The Breakup Mix (3 page)

I laughed. “It felt really good.” I wiped sweat from my forehead with my arm and wiped it on my shirt. “Really good. What’s next?”

An hour and a half later, we left the gym completely exhausted and more dehydrated than we were when we got there. My legs and arms were jelly—lifting a water bottle to my lips took longer than normal, felt like it weighed twenty pounds. When we pulled into Alissa’s driveway, she gave me instructions to shower while she made lunch.

“Can I just crawl up the steps? I think I left my legs back in the gym.”

Alissa giggled. “Come on, Dani. You did a great job. But you’re definitely going to be sore tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? I’m already sore now!”

“Then tomorrow is going to royally suck for you.” She laughed. “Come on. Inside.”

“Actually, I think I want to go home now.”

It startled both of us.

She looked at me with a tilted head. “Are you sure?”

I nodded my head. “Yeah, I think I want to go home. Plus, I have to work tomorrow, anyway.”

Alissa slid the keys out of the ignition. “If you’re sure. If it gets too tough, you know where I am.”

“I would hug your right now, but I’m all nasty and sweaty.”

“Yeah, save that for later. Go grab your stuff and I’ll take you home.

Chapter Three

Big Girls Don’t Cry

Alissa

I see Chance got to you, first. No doubt she vomited all of her I-am-single-hear-me-roar bullshit onto the page. She talks a big talk. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if she’s really that hardened or just a coward when it comes to love.

Each of us have something the others either want or admire. I have the body and the money, Michelle and Katie have the families, Chance has the career, and Dani has stability. Correction: Dani
had
stability until two days ago. We’ve had a breach in security, and I think after Dani’s revelation everyone is feeling introspective.

Mark’s email was pretty cut and dry. Things weren’t working out, moving too fast, expectations were too high, blah blah blah. I admit, part of me was relieved he did it first——kinda relieved—a little. He was a great guy, but I knew in my heart that he wasn’t the one even though I wanted him to be.

After my last several relationship indiscretions, Mark was a nice change. He had a good career, was financially stable, and he didn’t give two shits that I was wealthy. He didn’t offer to invest my money for me, didn’t lose four inches off of his manhood when I divulged my millionaire status, and he never once asked me for a dime. We had a lot in common with our careers and interest in fitness, but outside of that, life with Mark was pretty boring. Yeah, he probably would have been my third divorce.

My therapist keeps asking me what void I’m trying to fill with men. If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t have to pay her one-hundred and fifty dollars an hour to work through my relationship issues. To me, it’s not rocket science; I want to be in love. I don’t think that’s too much to want out of life.

I love my girlfriends, don’t get me wrong. But lately I feel like they just don’t take me seriously anymore. It’s not exactly heartwarming to know that they know every single romantic relationship of mine has ended. I mean, I’m a good catch! I’m smart, successful, beautiful, funny, and I have no baggage. I’m rich, I’m good at everything I do, and all I ask for in return is love. Yet, it evades me repeatedly. However, seeing Dani lose her sanity over Barry, and watching someone who looks like she should be in ballet slippers tear up a punching bag, maybe Chance has the right idea.

Though I would never admit to her she’s right.

A text notification chimed, and of course I thought it was Mark. I guess it will take some time to reprogram my thoughts away from him. I’m still excited to hear from him even though he just told me in very clear 12-pica font that I’m not who he thought I was, and the life we were headed into was “too involved” for him. I guess I shouldn’t have planned things so thoroughly. I just don’t know how to let it go. Maybe I sent him over the edge with the let’s-move-in-together suggestion. In my defense, it’d been six months, and things were going well. It was a natural progression, or so I thought. I guess some guys don’t want to commit no matter how awful singlehood is for them.

The text was from Dani:
Thanks for everything. I owe you my life.

I responded with a smiley face and left it at that. I walked through my now-empty house and considered hiring painters again. Happiness may be able to elude me in my personal life, but dammit, I can slap it across interior walls in two days flat. I added “contact my decorator” to the to-do list of the day and wandered into my bathroom, peeled off my sweaty clothes, and stepped into the shower. Sighing, I envisioned the sadness and disappointment running out of my lungs, sliding down my body, and disappearing down the drain. My therapist taught me that as well as, “Exhale venom, inhale freedom. Exhale venom, inhale freedom.”

My text tone went off again, which sent me racing out of the shower toward my phone on the sink. It wasn’t Mark. I slipped back into the shower and started the process all over again. Out with sadness and disappointment, in with . . . with . . . with what? It’s a little early to find gratitude for another failed relationship, so I tried to envision my life as I wanted it. The sad thing was, I had no idea how I wanted it to look anymore. My chest filled with that vacant gloom I knew too well. I was alone.

I finished my shower and got ready to go. I had to keep moving. If I stopped moving, I would start thinking, and thinking never did anything for me. Most of the people I knew had Sunday afternoon rituals. I figured Michelle and Brandon would be knee-deep in kid fights and housework. Chance would probably be eating up her
alone time
, and Dani had just left, so I couldn’t look like a desperate stalker-type just yet. That left Katie and her family. I called and got her voicemail but left a message anyway, hoping she would be up for a round of golf or shopping. I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.

Gotta keep moving.

Chapter Four

Just Give Me a Reason

Michelle

One Week Later

“Del Ray! What is this?” I stormed down the hallway to meet her with my horror in my hand. “Del Ray! She better come clean or I’m going to rip her legs off and glue them shut backwards.”

She appeared in the hallway with big eyes and a curious expression. “What’d I do, now?” She pulled her ear buds out of her ears and tucked them into the front of her shirt.

I shoved her back into her bedroom and slammed the door as I held up my new trophies. “What are these, my sweet child?”

She had the audacity to laugh and cover her metal-filled mouth with her hand then play with her necklace. “Wow. Um. Where did you find those?”

“Keep playing around, Del Ray.” I walked toward her.

“Okay, just calm down, Mom. It’s no big deal. I got them from school. There was a sex ed fair, and I swiped a few condoms as a joke. Okay? Relax, Mom.” She strutted past me and my dropped jaw, opened the door, and went down the hall into the kitchen.
That little lying piece of
. . .

She was eating an apple when I rounded the corner. “Oh, how appropriate. Eve, Snow White . . . all over an apple!” I threw the condoms at her face.

“Whoa, dude, really?” She bent over and picked them up. She started to put them in the pocket of her skinny jeans.

“Back the f— Give them to me. Give them to me. Now.” My face cracked in fury, and I knew I had to have
that
look, the look I swore I’d never give my children. When she handed them over, I took a deep breath. “Del Ray, you are way too young to consider a sexual relationship.”

“Mom, I’m not, okay? I promise. But I’ll be sixteen, soon.”

“Yeah, in two years! Jesus, come on!”

“One year three months—”

“I swear I thought I had at least a few years before I had to deal with this bullsh— Honey, listen . . .”

“Mom, please don’t go on about you and Dad waiting for marriage. I know it’s a lie.”

“What? It is not!”

“Oh really? Care to take the test?”

I stuttered as she grabbed the last and final source to end all arguments in our household. It had been deemed the undisputed final answer for years amongst the children. Now it was my turn to face it.

“Magic 8 ball, Magic 8 ball . . . did Mom sleep with Dad before marriage?”

“Now listen, Del Ray—

“Ha!
It is certain
.
You
are a liar.” Del Ray laughed and danced.

“That was a long time ago, and things are different now. I had to. Lottie-the-body was after him and—” My husband, Brandon, rounded the corner as I chased after our gloating daughter.

“What about Lottie-the-body?”

I eyed him suspiciously. “Didn’t you finally win my chastity by telling me Lottie-the-body was hot for you?” An evil twinkle followed by an eyebrow twitch sold him out as he, too, bit into an apple. “You horny piece of no-go-rotten . . . I can’t even tell my children I waited for marriage because ruined my virtue, pecker-head!”

Brandon laughed as he dodged my swinging arms and wrapped them behind my back. “You’re mighty feisty for a Sunday.”

I looked up at him with pure insanity running out of my eyes. “You lied to me about Lottie-the-body, didn’t you?”

Brandon kissed me with sticky, wet, apple-glazed lips. “Maybe, but it worked. And now look at us.” He released my hands from behind my back and grabbed my bottom. “Come here . . .”

I spun away from him and pulled out the condoms from my elastic waistband. “See these? Still think it’s funny when high school girls have sex, you big, fat douchebag?” I threw them in his already-chalking face and went to find my wine bottle.

This was not how I pictured my life turning out. At all.

When I pictured my life, all I ever wanted to be was a mother. As I tipped the nearly-empty wine bottle and drained it into my favorite wine glass from three girls’ weekends ago, I dismissed the fact that it was three in the afternoon and reminded myself that my fourteen-year-old daughter had in her possession, right now, condoms.

While I’m certain some mothers would be relieved to find out that their daughters were being responsible, I couldn’t let go of the fact that my little girl was considering sex. I stopped myself at “considering” and couldn’t allow it to go further. In my mind, right that moment, she was still a virgin, and the only kissing she had done was the practice make-out sessions she probably had with the bathroom mirror. “I hope her lips get stuck in her braces,” I muttered as I took a drink of my wine.

I sat on the edge of my bed looking at myself in the mirror wondering what happened to the last sixteen years of my life. I was such a baby when I married Brandon. I felt sick to my stomach when I realized I was only five years older than Del Ray is right now when I married her father. I took another drink of wine and studied my reflection in the mirror a little harder. I’d lost track of how many days in a row I’d worn the wrinkled Aerosmith T-shirt with the holes in the armpits and these black yoga pants. I worked on Friday, so really it had only been since Friday night. I didn’t even realize I hadn’t taken time to shower yesterday until I sat on the bed examining my life, and the image before me proved how right I was. I was lost. Domesticity had completely enveloped me, and all I had to show for it was stretch marks, a bad haircut, and memories of one helluva fun concert when I was eighteen.

To my friends, I’m the one who’s got it all together but paid a price for the prize. I know that; it’s no secret. I can see the grimaces on Chance’s and Alissa’s faces, specifically, when I describe yet another fun-filled weekend of laundry, housework, and sewer problems. Hell, even our trip to Chicago was weird for me, because I felt like the Goodwill kid going to the big city. And, it’s true! My whole outfit came from Goodwill because Del Ray’s braces are costing us a small fortune. Brandon makes a decent income, sure, and my job at the daycare helps us make ends meet, but damn I thought we’d be living higher on the hog once the kids were out of diapers and eating real food.

However, there’s football cleats, baseball uniforms, band instruments, lunch money, braces, emergency room visits for my sweet-but-clumsy ten-year-old Martin, and that doesn’t include anything that I would ever want to spend money on for myself.

Which, for the life of me, I can’t think of one thing I’ve done for myself or anything I even enjoy doing outside of my family.

Brandon knocked softly on the door and stuck his head inside. “You okay, babe?”

The tears welling up in my eyes dripped down my cheeks. I wiped them with the tail of my shirt and scratched my face with the dried gravy from breakfast. “Who am I, Brandon?”

He came into the room and closed the door. He leaned against the door with one hand on the knob. “What do you mean, Chelle?”

“Look at me! I’m not even me anymore. And I don’t even know who ‘me’ is. I went from being a kid to being your wife to being their mother.”

He muttered, “Oh boy,” and took a few hesitant steps toward me. “Listen, Michelle, she’s probably just trying to fit in.”

“This isn’t about Del Ray, this is about me. I’m lost. I’ve been wearing these same clothes since I got home from work Friday night. I have no life outside of this fifteen-hundred square foot house and outside of our family.”

“You’re not supposed to, honey. This is what we do: we grow up, we have families, we work, we retire, and we’re happy.”

“Who’s happy?” The words slapped the air.

He paused and looked at me as if I’d shape-shifted right before his eyes. “I’m happy; the kids are happy, and until this moment, I
thought
you were happy.”

I sat my empty wine glass on the nightstand and threw myself onto my pillow. “I thought I was, too. What’s wrong with me?” I moaned into the pillow.

Brandon sat on the bed beside me and rubbed my back. “Is this coming from the trip to Chicago? Chelle, we aren’t like Alissa and Chance. Hell, we’re not even like Katie and Landon. We’re blue-collar, normal Americans trying to make a living and provide for our families. You think I wanted to be an insurance salesman? Remember me in high school? I wanted to rock the world with my music. I was going to be a big star someday. But those are just kid dreams.”

“All I ever wanted to be was your wife and a mother,” I cried.

“So see? Your dreams came true.”

“While I know you mean well, this isn’t helping.”

Brandon sighed and moved to the edge of the bed. “Maybe you should get out of the house for the afternoon. Call one of your friends and go do whatever it is that girls do when they’re having a moment.”

“We don’t have any money for me to do anything like that, Brandon, and you know it.”

“We’ll figure it out. Hell, call Alissa and ask her to take you somewhere. She’s got more money than God.”

I sat up and reached for a tissue. “I don’t even have any hobbies.”

Brandon’s aggravated sigh said I’d reached the end of my rope with him. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Michelle. I’m beginning to feel blamed for giving you everything you wanted.”

He didn’t get it. So, I did what I always do when Brandon doesn’t get it. I offered a smile and reached for his hand. “I think I will call Alissa and see what she’s doing today.”

He smiled and patted my hand. “Go spend a few hours with your friend, and by dinnertime, you’ll be right back to normal.” He left the room, and I curled up on my pillow to have a good cry. When I was done, I jumped into the shower, got ready, and called Alissa.