After making up the sofa bed to look like I had never existed in it, I watered her four plants. Two were dying, which surprised me, and two looked thriving and green, exactly as I’d expect from their ultra-healthy owner.
I then took a shower, refraining from jerking off in it, despite the temptation that was doubled by June’s scent that still hung in the air, got dressed, and went in search of good—relatively speaking—coffee.
15
June
The sight of Angelo sleeping sprawled on his stomach, his athletic back and corded, tattooed arms staring at me from under his short-sleeved, white T-shirt, had made me slow my steps on my way out to jog. Against my will, I had wondered what he looked like under that shirt.
Michaelangelo’s hands etched on his neck had been visible just below his ruffled hair. It’d been tempting to stop and stare when he was so unaware. But I had closed the front door behind me instead.
Him being there was something I had to get used to. When I had awoken before, it had taken me a moment to figure out why the accordion partition was there.
Coming out of the shower to see him up in my kitchen in that fitted tee and a pair of off-white sweatpants had reminded me that it had been a while for me. While he wasn’t at all my type, looking at him inflamed urges I had repressed.
I was all about healthy choices in life, and this male specimen in my kitchen, looking like that, wasn’t one.
In a decade of fruitless dating—ever since I had been Angelo’s age—I had accumulated enough experience to know within a few minutes who was serious and who wasn’t, who was worth taking a chance on and who wasn’t, who was emotionally available and who wasn’t, who was really single and who wasn’t.
Most men I’d met fell under thewho wasn’tof that bare minimum requirements list. The few who had risen above it hadn’t passed my more elaborate compatibility checklist. If I had met anyone who seemed promising, they hadn’t been necessarily interested in continuing with me beyond a few dates. I had taken it in my stride, as none of them had broken my heart—it never reached that stage.
And so, at forty, I was still single, and since men my age—actually, most men at any age—preferred younger women, I was looking into the bottom of the barrel of the dating world.
Marrying Angelo gave me an excuse to shun the murky pond of dating, which I avoided most times, anyway. I couldn’t entangle anyone in our shitty situation and explain why my status on state records said married and why it’d later say divorced.
But that also meant having a thirty-year-old who was well aware of his good looks and seemed like the playboy type living with me. And that wasn’t something I needed in my apartment or in my life.
Luckily, he didn’t tick a single box on my checklist.
That was what I told myself as I got into my car, parked next to a dark blue Maserati whose model, make, and license plate I recognized from the insurance I had a copy of. It was the type of car that perfectly fit the perception I had of Angelo. On the back seat was a large box brimming with cables and cords.
Rock ’n’ roll.
I drove Honey the Honda, as my sister January called it—she had named her car Pretty because she thought it needed a confidence boost—and listened to my favorite radio station. On the freeway to Wayford, I sang out loud with Alanis Morrissette and Gwen Stefani. I didn’t care how horrible I sounded, or that my nephews called this music “Classic,” making me feel at least ninety years old. I just needed the outlet to scream.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What if you go back to the Riviera branch? I’ll work here instead. I’ll be so sorry to see you leave.”
“It’s not that. I’m moving to Colorado with my boyfriend.”
Frances was my second longest-tenured employee. She had worked in the Wayford branch since it had opened and had helped me train Adam and Dharma, whom we’d hired for it. I needed at least three people at each shop to work shifts since we were open from nine to seven; some days were busier and required more than one person per shift, and there was work before and after closing. Nearly doubling my headcount had contributed to my financial downfall, which was why I hadn’t hired a third person for the Riviera branch when I’d moved Frances here.
The short notice and her decision to utilize her unused vacation days meant that I’d have to be here daily and send Adam or Dharma to work with Rio.
Spending the entire day in the Wayford branch reminded me again that there had been a solid reason for me to open it in the first place—the revenue was strong, products that lagged in Riviera sold well here, and the locals loved the shop. I wasn’t going to throw my hands up in surrender, especially not when I had broken the law to afford this place.
I might have miscalculated, but this shop was a viable business. I wasn’t here just to “show them.”
When our mom had used connections to move January and me to the more prestigious Wayford school system, the difference between how prominent and revered I had been at home versus how insignificant and alone I was at school had been hard. I hadn’t been harassed, just ignored. Everyone knew I was the school’s cleaning lady’s daughter. What had gone by unnoticed in Riviera View, like my clothes, hadn’t in Wayford.
Our mom taught us to keep our heads up high; she never sighed at her life, and we had learned from her example. When January and I had to take over our mother’s work after school, we had done it without too many qualms, even though some of the houses we had cleaned belonged to kids in our school. It had shot our social status to a new low, but we’d forged through. My mistake—valentining the wrong boy, which landslided me from ignored to bullied—had been all my own.
“Your ‘ragazzo’ built up shop in the back. He seems lovely. And … you didn’t mention he looked like that.” The text from Rio came at lunchtime.
Sure. He’s charm personified. I didn’t write that. Focusing on the job aspect, and ignoring the rest, I wrote, “I hope it’s not bothersome or noisy.”
“Not at all. By the way, ragazzo means guy in Italian,” she texted. “But you probably already know that and more …”
