Yes, I was going to take up space. Literally and figuratively.
Saggy-ass bitch.
The words from the college boy still haunted me from time to time, coming out of nowhere as if my subconscious blamed me for everything that had happened. Havisham said I needed to find a good therapist, but therapy required money, so I’d have to stick to my do-it-yourself mantras for now.
Slow inhale:I am worthy ...
Slow exhale:of love and happiness.
After a few repetitions, the unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach subsided.
I intentionally bypassed the bathroom so I wouldn’t see myself in the mirror and pick apart every part of my reflection that I didn’t like. It was a new hobby inspired by Ken’s harsh words, my mother’s well-meaning articles, and my left eyebrow’s sudden and inexplicable decision to go rogue no matter how much eyebrow gel I applied. Instead, I plopped down on the love seat in the living room and tried to give myself a pep talk about living in Bel Air Apartments, a moniker far fancier than my current digs deserved, with no Fresh Prince anywhere to be seen. The complex had been built in the sixties and hardly updated since then, but the rent was something I could cobble together from my assorted freelance jobs while I went to school to get my paralegal certificate, which would open me up to more and better-paying freelance jobs.
If you’d finished law school, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.
Yes, and if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their butts when they jumped—at least, that’s what Nana liked to say. Sure, I’d dropped out of law school to join Ken in the private investigator business. Yes, I was still paying off my loans from that year as well as my undergraduate degree. Absolutely, I should’ve kept up with my payments instead of skipping two months’ worth so I could get out of Nana’s basement and move into my own place.
Silly me to think that making every payment religiously since 2007 would’ve bought me some grace. Oh no. Now I was two months behind, and I had fees on top of that. The kicker? The form letter alerting me to the extra money I now owed had arrived that very morning, when it was too late to call off the move.
Theoretically, I could take some extra jobs from Ken, but I’d rather sit in a fire ant hill than ask him for help. I could check around with some of my favorite attorney friends. There always seemed to be more papers to serve, more spouses to surveil, more insurance claims to validate.
Or I could sell feet pictures.
One look at my knobby toes, and I knew that wasn’t an option.
My past decisions had put me in this present predicament, but I refused to beat myself up for believing in love. I’d been young and stupid, foolish enough to believe that my life story might turn out differently from those of the other women in my family. Sure, every chapter of our history should’ve convinced me otherwise, but I’d always been one to learn things the hard way.
That trait ran in the family, too.
Suddenly, the oppressiveness of the apartment’s beige silence made sense. I was living alone for the first time in my life. I’d gone from my parents’ house to my nana’s, from Nana’s to a dorm with roommates, from the dorm to living with Ken. Mom once told me that crappy apartments found us all eventually. I hated to think she was right about anything, but broken clocks managed it twice a day, so it made sense something she’d told me would be accurate.
The urge to leave had me back on my less than photogenic feet. I could go to Finnegan’s to do my homework. Maybe see if Havisham and Salcedo would join me for a housewarming party—that would motivate me to make my new space more of a home.
Or not.
Why have a party in this sad apartment when we could hang out at Finnegan’s, as we usually did?
I marched out the door and straight into a man who smelled of bourbon vanilla and spice.
Large hands landed gently on either upper arm to steady me.
Not soft hands, either. Warm, capable ones.
I meant to say “Sorry about that,” but as I looked up a suited body, past broad shoulders and a bearded jawline, to my reflection in mirrored aviators, what I actually said was, “Are you the ‘Man in Finance’ I ordered? That delivery was fast.”
When he realized I was referring to the song, he laughed out loud. “Not six five.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “You seem pretty tall to me.”
“That’s because you’re fun-size.”
I smiled in spite of myself. I wanted to be offended by his remark, but his inflection of “fun-size” was simply too good-humored. “If you’re sure ...”
“Afraid I also don’t have blue eyes or work in finance.”
“Damn.”
One corner of his mouth twitched upward. “No trust fund, either.”
