Page 50 of The Husband Diet
‘Erica?’ Zia Maria said softly.
I knew that tone. ‘What?’
‘We’re not going to do all that again, are we?’
I groaned. ‘All what again?’
‘You married Ira because you thought you were too fat for anyone else to marry you. And now that you’re a free woman, you won’t let yourself love Julian because you’re afraid to jump in case you make the same mistake.’
‘Actually, I married Ira because I loved him.’
‘And because he knocked you up,’ Zia Monica sentenced.
‘Guys, please…’
‘Let me tell you one thing, sweetheart,’ Zia Maria said. ‘A man like Julian will love you forever.’
I wish.
‘And you know what else?’ Zia Monica added. ‘Nothing should stop you from being happy.’
‘Heaven knows you’ve earned it,’ Zia Martina echoed.
‘Just how much have you and Paul been talking?’ I asked.
‘Enough to tell you to get over your paranoia before you sabotage this relationship and the chance to be happy ever again. Now go and enjoy him,’ Zia Monica cut in.
‘I can’t go andenjoyhim – we’re just… acquainted.’
‘Honey,’ said Zia Martina. ‘Remember the day you married Ira?’
Did I ever. Paul had given me six days to leave him – a week before the wedding – and my aunts had told me that even if I was a Catholic girl who had been knocked up, marrying Ira was still a little too much punishment. You see what I mean about them now?
‘Right. Gotta go!’ I chimed and hung up.
*
As I was getting ready for bed, I tiptoed to the bedroom door, locked it and did something I hadn’t done in a while – look at the external me, really up close. I took off my pajamas and scanned my naked body in the mirror. For a long time studying my skin critically. I really was looking so much better, I could see it.
And then, without warning, I started thinking what my junior high crush, Tony Esposito, would say if he saw me now. And imagined him standing behind me, looking at me in the mirror, his hands searching for my boobs like that day a million years ago. In my imagination, he’d grown into a gorgeous man, maintaining the same features that had made him so yummy in my schoolgirl’s eyes.
As I watched him, he turned into Peter DeVita, my junior high boyfriend, who moved to Florida right before the year-end dance. Then I imagined Josh, my lifeguard on the English Riviera where I’d learned my trade of managing hotels, and his hands grew bolder, running over my thighs, parting them, his beautiful head ducking to kiss my mouth. For a few weeks of my younger life, I’d wanted him so much I thought I’d die of lust. And all that time I’d only been dying for an orgasm.
And then (there was no point in denying it by now), in my mind Josh turned into Julian, his hair wet from the rain (because I figured he’d lookreallysexy with wet hair). And his arms warm around my waist as he kissed the side of my face and the hollow between my neck and shoulders, sending a tingling shiver down to the soles of my feet, like in the historical romances I’d devoured as a kid.
Julian, so strong yet gentle, sooo not the guy for me, yet a constant thought trickling through my mind when I least expected it endlessly, like a babbling brook. It scared me. I couldn’t afford to lose my head. Not now, not ever.
It got so bad I even contemplated changing the kids’ school so I wouldn’t have to see him anymore, but I knew I couldn’t do that to them, so I resolved never to look toward the school while I was picking them up, because he had a habit of waiting outside to greet parents and have a quick chat.
Fantasies over, I finally settled into bed and suddenly realized that in the short pageant of the desirable men in my life, I’d totally skipped Ira.
18
Bullies and Baseball Bats
Finally at home after another grueling day, I was preparing some nice veal and eggplant casserole for dinner. (Ira never had dinner with us anymore now that he had his own life, which was a blessing, and even more so that the kids just assumed he was at work as always.)
Once dinner was in the oven, I’d have about forty-five minutes to have a long, hot shower and change into fresh gym pants and a sweatshirt to do some squats or something and then go fetch Warren from baseball practice. Julian had started a team, which he coached every Monday and Wednesday until six, so that would also give me time to help Maddy with her homework and catch up on my chores.
