“We know that!” Zwena and I yell at Krish.
“Hey, hey, slow the man bashing. I’m not the one who divorced his wife because she couldn’t have kids,” Krish reminds, hands outstretched, backing up from the two of us before we pounce a second time.
“Z, why are you wearing your uniform from yesterday when you have today off?” Krish teases with a sly smile, working to take the heat off men and, by association, him. Zwena shoots Krish daggers that practically slice his head off.
“Harley back in town for a booty call?” I jump in, wanting to keep our brunch date light and Krish on the right side of Zwena since it’s the rare day that all three of us are free. As much as I wanted to text Krish and Zwena right after my coffee with Ash, I knew the breaking wifey news would be perfect brunch fodder.
“Yep, that’s it,” Zwena answers me and then pushes off Krish’s arm that’s resting across the back of her chair.
“Must have been some date, Z,” Krish continues, egged on by her irritation. “If you’re this cranky in the morning, you two must havebeen going at it all night.” Krish loves getting Zwena worked up because her tirades are entertaining, and he knows she can’t stay mad at either of us for very long. There is no grudge in that girl.
Surprisingly, “It was okay,” is all Zwena gives us, clearly not in the mood to take her turn as the group punching bag.
Krish has the good sense to stop and changes the subject. “Hey, has anyone else gotten an email with a link to Dieting Donna’s GoFundMe page?”
“Can you use GoFundMe to raise money for a Spartan Race plane ticket and lodging in Coronado?” I ask the question I’ve been doubting the answer to since I got the email a few days ago.
“People use it for all sorts of reasons. Darrell at security used GoFundMe for his cat’s chemo,” Zwena truth tells. “What I want to know is if Donna is really going to do a Spartan race, or is she going down there to find herself a Navy Seal at our expense? She certainly has been high on herself since dropping ten pounds.”
“Fifteen,” I correct, and we all devolve into laughter. Dieting Donna has made a habit of counting down her pounds to us every week like we are her culpability crew. Though we joke behind her back, I have to give it to Donna: bit by bit she has finally done what she has tried and failed to do before, and I know right where she’s coming from. I have a collection of notebooks as evidence of my failures to launch, but I, like Donna, am starting to feel like this time is different. I’m excited for Donna to go ahead and celebrate herself—she’ll just have to do it on someone else’s dime. All my dollars are tied up in Brown Butter, Baby! and my born babies.
“Zwena tells me Simon’s still sniffing around.” Krish leans in, stabbing a bite of pancake off my plate. I pull my breakfast closer to me. I don’t like to share my food, and he knows that. Krish is really niggling to get under both Zwena’s and my skin this morning.
“It’s true.” Now it’s Zwena’s turn to lean back and put her hands up in conversational surrender when I reach across the table to take a swat at her.
“Listen, nothing’s happened since the night of Mrs. Eisenberg’s stroke, when a long, emotional day mixed with alcohol got the best of me.”
“You mean when the day and the alcohol got the worst of you,” Zwena corrects. “Nothing’s happened all right. Your divorce papers are still collecting dust on your bookshelf.”
“I moved them to the side table in my bedroom. I didn’t want Simon to find them and freak out,” I mumble in weak defense.
“So, what I’m hearing is that Ash is the one who should have been concerned about having coffee with someone who’s married. He, in fact, is divorced and can get together with whoever he wants. You, on the other hand, are a different story,” Krish deduces, twisting the straw from his empty Sprite glass around his index finger.
“Really? You’re going to take Ash’s side here?”
“I’m just saying, he’s divorced. Dick move or not. Your husband is finally back in town and can sign on the dotted line, and those documents are still incomplete,” Krish points out. “And as long as those papers stay in the envelope, Simon still thinks he has a chance.”
“No. No way he does. I made it clear to him we are not together.” And I stand by that statement. Though seeing Coco and Lou blossom in their father’s presence has caused me to consider many times whether I could live with Simon as husband and wife until the girls graduate from high school. When Simon left, I did everything I could to keep the girls’ bodies busy and their minds occupied so they wouldn’t wallow in their grief. I realize now that Lou and Coco knew exactly what I was doing and played along with my frantic need to believe that they were all right even though everything was so wrong.
Observing them with their father again, I recognize that I was deluding myself for my own survival and that Lou and Coco may have been missing their father way more than I allowed myself to admit. I should have let them feel the same lows that I endured. Instead, I forced Coco and Lou to live in the numbed space of fake smiles,overscheduling, false enthusiasm, and acceptance that being just okay and making it through the day was good enough. Only it wasn’t.
“One, Simon doesn’t know about the papers. Two, he comes and goes from the house with Lou and Coco. And three, he’s making dinner for you, his daughters, and his mother-in-law on Friday. Let me repeat, he still thinks he has a chance. And no, that is not just my perspective, that is one hundred percent the male perspective.” Krish counts off his evaluation authoritatively while buttering his toast.
I open my mouth to protest, but Krish isn’t done.
“Maybe with Simon away it was easy for you to talk a big game about dumping his ass. Now that he’s back, you’re not sure you want to do it because you feel guilty about how miserable Lou and Coco really were with him gone, and it’s nice to see them happy again. Come on, Toni, admit it. Staying with Simon for the sake of the girls feels ...”
“Lame,” Zwena fills in the blank.
FRIDAY, MAY 10
From the garage the aroma of garam masala hits me, and my mouth waters. Simon is inside preparing what was one of our favorite family dishes, tandoori chicken with a sweet chutney and short grain rice. While my mom usually pushed the food around her plate, never having developed a taste for cuisines outside her treasured Puerto Rican staples, the girls and I gobbled it up whenever Simon made this dish. Once he left, we tried every Indian restaurant in a ten-mile radius until we found a close second to Simon’s.
“Abuelita is on her way over,” Coco announces from the kitchen when she hears me open the door from the garage. It’s as much a warning as imparting information as I carry in the bag of last-minute groceries Simon asked me to pick up.
“Hey, Toni. Did you hear the news?” Simon calls from the stove, acting way too familiar with my pots and pans. Lou and Coco willingly peel onions on either side of him, eager to do the dirty work of prepping family dinner for their father that they dodge doing for me when requested. I recognize what they’re up to, being yes women to keep their father happy and home for the foreseeable future. Being agreeable to the whims of men is far too generationally ingrained in Arroyo women for my comfort, and I cut directly into this domestic serenity.
“Girls, why don’t you go shower? It was hot at the track meet today,” I direct, handing Simon the butter and mango he asked me to pick up along with the cookies.
