Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff
Chapter Thirty-Five
“What’s so funny?” Sarah asks as she maneuvers around one of the piles between them so she can also peer into the box.
A shocked look comes over her face for a full fifteen seconds before she, too, busts out laughing.
I’m really hoping to finish the basket I’ve been working on for the last ten minutes, but now my curiosity is totally aroused. I toss the items in my hands—a giant bag of what looks to be used batteries—into the trash, then walk around the clutter until I can see into the box.
And like Nick and Sarah, it takes me several seconds to comprehend what I’m seeing. “Is that…?”
“Yeah,” Nick says with a wide grin. “It definitely is.”
“Huh.” I bend over to get a closer look. “And the blue one is—?”
“Yep. It’s definitely what you think it is,” Sarah says like she’s got some kind of insider knowledge.
And what do I know? Maybe she is an expert in sex toys—like apparently Aunt Maggie was. Because inside this chest is what has to be a lifetime supply of vibrators, fur handcuffs, and just about every other kind of sex toy one can imagine. Like, every kind. I had no idea vibrators came with a glitter option.
“Did she make these dance around at your breakfast dates, too?” I joke as I swipe a clump of hair out of my eyes.
“Now, that would have been a sight to see.” Sarah cracks up all over again. “What do you think we should do with them?”
“Um, throw them away?” I suggest in my most obvious tone. “I mean, do you really want to hang on to a vibrator Aunt Maggie used?”
The second the words leave my lips, all three of us start laughing again, because it’s not actually that big of a surprise to think about Aunt Maggie having a chest full of sex toys. What is a shock, though, are the breadth and variety of her selection.
“Honestly, most of these don’t even look like they’ve been used,” Sarah says, reaching down to pick up a giant veiny purple vibrator with an extra enhancement for clitoral stimulation. Which, not going to lie, are two words I never thought I’d use in a sentence when thinking about my aunt. “This one is brand-new.”
“Thank God,” Nick mutters from beside me.
I shoot him an incredulous look, but he holds up a hand in a wait-a-minute kind of gesture. “Don’t give me that look. I have absolutely nothing against female self-pleasure. Nothing. But I don’t want to imagine my friend, your sweet, old Aunt Maggie, having anything to do with that.”
I have to acknowledge that he has a point. “Yeah, I don’t really want to think about it, either.”
“Well, I think it’s cool,” Sarah says, picking up a bright blue anal plug—also still in its original packaging. “I mean, Aunt Mags lived the life she wanted to live. She traveled where she wanted to, hung out only with the people she wanted to, only did the things she wanted to. And if that included giving herself a whole bunch of regular orgasms with a pink vibrator—”
She grabs the vibrator in question—a long and slender wand, with balls of varying circumference placed at adjustable intervals along its length. “Then I say, more power to her.”
I snicker. “I take it you mean that literally.”
She giggles as she tosses the unopened vibrator back in the chest. “At least now we know what Angela meant when you mentioned she took a chance inviting you to the Stella and Dot party, since it wasn’t really Aunt Maggie’s style.”
My eyes go wide as I remember puzzling over the strange comment. “You don’t think this is what she meant, do you?”
“I think it’s exactly what she meant,” Sarah answers. “I’ve been to enough bachelorette parties in Newark to recognize Lovewinx and Pure Romance as two different at-home-sales brands.”
“And Maggie went to enough of these that women in the neighborhood knew to invite her?” Nick asks, his dark-brown eyes looking slightly bemused.
“There’s a couple thousand dollars’ worth of products in here easy,” Sarah says as she bends down and picks up a giant gold vibrator that looks more like an ancient scepter than it does an instrument of female pleasure. “So my guess is yeah.”
I look more closely and realize my sister is right. There are a lot of products in this trunk, and all the ones I can see are completely unopened. “You don’t think she went to those parties just because she was lonely, do you?”
“Ummmm, she has a trunk full of sex toys to prove just the opposite.”
“Yeah, but even you said they aren’t used. What if she just bought them so people would keep inviting her to the parties, so she wouldn’t have to be on her own all the time?” Suddenly I feel incredibly guilty for all the weekends I planned to get over here to see her and then couldn’t because something came up with Karl or the firm or the life I built for myself in New York.
“I said most of them weren’t used,” Sarah reiterates. “Not all of them. Because judging from the state of these two—” She holds up a short, fat vibrator in a vivid green and another, longer one that sparkles. “They’re very well used.”
“Good on her, then,” Nick says.
No one is laughing now, and I find myself nodding along to Nick’s pronouncement. Hey, it’s kind of cool to realize a woman as old as Aunt Maggie still thought of herself as a sexual being. Especially since I felt like that part of me has been dead for longer than I’d like to admit—right up until someone started to bitch about the length of my grass.
“So what do you think?” Sarah asks after she tosses the used vibrators in the trash. “Should we donate the brand-new ones or throw them away?”
I have no idea. Is it even legal to sell or give away someone’s sex toys? Forget the HOA; do I really want the police on my front porch? That would definitely make the tristate local news and kill any chance of getting a fair divorce settlement.
“Don’t stress, sis. I’ll take them,” Sarah says, sweeping several sex toys still in their original packaging into one of the empty boxes. “I’ve sworn off men, not orgasms.”
I have absolutely no idea what to say to that. Judging by the amused but still wide-eyed look on Nick’s face, neither does he. The universe, however, finally smiles on me and my doorbell rings, rescuing me from having to say anything more.
I hustle down the front staircase, eager to get to the door before the porch ends up eating a human sacrifice. Who would ignore all the signs I left? Prepped to yank the person inside, I throw open the door. My mom stands on the other side in a pale-pink sheath dress and matching bolero jacket. On her face is a stiff almost-smile. In her hand is the extra-large roller suitcase sitting next to her.
“Really, Mallory,” she says as she walks inside, leaving her suitcase on the porch—no doubt for me to bring in. “You’re going to scare your visitors half to death if you answer your front door like that.”
Fuck.
So much for the universe being on my side for once. Part of me figures that at least it can’t get worse, but I know better than that.