Page 1 of Shake the Habit

Chapter 1

“Self-love.” My aunt nodded. “That’s the answer.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked her.

“I mean just what it sounds like.Self-love.” She nodded again. “You have to get after it, Kayleigh. You don’t need anyone else! Pick a quiet time when you won’t be interrupted, and give yourself that pleasure.”

The rest of us glanced at each other and one of her daughters tried to interrupt, but stopping Aunt Amber was like trying to stop a train going at full speed. “You have to work at it. Don’t give up!” she advised. “If you keep trying, you’ll get there, and the rush of satisfaction is indescribable. It’s something every woman should experience.”

My Lord. “Aunt Amber…” I didn’t know what to say, though, so my words just crumbled into silence. This was the woman who had never been able to bring herself to utter the true names of human sex organs: “man parts” and “female area” were theterms she’d used. She had no idea what she was saying right now.

“Every day, we should set aside some private time and treat ourselves to a session of self-love.” She nodded sagely. “You could even look in a mirror as you do it, Kayleigh. It’s rejuvenating. You’ll feel like a new person afterwards.”

I looked over at my cousin Cassidy, who was staring hard at the ceiling. Her lips were quivering, and she was also turning red.

“Sometimes I do it in the shower,” my aunt continued, and Cassidy ran out of the room.

Aunt Amber turned to her middle daughter. “You know I’m right, Amory.” Then she frowned, her shiny, pink mouth turning down. “Why are you laughing like a hyena?”

I also looked at my older cousin. I had never seen a hyena before, but I doubted that they held their sides as tears poured from their eyes like what was happening to Amory.

Out of all my cousins in the kitchen with us, only Aunt Amber’s oldest daughter managed to hold it together. She looked annoyed rather than stricken with hysteria. “Mama, self-love?” she asked. “You sound like you’re talking about something totally different. You’re trying to give yourself a rush of satisfaction in the shower…my word.”

Realization seemed to strike my aunt. “I certainly didn’t mean that!” She looked horrified. She often acted as if she had never heard of anything relating to male parts and female areas, but the woman had four children, and I’d seen her and my uncle Jedkissing next to their car this afternoon before they’d carried in the trifle she’d made for dessert.

“It’s ok,” I told her. “I know you weren’t referring to that kind of self-love. You were talking about positive thinking. Right? More like affirmations rather than…touching.”

Her cheeks had flushed to a deeper shade than the blush she’d artfully applied. She was so good at makeup. “Affirmations!” she repeated. “Exactly! That’s what you need, Kayleigh Lynn McCourt. You need to tell yourself, ‘I’m a worthwhile person, and I deserve happiness.’” She had lowered her pitch but upped her volume as she’d said it.

“That’s all true,” my cousin Aria agreed. She was rubbing her own cheeks, probably because they hurt from laughing, but she nodded at the same time. “You do deserve happiness, KayKay. I affirm that for sure!”

Aunt Amber wasn’t done. “Don’t stop there. ‘Today will be a good day!’” she trumpeted in her Affirmation Voice. “Today, I’ll find contentment in my job and happiness with my family. Today, I’ll find love!’ That’s what you should tell yourself, Kayleigh, and you repeat it until it comes true.”

I thought about what she’d said after I left the family celebration a few hours later, my passenger seat full of gifts and food containers, and my stomach full of rib roast, a whole lot of sides, and the trifle. I also thought back to when I’d been a little girl, when my aunt Amber had dragged us around to pageants. She had been successful on the circuit in her youth, but none of her three daughters, my cousin Cassidy, or I had what it took toscoop up the most important sashes. We’d driven all around north Georgia, Alabama, and our home state of Tennessee anyway, because she didn’t have a lot of quit in her. Those road trips in her minivan had given her plenty of time to coach us on how to perform and also to give us advice for the future.

“Cassidy, I want you to show me ‘confident yet shy.’ Aria, ‘happy and excited.’” She would glance in the rearview mirror to check our expressions as we tried to move our faces into the emotions she required. “Hm…more happy, less excited. That’s not bad! Amory, spit out that gum. Not at your sister!”

My mom generally had to step in when there was fighting in the back seats, as there often was between Aunt Amber’s two oldest daughters.

“Now, girls, I want to talk to you about your education,” my aunt would say, or there might have been something about careful driving and alcohol avoidance. She always offered a lot of tips about hair styling and at times, she’d just speak philosophically about our adulthood. “You have to come first,” she told us firmly. “You have to get your own house in order before you can invite anyone else in.”

Well, we already knew that. My mother and my aunts would have been mortified if they’d had company over with a messy kitchen or with dirty clothes scattered around. Aria and I looked at each other and nodded when we’d heard those words, and Cassidy had whispered, “I’ll always straighten up before guests come.” The three of us were almost exactly the same age, and we had stuck together.

“That’s not what I mean,” Aunt Amber said, and all the moms had laughed. “I mean, you need to be happy with yourself before you get involved in a relationship. Get your own life together, first. No man wants a woman with…” She’d made a little face. “Issues.”

“I’m going to say that I have throw-up issues to make them stay away. I don’t want a man,” Amory had whispered, and she’d also fake-gagged and her mother had spotted that in the mirror. It had started yet another argument over proper behavior and triggered questions about if Mory had practiced her song enough for the talent portion. The answer to that was always “no,” but my older cousin hadn’t ever cared. Out of the five of us, she’d been the least invested in the outcomes of any of our pageant stuff, and she hadn’t minded standing up to her mother. She still didn’t, but one thing had changed: now, Amory definitely wanted a man. She had him in the form of the husband that she loved very much.

And me? No, no man. Another difference was that I hadn’t liked to cross Aunt Amber back then and I still didn’t today. Unlike Amory, I’d also loved to sing in front of the audience of parents and judges. That had been my talent, too, and I’d cared about it a lot, practicing tons. When Aunt Amber had preached from the driver’s seat of her minivan, I’d mostly thought about my upcoming performance.

Now, as I drove on the empty roads toward my apartment, her words came back to me. Get your house in order. That was what I’d need to do so I could be content, so I could find—

“Shit!” A dog, a big, black dog, had stepped out of a shadow and right into the road in front of my car. I swerved and my tires skidded. It was cold today and there was some ice from the light snow that we’d gotten the night before. There was enough that I slid for longer than I should have as I yanked the wheel. I went over the edge of the shoulder, and there was a terrible thump from the front of my car.

I turned off the engine and sat frozen in horror. I had hit that dog! My Lord, the poor thing. I had injured an animal and I couldn’t leave it to suffer. Shaking my head and with my hand over my mouth, I opened the driver’s side door—

And there it was, standing next to my car. It wagged its tail happily and nosed at my dress, which was actually my cousin Cassidy’s that I had borrowed a few months before.

“You’re all right!” I said, thrilled. My heart began to slow into its normal rhythm. But I got out and tried to feel him (her?) over, to check for any injuries, because there might have been something wrong that wasn’t obvious to my eyes. The dog took it as a game and skipped away backwards, sneezing and wagging its short tail when I didn’t follow.

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