* * * * *
After my Dad left us when I was fourteen (rat-bastard number one in my life) and all us girls graduated high school, Mom took off to Phoenix like a shot. She hated the cold and the snow and all the familiar reminders of my father. She also liked to be tan but felt claustrophobic in sunbeds.
I had two older sisters. My oldest one, Marilyn, moved to St. Louis after high school and got married to a car salesman then divorced him and almost immediately got married to a lawyer with whom she was currently involved in a bitter divorce at the same time dating a doctor, thus moving up in her chosen career as trophy wife. So far Marilyn had managed to work approximately four months of her life and spent the rest of it in spas and malls and on her back with sweaty slimeballs pumping away at her. I knew this because she talked about her active sex life a good deal, a kind of gross good deal, read: ick.
My other sister, Sofia, moved to San Diego and became a cheerleader for the San Diego Chargers. Sofia worked her way through the offensive line and then the defensive line of the Chargers (something, I might add, she also did as a cheerleader in high school). Now, retired from her career as an active cheerleader and football player groupie, she was running a cheerleading camp and engaged to a sports agent who was more of a slimeball than both of Marilyn’s husbands put together and that was quite a feat, considering Marilyn’s husbands were seriously the scum of the earth.
By the way, my Mom had named us all, with high hopes, after Hollywood bombshells. My sisters had both been bombshells from puberty, all thick, dark, shining hair, big boobs, tight asses, flat stomachs, long legs and sultry eyes. I had to work hard at bombshell status, and even then didn’t quite make it because I was a big dork.
It was safe to say my sisters and I weren’t close.
Sissy Whitchurch was another story.
* * * * *
Sissy and I had been best friends since second grade and we were close. She was the bestest, best friend in the world. Good at keeping secrets, happy to rip my silly and sometimes mean sisters to shreds with me, loyal to the core and always up for an adventure.
One problem with Sissy, she had shit taste in men.
Though, considering good men were non-existent, all women didn’t have much choice.
However, Sissy’s husband, Dominic, was beyond the pale in the shit-men stakes. Dom was a world-class ass**le.
Dominic Vincetti was very good-looking (and knew it), made his money dubiously (and didn’t hide it) and treated Sissy like shit (and never apologized). He didn’t hit her, but he cheated on her (openly), walked all over her and talked down to her in a way that made my teeth go on edge.
Before Dom, Sissy was funny and sweet and there was no one in the world who was better to go to a rock concert with. She loved music like I did and she went wild at concerts, dancing, screaming, she always knew all the words to the songs and sang them loud.
After five years of marriage, Dom had forced all that good stuff out of Sissy, making her quiet, shy, uncertain and a homebody and Sissy didn’t even notice it was happening.
I noticed and it pissed me off.
Sissy loved him though and put up with it and it wasn’t my place to say anything. If she wanted him then I was there. My only other choice was to stop spending time with her and a life without Sissy, well, I couldn’t imagine it.
But when I changed, lost weight, dyed my hair, Dom noticed.
In fact, a lot of people noticed.
In fact, even though I’d dated when I was heavy, I started to get some serious male attention as the weight dropped off then more then more. Since Luke’s Dad’s funeral, I’d had my first three longish-term boyfriends. I must admit, in the dream world I had in the back of my head, they were all practice for Luke. Of course, I never told them that and I could have fallen in love with any one of them, if they hadn’t all turned out to be jerks.
There was Rick, who cheated on me (um, no).
Then there was Dave, who had a collection of p**n ography so big he could have opened his own store. And he called phone sex lines, like, a lot. Neither of these were bad things, as such. Except, phone bills over five hundred dollars month after month were a bit much. Not to mention, he wanted to have sex, like, twelve times a day, walked around na**d at all times and tried to get me to go to swingers parties (um, no again).
Then there was Noah who took my Auntie Ella’s jewelry and pawned it. This, I didn’t find out until he also took my ATM card, found out my PIN number and cleaned out my checking and savings accounts before he disappeared. Luckily, I had the inheritance money my Aunt Ella gave me in a different account. She gave me her jewelry and a shitload of money, but only gave Marilyn and Sofia a token, which pissed them off big time but they’d always been mean to her and I hadn’t, so f**k them.
See? All men were scum.
I wasn’t a bitter, twisted spinster. I’d put myself out there and I had reasons to think that, what with my choices, Sissy’s choices and my sisters’ choices, not to mention my f**king Dad, who’d left and never came back, that all men were scum.
* * * * *
After Noah took off, Dom started to flirt with me right in front of Sissy. I couldn’t believe it and did my absolute best not to rip his face off with my fingernails. However, there were a lot of times I wanted to rip Dom’s face off with my fingernails, not just when he was flirting with me but when he’d ask Sissy if she really should be eating that second slice of pizza, giving her a shitty look when he didn’t quite like the outfit she put on causing her to go and change it, getting pissy when he was served leftovers and the like.
Sissy ignored the flirting. So did I, passing it off as a joke.
Dom took this as a challenge. Dom was the kind of guy girls responded to mainly because he was really handsome which sucked, I figured he could use a scar or two, put there by my fingernails of course.
When I didn’t respond, he flirted more, started touching and, just two weeks ago he backed me into the corner of their kitchen and kissed me, open-mouthed.