staying to help me with my homework?”
“Would you like me to, Lu?” he asks with the kind of expression that says a smirk isn’t far behind.
“No, she would not,” I almost growl.
“Of course!” Lulu’s attention swings my way, sort of like the kid out of the exorcist. She hasn’t had a tantrum in weeks, and I really could do without her having one right now. “I’ll get the cwayons.”
Seriously, anyone who has been in my vagina or came out of it needs to leave this room right now!
As much as I hold to the sentiment, this isn’t the kind of thing you should announce. Especially not in front of a four-year-old. No matter how much you’re feeling it. Not feeling my vagina but feeling severe frustration, the kind that makes my head feel like it’s about to explode.
“Uncle Carson is not staying to help you with your homework,” I declare firmly. “However, if you start your homework, and if he calls before arriving one evening this week, he may come and visit us.” Visit us in his own home. Honestly, this is like living in topsy-turvy ville. “Deal?”
“Deal,” Lulu agrees sullenly.
“You’ll have to give me your number.” Why does it sound like he thinks he’s won some kind of concession? I’m not doing it for him!
Maybe I’m not even doing it for Lulu.
“You can ring the landline,” I answer with just the smallest of snipes and a wiggle of my fingertips. “Off you go.”
Wednesday, in a week approximately three years long.
At work, Beth and I are scrupulously polite to each other, but the tentative friendship that was building seems to have disappeared over the weekend. The one time she tried to talk to me about it, I shut her down. I can’t talk about it, and I don’t want to hear about her experiences, either. She looked a little hurt. I expect she thinks I’m judging her, and I suppose I am, but not about how she chooses to live her life. If she wants to frequent sex clubs, who am I to tell her to do otherwise? She’s over twenty-one. She can make her own decisions, but what she can’t do is make decisions on my behalf.
I am disappointed that she would make plans for something as monumental (read: batshit crazy) as a trip to an “adult lifestyle club”—and yes, even in my thoughts, this travesty of a title gets ironic inverted commas—without asking me if I’d like to visit first! Because if she had asked me, we could’ve had a sensible conversation about it. A conversation full of hell no’s, but I deserved the choice, didn’t I? It doesn’t matter that I’d be as likely to accept that kind of invitation as I would a jaunt out on a boat to club a few baby seals to death.
Choice, Beth. Choice!
I’m trying to persuade myself that the invitation came from her heart. From a place of goodness. But, in which case, I have to think maybe her heart must be a pretty barren place.
Rich people. Again.
And, of course, rich people bring my mind back to Carson, almost full circle. I say full circle because he seems to be the one thing I can concentrate on without difficulty, my every thought seeming to begin and end with him.
Did I have a good weekend? Marta asked earlier. My mind slipped to Carson in all his weekend glory. The astonishment on his face as I’d blurted my big admission.
Shock that turned to delight.
Do I want a coffee? I think about Carson having a tea party with Lulu.
What did I think about the last session? Session = sex. Sex = Carson.
It never ends!
On the bright side, the strangeness between us hasn’t seeped into work, and Beth has had no qualms about me sitting in on her sessions. This morning during her counselling session with a woman named Sarah, I found myself pondering orthorexia. As someone who has viewed life through that lens, I know it can be an almost silent condition. On the outside, sufferers can appear healthy, though perhaps a little rigid with their eating plans. A passion for healthy eating can be easily excused by friends, even envied, until obsession sets in. It’s hard to envy extreme weight loss, as opposed to looking sexy in a pair of skinny jeans, and it becomes an obvious issue when you continually refuse to eat out with friends.
I fit the profile for sufferers. I’m somewhat of a perfectionist. A little anxious. I struggle when