Page 44 of Man Flu

Chapter Twelve

A Thursday Surprise—Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which means there’s no school or work… and I just realized this.

PICKING CORA WAS LIKE a mini vacation from my life, but now she’s off to Rick’s for the long weekend. Then, it’s mission: Make Hannah Look Hot. First, I must find wine.

I step in front of my full-length mirror and try to position myself at an angle that makes me feel confident, but I haven’t found that view yet. Another glass of wine will surely do the trick. A perk of getting divorced is the stress-starvation, which came with a complimentary SlimFast diet. Those twenty pounds brought me back to my pre-college weight, but what’s underneath my clothes still makes me shudder.

My skin is dull, my eyes look as though they sag, and I think I’m getting frown lines. I try to avoid my reflection so I can ignore the voice in my head that reminds me I’m not her, and she isn’t me. Yet, it’s all I can see.

I pull my shoulders back and tousle my hair. The desperate thirty-three-year-old in me unclasps one more button, offering just a little more of a view. This is slutty, right?

“You need to get laid,” Brielle says as she walks into my bedroom.

“Why are you still here?”

“To make sure you know how to put form-fitting clothes on properly.” She shakes her head and walks up behind me, reaches around and yanks my shirt down way more than I’m comfortable with.

“If I take one wrong step, my bra will be on display.”

“Right.” She pulls my shirt away from my chest, looking down at my bra. I snatch the material out of her hand, but she saw enough. “No.”

“I’m not changing my bra right now. He’s going to be here at any minute.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I don’t have anything nicer than this unless you’d prefer nursing bras. I still have some of those lying around.”

She stomps her foot like a child and clenches her fists by her sides. “You are impossible.”

“No, I’m a grown woman,” I correct her. She’s conducting an odd maneuver under her shirt, and I already know where this is going. “No, thank you.” As much as I’d like to wear the bra you’ve been showing off beneath your white blouse all day, I’d rather not. She whips out a hot pink, lacy see-through piece of … tissue? That can’t be fabric. “Find that at the dollar store?”

“Um, no, this is an eighty-dollar bra, so please keep it in one piece.”

“It’ll probably rip when I try to clasp the thing together,” I argue.

She holds the thin fabric out to me, waiting. If I drag this out much longer, the doorbell is going to ring, and she’ll pull another stunt like she did this afternoon.

I shuffle around under my shirt and detach the nude, supporting bra with comfortable straps, switching it out for the lingerie Brielle wears just for the hell of it. “Mmm, super comfy,” I squeak. I look in the mirror and tilt my head to the side. “Um, I’m pretty sure I can see my nipples.”

“Nah, you just know they’re there, so you’re imagining it,” she says.

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“It is, trust me. Adam tells me all the time.” I’m waiting for the laughter to follow her boneheaded statement, but her face remains neutral.

“I’ll just wear a sweater.” I grab my black one from off the bed and slip it over my shoulders.

“Why would you waste such a perfect view with a frumpy sweater?”

“Because it’s fifty degrees out, and my nipples will tear this new shirt apart—and I’m a mom.” I glare at her through the mirror’s reflection, and she looks away, checking out more of my attire. “At least those jeans are perfect.”

“I haven’t had purposeful holes in my jeans since the nineties,” I tell her.

She ignores me and continues going down whatever checklist she’s made up in her head. “Did you shave?”

“Obviously.”

“Did you get a wax after work like I told you to?”