“He tried to mansplain Asian food to me,” Oliver contributes.
“He tried to mansplain golf to me,” says Tamika. “Golf. To me. I, Tamika, who thinks golf is a walk through the park for white people with expensive sticks.”
“Oooh, I remember that one,” Emmanuel says. “He cornered you. He wouldn’t let you leave.”
“He tried to mansplain what a hedge fund was to me,” adds Nick, who works in finance. “He was wrong.” He thinks about it. “But actually, most people are never right.”
“Okay, my turn again. I thought it was insane how defensive he got if anyone showed any inkling of disagreeing with him,” Oliver shares.
“Oh mygod,” Georgia groans. “He couldn’t let things go! He had to be the last word, all the time!”
All this shit talking is somehow making me feel both energized yet depressed as hell, especially because when it’s my turn, I’m going to say something like I hate how he always made me come or that he probably has a thousand nude photos of me saved on his phone. “Can we not anymore? I get it. He was the worst. I think we’ve dedicated enough of Georgia and Oliver’s housewarming to my ex-boyfriend.”
“Sorry, henny,” Emmanuel croons. “We can stop. We’re just happy you’re free of his clutches. Mother can get you a margarita. Spicy?”
“Please,” I sigh.
Georgia steps in. “Well, Oliver has approximately fifty cousins here today if you’re looking for a rebound.”
My reaction to this comment is visceral and immediate. “Hard no,” I tell her and everyone around me.
“Why not?”
“What do you mean, why not?” I thought it was obvious. “I feel like I’ve spent the last two years of my life slowly drowning underwater, and I’ve finally just come up for air. Rebounding right now would push me back under.”
Everyone is silent, digesting.
“That’s a pretty good analogy,” Mia says.
“I disagree with your analogy,” Georgia says, “but to continue in the same spirit, I think that hot sex with a hot rebound would let you relax without swimming for a bit. Like…” she taps a finger to her chin, looking up at the sky. “More of a…”
“Life jacket.”
“Buoy.”
“Life boat.”
“Luxury yacht, if it’s real good.”
Being around a group of elementary school educators all the time can be truly exhausting.
“How do you have so many cousins anyway, Oliver? Does Mama Flores have like ten brothers or sisters?” I ask him.
“She actually only has one brother,” he explains. “But Filipinos have a very loose definition of cousin. Family friends are cousins.”
Mia and Elias glance at one another.
“School and classmates are cousins. The guy who owns the Filipino market in Jackson Heights is a cousin. Actually, no,” he tilts his head, thinking. “He’s more of a tito. To me, at least. He’d be my mom’s cousin, I guess. There are also age restrictions to this arbitrary labeling system.”
“You’ll catch on eventually,” Georgia says, patting me on the back.
Emmanuel comes back with my spicy margarita, and I take several large gulps, wincing and fighting through the initial surge of acid reflux.
The conversation moves on, and after a few minutes of disassociating, I realize I need to pee.
I hand my margarita back to Emmanuel, who is now mansplaining Lip Sync For Your Life (but rightfully so) and wind my way through the sea of family friends and/or cousins and/or titos into the house.
The bathroom is occupied, so I let my mind wander while leaning on the wall opposite the door.
