"Do you think we're going to do crafts?" Kelsea asked.
"I haven't played with glitter in," Jen tilted her head, her braids swinging, "well, there's probably a childhood memory in there somewhere."
"Oh, same. I guess maybe some outrageous posters in high school," Tilly agreed.
"Last week," came Bess's reply and they turned surprised looks her way. She shrugged. "Galaxy bottles. You put cottonballs, paint, and glitter in them and they're really calming. Sometimes I hand one to Uncle Jay when he's getting moody."
"Nice," Jen replied with a high five for Bess, and Ursula laughed.
They followed Crystal into a dilapidated barn looking around the structure, splintering in some places, needing paint in most.
"Uh, is this safe, Crystal?" Jen asked clear distrust in her voice.
"Probably," she replied looking around. "Though I have visions of knocking out that wall and putting up new braces and creating a range of sorts."
"A range for what?" Eloise asked taking in the busted windows and three open doors flooding the barn with dust-mote air. It smelled like hay and hope and there was something abruptly lovely about this place.
Crystal lifted two wire baskets full of eggs and next to her were eight more of them filled to the top.
"We're going to throw glitter egg bombs while we listen to music outrageously loudly and paint the barn in pink sparkles! Bad juju won't make it out of here alive." She shifted to the side and wide eyes widened further at life-size cut-outs of Rob Sandis plastered to the far wall. There was a picture of him giving a speech in his perfect suit and politician smile. Another of him side-eying an unknown person in derision. One of his arm around a stiff Jessica, her hair perfectly coiled and her outfit expensive, her mouth frozen in a practiced smile. And then one of him bending over, his flat ass covered in designer perfectly centered for aim.
Silence. Open mouths. Awe.
"This is the best thing I've ever done," Bess said in her teenaged tone that said they had hit the jackpot of cool.
"Grab a basket and some safety goggles. We don't want glitter in the eyes, darlings."
"There's a saying about that, isn't there?" Tilly asked as she made a beeline for a basket.
"I don't know, but I have a feeling I will have a newfound love of glitter," Kelsea said as she put on her clear goggles.
"How do I look?" Eloise asked and Jessica snapped hers on and gave her a thumbs up.
Music blared. Feminine music. The kind of music that slips into your mind and rubs your thoughts with gentle power and belonging.
"Darling, the honor is yours," Crystal said to Jessica.
"Your ex-husband had no butt, Jess," Eloise said as Jessica lined up with the picture of him bending over.
"He used to wear padded boxers," she replied slyly, taking two fragile eggs in hand.
"Hell yeah, girl! Throw that glitter egg!"
"Go for the ass!" Bess yelled.
"Throw two!"
She cocked her arm and they watched as Jessica was no longer poised, no longer standing straight and stoic, her beautiful face sneered in a beastly way and said, "You always thought I was the perfect trophy wife and I hated that. I hated that I was no longer a person because of you." Her arm threw, an egg flew, and dark, pink glitter exploded on the picture of him holding her waist, his trophy at his side. She picked up another as they cheered. "You never spent time with your kids. Never!" She threw this one at him bent over and everyone felt the tingle of satisfaction as it hit the mark and more glitter flew into the air. "You duped beautiful young women into thinking you were something special and pretended they were to you," she looked at Kelsea, who looked a little ashen but held herself still. "And you left a mark on them that can never be undone. You were selfish and they were the collateral and they deserved so much more." Balm, soft and healing were her words.
A glittering tear fell from Kelsea's eye and down her cheek. Jessica nodded to her and there was a passing of pain between them, an apology, an acceptance, and a hope. Then Jessica smiled wide, gestured to one of the pictures and Kelsea picked up an egg and they threw at the same time, hitting him square in the face with glee. The music was loud and pulsing and the heartbreak was quietly leaving.
They could all feel it.
That slipping away of grief so that something else could take its place.
And each woman held inside of them their own story, their own pain, their own brokenness and shame. Each launch and explosion of glitter marked their rage or sadness.
Eloise gathered her own inside of her muscles as she released egg after egg. Light pink glitter and glitter that looked like pepto-bismol baptized the pictures of a man she didn't know, but she was picturing someone else. He had dark hair with silver laced into the front, dark eyes, and a lying tongue. She threw eggs at a shadow of someone who used her, then tried to take her out of this world for daring to call him on it.
