CHAPTER ONE
TILLIE
My signature stared up at me like an accusation.
“Look what you’ve done,” it said. “Look who you’ve become…”
“It’s not my fault,” I said aloud, my voice swallowed up by the enormity of my solitude. I shook my head, insistently. “It’s not, dammit!”
I’m not sure who I was trying to convince. I knew in my heart I’d done nothing wrong. Somehow, I felt the need to keep reminding myself of that fact, though.
Tracing the two signatures with my fingertip, I bit my lip as the finality of it all began to hit me.
It was over.
Officially and legally dissolved.
The last twenty-five years of my life had disappeared like cotton candy on a warm tongue. If I wasn’t surrounded by concrete evidence, I could almost pretend nothing had ever actually happened.
Even if I no longer had a husband, at least I had something to show from the marriage: this house. This massive, cold, rambling cave of a home that I loved so dearly.
I also had a brand-new bank account, in my name only this time.
I don’t even know how much is in there.
That’s how rich I am now, I guess.
Rich in money.
Abysmally poor in love.
It’s not a bad trade-off, I guess. I mean, I’ve been this way for a long time. Long before a couple of signatures on a crisp, white piece of paper declared me officially divorced. These days it’s difficult to remember when I wasn’t suffering from a deficit of love.
There was a time, though — so long ago — in the beginning, of course, like it always is, when Reginald and I were in love. It was brief, in the grand scheme of things. To think of it now is like a distant dream, the kind where you wake up knowing you’re about to lose the memory of something important and you try to hold onto it, but it’s gone by the time you open your eyes.
That’s what it feels like now.
But back then?
It felt like a bomb.
A big, fat, happy love bomb.
Now, my relationship with Reggie is more like a deflated balloon.
Dead, empty and flat, like a limp dick.
What once left my heart elated and swollen with love now leaves me lost, lonely and depressed.
It’s too much. The sadness. The finality of it all.
The damned heaviness of it all.
I crumple up the packet of papers my lawyer delivered this afternoon and throw them in the raging fire I’d built earlier. The massive stone fireplace, in the main living room of my tomblike home, is the only thing providing any semblance of coziness to this place. The papers curl up at the edges, the flames eating away at the paper slowly, so slowly that I eventually start to feel the weight in my chest lift just a little.
I’d never been happy anyway, not really, not the way you’re supposed to be.
Sure, it was a lot of wasted years — too many — but now, I’m only as young as I’ll ever be again.
It’s time for me to grab life by the horns, as my hairdresser and only friend, Mario, had put it earlier today.
I’d gone to see him because it was the only place I ever really went. I hated shopping. I had no real friends, outside of him. I was not one of the ‘ladies that lunched’, despite my standing in the community from being married to one of the top film producers in Hollywood.
Mario was the only one in my life that seemed to have any concern for me. Maybe it’s because I left him a three-hundred dollar tip after every appointment, but it seemed genuine while I was there.
“Girl, you gotta get out of your bubble,” he’d told me this morning while styling my hair. I looked at him in the mirror and raised a brow.
“What would you suggest?” I said. “I’m old and I don’t know anyone fun.”
“First of all, you’re not old. You’re beautiful, Tillie! You know what? You should go to Vegas! Let your hair down a little, get drunk, get in touch with your wild side. It’s time for Tillie to get her groove back, baby!”
“By myself? I don’t have anyone to go with. And I’m not sure I ever really had my groove to begin with.”
“Oh, sure you did. And why not go alone?”
“I’d have to find someone to watch my cats. I don’t know…”
“I can housesit!” He offered. “But even if you stay here, it’s time you met some new people.”
“That’s easier said than done, Mario.”
“Not anymore, it isn’t,” he said, whipping his fuchsia covered phone out of his back pocket. “What do you like? Tall? Short? Stocky? Thin? Black? White? Ethnic?”
“Are you talking about people or boots?” I asked.
“People, Tillie!” he said, thrusting his phone in my face. I hated those things. Smart phones. They were more like phones that are so complicated, they make you feel stupid. I looked down and cringed when I saw a picture of a man’s hairy butt staring back up at me.
“Oops, sorry, that’s Grindr,” Mario shrugged, swiping the screen with his fingertip before showing me another picture. “Here we go. Look, this is the latest hookup app. It’s called DTF. All you have to do is make a profile, list off your interests, and bam! It hooks you up with people looking for someone just like you!”
“What’s DTF?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, shaking his head.
“I seriously doubt anyone out there is looking for a sad, washed-up, divorcée.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “Besides, you forgot one of your most attractive qualities.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re filthy rich, darling,” he said, rolling my long blonde hair into perfect beach waves, a style I’d never be able to accurately duplicate at home. “Not to mention drop-dead gorgeous.”
“Yeah, for a fifty year-old.”
“You don’t look a day over forty, Tillie,” he said, with a genuine smile. I almost believed him. Even if I didn’t, it felt good to hear him say it. “Besides, cougars are still trendy.”
“I’m a cougar?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “You’re a Samantha.”
“A what?”
“From Sex and the City. You’re the hot rich lady that doesn’t have to answer to anyone and can have whatever — and whomever — she wants.”
“You make it sound so simple,” I said, sighing.
“Trust me, girl,” he said, “in this day and age, it is. Embrace your inner cougar!”
“What about serial killers?” I asked. “I’ve seen those stories on SVU. A woman goes out with some guy she met online and she ends up in pieces in a recycling bin.”
“Look, as long as you’re safe, you’ll be fine,” he said.
“I bet that’s what all those dismembered women thought, too.”
He rolled his eyes. “Look, you have my cell. If you go to meet anyone, call me. Send me a link to their profile, tell me when and where you’re meeting them and let me know when you get back home. I’ll be your safety contact. I still think you should go to Vegas, though.”
“Vegas is so tacky,” I said.
“That’s what’s so great about it. And it’s only a few hours away. Plus, its a good place to get your feet wet. You can tackle the South of France next.”
I sighed as our conversation ran through my head. Plopping myself onto the leather sectional in front of the fireplace, I picked up my phone, as my two cats, Milo and Leo, snuggled up against my thighs.
Mario had taken the time to download the app for me before I’d left his salon and he’d even set up my account, snapping a picture of me with my new, perfectly highlighted, blonde beach waves as my profile picture.
I pulled up the app and was shocked to see the little red heart that told me I already had what Mario called a ‘poke’. A man’s profile popped up, along with a little message below it. I grabbed my reading glasses from the side table and slid them on my face before squinting to read the small text.
“MILF? GILF? Either way, let’s hook up. I like it rough. Your place or mine?”
I stared at the phone in confusion. MILF? GILF? Rough?!
I had no idea what a MILF or a GILF was, but I had a feeling it wasn’t good. I clicked on his photo, enlarging it on my screen. I cringed and quickly clicked the little ‘x’ to make his very unattractive face disappear. I could go my entire life without seeing him again.
My phone vibrated and another red heart lit up.
This message was even worse.
“24 year-old male seeking mommy fantasy. I’ve been a very bad boy. I need a spanking. Hit me up. I can host.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I said, throwing my phone across the sofa. This was not the way I wanted to meet anyone. I grabbed the remote and turned on the television and began flipping through the channels. I landed on the travel channel, watching as a woman on a journey through India ate some kind of disgusting unrecognizable cuisine she’d acquired from a street vendor.
I shook my head, wondering for the millionth time what the hell I was going to do with my life. I’d always dreamed of traveling, but Reggie was always too busy with work and frowned at the idea of me going without him. Now, the thought of taking off and exploring foreign lands all alone frankly frightened me. There were so many things I’d have done differently if I could go back now.
I’d spent the last twenty five years locked down to a man who didn’t want me. We’d fallen for each other hard and fast, after meeting at an audition six years after I’d arrived in Hollywood with stars in my eyes and forty dollars in my purse. I managed to get buy by waitressing and by the time I’d met Reggie, I’d been on hundreds of auditions and not landed even one part.
Reggie was fifteen years older than me and to a starry-eyed twenty five year-old, he was everything I’d dreamt of in a man — mature, rich, distinguished, worldly. He’d swept me off my feet with fancy dinner dates and sunset excursions on his yacht. We’d fallen in love under the big California sky, our future as bright as the sun that drenched the streets of Los Angeles.
To a poor girl from Tyler, Texas, the luxurious opulence of Reggie’s life was a seductive temptress. To the young, naive woman I’d been back then, his romantic proposal on the beach of Catalina Island was my ticket to eternal happiness.
We entered our marriage with every intention of filling our custom made home with children and love. It wasn’t long before we had to accept that babies weren’t coming, because for some reason, my body decided motherhood wasn’t in the cards for me. And much to my dismay, Reggie was completely opposed to adoption or any other options, no matter how many times I suggested it.
After a while, I stopped bringing it up.
Shortly after, he stopped coming home.
Work became his mistress and she stole him right out from under me, leaving me all alone in this amazingly beautiful, yet painfully quiet house. I became more and more shut off and isolated, choosing to distance myself from the few friends I did have back then just to avoid the look of pity in their eyes when they looked at me.
A few years later, Reggie came home one day and said he wanted a divorce. It was all so official and cold, the way he’d done it, but we’d been so aloof with each other for so long, I suppose there was no other way he could be.
The divorce was quick and painless, thankfully. He’d been overly generous with me and all I really wanted was the house anyway — even if being here alone was a constant, stinging reminder of our failed marriage. It was still my home, my sanctuary. My hope was that somehow I could find a way to still enjoy it, but I wasn’t sure just yet how to go about doing that.
Now that I was officially single and free — I had no idea what to do with myself or how to spend my time.
I could go anywhere, do anything, be anyone…
It sounds great, right?
In theory, I have nothing to complain about, I know that.
But here’s the problem: I have no idea who I am anymore. I’m not sure I ever really did. I came to Hollywood with dreams of becoming an actress and instead I became a motherless wife and gave up all those dreams in the process.
That’s obviously where I went wrong.
But maybe that’s also where I start.
It’s time I go out and figure it out for myself — figure out who I am.
I need answers and lord knows I’m never going to find them wasting away all by myself in this house.
I’m rich. I’ve got all the time in the world. I can do anything I want.
Millions of people would want to be in my place and I’m sitting here wallowing in misery? It’s absurd, I know…
I grabbed my phone again and called Mario.
“Tillie, baby!” he answered, his voice jubilant and slurring a little at this late hour.
“Mario, what’s the best hotel for me to stay at in Vegas?”
His squeal was enough to put a smile on my face that lingered for the rest of the evening.
“That’s my girl!” he cried. “I’ve got just the place.”