Karen Templeton - Loose Screws

Terrie is clearly appalled. “You have got to be kidding. You’d crawl back to the skunk?”

“Did I say that?” The microwave beeps at me; I take out the ravioli, sink back into the chair at the table with a disgusted sigh, although I’m not sure what I’m disgusted at. Or with. Or about. My own ambivalence, maybe. Or that Greg’s actions have put me into this untenable position. “Of course I’m not about to crawl back to him.” I look up, fighting the tears prickling my eyelids. “He humiliated me. If, by some chance, he wants me back, he’d have some major groveling to do. But…”

“Oh, Lord. Here we go.” Terrie lets out an annoyed sigh. Shelby shushes her.

“But what, honey?”

“You weren’t there,” I say. “You didn’t see Phyllis’s face when she told me that I was the best thing that ever happened to Greg. That I would have been more of an asset to him than he could possibly have understood. That…” I take a deep breath, setting up the punch line. “That women are always the ones who have to fix things, that pride is a commodity we can’t afford.”

“That’s true,” I hear Shelby whisper beside me, although Terrie lets out an outraged, “Oh, give me a freaking break.” Her eyes are flashing now, boy, as she leans across the table and buries herself in my gaze.

“Girl, men have been able to get away with the crap they have for thousands of years because women like Phyllis Munson feel they have some sort of duty to perpetuate that myth. God—it makes me so mad, I could spit.” At this, she gets up, grabs her handbag from the buffet along one wall, rummaging inside it without thinking for the cigarettes that aren’t there, since she quit smoking a year ago. So she slams the bag back down onto the buffet and turns back to me, one hand parked on her hip.

“What that man did to you isn’t forgivable. Or fixable. I mean, come on—he calls you up and apologizes on the phone?”

Shelby actually laughs. Terrie and I both turn to her. “Well, of course he did,” she says. “He’s a man.”

“No kind of man I’d want hanging around me, that’s for damn sure. Besides, none of us is ever gonna break these chains of male domination and oppression if we don’t change the way we think about who’s gotta do what—”

“Oh, get off your high horse, Terrie,” Shelby says, a neat little crease between her brows. “Women are the peacemakers, honey. We always have been. That’s a sociological, not to mention biological, fact.”

“And I suppose you think that means we have to kowtow to them on every single issue?”

“No, of course not. But what good does it do for us to back them into a corner, either?”

“Making them accountable isn’t backing them into a corner.”

Shelby goes very still, then says quietly, “Says the woman who’s had two marriages crumble out from under her.”

Uh-oh.

I stand up, my hands raised. “Hey, guys? This is supposed to be all about me, you know—”

“Shut up, Ginger,” they both say, then Terrie says to Shelby, “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Twin dots of color stain my cousin’s cheeks, but I can tell she’s not going to back down. “That I’ve watched you with your boyfriends, your husbands, how every relationship you’ve ever had has degenerated into a mental wrestling match. How your obsession with never letting a man…control you, or whatever it is you’re so afraid a man’s going to do to you, has always been more important to you than the relationship itself. No wonder you can’t keep a man, Terrie—you castrate every male who comes close.”

Terrie actually flinches, as if she’s been slapped. A second later, though, she comes back with, “You are so full of it.”

“Am I?” is Shelby’s calm reply. “Then how come I’m the only one in the room who knows who she’s going to bed with tonight?”

Holy jeez.

Terrie glares at my cousin for several seconds, then snatches her purse off the chair and heads for the door, throwing “If you need to talk, Ginge, call me” over her shoulder before she yanks open the front door, slams it shut behind her.

For a full minute after her exit, the room reverberates with her anger. I’m not exactly thrilled to still be there, either, to tell you the truth, but I can’t quite figure out what to do. Let alone what to say.

Shelby gets up, starts clearing the table, her mouth turned way down at the corners. “I guess things got a little out of hand.”

I lick my lips, get to my feet to help her clean. “I thought the point of these was to get mad at other people. Not each other.”

On a sigh, Shelby carts stuff into the kitchen. “I know. But honestly, Ginge…Terrie’s attitude toward men sucks. And don’t give me that face, you know I’m right.”

I grunt.

Shelby turns on the water, starts to rinse off our few dishes prior to sticking them into the dishwasher. This kitchen does not look like a typical prewar Manhattan kitchen. This kitchen, with its granite countertops and aluminum-faced appliances, looks positively futuristic. I half expect Rosie, the robot from The Jetsons, to come scooting in at any moment.

I cross my arms, lean back against the countertop. “She’s entitled to her opinion, honey.”

“And if that opinion made her happy,” Shelby replies, “I wouldn’t say a word.” She slams shut the dishwasher, looks at me. “But she’s not. She wants the world to mold to her view of the way things should be, and since that’s not going to happen, she’s turning more bitter and cynical by the day.”

I humph. “Terrie was born cynical.”

A bit of a smile flits across Shelby’s mouth. “But not bitter.” Then she reaches over, grabs my hand. “The thing is, Greg’s mother is right. We are the ones who have to fix things. Forgiveness doesn’t make us weak, no matter what Terrie thinks. If anything, it only proves we’re the stronger sex.” Then the smile broadens. “Besides, if men were left to their own devices, we’d all be extinct by now.” She reaches up, brushes my hair back from my face. “You just have to ask yourself if you’d be happier with Greg, or without him.”

I knuckle the space between my brows, then sigh. “Well, I sure don’t like the way I’m feeling right now. As if somebody ripped off a major appendage.”

“Then maybe you should work with that.”

“So you’re saying you think I should give Greg a second chance, should the opportunity present itself?”

“I’m saying, just because a man is clueless, that doesn’t mean he’s hopeless. Here—” She hands me the ravioli container, now sparkling clean. “Don’t forget this.”

I take it from her, managing a wan smile.

The instant I step outside, the heat crushes me like groupies a rock star. Taking the smallest breaths possible so my lungs don’t incinerate, I troop toward 96th Street and the crosstown bus. After that little scene in Shelby’s apartment, I’m more confused than ever. But I refuse to believe my world is falling apart, despite the evidence to the contrary.

Who am I kidding? That was totally weird. Not to mention downright scary. Oh, sure, we’ve had about a million squabbles over the years, but nothing like that. And you know what? It ticks me off, in a way. I’m supposed to be able to count on Terrie and Shelby to restore my equilibrium when things get a little strange, as they count on me. They’re supposed to help me see things more clearly, not scramble my brains.

Well, forget it. Just forget it. I simply cannot wrap my head around this, not today. I am too hot and enmeshed in my own tribulations to care. Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll work up to trying to figure out how to smooth things over between them, but not now.

Now, I just want to go home, maybe have a good cry, finish the book I’m reading, even though it’s a romance which means it ends happily ever after, which is just going to depress the life out of me. It’s hotter than hell in my apartment, but I can strip to my panties if I want to, which, at the moment, is eminently appealing.