one
goldie
I hatedmy stupid vaginafor loving it
“And Ilovethe smell of freshly baked bread. All day. And even at nighttime, too.” My cheeks burn from the devotion to my phony ass smile. “So good. I absolutely love it.” Actually, Ido notlike smelling like I just gangbanged a bunch of French baguettes; it makes me unusually hungry, and outside of your sock slipping off your heel while your sneaker is still on, is there anything worse than feeling starved all day long? Ugh. Still, my smile gleams.
Delilah pushes a strand of dark hair off her forehead, slick with sweat. “Oh don’t worry,” she smiles cheerfully. “It’ll make you wannavomin no time. But then you’ll circle back to liking it.” She shrugs. “That’s what happened to me.”
I nod, keeping my faux smile plastered on.Ifthat happens to me, then there’s no point in telling her I’m already at the nausea stage. “Thanks again for renting me the space.”
Delilah’s eyes flick to Jett, my best friend’s one-year-old who I’m watching this morning. “I love that age. They’re so easy to have fun with.” She retrieves her cellphone from the back pocket of her jeans, and I keep my phony smile plastered on because mysingle-at-thirty-sevensenses tell me I’m about to be barraged with kid photos.
“These are my boys,” she says, flashing me her screen. There are two little boys, I don’t know the age. Not in diapers but definitely still of the age to cry about food being cut in the wrong shape.
“Ahh,” I shriek, “they’re adorable.” It’s not a lie; the little dark-haired boys in the photo are cute. But beyond confirming that, I don’t really know what else I’m supposed to say here. Pushing out my hip, I adjust Jett as he clings to my sweat-dampened tank top.
Delilah stashes her phone away. “Well, it’s lunch rush down there so I better get back.” She taps the paper bag on my tiny kitchen table. “Three days tops on this.”
“Thank you so much, Delilah,” I say, feeling more gratitude than I have in a while.
Over food.
She brought a bag of fresh breads, soups, salad, and a couple of premade sandwiches from her deli downstairs. It’s still so strange to me to be treated with such generosity by a stranger. That shit never happened when I was living in the city.
I once stood up on the subway to smooth my skirt so it wouldn’t be wrinkled by the time I got to work, and in those ten seconds, I had my seat stolen. That same day, a savage pigeon plucked the entire chicken breast from my plate as I sat in the sun eating lunch. Now, I’m in a small town with kind people who want to know me simply because I’m in their orbit, and there doesn’t seem to be any burglarizing, vicious birds either.
It’s wild.
With a smile and an obligatory goodbye wave, Delilah slips down the narrow staircase to her deli below.
I may not want to bake bread and sell sandwiches or even be a mother, but there is an ugly part of me that twists with jealousy at how accomplished Delilah is, and I’m pretty sure she’s younger than me to boot.
Sheowns a business.Iam unemployed after being terminated from the job I worked so hard to get.
Shehas two children.I’vereplaced the batteries in my vibrator three times in the last two months.
“Nope,” I say in a lighthearted voice that does notat allrepresent the storm in my brain. “Comparison is the thief of joy. We aren’t going to do that, are we Jetty?” I ask the baby because that’s what all sane, grounded, adult women do, right? Seek emotional confirmation, stability and conversation from a baby.
Yikes.
But I stop from tripping down my self-loathing rabbit hole because as I’m lowering Jett to the ground, passing him some slobbered-on baby toys, the door at the base of the stairs creaks open.
“Motherfucker,” a deep, gruff,nipple-hardeningvoice bounces up the walls. I look at my watch. It’s ten past noon. Beau should be here to deliver and assemble my bed, but that’s not Beau. He wouldn’t curse knowing Jett’s up here. Before I can make it to my open door to peer down at my visitor, my phone lights up with a text message.
Beck:Don’t be mad. I needed Beau at the studio. But he’s sending someone to deliver and assemble your bed.
Sending someone? I snatch my phone from the table and my fingers scatter across the digital keyboard in a heartbeat.
Goldie:Someone?! Sending someone?! You do realize I have your son with me, right? You can’t just be sending an ax murderer bed builder off Craigslist up to my apartment when I’m all alone WITH YOUR CHILD!
Beck:It’s not a stranger. Sorry babe–I’ll text you when Beau’s on his way to grab Jett. Thanks again for watching him.
Beck:He loves his Aunt Goldie!
Before I can respond, those heavy footsteps are done climbing stairs and in their wake, engulfing the doorway, is Atticus, the friend and coworker of Beck’s boyfriend, Beau.
I let my phone fall to my loveseat with a thunk. Stacking my arms over my chest, I pinch my focus on him and am immediately annoyed that he does the same to me.