“It’s not that. I’m...It’s...”
“I know,” I sighed. “It’s Mike and I’m going to remind you for the hundredth time, he’s got a girlfriend, whom he loves.”
Gerri gave me the same exasperation she always did when I nailed her with the truth.
“He will be mine.” She walked out of the bathroom, head held high as I shut the curtain, resuming my task. Gerri was a romantic in her own right. We’d been frequenting Mike’s for eight months due to her infatuation with him. She seemed to think it was kismet we stumbled into his bar. She’d been completely single focused in her pursuit of him, and faithful to boot. She hadn’t had a single man to our apartment since she declared her love. Unfortunately, the fascination seemed one sided. She was a glutton for the reminder, choosing to spend her tips sitting across from him almost every night. I envied her in a way and had hoped on more than one occasion she would get her wish.
My phone buzzed on my bed as I threw on my nightclothes. It was a group text from my mother to me and my siblings.
Mom: Brunch Sunday. No excuses, I want my kids under one roof. If you don’t come, we will carpool until every last one of you is picked up. Bradley PLEASE leave your girlfriend at home. I can’t stand her.
Me: I’ll be there early, Mom, to help out. Tell me what to bring.
I burst out laughing as my siblings replies came in.
Brad: She’s in New York for a shoot. And why don’t you like her?
Sabrina: I have church.
That was the worst excuse imaginable. The last I’d heard she was a practicing Wiccan.
Alexis: Hilary you are such a kiss ass. I’ll bring champagne and OJ.
Sabrina: Ohhhhh mimosa’s. I’ll go to the late service.
Alexis: Nothing shows more devotion than showing up to worship the master of creation with a buzz.
Sabrina: Jesus did turn water into wine.
Alexis: Point taken. Hilary, bring my damned heels back. It’s been six months.
The next notice was: Brad has left the conversation.
I laughed out loud. My brother, God bless him, knew when to bail. This group text could very well last the better part of an hour and he spared himself from his four older sisters’ ramblings. As the baby of the family, he’d grown up in the torturous household filled with teenage girls. He had been a late surprise for my mother, who had assumed she was done bearing children, until he popped up on her thirty-ninth birthday. I adored Brad and had doted on him his entire life. He was the spitting image of my father and looked more and more like him as he aged.
And, of course, Molly was the last to answer.
Molly: Ok :)
Sweet Molly was an anomaly in the family. While the rest of us were full of dark, snarky sarcasm, Molly was a completely good-natured, glass half-full kind of girl. So naturally, we used it against her, claiming she was a product of Mom’s onetime affair with the mailman. It didn’t help she was the only one of us with blonde hair.
I missed her. We were closest in age and she was off at Clemson finishing her degree.
Hilary: Miss you, Molly.
My mother was probably monitoring like she always did. She was the type to sit back as the girls shoveled their way into inappropriate behavior then would strike later at the most opportune time. I threw my phone on the bed, catching my appearance in my floor length mirror. My long, dark auburn hair was still damp. I let my eyes wander over my naked body. It was an improvement from the quick cover up I used to do a few months ago to avoid looking at myself. My thighs were still a little too thick up top, and although my muffin top was dwindling, I still had a good amount of pudge in my midsection. My chest was far smaller than average and if that wasn’t enough of an insult, my left boob was almost a half a cup smaller than my right.
I didn’t win the genetic lottery by any means. The one attribute I did have were electric blue eyes like my father, and I was the only one in the family blessed with them. At twenty-seven, I credited myself with accepting what I’d looked like and not only that, owning it.
You know that saying “Wherever you go, there you are?” Well, I took it a step further by deciding wherever I went I was in good company. I liked me and I didn’t need an entourage, a thousand social media friends, or a full calendar of dates to feel important. I didn’t need to be admired.
What was important to me was to keep liking the company I was with. I wanted to be proud of myself. I’d fallen into the bad habit of trying to impress others when I was younger. I’d turned into a vile, self-important, cunt bag and was disgusted. Now, all I wanted was a sense of purpose.
I’d cut my friends years ago to a small circle that included Gerri. Only the women who had sat through my snot-filled cries without turning the focus back to them had made the cut.
Life was short, friends were important, but snot cry friends were for life.
I pulled up my laptop to Google possible new career choices. Going back to school no longer appealed to me. Having a degree for the sake of having one seemed ridiculous. I wanted to do something I was passionate about, even if that meant I’d be in the low earning tax bracket.
After two hours of searching, I came up with a few possible choices: chef, flight attendant (could be fun to travel), dream job (set hand at Happy Gilmore Productions).
The third idea stemmed from a rerun of The Wedding Singer playing on my TV. Because, let’s face it, what could be more fun than working on an Adam Sandler movie?
Unfortunately for me, I lived in South Carolina and the headquarters of Adam’s production company were in New York, which for a southern girl seemed like Siberia. I looked up possible culinary schools in the area and decided to check them out further.
I also took two career quizzes to determine what I was best suited for and rolled my eyes at the results.
Nurse or teacher.
I filled out a few applications for available positions I could stomach in the meantime and shut my laptop, no closer to a solution than I was when I foolishly quit my job hours before. I was drifting off to sleep, watching my usual TV LAND marathon when Gerri burst through my bedroom door.
“Hey, you awake?”
“No.” I turned away from her as she sat on the edge of my bed, bouncing up and down.
“Whaaaaaaaaaat?” I questioned as she bounced harder, jerking me around. I would never get that happy place back between reality and dreaming if I didn’t ask.
“He looked at me tonight. I mean really looked at me.”
“Oh?” I turned over to look up at her.
She blew out a frustrated breath as her shoulders slumped. “Look, I know I seem like a crazy person when it comes to Mike and maybe I have been, but tonight things shifted.”
I rubbed my sleep-filled eyes. “Did he break up with his girlfriend?”
“I don’t know. I think they are having problems. He ignored the rest of the bar all night. We talked for hours.” She bit her lip and gave me big eyes.
“That’s great, but, Gerri, think about this: he may have just needed a shoulder, okay? I don’t want you getting your hopes up.”
She stood, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s not like that, all right. Forget it. I don’t know why I even talk to you about it. You were anti-Mike from the get go.”
“Hey,” I said, grabbing her hand as I sat up in bed, giving her my full attention. “The only reason is because he’s attached, okay? I want you to be happy. And I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
She nodded, but I could still feel the contempt. “You know I love you, right?” I added.
She gave me a grudging smile and nodded.