I tossed my nightgown over the chair, then pulled on some sweats. I splashed water on my face and applied taupe shadow to my lids to accentuate my brown eyes. I could find no reason not to ride with Rob and Phil to California, really. Phil’s passenger van had plenty of space. It would mean an overnight stay along the way, but Phil and I could easily get separate rooms. Of course, we would. Only my pride, my harbored anger at him—which was futile after all these years—had been stopping me.
I brewed a pot of coffee and brought out the half-dozen cinnamon rolls I’d purchased especially for the occasion.
The toilet upstairs flushed, meaning Rob was awake. Then I heard Phil’s familiar rapping on the door. Charlie romped to the front hall; the dog’s body wiggled with anticipation. It always irked me how Charlie adored Phil, as if he were the alpha male of our pack. The man had charisma: a way with animals and women.
I hauled open the door, and the dog charged out, leaping against Phil’s legs. Hair tousled and eyes sleepy, Phil looked like he’d just crawled out of bed.
“Hi, Margo,” he said in a froggy voice.
“Good morning. I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”
“I figured we should get an early start.” He bent down to give Charlie’s wooly head a scratch, then stood tall again. “Is our college student ready?”
“He’ll be down in a couple of minutes.” I felt the cool autumn breeze brush against my cheeks. I filled my lungs, smelling the aroma of dew-covered grass laced with drying leaves.
“Come on in,” I said, touching his arm for the first time since our divorce. “You look like you could use a strong cup of coffee.” I imagined us sitting together in the kitchen. The bond of parenthood that still united me to Phil would comfort both of us this day.
“That’s okay.” He tipped his head toward the street. “Darla brought along some Kona Coffee, straight from the Big Island. You should try it.” I glanced past him to see a woman who looked barely twenty-five opening the back of his van.
“Darla?”
His gaze followed mine. “I thought I told you she was coming,” he said without hesitation. Then he bounded up the stairs, leaving me to meet his attractive companion. At first, all I could see were tight jeans and big bosoms swelling under a tank top.
Darla waved hello with her fingertips. I wanted to shut the door and never open it again, but felt obligated to step into some shoes and go down to the sidewalk. Darla greeted me with a show of straight white teeth.
“Hello,” I said, extending my right arm. “I’m Rob’s mother.”
She clasped her hands together as if I carried leprosy. “I adore Rob,” she said.
I withdrew my hand. “Thank you.”
She scrutinized my face as though she were examining a lab specimen. “He looks like his father, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he does.”
Phil, with Charlie tailing him, appeared with the first box. “Darla’s a genius at packing,” he said. “I’ll let her figure out how to fit everything in.” He gave her a leisurely wink, then loped back into the house.
“Would you like a muffin?” she asked. She leaned into the van and lifted a pan out of a picnic basket. “I baked them for Philip this morning.” Clad in her sleeveless top, with sculpted biceps curving down to slim forearms and dainty hands adorned with silver rings, she looked like she worked out in a gym seven days a week. She even cooked. I tried to remember if I’d ever baked muffins for Phil. Probably not, but I didn’t think those things mattered to him.
The tantalizing aroma of warm blueberries and bran tugged at my stomach, but I said, “No thanks, I’ve already eaten.”
Charlie began sniffing at Darla’s pant leg. “Go away, bad dog,” she said, her lip curling. “I’m a cat person.” She spun around to set the muffins back in the basket.
“Go inside,” I told Charlie. He pawed the ground, then stalked away.
“I’m glad we got a chance to meet,” Darla said, her voice downright surly. As she edged closer, like a jackal sizing up its victim, I inhaled a cloud of harsh perfume that burned my nasal passages.
“Philip filled me in about you,” she said.
My breath caught in my throat. “What do you mean?”
“Why he married you in the first place. What you threatened to do if he didn’t.” Her eyes narrowed, chiseling a line across the bridge of her pert nose. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it to myself. As long as you stay out of my way.”
Speechless, I stared back. This can’t be happening! was all I could think.
A look of satisfaction suddenly brightened her face as Phil and Rob each lugged out a carton.
“Sugar, you’re the greatest,” Phil said. He shoved in a box and his leg bumped up against Darla’s. She turned to him, her lips forming a flirtatious pout.
I felt anger brewing in my gut. Phil used to call me sugar, I fumed. Not that I should care anymore—but the words stung.
Within half an hour, only a few items still sat at the curb waiting to be wedged in. I watched Darla instruct the men to put a box here or a bag there, as if she were their queen and they her adoring subjects. With each reach into the van, out stuck her trim little derrière, stuffed into her Calvin Klein jeans. I’d always cut the designer labels off my pants. I disliked labels on clothes. Didn’t Phil? He used to.
My face aching from the tension, I tried to appear gracious—no small task, I assure you. I heard the back of the van close with a metallic clunk.
“I’m ready,” Rob said. He strode around the side of the van and opened the rear passenger door.
“So soon?” I asked. “But you haven’t had any breakfast.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I had a muffin, and Darla knows places to eat along the way.”
Our farewells sped by like
