Grandma nodded. “A man’s serious if he’s taking a girl axe throwing. Is he good? I mean at the axe throwing. I know he’s good in bed, because you don’t tolerate that sort of ineptitude. Michaela might, but not you, Willa.”
Face. On. Fire. “He’s very good at axe throwing.” And in bed.
“Hey!” Michaela glared at Grandma. “I donottolerate men who are bad in bed.”
Grandma began ticking the names off on her fingers. “Sean. Todd. That Mathew boy. I swear if you had married him I would have disowned you.”
“I wasnineteen,” Michaela protested.
Grandma waved a hand. “No excuse, especially with all those romance books you were reading.”
“So tell me more about this ex-boyfriend,” Mom interjected, unfortunately turning the focus back to me. “Is he the one you took leftovers to three weeks ago?”
“Yes, that’s him.” And now I regretted taking Eng those leftovers. “He had to go away for a few weeks on a business trip, and I didn’t hear from him at all. No texts, no calls, nothing. When he came back and I confronted him, he didn’t see where that was a problem. And then I found out he didn’t know my name.”
Michaela shrugged. “So he didn’t remember your last name. It’s not like our surname is Smith or Jones or something easy. And you only knew him for a couple of weeks.”
My face heated up again. “No, he didn’t even know myfirstname.”
All three women inhaled sharply.
“I don’t understand how a dead man is leaving you a leg of lamb,” Michaela commented. “Because youhadto have murdered him after that.”
“Cyanide,” Grandma said with a knowing nod.
“I told him to get lost. Then he found my phone number, figured out my name, and sent me two text messages and a silent voicemail.”
“And a leg of lamb,” Mom added.
“Was it one of those heavy-breathing silent voicemail messages?” Michaela planted her hands on her hips. “Because that shit isnotcool.”
“No, it was just silent.” I didn’t tell them about today’s message because I was still conflicted about it. And I was worried that if I thought about it too much, I’d end up calling Eng and being back in his bed by sundown.
Everyone stared at me, and I knew the question they were all afraid to ask.
“I’m not getting back together with him.” If only my voice hadn’t wavered at that announcement. “And I’m taking a break from dating, or hooking up. I want a real relationship and I need to figure out how to weed out the players and the jerks before I risk getting hurt again.”
“Here, here.” Michaela nodded solemnly.
Mom reached an arm around my shoulder and hugged me. “I’m so sorry, Willa. You deserve better. And I’m glad you’re finally insisting on getting what you want from men. Don’t compromise.”
I leaned my head against her shoulder, breathing in that familiar and soothing scent of her skin, the vanilla of her soap, and that ever-present, faint aroma of Halston perfume. “Thanks Mom.”
Michaela did eventually end up eating the leg of lamb, aside from her repeated reservations. The meat was amazing, and Imade a mental note to splurge on another one at Wasserman and Lemberger and have the girls over for a celebratory dinner once I’d completed a month at my new job.
The dinner was full of our own family celebrations. Jamie informed us that he’d scored a one-hundred-percent on his recent algebra test. Leroy told us that his wife Sarah had closed a big deal at the financial consultancy firm she worked at. Mom let us know that Emmajean and her family would be coming up from Atlanta for Christmas this year and staying for a whole week. Terrance and Jacob had booked a ski vacation in Jackson Hole for the second week in January.
And I told everyone about my new job.
There were shouts, applause, excited comments and questions about whether I would be able to get them good seats for upcoming Tusks’ games. I was glowing with happiness even after we’d finished the dishes, energized by my family’s support and happiness over my success. They’d been worried when I’d chosen this career, but a position as a team trainer for a National Hockey League team wasn’t chump change. The owner may be paying me bargain basement wages, but this was the opportunity of a lifetimeandmy chance to break into the world of professional sports. Even if the team didn’t soar into the playoffs, even if the owner decided to fold or sell after another year, I still would have this on my resume. I wanted the team to improve. I wanted to be able to claim I had some part in that improvement. But either way, this opportunity would change my life for the better.
Maybe I could actually save up for that trip to Spain.
After the dishes were clean and the leftovers were carefully boxed into take-home containers and stored in the fridge, we all headed outside. I sat out the first few rounds of basketball, stuffed and needing to digest a bit before I started running all over the driveway trying to score points and block throws frommy siblings. The ancient aluminum and woven-nylon webbed folding chair squawked as I sat down beside Terrance and his husband Jacob.
My phone beeped.
It had done this just before dinner and I’d spent five minutes debating whether I should check the message or not before giving in, only to see a reminder from my doctor to schedule an annual checkup. This time I went ahead and yanked the phone out of my pocket, expecting to see a scammer message about a fake toll balance or something from a local diner about a brunch deal.
