CHAPTER H
Happiness
Although I didn’t want to raise any hopes in my children or my mother, I took extra time with my makeup and clothes. I had some pride; it was about time that I showed it. And showed Eddie what he’d given up… The girls. I wanted him to want them back, to want to spend some time with them. I didn’t want him to want me. Okay, maybe I did, but I didn’t want him back.
“Going to the restaurant today is a really good idea, Mary Ellen,” Mom said, nodding at my hair and makeup, the highest praise she’d ever given me.
Even staggered by her compliment, I had to clarify, “For the girls, Mom. Yes, it is.”
“Maybe for you, too, honey.” She really did care, did love me. “Good luck.” But she would never understand me.
“Good luck with what?” Dad asked on his way out the door to open the store. Jesus was back to help him with the Saturday-morning crowd, and I didn’t know who was more relieved—me or Dad. He bussed my cheek on the way out the door. “You look good, honey. I’ll miss you today. It was great having you at the shop.”
“It was fun being with you, Dad.” And despite the neighborhood gossips, I had enjoyed spending time with my dad. While I knew Eddie would never have the kind of relationship with Amber and Shelby that I had with Daddy, I wanted him to have some relationship with them, any relationship.
As I pulled the Bonneville into the restaurant lot later that morning, I realized I should have accepted my mom’s wish for luck. Luck that Eddie would be happy to see his girls, that he would show them that they’re important to him.
But as I parked in the shadow of the concrete building on the east side of Grand Rapids, I didn’t feel lucky. I should have called him, should have warned him. But then, wouldn’t it be just like the little weasel to have refused? He’d done it while we were waiting for the divorce. In fact, I could scarcely remember the last time he’d seen his children. And while I hated him for that, I hated myself, too. I should have done this for the girls sooner.
“Is Dad here, Mommy?” Shelby asked.
“God, you’re stupid,” Amber snarled. “Dad’s always here.”
The shadow of the building grew, swallowing me in the darkness. This, not some twenty-year-old cocktail waitress, had been my husband’s mistress and not just for the last couple of years, but for all eleven years of our marriage. A new hairdo wouldn’t make him want me, wouldn’t make him regret what he’d thrown away. I couldn’t compete with bricks, a brass bar and jovial customers.
I threw open the door of the restaurant and stepped out of the shadow. As the light washed over me, I realized something else D-day had done for me. I didn’t want to compete anymore. I didn’t want Eddie to act like a husband or a lover, ex or jealous. I wanted him to be a father, nothing else.
The Saturday lunch crowd wasn’t what it used to be. But then not much was. I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure who I was yet, but I wasn’t Mrs. Edward Nowicki. Still, the staff glanced up with trepidation when we walked in. Perhaps they expected a repeat of my hysterics on the day the bank had slapped the foreclosure notice on the house. The hostess, standing behind her podium in the foyer, smiled politely, looked at the girls and then back at me. Her pouty mouth fell open. “Mrs. Nowi—”
“Ms. Black. Mary Ellen’s fine,” I corrected her. “Trina, isn’t it?”
Her head bobbed, her fine blond hair bobbing with it. “Yes.”
“Is Eddie in?”
Amber snorted at my rhetorical question.
“He’s in the office, Mrs.—Mary Ellen.” Trina’s heavily mascaraed eyes widened with a hint of panic.
“I’ll go back and let him know he has visitors,” I offered. “Would you mind seating the girls for me? They can order, too. They know what they want.” A father. And I intended to make him act like one, if only for a few minutes.
“Mrs.—” The confusion over my name stopped her protest, and I slipped past her and down the hall, past the rest rooms to Eddie’s office.
The door was ajar, so I pushed it open the rest of the way. Well, so much for my hopes and dreams. Obviously Eddie’s dick hadn’t shriveled up and fallen off. All three and three-quarters inches of it jutted out of his pants then disappeared between the lips of the girl kneeling in front of him.
“Excuse me—” Both of them jumped.
“Don’t look guilty,” I said at their stricken expressions. Good thing I’d come back alone.
“Mary Ellen—”
“It’s okay, really,” I insisted as Eddie dragged the blond girl in the tight, black waitress uniform to her feet with one hand, while he struggled to zip up his pants with his other hand.
Obviously he still had the same reaction to me, new hairdo and all, that he’d developed the last couple of years. I could deflate him faster than anyone. “We’re divorced. It’s okay now.”
Now. Before it hadn’t been. When he’d first told me about this young woman in his life, I’d been devastated, hysterically heartbroken. Now I was just quietly bitter. The divorce decree made a difference. This wasn’t my husband getting a blow job in his office. This was my ex. I honestly didn’t care. In fact, I was amused by the blush on both their faces.
“Why are you here? I told you there’s no money.” He finally lifted his chin to face me, and I noticed a yellowing bruise around one of his eyes.
“Money would be nice,” I admitted. “You should help support your daughters—”
“I told you—”
The young girl shrank away, probably wishing in her embarrassment that she could disappear. Maybe she wasn’t a ’ho, to borrow Grandma’s new word. Maybe she was just young and stupid the way I’d once been. But I was older now…
“Eddie, there’s other support than monetary. The girls need your attention. You’ve hardly seen them since you left—”
“You’re staying with your dad, and I can guess how he feels about—”
“I’m going to leave now,” the girl said as she awkwardly tried to slip past me and into the hall. I sidestepped, allowing her to escape what she was probably sure would be an ugly scene. She’d been present the day I’d gotten the foreclosure notice.
“He feels like a father should,” I went on. “He wants his daughter to be happy. He resents whoever makes her unhappy.”
Did Daddy resent Eddie enough to have given him that black eye? Despite his age, Daddy could still be a brawler. And it wouldn’t take much to beat Eddie. Although his driver’s license said five-eight, Eddie stood only five-six in his stocking feet. I could tower over him with heels, and for some reason, I’d worn platform tennis shoes today. I could take him. And if he hurt my girls, he’d be sporting another black eye. “You should feel that way, Eddie—”
“About you?” he asked, his thin lips twisting into a sneer. “Is this for me, Mary Ellen? The hair? Wearing some makeup for once? You think that’s going to make me change my mind? You should have thought of something before you got the dye job. Blondes are more fun!”
A laugh sputtered out. I couldn’t help it. “You’re such an ass, Eddie. The saying is that blondes have more fun, but since that poor girl hooked up with you, she won’t know fun anymore.”
His face reddened again. Despite the bleached highlights in his hair, he showed his age. Forty, prime time for a mid-life crisis. He hadn’t realized all those big dreams he’d had, only owning this restaurant, and he was on the verge of losing that. “You were never any fun, Mary Ellen,” he accused.
I