“Someone desperate for attention. It’s no different than the woman who wears heels to the grocery store.”
“Does she wear heels to the grocery store?”
“Nah. I bet she wears those faded yoga pants with the stretched-out waistband. She wouldn’t bother dressing up unless Mister Joint Custody was going to be there.”
“Ha. So cute.”
***
9:04 A.M.
I had just sat down in my cubicle and logged in to my computer when my cube-neighbor, Nancy, popped up and stuck her head over the wall between us. This kind of behavior was not acceptable in rest rooms, and I wished the rule would carry over to work time, also – if only for their own benefit. I mean, nobody looked good from such a high angle.
“Happy Halloween,” she said, as she handed me a little tulle sack tied with orange and black ribbons. It was filled with Hershey’s Kisses and reminded me of the kind of favor you’d see at a bridal shower filled with butter mints. Mmm, butter mints. Why were showers the only time we were treated to such goodness?
“Thanks,” I said, accepting the sack of candy with gratitude. Bad angle or not, it was chocolate.
“And this,” she said, handing me the lottery kit. Once a week someone from the office went to the convenience store and bought a bunch of lottery tickets. We all threw $2 into an envelope for our chance to win.
Look, I knew the odds, okay? I knew I was probably more likely to fall off a cliff while taking a selfie, than winning millions of dollars in a multi-state lottery. But, in the slim, slim chance that one of those tickets was a winner, I couldn’t bear to be the only asshole left working here. So I put in my two bucks, just like every Friday.
Then I looked at the digital clock on my desk and counted how many minutes of suffering between now and trick-or-treating. I knew I shouldn’t get too ahead of myself. We could have a great time tonight. But that didn’t mean I had any kind of future with him – or that I even wanted one. Yeah, he was sexy, smart, responsible, and a good dad by all appearances. But there were other, very important, things I didn’t know about him. And I needed to get some answers before I started embroidering towels with our initials. For all I knew he could be the kind of person who went to the grocery store without a list. Or a guy who sprayed Febreeze on his bedding and considered it clean. Maybe he went to a tanning booth and took selfies in the bathroom mirror. I knew there were many things that could break this deal. But when I thought about that night in the dark, all I wanted him to do was make it.
***
10:22 A.M.
I couldn’t stop staring at the sack of Hershey’s Kisses on my desk. There were two kinds of people who had time to wrap Halloween candy in tulle and ribbon for their coworkers: single people and overachievers. I could breathe easy knowing I would never need to worry about the latter. Overachieving would never be a hindrance for me.
But this little sack was troubling me when I thought about the other option. Did I want to be the kind of person, fifteen years from now, who wrapped candy in tulle for a bunch of people who made fun of me behind my back? Was that where I was headed by being the girl with the dead husband who wasn’t ready for dating? I had Lucie for now, and she deserved all of my attention after all she’d been through. But twelve more years and she’d be off to college, and I’d be … what?
***
11:16 A.M.
“Shut the fuck up.” Hope called me at work every morning while she drank her coffee on the balcony of her Manhattan apartment. Sometimes she photographed the coffee and the view and texted it to me. This morning’s photo showed her sweater-covered hands cradling the hot mug. Her thumbs stuck out of little holes at the end of the sleeves. Her nails were perfectly polished in olive green, and her calves were up on the bistro table in the background, covered in cozy, knitted knee-high socks. I didn’t send her a text of my view. It definitely wasn’t as cool as hers. Maybe what I really needed in my life was a pair of knitted knee-high socks.
“Seriously. Shut the fuck up,” she repeated.
I didn’t respond. I never knew what to say to that remark.
“What are you gonna wear?” she asked. She had a deep voice for a woman. If she was big and butchy, she’d frighten people. But she was about 110 lbs and blonde, so she was revered for it instead.
See, this was a problem. Not Hope’s voice, but my clothing options. I was planning on wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a hoodie. Now that I sort-of had a date, I wondered if I should wear something sexy. But I wasn’t sure if I had the ability to look sexy, even if I tried. I’d probably end up looking like a desperate mom who was trying too hard to play MILF.
“I don’t know. It’s going to be cold. I was thinking of a hoodie and jeans.”
“No. Not on a date with Ben Ogea.”
“It’s not really a date. I don’t think.”
“I don’t care. You’re not wearing a hoodie. This isn’t a football game.”
“I could go in costume,” I said, hoping that option would make the hoodie look like the lesser of the evils.
“I think skinny jeans, boots, and a sweater will be perfect. And no ponytail, Cora. At least use a flat iron. You don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard. But you don’t want to look like you just don’t give a shit either. You need a happy balance.”
A happy balance. Kind of like the gazpacho I was eating for lunch. On a positive note, it was low-cal and made of superfoods. On a less positive note, I’d just spent $8 to basically eat salsa with a spoon.
“And don’t forget to pencil in your eyebrows,” she said.
***
12:16 P.M.
I left work before noon so I could be there for Lucie’s Halloween parade. I stood on the sidewalk around the school and tried to pick her out from all the other Elsas. I waved to her when I found her and took clumsy pictures with my phone when she walked by.
Tabitha took pictures of The Fuckers with a Canon Rebel. I didn’t know anything about cameras, but I overheard the FMs talking one morning about who had the best camera, and Tabitha insisted her Canon Rebel was the best on the market. I guess that explained why she was the designated Fucker Photographer of the day. There was no sign of the Fucker Fathers. That didn’t surprise me. They never showed up for anything. I wouldn’t show up if I was married to them either.
Ben was standing next to his ex-wife on the other side of the playground. They both went giddy when Olive walked by. I did my best to avoid looking in their direction. I was now certain this was not going to be a date tonight. There was no way he could want anything to do with me after being married to her. Look at her with her leather jacket and all of her bracelets and belt.
You want to know how many belts I owned? Two. You want to know when I wore those belts? When my pants felt a little loose – and that didn’t happen often enough.
How was it that some women knew exactly how to accessorize, and others, like me, were clueless? Were they born with a natural instinct, or was this something our mothers were supposed to teach us? I wondered if this meant my mom failed me. And did that also mean I would fail Lucie and she would grow up feeling inferior to any girl whose handbag matched her shoes?
I made a mental note to start buying her accessories immediately. Like today.
And that bun in her hair. It was perfectly poofy and nearly the diameter of her head. When I tried to put a bun in my own hair once, it looked like I had an acorn sticking out the back of my head.
“Cora.” I looked up to find Ben and the perfect ex-wife standing in front of me. He knew my name. “Cora,” he said again, “I want you to meet Olive’s mom.”
Oh. Fabulous.
He turned to the could-be-supermodel. “This is Cora, Lucie’s mom. I went to high school with her.”
He remembered. He fucking remembered.
“She’s the one who braided Olive’s hair,” he continued. “We’re going to take the girls trick-or-treating together tonight.”
She gave me a coy smile with a downward head-t
ilt, the kind of look that was seen in every Victoria’s Secret catalog ever printed– the I-know-I’m-hot look. She reminded me of Tom Brady’s wife, the model, Gisele.
“Cora, this is Olive’s mom, Eliza.”
Eliza. What an exotic name. Ordinarily I would have spent a good ten minutes imagining a future with Ben and wondering how Eliza’s presence would affect our lives together. Birthday parties, holidays, vacations. When is Eliza bringing Olive back? Will Eliza be at dinner? Should we invite Eliza to the party?
But I didn’t have time for that neurotic shit right now because – he knew my name! And he knew we went to school together! He remembered!
When the kids started to head back inside for class, I left quickly. I didn’t need to run into any of those buzzkill bitches.
***
5:30 P.M.
Per Hope’s advice, I wore dark skinny jeans and brown cowboy boots with fringe. The boots were a bold move on my part. I’d gone to the mall after the parade to buy Lucie some bracelets at Claire’s, and decided to up my accessories ante as well. Shouldn’t every girl have a pair of cowboy boots? Absolutely. I bought Lucie a pair, too. I also bought myself some cute knee-high socks, which I was sure would act as a life-changing domino – the socks that would take me from girl-with-dead-husband to girl-with-her-shit-together.
Instead of a hoodie or a sweater, I’d picked out a plaid button-up that hung low on my hips. I felt kind of country, but confident in a way I wasn’t used to. See? It was all about the socks.
Ben showed up at the corner wearing a hoodie. Figures.
We set off down the block similar to the way we walked to school together – quietly. I got out my phone to take pics of the girls. I loved the look of surprise Lucie had on her face every time another neighbor dropped a piece of candy in her plastic pumpkin. I loved it that my daughter was still appreciative of others’ generosity, rather than expecting it like it was owed to her.
Ben got out his phone and started scrolling over the screen like he was texting. I felt a wave of disappointment cloud over me. So much for doting daddy. I knew this was a generation of multi-taskers, and that it was hard to put down our phones for anything these days. But we’d only just started trick-or-treating. He could have at least paid attention for a couple of houses.
Ding.
I had a text. I exited the camera screen to check it. Who would be texting me? Everyone in the world knew it was trick-or-treating time.
BEN: You look great in those boots.
You know that feeling you get when you’ve just reached the top of the hill on the roller coaster and you’re about to head down? I was there.
We stood on the sidewalk, dozens and dozens of children and parents rushing past us, but I felt like the two of us were frozen, just standing there while the leaves fell around our feet – like the only two people standing still in a time-lapse video.
I glanced up shyly and caught him looking at me. He bit his lip and gave me a small, hopeful smile.
I smiled back at him above my phone and texted back. It had gotten on my nerves when I thought he was texting someone else while we were trick-or-treating. But if he was texting me – different story. We’d already been to at least five houses. We were good.
ME: Thanks. I wish I had worn a hoodie.
BEN: You can wear mine.
And there I went, down the hill. I only hoped there was another one behind it.
Part Two – Ben
7:08 P.M.
Cora. Still driving me crazy after all these years. I loved how she acted like she didn’t have a clue how beautiful she was. Maybe it wasn’t even an act. Maybe she really had no idea. I kind of loved that idea even more. Not that I wanted someone with low self-esteem. She was just … normal. Down to earth. A little bit of modesty could go a long way.
Even back in high school I had no interest in the girls who flashed their shit around like they should be hanging from a pole. But they were there, and they were willing and eager. I spent so much time back then trying to keep up my GPA, I’d had to take what was right in front of me. I didn’t have the time to work on the quiet girls like Cora.
That night at Hope’s, I couldn’t believe my luck being next to her. She was different than the other girls. She was authentic. She was legit. Her body responded to me in natural ways, not the phony I-wonder-if-there’s-a-hidden-camera-in-his-room, porn-star-wannabe kind of stuff I’d become too familiar with. The way she’d touched me, the way she’d tasted, had given me material that still made my pants feel a little tighter when she was around.
I’d meant to find her at school one day, or ask around for her number. But I just got busy, and the next thing I knew, she was with Will.
I saw her last year a few times. She never looked my way. Sometimes I thought it was on purpose. And every time I thought it was for the best.
I knew Will had died. That kind of baggage scared the shit out of me. Not that I thought I’d ever find a baggage-free single woman at my age. But ex-spouses and baby-daddies were easier to deal with. They weren’t together anymore by choice.
Like Eliza and I. We were friends. We had a mutual respect for one another. And I had love for her. I just wasn’t in love with her. I kind of thought a lot of married couples probably felt the same way. I bet a lot of them stayed together because it was convenient and peaceful, and they felt like it was too late to fall in love for real anyway. I probably would have done the same thing and stayed with Eliza forever, especially after Olive was born. Because that was the easy thing to do. But Eliza was a brave chick. She told me she was tired of taking the easy way all the time. She said we had married too young and too soon, and she wanted to try to make a go of it on her own. She said she would only do it if I was okay with it. I didn’t even put up a fight. I hated having to share Olive, and the first year was hard. But we settled into a nice routine. I missed being part of a couple, but I was glad she’d had the courage to do something for the both of us that I never would have done for myself.
Cora’s story was different. She didn’t choose to be brave. She’d been forced. When I’d found out Will had died, about a year after my divorce, I thought about reaching out to her. But in the end, I let it go. What could I offer her? I had no idea what it was like to lose the love of my life. I didn’t even know what it was like to have a love of my life.
And then we’d walked up on that intersection a few weeks ago. Same place, same time, again and again. What were the chances of walking up on my high school crush a dozen years after graduation? We were both single. We’d both been single for long enough to start dating again. I mean, if destiny was a real thing, it couldn’t have made its wishes any clearer.
But I resisted. A relationship with someone who’d been dealt such a shitty hand wouldn’t be easy. It would take work, time, and a ton of patience. I wasn’t sure I’d have enough. I didn’t know if I’d be enough.
But they said the best things never were easy. I’d gone for easy before, and I’d ended up alone. How many times would I let this girl slip through my hands? It was time for me to step out of my comfort zone, stop screwing around, and take a chance on something. I knew that. But knowing something, and acting on it, were two very different things.
Any day now. That’s what I told myself every Friday. Just ask her out. It wasn’t like I had to marry the girl. I didn’t even know her. She could be one of those people who thought eating fruit on pizza was disgusting. She could prefer cats to dogs. Or worse, she could use there, they’re, and their incorrectly.
Or she could be everything I thought she was all those years ago – smart, kind, funny, loyal.
I needed to find out. If she was a cat lady or used improper grammar, I could just start driving Olive to school, or even send her to a private academy. But I needed to know either way. I couldn’t keep thinking about this girl without acting on it.
It was adorable this morning when she thought I was asking her to babysit. And tonight, the way she shyly glanced up from
her phone after reading my texts, made me want to take her home. Tonight. I didn’t know texting someone who was standing right next to me could be so stimulating.
Remember, patience.
After ninety minutes of trick-or-treating and secret texting, we were more than ready to head to the Hurrah. We rode over in Cora’s SUV. You could tell a lot about a person by the interior of their car. It was almost as personal as being in their bedroom. All signs pointed to good. It was clean, smelled like the Yankee Candle apple air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, and there was a pack of Trident gum sitting in the cup holder.
As she drove us over, I hoped we’d run into those Mean Moms at the Hurrah. I knew they gave Cora a hard time. They were like adult versions of the bully in A Christmas Story. Oh, I better find out if Cora is an A Christmas Story person or not. Nobody seemed to have mediocre feelings regarding that movie. They either loved it or hated it. If she didn’t love it, that could seriously impede our chances of a solid relationship.
We pulled up right next to Mean Mom #3, Tabitha, as she and her demon children were getting out of their ostentatious Hummer. I didn’t understand why these chicks thought they lived in Beverly Hills. This was a suburban, middle-class neighborhood, and they acted like it was the damn Hollywood Hills.
Ah, how nice it was that they would be able to see the four of us at the Hurrah together. Being here with Cora was great in and of itself. But having the opportunity to piss off those lunatics was a real nice cherry on top.
Cora grabbed Lucie by the hand, I grabbed Olive by the hand, and we walked towards the door to the gymnasium. Tabitha watched with her mouth hanging open.
***
7:48 P.M.
“Oh no,” Cora said, as she shook her head subtly. “We’ll sit this one out.”
“What?” I asked. “Do you have something against apples?”
We’d already been to the pumpkin bowling lane, the eyeball bounce, and the candy corn relay race.
She shrugged and gave me that shy look again – the one that made me nuts. “No, I have something against sharing germs with a bunch of strangers.”