The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir (3 page)

Each morning after Kevin left, I moved in a haze. Barely functional. I couldn't focus on my writing. And I certainly couldn't go to work at the club.

“Maggie, can you squeeze me in t-today?” My voice tripped over the hard, permanent lump in my throat.

On the drive to the salon, I confronted my new reality. So much for my Happily-Ever-After story. Kevin was supposed to be my Prince Charming. We were supposed to ride off into the sunset together the way every fairytale ends.

Disney can kiss my ass.

Along the street, every stoplight turned red. The cars were going too slow. People weren't even bothering to signal lane changes.

And screw Uncle Walt for making me believe in princes. I don't think he ever considered the kind of heartbreak he crafted into his stupid fairytales. There would always be that one day in every girl's life when she'd finally discover it was all a lie. A sick, twisted, fucking lie.

Buildings and cars streamed past my window, the car on autopilot. Kevin. His smile. The feel of his hands on my skin. The way he kissed the worry creases from my forehead. I loved his robust laugh—it was sunshine, breaking through my emotional clouds.

So many memories. So many moments I would never forget.

Kevin stepped out of the master bathroom completely naked. I lounged across the bed, admiring his perfect symmetry while he stood at the sink. He turned and posed with mock drama, standing with his body on full display.

When I dragged my eyes back up to his face, I noticed Kevin wearing my pink cotton headband, and there was mischief in his smile.

He ran across the room and stood in front of me, twirling and dancing in place like Jennifer Beals from the movie
Flashdance
. He screeched the “Maniac” song in falsetto, his bare feet pounded faster and faster to the tempo. Kevin's nakedness, in frantic motion, swung wildly, smacking against his thighs.

On that blue day, I rolled off the bed and we collapsed onto the carpet together, laughing so hard I almost peed in my pajamas.

God, how can I go on living without him?

Tears pinpricked my eyes. I'm not going to cry. I refuse to cry. I twisted the rearview mirror to check the mascara around my blurry eyes. A look of glassy desperation stared back.

I pushed through the doors of the salon and saw Maggie applying hair gel to her wilting, gothic spikes. I walked past the receptionist, straight to Maggie's station and she turned the chair to meet me.

“Just a trim today?” Maggie snapped the drape around my neck and our eyes caught in the mirror.

“Cut it off,” I said.

“Oh m'god, he's gone.” It was almost a question, but not quite.

That's when the carefully controlled tears finally spilled down my cheeks.

She set down her scissors and looked squarely into my face. “I won't cut a single hair unless you promise you're not cutting it off to spite that rat bastard.”

“I just need a change.”

That was all Maggie needed to hear. She clipped while I choked out as much of the story as I could. My eyes ached from the brightness of the harsh flourescent lights and the force of my tears.

When she finished, I slipped on my sunglasses and stared at the caramel-colored halo of hair on the floor. Twelve inches. Gone. It had been over a decade since my hair was this short.

Kevin loved my long hair. But that was when he loved me.

kiss my A.D.H.D.

Friday, October 26

I rolled my mouse to the taskbar and clicked the green, lowercase, script
f
icon shaped like a filmstrip. The Final Draft software opened to my working document: a family feature spec script intended for Disney.

The cursor blinked, a nagging throb on the page. I re-read what I had written the week before and tried to get back into the story.

It was all so fucking happy. I could almost hear chipmunks singing campfire songs.

Tears blurred my carefully formatted words into waves of alphabet soup. I closed the document and opened my LifeJournal software. I began writing what sounded more like a plea directly to Kevin than a diary entry.

The phone rang, disturbing my pseudoliterary flow of sorrow. “Mrs. Fix—” a woman's voice began.

“It's Ms. I'm not married now and never have been.” My curtness covered the catch in my voice.

“MS. Fix, I'm calling about Josh. We'd like you to come to the school.”

My stomach clenched. “Is he okay? Did something happen?”

“We'd like to discuss your son's academic performance. How about after school? Today. At three o'clock?”

I glanced at the clock. That would give me forty-five minutes to shower, dress, and drive to the school.

“That's fine. I'll be there.”

In the shower, I let the water run over my face to rinse off the sticky tears.

When I pulled into the school parking lot, a rainbow of students poured out of the classrooms and jostled toward the buses. I saw Josh sitting slumped on a low block wall near the office. His head bowed, he bounced the toe of one skate shoe against the cement.

I stepped in front of him and he didn't even look up. “Hey Wonderboy, what's going on?”

“Do we have to go in there? They're just going to tell you how stupid I am.” His voice dragged like his shoe.

“Then I'll have to tell them how wrong they are.”

I had my arm around his shoulder when the secretary led us into the conference room.
They
had taken their positions on one side of a long table. Principal. Guidance Counselor. And four of Josh's seventh grade teachers, the absurdly cartoon personifications of Math, English, Science, and Social Studies. With their fake smiles and shuffling papers, they looked like a wall of human constipation.

I felt a slight tremor straight to my core. How could I possibly make it through the meeting without completely falling apart? Us versus Them. My parents attended meetings like this with me, but back then, I was invincible.

Principal started by clearing his throat. What a cliché. If I didn't feel so much like throwing up, I would've laughed.

He introduced everyone on the Them team, all of whom I'd already met at Back-to-School Night. Principal formed a steeple with his fingers and studied me across the table.

“Josh seems to be having problems,” he said.

The room erupted in a machine gun of charges.

“He's failing his class work
and
his tests.” Social Studies patted her stack of worksheets, the top page crisscrossed with red ink.

Science managed a weak smile that faded before he spoke. “Josh is always polite and helpful, but rarely wants to participate in class.”

“He disturbs my class by constantly being out of his seat and telling jokes,” English said.

“He is completely unable to concentrate,” Math said.

I lifted my hand to stop the barrage and turned to Josh. “Why don't you take a walk while we finish talking.”

The change in focus gave me a minute to settle my composure. I was almost visibly quaking and wanted to cover it quickly. I let out a long sigh, hoping it sounded like impatience with the situation instead of the release of anxiety that it was.

Josh flashed me his typical look: an innocent, wrongly accused and facing execution. I nodded toward the door and he left without comment.

It was his first semester and clearly, they hadn't had time to figure out how to deal with Josh yet. When the door closed behind him, I directed my attention to English.

“Josh has always been very strong-minded. I'm a single mother, so he's had to grow up without a father…”

A slight expression crossed her face, but she didn't say anything.

I'd seen the look before. Raw judgment. I brushed it off and continued, “And he's more independent than most boys his age. I taught him to cook and do his own laundry when he was in third grade.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an eyebrow rise on the stoic Principal— his only physical movement since the meeting began.

I took a deep breath. “So, obviously, he requires strong direction. If Josh is out of his chair, you need to tell him you'll nail his butt to the seat if he even moves before class ends.”

English recoiled like she'd received an invisible slap. “I don't speak to my students that way,” she said.

“Well, then I don't know what to tell you. Because I don't have any problems with him at home.”

“Perhaps he needs medication,” Counselor said. “We've found that students who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder really benefit from Ritalin.”

A flat, humorless smile pressed my lips together. Don't even go there, lady. “There's nothing wrong with Josh. If you check his file, you'll see that his elementary school already tried to label him.”

It was a battle at his last school, constantly defending my position against cognitive testing. I finally gave in, just to prove what I already knew—my son didn't need medication. “If you care to look, you'll see Josh doesn't have A.D.D. or A.D.H.D. No dyslexia. No learning disability. And no processing problems.”

Counselor opened Josh's file, shuffled through the stack, and paused to scan the report. I recognized the cover of the document I'd signed last year allowing the school district to test him. She turned to Principal with a slight shake of her head. “Josh doesn't qualify for any special education programs.”

I leveled a solid gaze across the table, encompassing the judge and jury. “So, what are you going to do to teach my son?”

They looked at one another blankly as if I'd asked them to prove the world was round.

“We can put him on Friday letters…” Math looked to each of the other teachers.

Counselor went into further detail for my benefit, somehow managing to sound condescending at the same time. “That is a note, signed by each teacher at the end of the week, notifying you of discipline problems, missed assignments, failed tests, detention, et cetera.”

And that helps…how? The logic wasn't there.

“Why don't you send home a Monday letter, telling me what Josh needs to do for the week and I'll make sure it gets done?” My quaking feeling had stopped completely.

“It doesn't work that way,” English said. A smug curve turned the corners of her lips.

I leaned forward in the chair and locked eyes with her. “And why not?”

Principal stepped in like a referee. “The teachers are too busy to print up their lesson plans for individual students. It takes away from the learning time of the other students.”

Was he serious? Bullshit, ass-covering pseudoexcuse. Had the man never read a college class syllabus? Are middle school teachers busier than university professors? What the hell is wrong with this picture?

My right leg twitched and bounced uncontrollably under the table. “Somebody needs to start thinking outside of the box,” I said, trying not to completely lose it.

I looked from one face to another and could see it clearly. Without so much as a ripple, they were going to let Josh slip quietly and unnoticed between the cracks in the system. I measured my tone carefully. “Please have the secretary make a copy of my son's records. I'm withdrawing him from this school.”

Principal looked excited to play his trump card. “The standard protocol is for the new school to request his records and they will be mailed at that time. To the school.”

I reached across the table and pulled Josh's file and a pen from in front of Counselor. I scrawled our address on the cover in oversized letters and slid it across the table to Principal. “Here's your request. I'll be homeschooling.” I stood and walked out of the room.

When Josh rose from the bench in the hall, I put my arm around his shoulders and we stepped outside into the ocean-chilled air.

“So, what happened? What did they say?” Josh stopped walking and waited for my answer.

I was the lioness who had fought an entire pack of jackals to save the life of her young cub. My hands shook and the pulse in my head felt like it would burst through my temples.

“I've decided I'm going to homeschool you.” The reality of my decision was starting to sink in. “It will be fun, we'll do all kinds of cool stuff,” I said.

Josh's forehead wrinkled. “Are you sure? Who's going to teach me math? You suck at math.”

“We'll get a tutor if we have to.” I forced a smile. “Don't worry, we can do this.”

no scent negative associations

Saturday, October 27

There's an old aphorism that some women change boyfriends like they change their underwear. It doesn't work that way with me. I change perfumes whenever my relationships fail.

Contradiction. Uninhibited. Poison.
Past boyfriends could be defined by each of these. When a relationship ended, I swore I'd never trust anyone wielding both a smile and a penis ever again. Then I met Kevin, and
never
felt like a really long time.

Kevin was supposed to be a fresh start, full of promises for the future. Unlike the others, Kevin believed in the South Orange County fairytale—the custom tract home, the Lexus SUV, the 2.5 private school honor students, and the incontinent Golden Retriever.

Kevin was
Allure
by Chanel. Soft, warm, and subtle—until he left me. I needed a new perfume. Something without memories attached.