gail into the kitchen, watching her pull out two TV dinners from the freezer. The thought of food made her want to retch. She dropped Kiki at her food dish, giving her little black-and-white bottom a nudge toward the bowl. “No, Aunt Gail. None for me thanks.”
Gail’s eyebrows rose. “What? Not fancy enough for your overdeveloped palette?”
Frankie let out a sigh. “No, it’s not that at all, Aunt Gail. I’m not as much of a food snob as you’d like to think. There were plenty of nights when Mitch was off globe-hopping that I ate TV dinners.” Though, if Mitch had known, he’d have had an apoplexy. “I’m just not very hungry.”
Gail’s forehead wrinkled. “Nonsense. You need energy for your new job tomorrow. I just bet you’ll need energy to keep up with that hunk Nikos Antonakas. Phew, he makes my insides all squishy.” She giggled. Like she was still in high school. “He’s good-lookin’, don’t you think?” She peered at Frankie with covert eyes while poking holes in the plastic TV dinner.
Good-looking? If ever there’d been an understatement. Calling Nikos good-looking was like saying the Andes were just little mounds of dirt. He was gorgeous, and if her libido wasn’t in a state of deep freeze, she’d acknowledge that very fact, but her hormones were officially ice cubes. “He’s fine, Aunt Gail.”
Gail plunked down some forks and folded paper napkins on the table. “Fine, you say?
Fine?
Did your eyeballs fall out of your head when you got that divorce? He’s what the kids these days call brick shithouse.”
A gurgle of laughter bubbled up from her throat at her aunt’s use of modern-day slang. “Okay, he’s brick shithouse, but it doesn’t make a difference. I’m not in the man market. Though, apparently, I’m now in the job market.” Albeit under duress and brute Maxine force.
The microwave dinged the completion of their meal. “Maxine said you were none too happy about it either. Why’s that? It’s a perfectly good job with a perfectly good-lookin’ boss.”
A tear stung her eye.
Yes. Everything was perfectly good. She just couldn’t summon the will to care. Grateful was what she should be. What she wanted to be for her aunt’s sake at the very least. Yet she was numb and unresponsive. As limp as the wet noodle Mitch once called his love machine. Each reaction to a kind gesture was merely by rote, and that was some kind of pathetic. “I think I’m just overwhelmed. I did more today than I have—”
“In months, and it’s about time, too.” Gail placed the Salisbury steak–mashed potato combo dinner in front of her. “I know, Frankie. Believe me, I know. You were sinking, kiddo. I had no choice but to call in reinforcements. Someone had to convince you to get out of bed and do something for yourself. You’re young. A beautiful young woman who should be out celebrating her freedom from that wanker, not holed up in her bedroom, sleeping all day, drowning in depression. He’s not worth that kind of vigil, my girl.”
She knew that. She. Knew. Yet, it remained. This dark, dank hole of nothingness. Nothing to plan for, nothing to look forward to, nothing to get out of her own way for. Just nothing. “You’re right,” she agreed, flat and disinterested.
Gail tapped her fork on the edge of the plastic covering the TV dinner. “I’ll wait until you say it like you mean it. And you will, cookie. I promise you, you will. Maxine was just like you. If you’d been interested enough to ask her, she’d have told you herself. She pulled up her bootstraps, and it wasn’t easy, but she did it. Though she had more at stake with a young boy. What you need to do is find your purpose.”
Why?
Frankie pushed the spongy Salisbury steak against her fork, forcing herself to take a bite, knowing it would please her aunt. “I’m not sure what that means anymore.”
“It means you let your whole world revolve around a man who isn’t worth the crud on the bottom of my shoe. You had nothing that was just Frankie’s—it’s why you’re so lost. You were supportive long before he hit the big time, too. You arranged all his appearances and cookbook signings. You answered all his emails from fans and took care of that stupid FaceSpace or whatever ya call it. And he cheated on you, and left you with nothing.”
Frankie fought to swallow the gritty mashed potatoes. “It’s MySpace and Facebook, and I have nothing because I signed a prenup that said I’d get nothing. There’s no one to blame for that but me.” And it had never occurred to her to change that. Not once had she considered Mitch’s empire hers, though she’d helped him build it from scratch.
She didn’t even have a hobby. Jesus.
Gail threw her fork down in disgust. “He’s a dirty bird, Frankie. I told you that from the get-go. He took advantage of your youth and those starry eyes of yours, all romantic and gooey. That he left you with nothing after everything you’ve done for him, whether you signed something or not, makes me want to sauté his man parts.” She shook her head in revulsion. “Doesn’t matter anymore. We’re moving forward. Just like Max says. Now it’s time for your world to revolve around you.”
Maybe it could just stop spinning altogether and Mitch and Bamby would fall off the edge of it. “Forward,” she mumbled on her last bite of spongy Salisbury steak, washing it down with the glass of water her aunt gave her.
Gail perked up, the hope in her eyes bright and bubbly. “That’s the spirit. Now, if you finish all your dinner, you can have dessert. I made a nice peanut butter cup pie while you were gone with Maxine, hoping we’d have something to celebrate when you got back.”
Yay.
She had a job at a diner.
Celebrate good times.
C’mon.
 
“Frankie? Wake up.” Gail’s soft hand, covered in a light application of lily of the valley hand cream, caressed her cheek.
She struggled to force her eyes open, muttering, “Are you okay, Aunt Gail?”
“I’m fine, honey. Phone’s for you.” Gail opened her hand and put the phone in it.
She put it to her ear with a groan. No one called her anymore. “Hello?”
“Frankie?”
“
Who
is this?”
“It’s Maxine.”
Woot. The divorce fairy. A glance at the clock told her she was a divorce fairy of the early bird variety. Jesus. It was five in the morning. “Yes?”
“I’m calling to check and be sure you’re up.”
“For?”
“Work, Frankie. You have to be at work in an hour. You’re working breakfast and lunch today, remember?”
Yesterday came back in a crash of mental visuals, featuring hunky Greek men and red vinyl stools that swiveled. She sat up with a speed that left her dizzy, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed to prevent a wobble. Kiki was instantly at attention beside her mistress, quiet as a mouse, eyes unblinking. “Right. Work.”
“Right. Work,” Maxine mimicked her. “You know, the place where you go every day to earn money to pay for crazy things like food and shelter.”
Both of which she could care less about. All she really needed was a sleeping bag and a sturdy bridge. No fuss. No muss. Then she caught sight of the picture of her aunt and her deceased Uncle Gus, smiling at her high school graduation, and guilt crept up to bite her on the ass. “I’m up.”
“Don’t forget to shower. As a courtesy to those around you.”
Funny. “I’ll shower.”
“Use soap. Lots of soap.”
Frankie frowned. “I’m not ten.” Heh.
“Then you won’t forget to wash behind your ears, will you?”
Her jaw clenched. “Anything else?”
“One more thing.”
“Just one?”
Maxine’s laughter tickled her eardrum. “Smile today. Just try it once. I swear your lips won’t fall off. But try to make this a positive experience instead of looking at it like you’re walking the plank.”
A male voice, low and muffled, said something in the background, something she assumed was intimate, and then Frankie heard Maxine giggle girlishly. “Gotta run, but I’ll pop in later today to see how things are going, and maybe tonight I can bring you over to Trophy and introduce you to everyone. You go have a good first day. Bye, Frankie.”
She didn’t say good-bye. Instead, she hung up the phone with a trembling hand. A pang of envy shot through her, hearing that male voice so low and early morning grumbly. For an agonizing moment, she found herself longing for sleepy morning intimacies. Those first moments when you woke up and discovered an arm flung around your waist, and rather than get out of bed, you snuggled deeper beside your . . .
Frankie’s heart began an uncomfortable thump. That had to stop. Mitch didn’t deserve warm memories and gushy reflections from her.
Pushing back the covers, she rose to take Kiki out, then trudge to the shower and make good on her promise last night to Gail. She’d try and find two sticks to rub together and start a fire in her cave. Live, live, live for the moment and all that jazz. Booyah life.
But only for Gail.
The house was chilly as she made her way to the bathroom, flipping on the light to get her first peek at her mussed appearance.
A shower would never fix the jacked-up mess she was. It was like putting a Band-Aid on a gushing jugular. Her skin was pale, her eyes dull, her lips chapped, her hip bones jutting painfully from beneath her flannel drawstring pajama bottoms.
But whatever.
This wasn’t Miss Universe. It was Miss Needs A Job.
Flipping on the water, Frankie let it heat up while she undressed, catching a glimpse of her breasts in the long mirror above the vanity. She cupped them, wincing at how small they were, noting they were also beginning to sag.
How fun.
Bamby had fluffy D-cups.
Maybe she’d been the inspiration for Mitch’s comment when he’d said Frankie might consider a boob job.
Frankie shook off the memory with a shiver. Mitch was all up in her head today, and she had Maxine to thank for that. If she’d just left her alone, her numb state of denial could have gone on in a blissful haze of her own stench.

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