Page 201 of Story of My Life
Levi grunted.
We watched as they drove off, the lakeside mood suddenly more triumphant than it had been minutes ago.
“That deserves another beer,” I decided.
“Oh, God. No,” Hazel breathed. “Am I hallucinating?”
“What’s wrong?” I demanded.
“Well, shit. If you are, I’m hallucinating the same thing,” Zoey said, taking a protective step in front of Hazel. “What the hell is this? The parade of exes?”
43
FANCY PANTS
HAZEL
I shovedthe bangs out of my eyes and blinked as my ex-husband strolled up, smiling his smirky, judgmental smile at our sweaty little band of small-town misfits.
He was dressed in linen pants and what I’d always called an “old money” polo shirt. It was his summer casual uniform. He still wore his hair long and wavy on top like a turn-of-the-century poet. There was more salt than pepper now, and it might have been pure schadenfreude on my part, but it looked as though his hairline had retreated another centimeter or two.
“There’s my girl.”
The words had once set butterflies aflight in my digestive system. Now they merely lit a fire of rage in my chest.
“Jim?” I choked his name out like it was a Basskicker in my mouth.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. The next time he saw me, I was supposed to be looking fabulous in a cocktail dress that fit me like a second skin with my hair blown out and makeup on point. The plan was to be either accepting some coveted literary award or on a date with a gorgeous man.
Cam and Zoey both took protective steps in front of me, forming a wall between me and the man who’d stolen from me. The man I’dallowedto steal from me.
Levi and Gage sensed a problem and joined them, Gage gently pushing Zoey behind him.
“Hazel, sweetie!”
The familiar girlish lilt had me peering over my protectors’ shoulders and blinking at the dazzling hallucination waving at me.
Zoey shot me a wide-eyed look. “Oh my God, is that?—”
“Mom?” I said, pushing my way through the wall of testosterone.
Ramona Hart-Daflure Whatever the Hell Her Current Last Name was floating toward me in a pleated floral Oscar de La Renta sundress and movie-star sunglasses. She enveloped me in a Jo Malone–scented hug. A new wedding set with a diamond the size of a midsize sedan glinted on her ring finger.
Unlike Jim, my mother hadn’t aged a day since I’d seen her last, on a whirlwind brunch and shopping excursion two years ago. We had the same thick dark hair, the same eyes, but everything else about her was softer, more delicate, more…calculated.
“What are you doing here? Withhim?” I demanded when she released me.
“Don’t be like that, Hazelnut,” Jim said in that boyishly charming way of his. It made me want to barf on his suede driving moccasins.
“Well, when Jim called and said that you were having some kind of midlife crisis, giving up writing and moving to the middle of nowhere, I told Stavros that the honeymoon had to wait. My girl needed me.”
“I’m not having a midlife crisis, and I haven’t stopped writing. But I might have to when they send me to prison for murder,” I said pointedly at Jim.
“There a problem here?” Cam demanded, joining us.
“Why don’t you fellas go get a couple of beers on me and leave us to talk,” Jim suggested, all charm as he pulled out his money clip.
Cam took the offered forty dollars, stuck it in his pocket, then said, “No.”
