My nails were as glossy as cream colored plastic. And my toenails. My hair was freshly cut and still smelled of fancy salon shampoo, plus it sparkled with some bright new golden highlights that were long overdue. I was wearing a single squirt of an expensive new perfume I had treated myself to, and I had gone a good few days without smoking.

I looked at my reflection to take in the overall effect.

Making myself over was actually proving to be harder than I expected, though. The main problem was that I wasn’t even sure what counted as beautiful or sexy. All the elements were there: the playful shaggy blonde bob, the neat little figure, all the edges buffed and polished and gone over with gloss or powder or sparkles. I had on some heels and a lacy black top. My skin was moisturized and I smelled like jasmine and tuberose.

But was I sexy?

I turned away from the mirror and rooted around for some gum. The problem was that for so long I had only seen myself through Derek’s eyes. What he liked was what I did. Now that he was gone, who knows what I wanted to do. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it fall at all? And if some recovering divorcee makes herself beautiful on a Friday evening to go out but there’s no man to watch her, is she beautiful at all?

I tossed my wallet and some lipstick into my purse and got ready to leave. This town only had one decent bar, so at least that choice was made for me. As for the dilemma of whether I was sufficiently hot to go out on the prowl, that was a question that would have to go unanswered. Truth be told, the sexiest I had felt lately was when I was lurking around in the dark like a sexual offender, spying on my hot neighbor, but I couldn’t tell a soul about that. And he wasn’t that hot. Ugh.

I ruffled my hair and looked at the post-it note stuck on the living room mirror: “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.” I had tearfully underlined this quote in one of my Sort-Out-Your-Shit self-help books one late night and decided I wanted to see it every morning now, to remind myself never to let another man’s system enslave me ever again. I straightened my shoulders, exhaled and made the decision: I was hot, dammit. I was a beautiful, valuable woman who was creating her reality. And also, fuck Derek.

My heart stopped when I heard the gravel on the driveway crunch. For the briefest moment, my brain flashed through an alternate reality: he was outside now, taking his turn to spy on me, and he had watched me through my own curtains and he had seen my heels and my newly done hair and had jerked off quietly to the sight of me… I raced to the front window and peered out. The dark curls. The smile that was half turned down at the edge. The jeans and the band t-shirt. My heart sank.

It was fucking Derek.

My mind flashed to all the potential weapons in the house. An old habit he had taught me: I knew to always scan my environment for sharp objects, potential exits and objects that could be used to hide behind and put distance between me and…

“It’s you,” I said as I opened the door. He had found me. Somehow, after everything, he had found me.

He looked me up and down and then whistled under his breath.

“Holy cow, will you just look at you,” he laughed, his hands still in his pockets.

“I was on my way out actually,” I said curtly, and positioned myself squarely in the door frame. Anyone other than Derek would have taken a step back and gotten the hint. But for this asshole, the whole world only consisted of two things: what he wanted, and the things that stood in his way of getting it.

“Where are you going?” he asked. I looked at him without being too generous with my eye contact.

“Out.”

“Yeah, but where?”

“That really isn’t any of your business,” I said with all the strength I could muster plus a bunch of faking it. He laughed.

“Jesus, you don’t have to act like I’m some kind of criminal.”

I took a step down and tried to close the door behind me.

“I’m your husband for crying out loud.”

“Ex,” I said. His response was swift. He reached out, grabbed my arm and pulled me close to him, and I instantly jerked free of him, took another step, and glowered at him, my bag now shielding my body. He laughed and held his hands up in innocence.

“Really? This shit again? You have to be kidding me. I come over here to make peace with you and the first thing you do is insult me like this?”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I said quietly, my face hot. The trouble with my own ‘system’ was that it seemed so weak and small compared to his.

“Yeah? And you’re not supposed to be whoring around already when we’ve barely been separated for two seconds,” he said and looked with burning hate at the lace on my blouse.

“Leave or I’m calling the police,” I said. Then I waited. I had learnt over the years to predict the unpredictable, to continuously brace for impact, to live and go about my life on my toes, ready to turn and run at the first hint of danger. I waited for him to do it already. To drop his poison, to try and hurt me again. I wrapped myself up tight and small and waited.

His face softened and he smiled, as though our whole history had just been some silly misunderstanding. As if a broken jaw, as if dozens of bruises, as if hundreds of slaps to the face amounted to just a silly gaffe he made, and I should just laugh about it all now. I bit down on my jaw.

“You look pretty,” he said.

“I have to go, goodbye.” I turned on my heel to walk away. He followed, then stood over me as I unlocked the car door. When I grabbed the handle, he placed his hand softly over mine and leaned in closer.

“You’re not going to give me even a second of your time, huh?” he said quietly. At least if he killed me out here there would be a greater chance of there being witnesses.

“If you have something to say, say it. If not you need to go, I’m busy.”

I felt a quick flutter of triumph at having dared say something so bold. I would never have risked saying something like that in the past. But I had a new haircut now. And who knows, maybe I’d meet my next husband tonight. If I wanted another husband, which I didn’t.

He laughed quietly to himself and removed his hand, thrusting it back in his pocket.

“I can see you haven’t changed a bit,” he said as I climbed into the car.

“Derek, if you come around here again I’m going to call the police. It’s over,” I said, feeling even braver now that I was inside the car. He stood in the way, preventing me from closing the door, and propped himself menacingly against the roof.

“Can we talk? Can you at least give me five goddam minutes?”

I sighed and stared straight ahead, angry that I had to deal with this now, right exactly at the time I found the guts to embark on my little makeover mission.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Oh, isn’t there? And what I want to discuss can just fuck off? That’s really generous of you, Kate.”

“I didn’t say that, but you can’t just pitch up here and–”

“And what? Talk to my ex-wife? Who are you fucking?” he spat.

I spun around to look at him in horror.

“Excuse me?”

“There’s only one reason a woman like you would go to so much effort to tart herself up. It’s fucking embarrassing.”

“I’m going out. I look nice,” I whispered.

He laughed.

“Bitch, you can fool the rednecks in this town but any idiot can see what you really are.”

The tears came so quickly I couldn’t stop them. I was afraid to blink in case I sent them rolling down my cheeks. I couldn’t let him see me cry.

“You don’t get to talk to me like that anymore,” I said and tried to mean it. He laughed.

“Talk to you like what? Yeah yeah, I know, you don’t like hearing the truth, you want everyone to tip toe around your feelings, huh? Oh I’m sorry, you’re an aging tramp who’s just walked away from her only good shot in life and is trying to pretend she can make it on her own now just because she puts on some little whore shoes and gets some rednecks to give her attention. You want me to lie to you and tell you that nobody notices how desperate you look? It’s pathetic.”

I jammed the keys into the ignition and roughly started the car, the tears beginning to really burn.

“I’m leaving. Get the fuck out of my way.” But he was still laughing. He stepped out of the way and let me slam the car door, but as I pulled away I was struck with the sickening sensation that he now knew where I lived, and could come back whenever he wanted.

The tears made it hard to see the road. By the time I parked at the bar, it took me a good 15 minutes to dry my tears, stop snuffling and touch up my mascara. I wasn’t going to let him ruin my whole evening. And if I was honest, I was too afraid to go back home in case he was there, waiting for me.

I had to shake him off like the craziness he was. He was trying to hurt me, trying to get under my skin and twist things around again. He knew I looked good. He was just saying whatever he needed to get me under his control again. I knew that. But I didn’t exactly feel it just then, my hands still shaking. As I sat there alone in the dark car park a thought crystallized in my mind: I’d show him. I’d pick up some guy this evening and he’d think I was gorgeous and then if he even dared to linger around my apartment then he’d have to come face to face with whoever I decided to bring home with me tonight. That would show him. ‘Whoring around’? And so what if I was? Maybe I didn’t give a shit if he felt like I was embarrassing – the fact was that he didn’t have a say over anything I did anymore. And maybe he was right, maybe I was trying hard and maybe I was being pretty obvious putting on an outfit like this. But so what?

I smiled at my reflection in the rear-view mirror, batted my eyelashes and went inside. The second I pushed open the door and took a few high-heeled steps into the bar, I realized how outrageously overdressed I was. I wavered a little but soon put my shoulders back, held my chin high and waltzed right in. Why shouldn’t I be the hottest woman in here? What did it matter if every guy in the place suddenly turned a little to see me walk that painful few feet to the bar?

“A whiskey please,” I said to the bartender, who took his time looking me up and down, then nodded and disappeared. I sat on a bar stool and angled my body to casually face the crowd.

It was a loose assortment of mostly men, many of them clustered around a dimly lit pool table, and a few rough-looking tables and chairs that made no effort to look chic or welcoming. The handful of women were all dressed casually and nursing giant glasses of beer, and looked me over with something like tiredness in their eyes. Good. Let them be jealous.

With perfect timing, a guy sidled over and sat on the stool beside mine. He made a little gesture to the bartender who nodded and disappeared again, and then turned to look at me as though he was the designated investigator of all female newcomers to this bar. The city next to this one was famous for its auto industry, and this neighborhood had its fair share of blue-collar workers and salt of the earth types raising families well over the size of the national average. I didn’t care. Rent was cheaper and crime levels were low. But clearly I hadn’t thought through the dating prospects of this place very clearly.

“Name’s Jeff,” he said and nodded at me.

“Kate.”

He smiled and watched as I was handed my whiskey and took a sip.

“New in town?”

I nodded and quickly took another sip. I would rather my tongue and throat burn than my eyes. I imagined Derek’s stupid face right now.

“I moved in a few weeks ago. Recently divorced. Starting over,” I said quickly. He lifted his eyebrows, then laughed.

“That’s a lot of information,” he said. This was it. If I was starting new, I needed to pull the band-aid off and just do it.

“Yeah well, what I’d really like to do is get revenge on my ex,” I said and locked eyes with him. A smile played on his lips.

“Huh,” he said, and squirmed his gaze away from mine. “To lose a lady like you, I’m sure you’ve gotten back at him plenty already,” he said and laughed.

I smiled. This was easy. It was totally normal to be a sexy, in control woman in a bar subtly informing the world that yes, she had one thing on her mind and no, she wasn’t embarrassed to says so.

“Well, I’m not done just yet,” I said. “He was very controlling. And so now I’d like to be in control for once.” I had no idea where that came from, but it was true enough. He raised his glass to me and I clinked my own against it.

“Well, here’s to women in charge,” he said and took a hearty gulp. I smiled and felt the alcohol seep through me. This was fine. This was what I wanted. If not him, then who? No, this was all perfectly going to plan. Derek missed his chance with me and he’d lost the best shot he ever had. And I was staring down the path of finally becoming the confident, independent vixen I was meant to be all along.

“So, what do we now, boss?” he said and leaned in closer.

I smiled.