“I’m not nervous because it’s not a date.”
Julia rolls her eyes. “This is me, Daph. Lie to yourself if you want, but you can’t lie to me.”
“We’re just hanging out.”
“Andrew and I were just hanging out, too. And then all of a sudden we’d done anal and were shopping for a china pattern.”
Laughing, I say, “But you wanted to get married. After Aiden, I don’t want that anymore.”
“Aiden’s a tool. You guys would’ve broken up a lot sooner if our parents weren’t friends with his parents.”
She’s right, and it’s a sore spot for me. It shouldn’t matter what family he comes from, the guy broke my heart. But my parents want me to give him another chance.
“Yeah, Dad still wants him to be his son-in-law,” I say bitterly. “Even after he cheated on me.”
Julia sighs. “We both know Mom and Dad have shady moral compasses. You can’t make it in politics if you don’t.” She grabs the glass of wine she set on top of my dresser when she arrived and takes a drink, sitting down next to me on my bed. “Speaking of Mom, have you talked to her in the last few days?”
“No. She left some voicemails but I never listened to them. That’s probably why I’m in such a good mood.”
“You know how she makes dad’s Coms people update her on everything that hits the news about our family, right?”
“Yep.”
“Well, the good news is I think she’s over you getting back together with Aiden. But it’s because she got wind of the picture of Olivier going to your office and she’s pretty much planning your wedding with him.”
I cringe. “Fuck her. Seriously, she never had a care for how Aiden made me feel or what I want. All she cares about is having shit to brag to her bridge club friends about.”
“I just wanted to let you know. Let’s not let it ruin our good mood, okay?”
I grab her glass of wine, take a sip and pass the glass back. “I’m getting in the shower.”
“Take your time. I’m going to drink wine and lie here and enjoy the silence. No one asking me to come wipe their butt or get them a snack or read them a story. I’m going to turn something tawdry on TV that I can’t watch when the kids are around. Are the Real Housewives still a thing?”
“I don’t know,” I call from the bathroom, “but will you come wipe my butt?”
“Fuck you!” She shouts, as we laugh over the sound of the shower starting.
I undress and step into the shower, standing under the stream of hot water for a couple minutes. I’ve been busy from the moment I woke up this morning, which isn’t how Saturdays usually go for me. I like to sleep in and be lazy until at least noon. Sunday is usually my day to accomplish things.
There’s nothing left for tomorrow, though, because today I cleaned, did laundry, got groceries and hung a few new pictures in my apartment. It’s hard for me to admit it, but I am nervous.
I don’t want to want a man in my life. Aiden burned me hard, and that was just four months ago. Olivier is handsome, thoughtful, sweet, successful…and deep down, I know I shouldn’t hold his wealth against him. He also saved my life. He even charmed my bulldog grandmother, which is no small feat.
What’s not to like? I get why everyone around me is asking that.
The issue, I admit to myself as I lather up my hair with coconut-scented shampoo, isn’t that I don’t like him. It’s that I’m scared of liking him. I feel like a fool who vowed never to love again and then got all heart-eyed over the next man who crossed her path.
I can be hard-headed. I had to fight my mother so hard as a kid for things other children take for granted. When I wanted to play outside, she wanted me to practice piano. The year I wanted to donate my Christmas gifts to less fortunate children, she laughed and told me it was their parents’ fault they didn’t have more and that I was being ungrateful. I had to secretly try out for my school basketball team, because she forbade it, saying basketball was unladylike.
Nothing was easy for me. My mother wanted her daughters to be miniature versions of her, and that just wasn’t me. Stella and Julia didn’t do everything she wanted, but they did most of it. I was always the stubborn one.
Because of that, I grew into a woman who tends to dig her feet in first and ask questions later. It’s not all bad. Fighting for marginalized people comes naturally for me. I’ve lived on the other side of the coin, where everything is about who you know and how much money you have.