Very Merry Married (Kringle Family Christmas)

“A dating app?”

“Beatrice met Daniel on it.” She shrugged. “He’s taking her to Mexico next week. And…” Mom leaned forward. “…she says he doesn’t even need Viagra.”

“Oh my god, Mom.”

“I’m just saying. Do you know how awkward it is to have sex with a man and then have to just sit there for four hours with his raging erection? It’s like a dog that keeps humping the furniture and you have to pretend that it’s not a little repulsive and unnatural.”

My drink arrived and I just pushed all the limes into the glass and started drinking.

“What about Mark?” I asked. Mark was her latest gentleman friend. He’d renovated her bathroom a month ago and she’d been all over him. But the renovation was over and so, it seemed, was her enthusiasm for him.

She pursed her lips, shaking her head. “I’m telling you the Viagra really ruins things and he watches HGTV. How am I supposed to respect a man who watches HGTV?”

Mom liked her masculinity effortless and toxic. It was part of her charm.

“But enough about me.” Oh god, that was fast. “We need to talk about your marriage.”

I set down my drink. Considered ordering another. Considered actually getting up from the table and running away. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“It’s been a year, honey. A year right in the middle of your prime. You won’t always look like this, especially if you start drinking and having french fries for lunch. You can’t waste another year married to a man who doesn’t exist.”

“He exists, Mom.”

I’d woken up that next morning sore in all the right places. And there were pictures on my phone and a signed marriage license.

My dream man for one flawless night had been real. And then I woke up alone.

“You need to get on with your life. Find a real husband have him sign a prenup so you have real security.”

Right, because that worked out so well for you?

That’s what I would ask if I wanted to hurt her. And I didn’t want to hurt my mom. Not really. I mean, it would be nice to have some boundaries, but not if I had to hurt her.

Angelina Cuttington was a professional mistress.

Married once for five minutes in her youth to a stocky handsome boy who was killed in the army, she spent the rest of her life playing the part of expensive girl friend. Secret side-piece.

If you called her a working girl or, god forbid, a whore, she’d scratch your eyes out and I would help.

She never took money that wasn’t offered. She didn’t charge those men for her time If they felt like gifting her a little something special, then that was just sweet, wasn’t it?

She spent my entire childhood pawning expensive jewelry and mink coats. Taking last-minute trips to exotic places while Mrs. Murphy next door looked after me. She brought home half her dinners from fancy restaurants wrapped up in foil like swans and I ate it for breakfast.

To this day the smell of shrimp scampi makes me think of Sunday mornings.

Angelina Cuttington wasn’t even her name. She was born Trudy Colfax from Skokie, Illinois, and she ditched the name and the accent as soon as she got out to Vegas after her husband died.

I was Lexie Platzski. I was named after my father, a kind of big-deal politician from California—Max Platzski. Mom thought by giving me his last name, she could make him claim me. Publicly. Her big shot at stability.

Spoiler alert—he didn’t.

But his wife sent her fifty thousand dollars to shut up about it.

Anyway, real husbands and real prenups and real security were kinda the brass ring for my mom.

And I was the dummy who fell for a guy who was in Vegas for work, had the kind of night I never believed could be real. The kind of night that I only saw in movies. And then married him.

Married him. In a Vegas chapel that smelled like vomit and air freshener, like I didn’t know better.

I mean, that’s the kind of stuff tourists did. Not born and bred locals. Not women like me, who knew better. Swear to god, I knew better.

But Ethan…that guy had made a mess of me. First, those eyes. Blue like the sky over the desert in the evening, just before dark. The kind of blue that seemed deep. Like I could dive right in. And he had the kind of body that wore clothes well. Lean hips, wide shoulders. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and it was practically pornographic.

Did I mention the dimples?

Yeah. I mean, what was a girl supposed to do?

And then, the asshole had to be charming. And sweet. And fun. A lot of guys after a couple of shots of tequila get handsy or belligerent. He only got sweeter. Funnier. And still somehow…commanding.