Feels Like Falling - Kristy Woodson Harvey Page 0,28
trust.”
This time I felt an ironic laugh coming. “Oh yeah,” I said sarcastically. “My divorce is doing wonders for my ability to trust.” (Bitter divorcée had arrived for another visit.)
She rolled her eyes at me. “Not other people, honey. You. When the shit hits the fan, you’re the woman left standing; you’re the one left holding the bag. And you learn how strong you are. You figure out real quick that nobody’s going to fix your life but you. Nobody else is in charge of your happiness.”
That sounded plain lonely to me, and I braced myself for more tears.
Diana looked at me sideways. Again, no hug, no sympathy. But she was kind enough not to compare our situations. She easily could’ve pulled the You think you have problems? card, but that would’ve gotten us nowhere.
“Are you going to sit in your room and cry? Or are you going to get your ass up and take on the world?”
I’ll be honest. I wanted to sit in my room and cry. But then Diana got up to leave and said, “The only person who gets to pick how you feel is you.”
Was that true? Was I choosing this? And if I was, could I stop?
When I heard Diana’s footsteps again, I thought she had decided she was going to have to come extract me from my chair of pity. But then she appeared with a plate. It contained a Ritz cracker with a blob of something that I thought I remembered from my childhood as being Easy Cheese, pigs in a blanket, saltines with what appeared to be melted marshmallows on top, and those jalape?o poppers from the freezer that Wagner and his friends liked that I only let them eat when I needed cool mom points.
When I looked up, her face mirrored my confusion. “For your girls’ night,” she said. “Thought a taste test could get you out of here a little quicker.”
I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. I mean, uncontrollably, tears running down my cheeks in the best possible way, laughing at the idea of prissy, perfect party-planner-to-the-rich Mary Ellen walking into my house and, instead of being greeted by prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, grabbing a whing-ding, which is what my mom called saltines with cheese and a marshmallow on top.
Girls’ nights at Mary Ellen’s were always the most extravagant and over-the-top—and the most shared on social media. Every seemingly random get-together was a self-promotion opportunity. 9:08 a.m: “Arranging the flowers for #girlsnight with @grayhoward!” 10:42 a.m.: “Cupcakes for #girlsnight arrived from @spouterinnbakery. Aren’t they gorgeous?” 12:01 p.m.: “Putting the final touches on the bar for #girlsnight. Don’t you love paper straws? #partyon.” 12:14 p.m.: Block further notifications from @maryellenentertains.
I had two choices. I could run to Friendly Market and throw together a fancy cheese plate and try to salvage my friends’ opinions of my party skills. Or I could stick with Diana’s version of appetizers and not hurt her feelings. And her apps were kind of campy. There was a theme.
“Are you having some sort of fit?” Diana asked.
I think that was when I realized how much I’d made the past several months about everyone else. Walking into the club that first day had felt like getting a bad report card—and having it read over the PA system for the entire school to hear. I was Gray Howard. I was successful. I was self-made. My ultimate idea of success as a child had been being able to go to the Dollar Tree and pick out something I didn’t expressly need. But I had made it big. I was happy. I was proud. And I was acutely aware that there were more than a few people out there who couldn’t wait to revel in what was, to date, my largest failure.
When you are in a marriage—or a divorce—sometimes it’s impossible to see outside of it. When you’re in your house sitting across the kitchen table from the man who used to be your world trying to reconcile how he became a stranger in such short order, all you can think about is your intensely private anger and your very personal pain. You forget that you are going to be subject to the merciless scrutiny of the outside world, that the comments and questions and snide remarks being hurled at you from all directions can be almost as bad as your husband’s unfaithfulness. I knew I shouldn’t let other people’s opinions affect me. I shouldn’t care.