“It happened before I started at the bar, actually. I was on my way to my divorce mediation and I ran into a guy in a coffee shop…”
Mallorie’s eyes widen. “Yeah?”
“I mean, literally. I literally ran into him and his coffee went all over my blouse.”
Her lips pin together like she’s sympathetic but also, she would have totally expected that from me.
“I had an actual fit, screaming and yelling at him… I didn’t realize he’d stripped off his shirt and was offering it to me so I’d have something clean to wear for the mediation.”
Mallorie frowns. “He stripped off his shirt for you… In the middle of a coffee shop?”
I fling my arms to the side. “Yes. I was totally thrown for a loop. I mean, I haven’t seen a body like that in… all my life,” I finish quickly.
I search her expression for some kind of sympathy but that’s not what I get. Instead I get something akin to envy.
“Do you know who this guy is?”
“No,” I explain. “I was so pissed, I gave him my address so he could return my dry-cleaned blouse to me.” I stare at her with hard eyes. “He didn’t return my blouse…”
“What an ass,” she says, frowning.
“No, wait for this. He sent me twenty—twenty,” I repeat, for emphasis, “designer shirts from Saks instead, which, according to my fashion-obsessed daughter were worth, at the very least, twenty thousand dollars.”
When Mallorie doesn’t move, I know I’ve finally stunned her. A little victory dance will be due after I’ve got the rest of this story out.
“But, I didn’t accept them…”
Mallorie’s mouth opens but I cut her off.
“I’m not a charity case,” I say, firmly. “If I had more time on my hands I would have been offended.”
“Okay…” she nods, in solidarity.
“So, anyway, I thought that was the end of it, but then he walked into the bar…”
Mallorie is riveted.
“One of the patrons tried to get my number. When I said no, he told me not to play hard to get and grabbed me…”
Mallorie stills, the way she does when she’s watching a really suspenseful movie. If this wasn’t my actual life I’d be buying her popcorn.
“Then this guy… the one who spilled his coffee over me and sent me the shirts, he flies toward me, punches the man in thejaw and, I’m not even joking, sent him soaring across the room. Knocked him out cold.”
When I look up at Mallorie, there’s a curl to her lips like she knows something I don’t.
“What?” I snap.
She wraps her arms around me. “Oh honey.”
“What?” I ask again, trying to pry her arms apart.
“You’ve been out of the game so long you have no idea when someone’s all soft for you.”
I eventually succeed in pushing her off. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous, huh?”
She stands with her hands propped on her hips like this is her moment. I know that when she went through her divorce and became a sworn-in single woman, she’d amassed a ton of wisdom about love, life and the patriarchy. But because I’d thrown myself into new motherhood and went totally down the white picket fence route, I wasn’t the target audience for her newfound gospel teaching. So, she’s been waiting a while, with the patience of a saint.
