The Break-Up Book Club

by Wendy Wax

  “You should be living in the same city, not forcing him to drive back and forth every week.”

  I put down my fork. “You might want to mention that to Mitch. He’s the one who didn’t want to sell the house or uproot me until he was sure he was happy with the new company.”

  “What’s not to like?” she counters. “He has a bigger title, and he’s making more money. I would have thought you’d want to be with him.”

  “Of course I want to be with him. But there’s nothing wrong with taking it slowly.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “If you’d had children, he might not have been so quick to leave you behind.”

  I blink against the automatic press of tears. It takes everything I have not to push back my chair and run out of here at the injustice. “Mitch has never wanted children.” He’d made that clear before he’d asked me to marry him, and I’d been so in love, so happy and grateful that someone loved me and wanted to marry me, that I’d believed I could make him change his mind. Only that never happened. “And he didn’t ‘leave me behind.’ I’ve filled out an application for the Birmingham Public School System, and I’m watching the postings. Real hiring for the next school year usually starts in March.”

  She gives me an oddly knowing look, but this woman knows nothing about me or my relationship with her son.

  Although my appetite is gone, I force myself to finish my salad, and for some reason I don’t understand but am going to blame on logorrhea, I can’t let myself give in and eat in silence. So, I ask her about the work she used to do as an efficiency expert, how she ended up in Greenville, all the things I should have already known. Anything to keep her talking about something besides me and Mitch.

  She picks at her lunch and gives short, succinct answers while I chew and swallow food I no longer taste.

  When our meal is finally over, my mother-in-law sits in the car while I run into Between the Covers.

  “Are you all right?” Annell, for whom I’d give my right arm and all the roasted brussels sprouts in the world, hands me a copy of Educated, by Tara Westover, along with a look of concern.

  “Mitch is sick and isn’t coming home for the weekend, and my mother-in-law can be a bit much.”

  “Poor thing.” Annell, who barely reaches my shoulders, steps out from behind the counter and wraps me in a hug. Though she has never, to my knowledge, given birth, she is the mother I wish I’d had or been given a chance to be. “Shall I come out and explain to her just how lucky she is to have you for a daughter-in-law?”

  “Tempting, but I think I’ll survive.” The sincerity of the offer and her obvious affection give me the strength to force myself back outside to the car when I’d much rather hang out here in the place I love, around people who are more like family than my husband’s mother has ever wanted to be.

  At the grocery store, Dorothy once again remains in the car. I pick up staples and sandwich makings and easily assembled meals like the good “elf” that I am.

  Then I go to the freezer section, where I fill the rest of the cart with teetering piles of pints and quarts and gallons of ice cream.

  Four

  Erin

  I’ve been filling in for Louise for a week now. I really hope that her mother gets better. I do. It’s just—well, I’m kind of hoping Louise stays in Memphis long enough for me to prove myself here.

  The agency will close for the holidays, and while support staff will be in the office right after New Year’s, agents like Jazmine with NFL clients will travel most of the month. January’s their “busy” season.

  Josh and I are getting married on New Year’s Day. Yeah, I know. A lot of the guests will be watching bowl games on their phones and watches while I’m walking down the aisle. But we picked the date because friends and family will still be off work and school for the holidays. When we get back from our honeymoon in Turks and Caicos, I’ll finally move out of my parents’ house and into the gorgeous thirty-seventh-floor Buckhead condo Josh bought for us. We’ll have six whole weeks together before he reports to spring training in Florida.

  Footsteps sound on the marble floor, and I look up to see Josh, who has a meeting with his agent. He shoots me a wink as he passes, and even after all these years I can’t quite believe he’s really mine.

  I was six the first time I watched him pitch at one of my brother Tyler’s Little League baseball games. I fell in love with Josh—and how hard he could throw a baseball—at seven. When I turned eight, I decided I was going to marry him.

  Laugh if you want, but I just knew. And my determination to make him love me back kept growing while I trailed behind Josh and Ty through elementary and middle school, even though I wanted to cry every time he called me “squirt” or ruffled my hair.

  Other girls started developing in middle school, while I stayed short and flat. I prayed for breasts every single night, and while it wasn’t exactly a miracle on the order of the Virgin birth, my prayers were finally answered that summer before I started high school.

  I think I prayed a little too hard, because they turned out a lot bigger than I was expecting.

  I only have brothers, and their idea of dressing up is athletic shorts that have been worn for only two or three days, so I had to scour fashion magazines for the kinds of clothes that would emphasize my new best features without revealing too much of them. Ditto for the most flattering haircut for my too-narrow face, the right shade of blond to compensate for the dishwater shade I was born with, and makeup that made my eyes bluer and my lips poutier.

  Josh had been away playing ball all summer, so when I put myself in front of him as if by accident on my first day at Walden High School, he actually stuttered in surprise. “I . . . jeez, squirt . . . is that really you?” His dark brows shot up. Confusion clouded his beautiful brown eyes.

  “Of course it’s me,” I said in the matter-of-fact tone I’d been practicing. “We all have to grow up sometime.” And then, although I honestly don’t know how I pulled it off, I gave him a small, friendly smile and walked away.

  After that, I went out with every guy who asked me (especially to places Josh might see me) and most especially to the high school baseball games, where I made a point of treating him like a brother. (Think comfortable old couch.)

  When he finally asked me out, I made him wait for six weeks before I said yes.

  From then on, we were Joshanerin. God, I loved that. And him.

  A lot of high school romances end at graduation, but I tended ours. I even graduated early so that I could study sports management at UGA while he worked his way up in the pitching rotation.

  “Hey.” He flashes his killer smile at me as he leaves Larry’s office and walks toward me. “Ty’s waiting downstairs. The rest of the guys are meeting us at the airport.” Josh and the guys are headed to Las Vegas for his bachelor weekend.

  “Have a good time.” I look up into his eyes. “Just not too good.”

  “Back atcha,” he says automatically. “Don’t forget to wave your left hand around while I’m gone so everybody knows you’re taken.”

  I glance down at the two-carat emerald-cut diamond engagement ring that takes up most of my ring finger and part of my knuckle. (Women who top out at five-four don’t have long, elegant fingers.) “I don’t see how anyone could possibly miss it,” I tease, holding it up and admiring it as the overhead light sets it flashing.

  I sense someone walking up behind me.

  “Hi, Josh. I’m . . .” Jazmine’s voice sounds over my shoulder.

  “Yes, ma’am. We met back when I first signed with Larry. I’ve been hearing great things about you lately.”

  I blush, but it’s the truth. I’ve learned more in the week I’ve been working for Jazmine Miller than in college, my internship, and the last three months put together.

  “That’s good to hear,” she says.

  He flashes the friendly yet
confident smile that first slayed me when I was six. Then he leans down to give me a quick peck goodbye.

  “I’ll text you when we land.” He nods and smiles at Jazmine. His long legs eat up the distance as he moves through the office.

  “There are tall women all over the world hating on you right now for unnecessarily taking a six-foot-plus male out of the dating pool.”

  I shrug. I have always hated being the runt of the litter—all three of my brothers are way over six feet. I wish I was tall and lithe (I have always loved that word and wished it could be applied to me) like Jazmine. But I honestly don’t see any reason why short women should get stuck with short men, who often seem to have a chip on their small shoulders.

  Josh turns and gives me one last smile before he turns the corner, and I know I’m the luckiest girl alive. Or maybe I’m just the best planner.

  Judith

  It sounds so old-school now, but I left all the important communication to Nate back when we first started dating. The first I love you. The first conversation about being exclusive. The first mention of marriage, even though I was already planning our wedding in my head.

  I thought we were going on an adventure together, and in a way I guess we were. There was the first pregnancy. Our move out to the swim and tennis neighborhood in the suburbs, where the public schools were better and where we were surrounded by other couples starting families and raising children.

  Like all the neighborhoods around it, River Forge was a place where the first day of school required a moms’ brunch hosted by a mother sending off a child for the first time, and Halloween meant a pre-trick-or-treating party at the clubhouse that had been turned into a haunted house. Easter included a neighborhood-wide Easter egg hunt, and the Christmas holidays featured a cookie exchange and an adults-only party at somebody’s house. The entire neighborhood resembled a ghost town over spring break.

  When we first moved to River Forge, there were a few older neighbors whose kids were grown and who seemed vaguely out of place. It never occurred to me that I might become one of them someday, but the school schedule no longer means anything to me, and I’m often surprised when I hear the school bus rumbling down the hill toward our cul-de-sac. When the neighborhood kids show up selling Girl Scout Cookies, or pine straw, or wrapping paper, I often don’t know or recognize them.

  Nathan believes your home is your castle and there’s no reason to ever move, but most of the neighbors who moved into River Forge around the time we did have already left and downsized like Meena and Stan did. Even the holdouts have their houses on the market or are thinking about it.

  Which is why we are now the old farts, the sick and dying animals left behind when the herd moves on.

  Today this old fart is making meringues to take to the neighborhood cookie exchange. I’m known for my meringues—what my kids used to refer to as “cloud” cookies because of their free-form shapes and sugary airiness. Ethan liked them stuffed with chocolate bits. Ansley considered the chocolate bits intruders, so I always made her a separate batch unsullied with chocolate. Out of habit, I continue to make them both ways and will put some of each kind on the tray I’ll take to the exchange and into the gift tins that I’ll fill for Nate’s key employees, as well as the lawn guy and the mailman. I’ll make fresh batches just before the kids come home for Christmas. Can it really be just two weeks away?

  I whip up the meringue and mix the chocolate bits into the batter. As I drop rounded spoonfuls onto the baking sheets, I think about Meena and her move ITP (Inside the Perimeter). How vastly her life has changed. How much mine has stayed the same. At least on the surface.

  Once the trays are in the oven and the timer is set, I go down to the basement, where I wrestle the Christmas decorations out of storage and drag the artificial tree toward the stairs. When I hear the lawn mower start up and see Gabe mow past the basement windows, I run out and ask him if he can help me carry up the tree.

  “Sure, Miz Aimes, no problem.”

  At my direction, he carries it upstairs and places it in a corner of the family room not far from the fireplace. While he goes back down for the decorations, I place some still-warm meringues in an open tin and give it to him along with the envelope with the holiday card and the cash we give him every year.

  “Have a happy holiday.”

  “Thanks, Miz Aimes. You, too.”

  The last of the cookies are cooling on their racks and the holiday tins are open and laid out all over the kitchen counter and island when my phone rings. I know it’s Nate because I hear Frank Sinatra belting out “My Way”: a newly assigned ringtone that is not intended as a compliment.

  Given how little I’ve heard from him this trip, I consider not answering. But just before it goes to voice mail, I do. “Hello?”

  All I hear is ambient sound. The hum of conversation. Cutlery on china. Nate’s voice and another that is heavily accented.

  “Nate? Helloooo??”

  Being butt-dialed is so insulting. Especially given his lack of communication. I’ve been the recipient of the occasional text, a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Another of the Colosseum. Not a single “Wish you were here.”

  “Damn it, Nathan. Are you there or not?” I’m about to hang up when his voice rises above the ambient background noise.

  “Congratulations on your anniversary.” Nate’s voice is hearty.

  The clink of glassware follows.

  “Grazie.” The voice is male and Italian. “Grazie mille.”

  Glasses clink again.

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Otto anni,” the Italian replies. “Eight years.”

  “That’s nice,” Nate says, and I know what’s coming. Sure enough, he adds, “Before I got married, my father told me that the first forty years are the most difficult.” Nate has shared this tidbit a million times. It always gets a laugh, and today is no exception.

  “And how long have you been married?” the Italian asks once he stops chuckling. “Was he correct?”

  “Thirty years,” Nate says with the cadence I know is leading to his punch line. “Only ten more years to go.”

  There is more laughter.

  “At this moment, thirty years sounds like a . . . very long time,” the Italian says. “A . . . how is it called in your country? A life sentence, I think?”

  Nate guffaws.

  “And has your marriage been a . . . happy one?” the other man asks.

  A silence follows. Suddenly, I’m afraid that the unintended call will disconnect before Nate answers and equally afraid that it won’t. We’ve never actually discussed our relative degrees of happiness. More and more I find myself feeling irritated or put-upon, and like any other couple, we occasionally snap at each other and argue. But it has never really occurred to me that he might have complaints of his own.

  “Sure. I’d say we’ve been pretty happy.”

  I would relax now except Nate’s answer is off-puttingly offhand. “My Judith’s a good egg.”

  “Che cosa?” His companion has apparently never heard this expression.

  “You know, a good sport,” Nate explains. “I don’t think I could have picked a better helpmate and mother.”

  I blink back tears. The compliment is for himself and the choice he made. It’s all about the things I do for him, the role I play, not who I am or how he feels about me.

  “I mean you can’t really expect passion to last forever, right?” my husband continues. “At first it’s all about being in . . . love. Then you have children and it starts to change. Your wife’s exhausted. Short-tempered. Pissed off that she can’t lose the baby weight. Everybody’s on a hamster wheel, working, running, juggling.”

  More background restaurant noise. Something in Italian I can’t hear. Then . . . “Even if you aren’t flat-out in love anymore, you stay because you made a commitment. She’s the
mother of your children. You know each other, what to expect. And then the years fly by. The kids are grown and you’re both still there. But you’re just kind of going through the motions.”

  His voice trails off. Even without a soundtrack, I can see the shrug that follows. His casual dismissal of me and the life we’ve been leading is a punch to the gut. I turn off my phone before he can say something that will make me feel even worse. Though I’m not sure that’s possible. Tears blur the racks of cooling cookies all around me. My reflection in the glass of the microwave door is equally blurry.

  Oh no, you don’t, I tell my reflection. You will not cry. You’ve raised two great human beings. Helped this ungrateful man who’s just “going through the motions” build a business. Thirty years is not something to sneeze at. Nate’s opinion does not define you.

  My chin goes up as I straighten. Indignation courses through me. If this is the thanks I get for spending most of my adult life trying to make him happy, the time has come to stop.

  Good egg, my ass.

  Five

  Jazmine

  We’re at my parents’ for Sunday dinner. As usual, the table groans under the weight of the platters of fried chicken and honey baked ham, the baskets of corn bread and biscuits, all of which are surrounded by bowls of mashed potatoes and every vegetable a Southern garden can be coaxed to produce.

  I am full to bursting from my mother’s deservedly famous fried chicken, the corn bread I can never resist, and the butter beans and collard greens that I tell myself are still vegetables and therefore healthy, no matter what they’ve been cooked in. Surely, God wouldn’t allow her to create such an incredible feast and then penalize us for eating it.

  From where I’m seated, I can see the decked-out Christmas tree twinkling in the next room. There’s even a smattering of presents underneath it, a stark reminder that I’m behind on pretty much everything to do with this holiday that is inexplicably less than two weeks away.