“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-tilt, 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.