“Okay. Lunch. You and me. I’ll see you at eleven and I’ll be there waiting for you.”
“Sure.”
“I love you, baby.”
She hung up without another word to him, but she shot her mother a nasty look, “yeah, he loves me so much he put his dick in a woman described as cloyingly sweet. Bastard.”
Her mother wrinkled her nose up, “his mother is going to be extremely disappointed in him. His father even more so.”
“Nobody is more disappointed than I am. They can rot.”
“Now Juni, it’s not their fault.”
“They raised the morally bankrupt bastard.”
Her mother chuckled, “you’re in a mood and rightfully so but try not to scorch the earth over one individual.” Her mother was bringing her a bowl of oatmeal, covered in warm brown sugar and fresh blueberries. “Those boys really stocked your fridge up. Did you call Mr. Perez?”
She sent a text message to Phineas, “stop calling him that. He removed all the formalities when he called hi he to his office and bluntly stated my husband was fucking his wife, in those words.”
“He did not,” her mother’s mouth fell open.
“He absolutely did.”
“His father tends to have a blunt mouth too. The apple didn’t fall from the tree.”
She sent a text, begrudgingly, to Phineas.
J: I talked to my soon-to-be-ex. He’s going to work. I lied and said I’d meet him for lunch at eleven like Beni told me to.
She watched the ellipses as Phineas was typing out a response. She huffed and took a huge mouthful of the oatmeal and sighed. This was a childhood favorite, one of the things her mama knew was comfort food for her.
P: He’s not your soon-to-be-ex. He is our ex. Your relationship is over thus ex. Trust me. I argued this with Adil this morning over Denise’s official title as ex in my life. Also. Good. Beni will serve him at eleven sharp. Do you want Adil to record it?
J: Right. Ex it is. If there is a recording, I would gladly watch it. I’d like to watch his world shift the way mine did yesterday.
P: Consider it done. The moving truck is around the corner from your old apartment building. There is a crew of thirty men ready to go.
She looked at her mother, “he got thirty men to help us pack up and get my stuff out.’
“No way,” her mother laughed. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Are you ready?”
“No.” she shook her head. “I’m not ready. We’ve been together forever Mama. How do I pack up all my memories and
“You don’t.”
“What?” cutlery and pots and pans
“You don’t bring any of those memories with you. You take your clothes. You take your toiletries. You take whatever dishes, you want. You leave the photos, the albums, the gifts and the wedding ring and engagement ring on the counter.”
“You’d think you did this before or something,” she furrowed her eyes at her mother.
“I did. Two times before I found myself pregnant with you. After that, I realized who needed men who were going to disappoint me when a
I have daughter who could never let me down at all.”
“Huh.” She was stunned, “You were married? How did I not know this?”
“Engaged. I was engaged twice. The first guy cheated with a stripper at his bachelor party. The second guy,” she made a face,
“his mother was something else. It was when I was trying on my wedding dress for a fitting and found out she booked a hotel room adjacent to ours on our wedding night which sealed it for
She was coming to Niagara Falls with us for our honeymoon, Juniper. When I asked him if he knew about his, he said he did and then proceeded to tell me he expected after we were married we were going to move into her house with her anyways, so what was the big deal.”
“No way!” Juniper was on the edge of her seat. “For real?”
“Yup. I called the wedding off immediately. There was no way in hell I was going to live with her and him. Two weeks later, I was drowning my sorrows on the day which should have been my wedding day in a bar with some friends and met the guy who gave me you.”
“Please tell me I was at least made in a bed.”
“The bed of a truck,” her mother laughed.
“Mama! Why did you never tell me these stories?”
“I don’t know. You’ve always been so proud of only being with one person. I told you how your father and I met and how I didn’t know him well and I didn’t. He was from out of town, partying at the same club I was at and then he was gone, and you were here. You and Suki were always very judgmental about the girls in school who went through boys like underwear. You both kept steady boyfriends.”
“You thought I would judge you, Mama, for having a past?” A dose of guilt hit her in the chest.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.