Dirty Little Midlife Disaster by Lilian Monroe
Trina
Candice was right.Allie and Clancy, Fiona’s stepdaughter, are more than happy to spend time with my kids—and the kitten, of course.
Mr. Fuzzles, despite my grumbling about taking care of a pet, hasn’t been a bad addition to the household. Last night, after the kids had gone to bed and I was zoned out watching The Bachelor on TV, he jumped up on the couch beside me and stretched his little body next to my thigh, curling his tiny white paws under his chin. It was the first time he’d approached me, and it made my heart thump harder than it should. When I used a gentle, timid finger to scratch behind his ears, he made the cutest purring sounds I’d ever heard while his tail flicked over and back across my thigh.
Then, out of the blue, he jumped off the couch, gave me a look over his shoulder that I can only describe as pure, unadulterated sass, and sauntered away. As if he knew he was winning me over. Little shit.
Now it’s Saturday afternoon, and Toby and Katie are playing outside with Allie and Clancy. I just got back from the salon with the girls, and I can only hope that Hamish did, indeed, batten down the hatches. These ladies are not messing around. It’s barely past six o’clock in the evening and we’ve already made our way through three and a half bottles of wine and an industrial amount of mini quiches. The charcuterie boards have long since been demolished.
While I sit at my vanity, Simone lounges on my bed and Candice peruses my closet. Fiona is in the bathroom doing her makeup while Jen reads a book on my armchair, legs hanging sideways off the arm as she waits for everyone to get ready.
Candice lets out a long sigh and finally turns to me. “Trina, can you do that thing you do where you wave a magic wand and make me look amazing?”
I frown, laughing. “What?”
“You know, you tuck my shirt in and cuff my jeans and then do stuff with accessories and hair and I go from frumpy and old to a super-hot MILF in like ten seconds?”
“You want me to style you?” I tilt my head.
“Yes!” She stands in the middle of my room and spreads her arms. “Fix this.”
I smile and do as she says. She’s wearing a silky, draped top with an asymmetrical neckline, but her skirt sits too low on the hips. It doesn’t show off her tiny waist at all. I tap my chin, then dig through my closet for a high-waisted, faux-leather skirt that will hit Candice just below the knees. I tell her to put it on. That skirt is hot. On me, it hits scandalous mini-skirt territory and used to make Kevin cluck about my age.
Once she has it on, it only takes a bit of tucking, a few bobby pins in her gorgeous ombre hair, and a touch more blush.
“There.” I stand back and smile.
“Holy shit.” Simone sits up on the bed, glass of wine dangling between her fingers. “Do me next!”
Candice moves to a mirror, looks at herself, then shakes her head and beams at me. “You are so freaking talented, Katrina. You should do this professionally.”
“What, dress people?” I snort and shake my head, but Fiona walks out of the bathroom and whistles.
“I’d pay for someone to tell me how to dress if I ended up looking like that,” Fiona says.
“Same.” Simone stands up and spreads out her arms. “Do me! Do me!”
Jen looks up and nods. “You could make it a business.” When I frown at her, Jen shrugs. “If I can bake, and Candice can do yoga, Simone can do social media and websites, and the four of us can run a café, then you can do that. People would pay.” Then she returns to her book.
I blink. For some reason, her words hit me hard. Jen isn’t the type of person to mince her words. She’s incredibly logical, methodical, and hearing her say that I’m good at styling… I don’t know. It means a lot. It shouldn’t, but it does.
So, I take a sip of wine and get to work. I put Simone in a gorgeous orange wrap dress that sets off her hair and eyes, then add lots of gold jewelry. Then Fiona puts on a tight, short-sleeved green top and the same slim-fitting black pants she had on before. Jen refuses my services, but she does let me touch up her makeup and when she glances in the mirror, I see a hint of a smile on her lips. The three others twirl and laugh and flick their hair, then tell me I’m a genius.
All I did was dress them, but sure. I’ll take the compliment.
I feel twenty years younger than I am right now. Girls’ night? I haven’t had a girls’ night in far, far too long. And I haven’t had someone actually appreciate the fact that I’m good at hair and makeup and styling clothes in even longer. I’d started to feel like my interest in “girly” things was something to be ashamed of. Lord knows Kevin mocked it often enough for me to doubt myself.
Never mind the fact that I managed all our household affairs and even did his bookkeeping and management before he got big enough to hire a team. But I learned that when you want to be typically feminine, you have to deal with people assuming that you left your brain at the door.
I smile, then turn to my closet and suddenly remember what I’m doing. I’m going to see Mac. I’m going to play pool. In his presence. At a bar. With all these crazy women egging me on.
Oh, no.
“What the hell am I going to wear?” I turn to my friends, panic suddenly rising inside me. What am I even doing? I should be spending time with my kids and making sure they’re okay with the divorce, not going out and meeting strange, sexy, pottery-throwing, motorcycle-riding hunks.
“Okay.” Fiona puts her glass of wine down and lifts her palms up, entering what I can only describe as Fiona Gets Down to Business Mode. “We’re going for sexy but not trying too hard, but so smoking-hot Mac won’t know what hit him. I want his jaw to hit the floor as soon as you walk in. I want him to forget how to speak. Your outfit needs to totally lobotomize him.”
“Yes. Big hair, big makeup, tight clothes,” Simone announces. “Hooker-chic.”
“Whoa, um, no,” I cut in.
“Oh! Wear that white bodysuit with the low back!” Candice says, eyes brightening. “You know the one. It’s super flattering and has those long sleeves and the low scoop. No cleavage, but damn sexy.”
I tilt my head. “With jeans and heeled boots. That could work.”
“Candice, be honest,” Simone says seriously. “Is it truly sexy? Is it lobotomy-inducing sexy?”
“The man’s brain will leak out of his ears. I promise. You haven’t seen my sister when she tries hard.”
Fiona chokes on her wine. “Wait…all this time, all these outfits I’ve seen you in—that’s you not trying hard?” She gapes at me, then at the rest of them. “Am I just a frumpy person, or is that not shocking to you all?”
I blush and try to hide how much I appreciate what they’re saying.
I am a girly girl, hear me roar!
Getting dressed distracts me from the worry of seeing Mac again. I give my hair a little zhoosh, curling it out a bit bigger than the stylist did as per Simone’s instruction, and brush on some smokey makeup as my wine glass gets filled and refilled as if by magic.
When the five of us are ready, we head downstairs. The kids are in the living room with Clancy and Allie, and my mother, Dorothy, and Margaret are in the kitchen eating dinner. I’m not quite sure when they arrived, but I have a sneaky suspicion they wanted to see the five of us off.
Dorothy whistles as my mother grabs her phone. “Photos! I want photos.”
“Mom, this isn’t prom.” I grab my purse from the kitchen counter and check for my things while my mother ignores me and starts creative-directing a photo shoot right there in the hallway.
Katie skips to me and wraps her arms around my waist. “You look like a princess, Mommy. So pretty.”
Annddd my heart melts. I place a soft kiss on my daughter’s head. “You going to be okay tonight without me?”
My sweet daughter who just called me a pretty princess rolls her eyes and snorts. I guess that answers that.
Then, with one last look at my friends and one last goodbye kiss for my kids—and fine, a little scratch behind Mr. Fuzzles's ears—I bid goodbye to the ladies in my kitchen and head for the waiting taxi. As I slip inside, crammed in the back seat with three others, I can’t help but smile.
It’s been ages since I’ve had a night out like this. Years. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I went out with girlfriends without worrying if Kevin would be okay with the kids—or as he called it, “babysitting,” even though they’re his own children—or without him turning his nose up at such “pedestrian” activities as going for a drink. If it wasn’t a gallery opening or a poetry reading, Kevin would act like it was beneath him.
But this…this is fun. And I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.
And maybe I’ve had too much wine, but when we arrive at the Grove and tumble out of the cab, I can’t help but laugh when Simone struts up to one of the many motorcycles parked outside and poses beside it. Fiona starts snapping photos—much like my mother was doing a few minutes ago—and I finally let go of that little niggle telling me I shouldn’t be doing this.
I’m a grown woman. I’m allowed to have fun. I may be recently divorced, but I’m not dead. I can go meet a sexy man at a bar if that’s what I feel like doing. I can learn to play pool in my forties. I can have nights to myself.
And—after fantasizing about that pottery class for nearly a week—I can say with complete honesty that this is exactly what I feel like doing.
