I blinked owlishly at her dig. This dress cost me two hundred and fifty dollars. Sorry I didn’t want to wear a skintight bodycon dress while selling houses.
“How’d he look?”
“Grown.” Aldridge was always tall but now his muscles were more defined, and he had an earned swagger to him. In college he was a big deal, but he always felt like an impostor. It would appear the impostor syndrome was replaced by confidence times ten. When we dated, I’d remind him how amazing he was at least once a day. Apparently, he just needed to remove the braces and pad his bank account to finally believe it.
“Grown and sexy?”
“He’s always been sexy. Time wasn’t going to change that.” Most attractive men just got better with age and Aldridge was no different.
“What did he say?”
“He tried to fire me.”
“Excuse me?” She lifted her watered-down latte to her lips.
“I think he was irritated by my presence.”
“That tracks, I mean you did dump him.”
“I didn’t dump him; I just ended something that was bound to fizzle out.”
“Most women would kill to meet a basketball player in college. Lock him in early.”
“I’m not most women.”
“Yeah, you’re stupid,” My mother, Jemini Irwin, said entering Anika’s office. “You could have been a basketball wife searching for a new home with your husband who just inked a multi-year contract for millions of dollars.”
“I’m doing just fine on my own. Thank you.”
“Yes, but spending someone else’s money is one hundred times more rewarding than spending your own,” Anika said.
“You would know.” On more than one occasion Anika’s clients turned into her next mark. Relationships were transactional to her. She got that mentality from my mother.
“So, I’m assuming you talked him out of firing us?” my mom asked.
“Yeah, I appealed to his pockets. You know he was always financially focused.”
“Yes, that’s why I liked him so much. How you let that man get away I’ll never understand.”
Here we go again. The last thing I wanted to do right now was defend my decisions. “I didn’t let him get away.”
“You’re right about that. You pushed him away.” This was our MO, we bickered. Sometimes it was jovial, other times it was a bloodbath with one or all of us saying the worst things in hopes of inflicting the most pain. Trust, I knew we were dysfunctional when at eight years old my mother had me entertain some random man while she changed. We talked about sports, and he mentioned on more than one occasion that I was filling out nicely.
“Did you know Aldridge was our new client?”
“I did.” Shame wasn’t an emotion my mother was familiar with.
“And you didn’t think it was something I needed to know?”
“If I told you, you would’ve found a reason to back out of it.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Aldridge being my ex was reason enough.”
“I’m sure he was pleasantly surprised to see you.”
“He threatened to fire me, remember. Not exactly rolling out the welcome wagon.”
“That sounds like a man who still has feelings,” Anika said.
