Prologue
Never saw this coming! Here I sit on this barstool, dressed to the nines. The curve-hugging LBD my daughter made me wear leaves nothing to the imagination. My six-inch Jimmy Choos in classic red match my lipstick. My makeup, by the way, is on fleek. That’s the term for it nowadays, right?
Yeah, the truth is, I’m a fish out of water right now. This is my first date in over eighteen years, and I’m terrified. I’m a 38-year-old divorcee just dipping my toes into the modern dating pool.
My 18-year-old daughter, a newly minted college student, sits in the corner, sipping a virgin Mojito and giving me a thumbs-up. I return the gesture as I sling back my Sexless on the Beach, another mocktail. Unfortunately, with my metabolism, if I even get a good whiff of alcohol, I’m tipsy and my inhibitions are nonexistent. My daughter carries this same gene anomaly—we had her tested. So alcohol is out of the question.
Besides, she’s here for moral support on this journey we’ve embarked together. She’s pursuing her college degree, and I... well, I’m pursuing my post-marriage manhunt—no license required.
It all started during Chloe’s first week of classes, when she began hearing the rumors. My husband (at the time), Trey, is not only an alum but also a professor at the same college. As a daddy’s girl, Chloe’s fondest wish was to follow in her dad’s footsteps and graduate from the college he attended. We never quite figured out why he was so reluctant until we essentially forced his hand, and she signed up for classes in his program specialty.
Unwittingly, her classmates spilled all the tea without knowing he was her father. We then discovered he had the reputation of being the campus Casanova or the Lecture Hall Lothario with a degree in deception, and my heart was shredded.
The man on whom I had pinned all my hopes and placed on a pedestal, the one who treated me as if I were his one and only, fell from the height and shattered our marriage. Like the nursery rhyme, nothing could put it back together again.
It’s not that he didn’t try, mind you; he did. It’s often said that you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. He discovered the truth of that pretty quickly. I think he always knew, but he failed to consider that I don’t share well with others. I’m not particularly altruistic. That’s sarcasm in case you don’t recognize it.
Anyway... unfortunately for him, I wasn’t the same anymore; that woman was well and truly extinguished. I emerged from the devastation and informed the cake-eater that he was no longer welcome, putting up a no trespassing sign in the form of a divorce decree and changed locks. Have at it, big boy! The world is your oyster.
As fate would have it, losing his family was the catalyst for his change of heart. Over the next six months, Chloe says, he cleaned up his act and became the poster boy for fidelity when there's no one left to be faithful to.
Instead of working late every night and missing dinner with Chloe and me, he now calls me nightly from his apartment, right after work to check on us. He used to spend his nights tutoring students, grading papers, or doing whatever else he was up to.
How can I tell he’s home when he calls? He installed GPS on all our cellphones “for safety,” claiming it’s so I could see he’s being honest. Yeah, right! The real reason? He wants to track me, and I couldn’t care less about what he discovers. We’re divorced!
Ha! Regrets much, Trey? Start the storm, but don’t whine when it rains.
So, here I am, six months later, sipping my mocktail to celebrate the finalization of our divorce this week while I wait for my blind date to show up.
