#TripleX Read online

  My plan was to “work on myself.” Meaning, I was going to read a ton of trashy, depth-lacking books, wear my hair in a ponytail, and maybe clean out a cupboard or closet. If I got really crazy, then I planned on working on next year’s curriculum since I’m getting a new class of sophomore hoodlums who won’t be able to spell their own names without looking down at the name on their McDonald’s nametag. I couldn’t possibly take a road trip. That was not on my agenda. I did not veer from the schedule, the norm, people’s expectations of me. I did what I was told, when I was told.

  If Christine showed up at my house, then we’d go to dinner, get some froyo, and drown our sorrows in vats of cabernet. Then, she could get back in her car and drive her flabby butt right back to New York to start on her next book, because she and I did not belong in Vegas with tofu-eating, lemon-water sipping, and 5K running authors who ride male models for Tuesday fun. We belonged in our homes in our sweatpants and oversized bedazzled Lane Bryant clothes, writing about sexy, skinny, smart-mouthed bitches, who orgasmed on command while we dreamed of threesomes with Ben and Jerry.

  “Mom? If I stick a sock in my butt will that mean I can fart out my mouth instead?” my 8-year-old son asked, bringing me out of my reverie.

  “Of course not. Who told you that? That’s just stupid. If it comes out your mouth, it’s a bur… why are we even having this conversation?” I asked, feeling the stress of parenting creeping back up on me. How many days until they left for Michigan?

  “That’s what Miles said.”

  “I told you before that kid’s an idiot. So are his parents. Stop hanging out with him.” Yeah, I’m not getting the mother of the year award. Or teacher of the year. Or wife of the year.

  “But what happens if you do stick socks up your butt?”

  “Ya know what? Grab an old pair of your dad’s socks that are still in the drawer and give it a shot. Then, we’ll both know,” I sighed, closing and locking the bathroom door.

  I held my phone in my hand, underwear around my ankles, sitting on the toilet, staring at my most recent outgoing calls: Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Christine, Matt, my brother, take out, Matt, take out, take out, take out, Matt. Then, I slid my finger over and viewed the incoming calls, calls that I missed: the vet, Christine, my brother, the school’s all-call system, Christine, and my neighbor, Pete.

  Apparently, Matt was serious about “needing space” and “time to think.” He answered his phone every single time I called his. Every. Single. Time. Matt was reliable and would do anything for our three boys—anything. However, he must’ve had one of those special one-way phones, because he had not called me once—not once—since he left three weeks earlier.

  “Mom! Evan stuck my pencil up his nose and now there’s boogers and snot all over it. I was doing my hooooomework!” my oldest son, Kevin, yelled through the closed door.

  “Kevin, can’t you just use a different pencil… or a pen?” I bellowed back, reaching for the toilet paper. “Or use a sanitizing wipe to clean it off. Can I ever pee in peace?”

  Son-of-crotch! Seriously? Can anyone in this house ever change the empty toilet paper roll? Opening the cabinet, below the sink, I rummaged for a new roll. Mother-effer!

  “Kevin, can you grab some toilet paper from the other bathroom?” I screamed, feeling the frustration building.

  Silence.

  Silence.

  “Kevin!”

  Silence.

  “Evan!”

  Silence.

  “Bryce!”

  Silence.

  Welcome to parenthood! Well, let me correct myself, welcome to MOTHERHOOD. God knows fatherhood isn’t nearly as hard as motherhood. I bet Matt never found himself sitting on the pot without an ample amount of toilet paper. God Almighty, how did forty hit this fast? I swear to God, I was just doing body shots off of hot frat guys in college and dancing on barstools with my friends. The only dancing I did now was the bee-bop dance step I do when I’m trying to get my pants down fast enough, so I don’t pee before I sit down. The only shots I did lately were of nighttime cough syrup when I was out of Xanax. God, I used to have so much fun. I was the wild and crazy one who’d do anything for a laugh or a “good story.” Not so much now.

  What was I doing now? Drip-drying enough to run upstairs to finish going to the damn bathroom. I think this is all some kind of sick joke. Sure, you know that when you get married that you’re giving half of yourself to someone else. Sure, you even realize that when you have kids, you’re basically giving all of yourself to whomever comes shooting out of your lady parts with loud wails, covered in “birthy goop.” What you don’t realize, never even think about, is that if you’re giving all of yourself to others, then there is nothing left for you.

  Not one damn thing.

  Walking to the master bathroom, I opened the cupboard and lost my ever-loving mind. Screaming and bitching to nobody in particular, I shucked off my clothes, threw them into the hamper, and grabbed a handful of dried up baby wipes. Sitting back down on the toilet, I grabbed my phone and dialed Matt.

  He answered immediately. “Hey Babe, everything okay?”

  “No! Everything is NOT okay,” I screeched into the phone. “But how would you even know that? You just upped and freaking left—like it’s not a big deal that your wife and three kids are left here to fend for themselves. Do you know how much crap I have to deal with and put up with… while… while you’re just having a ball in Michigan?”

  “Ang, why’re you doing this?” he asked, in his tired, worn-out voice. “You told me to go. You insisted that I come up here… you’re… you’re the one who wanted this.”

  “Oh… so now I wanted it?” I screamed, feeling my anger and tension exploding. “Did you or did you not tell me that you thought we needed some space—some time to think?”

  “Ang, you always do this. That is not… not even close to what I said. You said that you needed a change. You weren’t happy. So, I told you about this opportunity, and you told me to go. I thought you and the boys would come with me!” he argued. Silence filled the phone line between us. I heard the heaviness in his breath. Sighing, he said, “When you completely stopped talking to me… stopped touching me… I said that maybe you were right and that we should think about things and give each other some space.”

  “See! Exactly!” I cried, my voice shrilling. “You need time. You need space. What about what I need?”

  “I thought that this is what you wanted?” he sighed. “Say the word… just say it, Angelisa, and I’m back home. I never wanted to be away from you like this.”

  “No, I’m not forcing you to come back here,” I stated, angrily. “I don’t even know if I want you back here.”

  But I did.

  I really did.

  But I thought the reasons that I wanted him back were the wrong reasons. I wanted him to take out the trash. I wanted him to take the boys to soccer, mow the lawn, and fix the air conditioner. I wanted him to clean out my car and fill the gas tank. But that was it. Lately, that’s what it had become—a partnership, a working marriage, a business agreement. I couldn’t even say that it was like we went from being passionate lovers to being friends. We weren’t even really friends anymore. We hardly even spoke or spent time together. Forget the lovers and sex part. Not even close.

  “I don’t know what you want. I feel like I just can’t read you anymore,” he admitted.

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing, I don’t want or need anything… wait… that’s not true. I need some fucking toilet paper,” I said, disconnecting the call and flushing the toilet.

  Washing my hands, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Nobody ever told me that once you hit middle age that you broke out in moles all over your face and neck. What in the world was that all about? God forbid the dermatologist have any open appointments between now and the turn of the next century. Looking at my face, I noticed a long, black hair protruding out of my chin. It was at least two or three inches in length.
It was not there yesterday. Heck, it wasn’t there this morning when I brushed my teeth. Where in the world did that thing sprout from? I grabbed my tweezers and yanked it out immediately, noticing another one on my cheek—near my ear. God, give it a day or two, and people might mistake me for a freaking yeti.

  Leaning in closer, I examined the lines on my forehead. I refused to call them anything other than “lines.” Lines could tell a story—my story. Lines could have a positive spin. There was no “positive” to the other word. Hell, it’s not like they had facial irons to get rid of my “lines.”

  Holy crap!

  That was what I needed to do for sure. Create a facial iron! I’d make millions and get to retire from my thankless and penniless teaching job that students weren’t really benefiting from anyway. I’d be the face of the age-defying facial iron, the envy of everyone resembling a Shar-Pei.

  “Mom, what’s for dinner?” Bryce, my youngest son, wondered, barging in the bathroom. He eyed me suspiciously as I scrutinized my face.

  “Spaghetti and meatballs,” I answered, pulling my skin back, tightening the flesh on my forehead.

  “Again? I haaaaate spaghetti. Can I just have peanut butter?” he asked, dropping his pants to the floor and peeing in the toilet behind me.

  “Bryce! Watch what you’re doing. You’re getting pee all over the floor,” I groaned, grabbing a sanitizing wipe.

  “I can’t help it. It just builds until it explodes,” he whined, shaking himself off and zipping his pants.

  “Listen to me, you have got to control that. You start Kindergarten in August. You can’t just pee all over the bathroom floor… and you need to make sure you just pull your pants down a little, so everyone can’t see your butt,” I said, wiping the floor and toilet seat. Christ, can’t Matt be here to teach this kid how to pee? Why was it my job to teach a boy how to pee with proper public bathroom etiquette?

  “Why? What’s wrong with my butt?” Bryce asked, bending over.

  “Mom! Evan farted on my retainer again,” Kevin yelled, walking into the bathroom.

  “Did not!”

  “Yes, you did. I saw you and heard you.”

  “Kevin, why was the retainer out of your mouth again?” I asked, sighing and watching the skin under my chin jiggle with each syllable. “The orthodontist said not to take it out—ever.”

  “He takes it out when he calls Olivia,” Evan goaded.

  “Do not.”

  “Do too. What’s for dinner, anyway?” Evan asked. “Don’t say spaghetti either. We have that allllll the time.”

  I met Matt my junior year of high school. We had study hall together. He was the only other student in my study period who ever opened a book. The other kids in the class were there to sleep off their hangovers from the night before or plan when to hook up after school to smoke pot. Matt and I convinced our study hall monitor to let us go to the library every day instead of fearing for our lives with the dregs of humanity.

  Studying in the library, quickly turned into studying in my bedroom after school, which quickly turned into studying my vagina in my bed. We worked fast and moved fast, but Hell, it paid off. I married him during our junior year of college after a six-month breakup where I drowned every one of my woes in Vodka and guys with Greek letters across their chests.

  I remembered not being able to breathe or really function when we first broke up back then. It was the most devastating thing I’d ever endured—still to this day. I lost weight. My hair was falling out in chunks, and my grades started slipping. Then, one night, my friends convinced me to go out and drink my woes away. Surprisingly, it worked. The taste of a lemon drop on my tongue mingled with a guy named Tom in my pants really made a girl forget her ex-boyfriend. I partied the pity away. I drank the doldrums gone. And, I never thought about going back to Matt.

  Until…

  Jessie Andrews.

  Once I saw him on campus two or three times with his tongue down her throat, I saw red—a deep raging, full of homicidal thoughts red. I wanted her dead. I wanted him back in a major, envy-filled way. Rocking shorter skirts and plunging necklines and grinding with guy after guy on the dance floor in front of Matt and Jessie achieved my goal. Matt came running back and no sooner were we back together, we were engaged and ready to start our life together.

  Against our parents’ wishes and cries of “you’re too young,” we took off to Vegas and got married. What were too young for? Sex? Bills? Mutual bank accounts and our very own vacuum cleaner? No, those weren’t the things that we were too young for.

  We were too young to be sure of the exact path we wanted to be on for the rest of our lives. Too young to say, “Yeah, this is the man that I want to hear snore and grunt every night for the next 50 years.” Too young to know that never again would I be able to feel the freedom and joy of just being me—not caring what anyone else thought or how it impacted him. Too young to know that every decision I made from that moment on would need to be agreed upon by another human being “until death do us part.” Too young to know that “until death do us part” was a long damn time.

  When Matt left three weeks earlier for Michigan, all I felt was relief. That was how I knew we’d made the right choice. We didn’t work anymore. We weren’t those two young and crazy kids any longer. We were adults who’d drifted and distanced themselves from each other, creating a rift too big to repair. And, it didn’t really bother me. I was completely complacent with the whole decision.

  Matt was in Michigan. My boys were going to spend the entire summer with him. I was going to be alone, really alone, for the first time in almost nineteen years. I was going to have nearly three months all to myself. Me. My time. Why was I not going to do exactly what I wanted—what I thought? But what did I think? I’ll tell you what I thought. I had one thought and one thought only.

  Fuck forty!

  “What’re you doing?” Christine said, just as I answered the phone.

  “I just got home. I spent the day plotting my new book with Pete,” I explained, pulling out pork chops to defrost for dinner. God forbid, we have spaghetti tonight too.

  “Okay, I know I’ve said this before, but I just think it’s bizarre that you plot your erotic stories and scenes with your neighbor-guy down the street,” Christine claimed, for the five-hundredth time since I met her.

  “His name is Pete, not ‘neighbor-guy.’ And I told you before that he has great ideas—really great ideas. He’s got a kinky mind,” I said, trying to make her understand.

  “I think you want him,” she said, like she always did.

  “We are just friends,” I replied.

  “You told me you thought he was hot,” she argued.

  “I do think he’s hot. What’s the big deal? I’ve always been into bald guys.”

  “Bull crap,” she countered, “nobody is into bald guys. People only say they’re attracted to bald guys when the guy they’re into just so happens to be bald. Just like when a girl says that size doesn’t matter. We all know that it does—it so does. When a girl says that, we all know she’s screwing a shrinky-dink.”

  “It’s not like that with Pete. I’ve told you before. It’s completely platonic,” I stated, turning the meat over in the microwave. “We are just friends… and he’s really helpful. My last book wouldn’t have been so great if he hadn’t fixed that last sex scene.”

  “That last sex scene is what makes me think he’s into you and waaaayyy too kinked out… nobody does crap with a whisk and hot peppers like that,” she shrieked.

  “Wrong! Since that book released, nine people have told me they tried it… and liked it,” I said, laughing.

  “He wants you. Has he ever hit on you—tried to kiss you—anything like that?” Christine pried, accusingly.

  “Never. Not once,” I answered, emphatically.

  “Touched you? Anything?”

  Silence.

  Silence.

  Silence.

  “Well…”

  “Well what?” Chr
istine screamed into the phone.

  Sighing, I decided to tell her something I hadn’t voiced to anyone ever. “Pete… well he… ummm…”

  “Damn it Angelisa, tell me! What does Pete do?”

  “He thinks better if… if… he’s rubbing and massaging my feet,” I admitted, cringing at the confession and absurdity of it all.

  “Are you fricking kidding me? This guy rubs your bare feet and talks to you about kinky, erotic sex scenes, and you think that’s platonic and that he’s not into you? How damn naïve are you?”

  “I’m not naïve,” I explained. “It’s like when I think and write better while I’m chomping on M&Ms. My feet are his M&Ms.”

  “Oh my God, you are the dumbest person on the planet. Let me ask you this… does Matt know about your platonic plotting sessions with Pete McFeet?”

  “No!”

  “Does he know that you go down to his house every day?” Christine asked.

  “I mean, he knows we’re friends,” I side-stepped the question.

  “That’s not what I asked. If it’s so platonic, then why don’t you tell Matt about it,” she questioned rationally.

  “That’s a very good question Ms. Stone. If you were hiding something from your husband, then you had to know that it was wrong. There was some part of you that knew you shouldn’t be sneaking around with your neighbor,” the judge states, interrupting my story.

  “Oh, you don’t even know the half of it, Your Honor. Just wait until she gets to what happened with Pete McFeet. Just wait. Classic,” Christine giggles.

  “Ms. Stone, I hope for your sake that your husband is now aware of your friendship with your gentleman friend,” the judge eyes me sternly.

  “Yes Ma’am,” I admit, dropping my eyes and giggling.

  “Is there something I’m missing, ladies?” she asks.

  “So much. We’re just getting started,” Christine explains.