Bad Mommy

“Oh yeah, what did she say?”

“She’s getting divorced. She sounded pretty bad. I guess he’s going for full custody of their son.”

Jolene spun around, her face contorted. “Is she okay?”

Darius shrugged. “She’s pretty depressed. She tried to commit suicide once a few years ago, so you never know with her. She asked if I’d be in town soon.”

I was just wondering where “in town” was, when Jolene said, “She still lives in Miami?”

Darius nodded. “I told her I was going to be there for a conference next week, and she asked if we could have coffee.”

“You should see her,” Jolene said. “If she has no one else, maybe you can help.”

Darius’s eyes flashed like he was angry she’d suggest such a thing.

“She’s my ex-girlfriend, Jolene. Doesn’t that matter to you?”

Her chin jutted defiantly as her eyes filled with tears. “No, of course not. I trust you. If she’s in trouble, you’re equipped to help. You’re a psychologist, for God’s sake.”

“I’m sure she has help,” he said under his breath, turning away and pouring himself another drink.

I stood as still as I could, afraid that if they remembered I was there all of this would stop.

“It was just a suggestion, Darius. I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said, softly.

Darius leaned with his back against the counter, running the rim of his glass across his lower lip. He was different in that moment, perhaps too much to drink. I shivered at the wild look in his eyes.

“She still has feelings for me. Is that what you want, Jo? For her to come on to me so you can do your own thing?”

“That’s sick,” Jolene spat. She stood up from the table, her phone falling to the kitchen floor with a loud bang.

“Not that I’d say no. She’s still sexy as fuck.”

I felt a surge of jealousy toward this Rachel girl. I wanted to see her, know what she looked like.

Jolene’s face turned a bright shade of red. I expected her to lash out, maybe yell at him, but instead she walked calmly to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water.

“Whatever you want, Darius.” Her eyes were glued to his face as she unscrewed the cap on the bottle and took a sip. Was she suggesting that he wanted Rachel? It was sort of hypocritical when you knew what she was up to with Ryan.

“I’m going to go take a shower,” he said. “That’s what I want.”

After he left we just stood there in silence, both of us too afraid to look at the other. What just happened?

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“No,” she snapped, and I thought I saw her swipe away a tear. “He told me that he wants to fuck another girl in front of my friend.”

“He didn’t mean anything by it,” I said. “He was just joking around.”

“Fig, you have a skewed view of Darius. I know you … respect him. But, you don’t know him.” She was red in the face, her lips a pale thin line. I thought of all those women who posted on her fan sites and wondered what they would think if they could see her now: ugly and flustered. Deeply human. No one would be running out to get tattoos of her words if they could see her being this pathetic. I briefly considered taking a picture of her just like this and posting it somewhere. She’d know it was me.

“You want to fuck Ryan,” I shot back. “How is it any different?”

Her mouth opened and closed as she blinked at me. “I’ve never once said that.” Her voice was clipped; it made me afraid that she was angry with me.

“I know,” I stumbled. “I was just saying—you probably have. It’s human to wonder what it’s like to be with someone you’re close to, sexually.”

She cocked her head and something crossed her eyes too quickly for me to decipher.

“I love Darius. I want to be with Darius. What you and I have said about Ryan is just girl talk, do you understand?”

I nodded. “Of course, but just saying. Men are men. They want to fuck pretty girls. He loves you. It was just something careless he said.”

“You don’t know him,” she repeated. It made me really, really angry.

I thought of the line in Funny Girl when Rose said to Fanny: When you look at him, you only see what you want to see. And Fanny’s response: I see him as he is. I love him as he is!

She didn’t know him like I knew him. She pushed and prodded and nagged at him until he shut down. He wasn’t happy; I knew that and Darius knew that. Jolene was living in some sort of fantasy world. I saw all of the parts of him that he was too afraid to show her. And thank God for that—he needed someone who understood him. Besides, I thought what he said about that Rachel girl was funny. We all wanted to fuck someone we weren’t supposed to. Whenever I met someone new I pictured myself having sex with them. A habit I developed as a teenager. If Jolene thought that Darius only fantasized about her, she was living in Lala Land.

The first thing I did when I got home was dig Nubby out from the back of my spice cabinet. I hid him in an empty bottle of paprika through most of my marriage. George was staunchly against vibrators, insisting they ruined women for the real thing. But, in eight years together, George hadn’t been able to give me an orgasm. I’d purchased Nubby from one of those online sex shops, stressing for days over when it would arrive in the post, and if George would intercept the package. When it finally arrived I’d carried it straight up to my bedroom and had my first orgasm in years. In the subsequent weeks, George made several comments on what a good mood I’d been in lately. I introduced new spices into my diet, I told him. I read about them in a magazine.