Well.
From now on, as I tried to navigate these choppy waters, I would do what I wanted to do.
Makeup? I wouldn’t wear it unless I wanted to.
Hair? Time to cut it all off.
Food? Chicken salad and brussels sprouts and every other food I hadn’t recently bought because picky pants Mitch didn’t like them.
Beverages? Bourbon all day every day.
As I neared my house, I took my phone out of the tiny pocket at the small of my back. Before I lost my courage, I would make another quick video. One without makeup, one that showed that I had, indeed, exercised for once.
At first I recoiled at the sight of my face. It was red and sweaty, my eyes puffy from an earlier cry. I tried on a smile. It looked fake.
Vivian, be yourself.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Hello, everyone. I wanted to give you a sneak peek at Vivian 2.0. That’s right, I made time to exercise today. Don’t let my red face fool you; it’s actually quite pleasant. I’m going to award myself the Run-Walk Badge, a.k.a. the Look, I’m Trying Badge. With some practice, maybe I’ll be able to convince my body to do more running in the future.”
I talked a little more about my philosophy of doing what I wanted from that moment on and why I’d decided to take the video when I did. All in all, it was a brief video. I edited it after my shower and went through all the steps necessary to upload it to YouTube.
I saw a few comments on my last video, but I couldn’t face them right then. I should probably delete the damn thing since I’d posted it while inebriated. I had fuzzy recollections of trying to edit while the room swayed around me and how many steps I had to repeat before I finally got the thing up. I couldn’t even remember half of what I’d said.
Bah. Who really paid any attention to my stupid little channel? I’d have plenty of time to delete it tomorrow. For now I had bigger fish to fry.
Chapter 10
The next morning I went to church—that was something else I hadn’t been doing because Mitch and I couldn’t agree on one. And the reward for my piety? Coming home to Mitch’s car parked in my garage.
I stalked into the house, my righteous indignation reaching a fever pitch. He wasn’t in the kitchen. He wasn’t in the living room, either. The shower in the primary bath came on—aha!
I marched into that bathroom like I owned the place because, well, I did. “Mitchell Quackenbush, what the heck are you doing back in this house?”
“Vivian, what the hell?” He tried to cover himself.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering to cover yourself,” I said as I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against the vanity. “I’ve seen all of that before.”
“Well, it’s not appropriate!”
“It’s also not appropriate to leave your wife, but here we are.”
Resigned, he went back to his showering. I took in the slight paunch, his farmer’s tan, his white ass, his—
Nope. Don’t look there.
Too late.
Either Mitch was thinking about another woman, or he liked me more than he wanted to let on.
“Could you please leave?” he asked.
“I asked you first.”
He turned off the water, and I resisted the urge to hand him a towel, an action I’d done a thousand times before.
He toweled off quickly. Once he’d wrapped the towel around his waist, he had the audacity to put his hands on his hips and grin at me. “Vivian, you can’t kick me out. There are laws on the books about occupancy and residency, nothing you’ve bothered your pretty head over—”
