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★☆★☆★
“Can you call Cara?” I choked out.
The silence on the other end of the phone let me know I was most likely putting my mom out by asking her for such a favor.
“Please?” I begged.
I heard my mother huff. “What should I tell her?”
“Just tell her to let our boss know I won’t be in.”
“Okay, Miranda. What’s her number?”
I rattled off Cara’s cell number to my mom, and then lay back down after she’d hung up.
It seems a couple weeks after my date with Sean, and after trying to be cordial but distant to him at work, I’d developed some kind of bacterial infection.
Why did my immune system suck so badly?
It was some kind of cold or flu that had turned into full-blown meningitis and I was on my third day of my hospital stay. It had started Friday night. I was running a fever and could barely care for Ashlynn. I’d finally had to call my parents and ask for some help. Cara and Aiden had come over and helped me out, but as Saturday rolled around, and then Sunday, and I was still sick, Cara had dragged my stubborn ass to the hospital, where they quickly admitted me.
Now it was Monday, and while I was feeling better, my boobs were killing me. The hospital had lent me a breast pump, but it really wasn’t helping. My mother had called me no less than six times to let me know that Ashlynn was screaming for me, and pretty much on a hunger strike since she refused a bottle. And then at the end of the second day, she had succumbed to a sippy-cup of milk and some mashed potatoes and had crashed in exhaustion. I had a horrible amount of “mommy guilt” about this, but there wasn’t anything I could do. The hospital staff wouldn’t let my parents bring her to visit. In fact, I couldn’t have any visitors until I’d been on strong antibiotics for a few days. It was lonely, and was happy to have my laptop and phone with me to keep me company.
By Tuesday morning, I was feeling better. Sadly, my milk supply had pretty much dwindled to nothing, and the infection was gone. They released me from the hospital. My parents came to get me.
My dad hugged me. “You okay, princess?” he asked, studying my face.
I nodded, clutching my overnight bag. “Yes, daddy. I’m much better.”
“Mama!”
I looked over and saw Ashlynn squirming to get out of my mother’s grip. She barreled into my arms. I held her tight and kissed her dark hair. “I missed you, sweet pea.”
She laid her tiny head on my chest and I felt a tear slip out of my eye.
Jason had called once to ask if he could come by for a visit, but I had told him I was in the hospital. I told him my parents had her, but since my mother wasn’t a fan of his for whatever reason (I would never understand her reasoning about anything), he decided he’d come by for a visit at a later date. I guess I needed to call him. But selfishly, since I hadn’t seen my daughter in almost four days, I was not in a hurry to. I knew deep down this was wrong, because Jason hadn’t seen her either, but I wanted to have her to myself for a couple of days.
I called in sick again on Tuesday and spent the day resting. Ashlynn did not ask to nurse once. In fact, she seemed totally disinterested in it completely. She used to lift up my shirt when she was hungry, but now she took the sippy-cup just fine. And while this made me a little sad, deep down I knew it was for the best. I had been ready for her to wean for a while, but I guess it took something like me being sicker than a dog to get it to happen. I laughed a little at her stubbornness and hoped it wasn’t an omen of her personality.
***
I dipped a piece of bread into the fondue pot of cheese and shoved it in my mouth. I watched as Cara lifted her fondue fork and let the cheese drizzle off into the pot before gingerly biting into the apple she had dipped in. After I took a sip of wine, something hit me.
“Why are we hanging out here on a Friday night stuffing our faces when we could be going out?”
Cara’s eyebrows knit together in thought as she set her wine glass down. “Huh. You’re right.”
Our kids were with their fathers. We had been hanging out on the weekends together, and the nights the kids were not with us, we still hung at her house or mine, watching movies or just drinking and talking. We’d been doing this for over six months. The kids were now over a year-and-a-half old, and for whatever reason, this thought never occurred to us.
How lame were we?
I took another bite of cheese and craned my neck around to look at the clock on the stove. It was 8:54 p.m. I looked back at Cara. She had a grin on her pretty face, and I’m sure I had one on mine.
“You know, there’s a bar here in town I hear people at working talking about.”
She turned her head to the side. “Oh yeah? Do we dare?”
I looked at her gray sweat shorts and pink tank top. “Yes, but you definitely can’t wear that.”
She snorted as she spied my cotton elastic waist capri pants and T-shirt that had the prison logo on it. She pointed her wine glass at me. “You’re one to talk.”
We started laughing and made our way to my room. Unfortunately, none of my clothes fit her. She was way smaller on the bottom and more busty, while I had bigger hips and legs and a smaller chest. We were literally polar opposites.
“Okay, I’m gonna change, and then we’ll go to your house and find something to wear.”
It didn’t take me long, and soon, after stopping by her little duplex to let her change and throw some makeup on, we were off in my car to the little bar in town.
“Stop fidgeting!” Cara said, smacking my hand.
I looked at her, then at the establishment we’d just entered. I was nervous as hell, but realized I shouldn’t be. It was a very laid-back environment. Cara and I quickly made our way to the bar.
The bartender, a cute blonde chick with a full right sleeve of tattoos, smiled sweetly at us. “What can I get you ladies?”
I looked at Cara and she shrugged. So I said, “Do you have any red wine?”
The bartender pulled a face, then raised both eyebrows. She replied, “Let me see.” At that, she fumbled around under the bar and pulled out two single-sized bottles of wine with screw-top lids. I cringed internally but decided I had no reason to. I also decided next time we’d have to stick to beer or mixed drinks.
She unscrewed the wine and poured two bottles into two wineglasses, told us our total, to which I paid and tipped her, and we walked off, finding our way to the jukebox and holding it up on either side with our bodies.
We attempted to chat over the loud rock music, but then gave up once we realized that was a futile attempt. Once we’d downed our wine, we huddled close together, giggling over work stories, when a voice broke us out of our conversation.
“I’ll give you twenty bucks if you kiss your friend.”
I swiveled my head around to see a guy, probably in his mid-40s grinning at me. He was handsome enough, but, well... he was pretty drunk and looking at us all pervy. Eww. I studied his eager face. Then I heard Cara’s voice.
“What did he say?” she asked.
I hiccupped, then said, “He said he’d give me twenty bucks if I kissed you.”
A look of horror masked her face, then it morphed into a grin. She leaned into my ear. “Tell him it’s fifty.”
Wow, really?
I shrugged and got right up close to the dude. “I’d love to kiss my hot friend, since I do it all the time in private anyway,” I purred in his ear, “but it’ll take fifty bucks for me to do it in public.” I couldn’t believe how quick my slutty ways were coming back to me. It was just like riding a bike.
I pulled back to enjoy the look of shock on his face, then he looked down at his jeans as he pulled out a crumpled wad of cash. “I’ve got two twenties. How that work for you, sweetheart?”
In a sick twist of irony, Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl came blasting out of the jukebox and I swallowed back a grin. I snatched the two twenties out of handsome older dude’s hand and looked at Cara, who was grinning. I shrugged and made a dramatic gesture of gently removing the wine glass from her hand and setting it on a nearby speaker. I then moved a strand of blonde hair from her face and tilted my head to the side and pressed my lips to hers. She sucked in a breath, but she reciprocated. Wow. Who knew kissing another girl could be so awesome? I thought it would be gross, but it so wasn’t. Her lips were soft, and her breath sweet, and she didn’t seem eager to pull away. And I didn’t have a hard ridge pushing into the front of my skirt. Hmm. No wonder people experimented in college. I began to wonder why I hadn’t.
I broke the kiss and looked into her playful green eyes, then we both looked at the dude who’d thrown us forty bucks, and burst into laughter. He adjusted himself behind his zipper while I shook my head.
Men! They’re like sheep. Easy to lead to the pasture. Or hell, to the slaughter. No wonder my mother kept saying men were easy to control. She always told me... keep your man satisfied in the bedroom and feed him and he’d never stray. I used to think it was gross when she’d tell me, but I was learning quickly that she may as well be on to something.
Let’s just say that while Cara and I had no interest in the forty-year-old, that plenty of other very hot dudes kept us company the rest of the night. And when I woke the next morning, I had a huge grin on my face. While I hadn’t gone home with anyone, I was almost on a high from having so much fun and attention.
“Hello?” I croaked out. I hadn’t even bothered to look at the caller I.D.
“What. In. The. Hell. Did. You. Do. To. Me?” I heard Cara’s rasp.
I snorted, then looked over at the other side of my bed. Empty.
Thank God.
“Hey, bitch, you didn’t put up a fight when I kissed you.”
“Listen to yourself!” she squealed. “You freaking kissed me! You kissed me! I do not bat for the other team, just FYI!”
I laughed, but then it made my head hurt, so I groaned. “Yeah, I got that. But it’ll make a great story when we’re old.”
“This is true.”
“What was the name of that bar we were at anyway?”
There was silence, then I heard her huff. “I think it was called Marker’s.”
I slammed my head back on my down pillow. “What in the fuck kind of name is that for a bar?”
She started laughing, then she groaned. “Don’t cuss. It makes me laugh, which, in turn, makes me hurt. My head is freakin’ killing me.”
It kind of annoyed me how Cara wouldn’t swear or use cuss words (usually anyway), so sometimes I’d bait her. “Woman, just answer the question.”
“Well, the short answer is... my dad knows the owner.”
“Oh, my God.”
She huffed. “Let me finish. My dad’s friend owns the bar. Her name is Martha. Her younger brother used to call her Marker ‘cause he couldn’t say Martha.”
I burst into laughter at the absurdity of it, then rolled over, grasping my temples between my hands. “That’s funny, but so not worth the pain that caused me.”
“Pain? You’re kidding, right? I can never step foot in that damn place again. You do realize I had to bring my dad his fiftieth birthday cake and card into the bar at like two o’clock in the afternoon at that very same place a few years, ago right?”
Ouch.
“Uh. No, I didn’t. Sorry, that blows, girl.”
“Whatever. Just sayin’, we better find another hangout.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but couldn’t because my head hurt too badly. “You got it, babe.”
“I’m going back to sleep. See you at work on Monday.”
With that, she hung up. And I was happy. Jason had Ashlynn and I was so hoping he would keep her all day. I needed some ibuprofen and some sleep. Like, STAT.