Yes, the hangover has passed, but those were a rough few days. I might be too old to drink like that.
Suddenly, I’m self-conscious about him seeing me in that state. My fingertips graze along my chin, seeking the comfort only my worst habit can provide. What did my therapist call it?Mapping,aka the subconscious act of using one’s fingertips to look for blemishes, scabs, or other irregularities on the skin’s surface to pick at. Doesn’t matter if picking said scab makes me bleed, and I don’t know why. I’d still rather have the smoothness of a permanent scar than the rough exterior of a healing wound, and I hate myself for it.
Apologies for being such a mess.
Dominic the Beefcake: Nonsense. You were lovely. Uninhibited looks good on you.
I feel the blood rush to my cheeks.
Steam was let off. I think the pain was worth it.
This is where the conversation peters out, right? We’ve addressed the reason that started the chat, had a few chuckles, and now we can move on. The text chain between us will move down the screen as others bump their way to the top with more urgency, and we’ll eventually forget we ever met. I put my phone in my pocket and pull out of the parking garage, expecting silence from here on out. When I turn onto the main road, I feel my pocket buzz again, and my heart thumps against my chest. As I stop at a red light, I check the text.
Dominic the Beefcake: Vyla told me to tell you to come back soon. She “misses your lush peach.” Her words. What should I tell her?
Vyla has my number, so I find this game of telephone interesting. Did he make up this message just to keep the conversation going? I hate how adorable I find that. Granted, this particular description of my butt is very Vyla, so who knows.
I pick Jules up from school—science club, specifically—and she talks me into grabbing dinner from our favorite takeout spot on the way home.
“How was science club, baby girl?” I ask as she skips through the playlist I put on until she finds a song she likes.
“Ugh, fine.”
“Doesn’t sound like it was fine. Can you tell me one thing about it?”
A sigh rattles out of her chest. “We voted for our science fair project today.”
“Oh yeah? What’s it going to be?”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “A lava lamp.”
My inner nineties child is jealous. “A homemade lava lamp? That’s cool. Is that not what you voted for?”
“No, I wanted to build a water filter, but everyone else voted for the lava lamp.” She shakes her head as she gazes out the window, as if the fate of humanity rests on her slim shoulders. “The water filter is useful. People need clean water.”
My precious girl. She takes herself so seriously sometimes. Am I exposing her to too much news? I refuse to get her a phone until she’s at least fourteen, but maybe I should check the search history on her computer. “Honey, at your age, there’s no limit to how much fun you’re allowed to have, okay? Especially at school. There’s plenty of time to be exhausted and stressed and miserable in adulthood, but you’re not there yet. Give yourself a break.”
Her response is an affirmative grunt.
When I ask about the rest of her day, she tells me she learned “nothing” in her classes and that “nothing interesting” happened either, and I try to remind myself that this is the standard script of a budding teenager, and I’m not losing my precious baby forever. We get home and have dinner, and Jules goes into her room to finish her homework after she loads the dishes into the dishwasher. I change into sweats and a loose concert t-shirt that I cut into a crop top before making my way to the couch. Then Iturn on old episodes ofGilmore Girlsas background noise and pull out my phone.
I respond to Dominic’s previous question about my next visit with a “Not sure.”
Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m pulling up my work calendar, checking it against Jules’s school calendar, and texting back, “Maybe next weekend? Not the upcoming one, but the next. Jules has a three-day weekend, and I’m taking an extra day off too.”
Why the fuck did I do that?
I mean, I was planning to take that Monday off, but why did I offer to come visit? I don’t even have a place to stay now that Nonna Penny’s house belongs to Natalie and Winston. We could probably book a room at the Pebblebrook Inn, but…am I really considering dragging my daughter to a town filled with monsters?
It’s not as if Jules doesn’t know Mapletown exists. She knows I’ve been spending time there, trying to get things sorted with the house, but she hasn’t come with me to visit since she was a baby. Certainly not since I discovered that the town is populated with mythical creatures and the town itself is protected by some kind of spell to keep it hidden from the rest of the world.
Will Jules be able to handle this? Will she run screaming from the first orc or werewolf she sees? I don’t want to traumatize her. She came out as trans less than a month ago. She’s got enough on her plate as it is.
“Hey, pumpkin?” I shout, loud enough to reach her room down the hall. “Can you come here for a sec?”
“Coming!” Jules shouts back. She slides into the kitchen on socked feet, twirling a finger in her loose black waves. “What’s up?” She inherited my hair color, my hooded, angular eye shape, and freckles, and basically her dad’s everything else, except for her spunk. That’s all me.
Despite the genes of my Italian father, my very white ex, Billy, and Isla’s white husband, Jules, Isla, Kayla, and I are mostly Asian-presenting. I’m probably the outlier among us, with my heterochromia, height, and body shape. I tower over Mom, which she found amusing when I was a thin teenager spending most of my free time playing soccer and softball. But after I was in a car accident the summer before college and my knee injury put an end to my days as an athlete, the weight seemed to pile on, and her amusement turned into judgment. Her and Dad, and other members of the family––never Isla––have since learned how to censor their “concern for my health” after I told them to put a cork in it during a particularly tense holiday gathering.
