by Diane Darcy
“Wait,” I said. “Please wait.”
This was a lose-lose situation, no matter what I did, but I had to try. For my children’s sake, especially for the sake of my relationship with Gina, I had to at least go through the motions of attempting to reconcile with my husband. Maybe even for me. “Okay. You win. I’ll talk to Dad when he comes to pick up Seinfeld.”
Gina stroked Kramer’s fur and her voice lowered. “And you need to go to Tammy’s wedding reception with him.” Tammy was the daughter of the Olsens, some of our family’s oldest friends.
“He won’t take me to something like that.”
“Ask him. Nicely.”
Nicely? Now why didn’t I think of that? As if my simply asking Jack nicely could change everything. “Gina, the event is in two days and your father is living with Jill. He’ll be taking her, no matter how nicely I ask.”
“Then you need to go with a date and make Dad jealous.”
I hadn’t dated anyone for the same twenty-three years I’d been married to Jack, and certainly not since we’d separated, so a date might prove to be the largest hurdle to Gina’s whole insane plan.
“Mom! A date! Or I’ll move in with Dad. I’m serious.”
“Okay, okay. But I’ll have to find a guy who’ll ask me out.”
“What about that guy you picked up in the supermarket?”
“I did not pick up Bradley Ivans in the supermarket.” Actually, he’d tried to pick me up in the dairy aisle last week, largely due to my new, improved body. Yes, I admit to some minor plastic surgery in the last two months. I no longer have baggy eyelids and I’ve also had to come up with a new place to stash my pencils. And I took up karate, toning up my muscles and losing fifteen pounds of fat in the dojo.
My new body would be my biggest payoff for going to the wedding — to show Jack what he could still have. I looked better than I had in a long time, certainly since I’d last seen him two months earlier.
“But that guy’s been calling you.”
I nodded. “Okay. The next time Bradley calls, I’ll say yes.”
“No, Mom. You don’t have time for that. You’ve got to call him. Tonight.”
Even as I wanted to hit my head against the wall, repeatedly, I said, “Okay.”
Gina smiled for the first time in days.
My stomach hurt.
She headed for the kitchen. “I’ll get the phone for you.”
When the doorbell rang, I reached for the last bag of trash to make one last trip to the spare bedroom. “You get the door.”
Gina snagged the bag first. “No, Mom. You promised you’d talk to Dad.” As she sailed from the room, she tossed back over her shoulder, “And be nice.”
Ah, yes. I’d be sure to be nice to the man who’d ripped my marriage apart and ruined my children’s lives forever and still didn’t want me back. What else would I be?
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See more books by Heather Horrocks at www.HeatherHorrocks.com.
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