Page 1 of F*ck Marriage

Part I

Chapter One

Billie

The salon is warm, all west-facing windows. I stare out at the parking lot wishing for a fan, a breeze—anything to cool the heat on my skin. I watch as a mother chases her toddler across the cracked asphalt; he falls. Rolling onto his back, he screams, arms and legs flailing like a turned over beetle. When she picks him up, I see that her hair is stuck to her face in wet clumps. She’s at her wits’ end, either from the heat or the boy. I feel her. The entire state of Washington is an oven, and we are her bread.

With mother and boy tucked safely in their car and on the way, there is nothing to distract me from my current discomfort. My mind drifts to nicotine, my tongue curling around the imaginary flavor. I want a cigarette so badly I’m jittery. The bell to the door jingles, and one of the stylists walks in carrying two tabletop fans under her arms. She purses her lips to blow her bangs off her forehead, but they stay put.

“It’s all they had left,” she says to a different stylist.

They confer about where to put the fans, and in the end, they drag a table to the center of the room and make a fuss of arranging them. If I lean to the left, I can catch some of the breeze they’re creating.

“Can you sit up straight?” my stylist asks, tapping me on the shoulder. “I thought you wanted to cut it.” She stands over me, hands suspended, mid-action. They always seem so disappointed when you tell them you don’t want to hack your hair off.

I can see the damp on her blouse just under her arms. She opens and closes her scissors for emphasis, drawing my eyes back to her face. I think of comparing her toEdward Scissorhands, but she’s freshly twenty-five and I doubt she’d know who he is.

“Change of plans,” I say. “I’m going home next week.”

The wordhomeis a sour word in my mouth. Even as I say it, my tongue curls back in protest. Home to me is a city, not a house, or a husband, or a family. Maybe because I don’t really have those things anymore, or maybe because I’m not cut out to have those things.

“No one there has ever seen me with long hair,” I explain, as if that’s a good enough reason.

It’s not entirely the truth. There’s no one left to see me. My friends are gone. In my exodus from the city two years ago, I made the decision for them. For a while, they tried to stay in touch, but in my grief, I sent their efforts to voicemail. And just like that, they stopped trying. My ex was the one who stayed, so he inherited custody of our friends. It sounds silly to think that, but it’s true. When there’s a divorce, lines are drawn, sides taken.

I reach up, running my fingers through the length of it. It’s past the middle of my back, hanging in sleek mermaid waves, thanks to Tina’s grooming. I like the idea of them seeing me in my new body, with my new hair: I am thinner, longer, wiser…more jaded. I tell myself that being jaded gives me an edge. If Woods met me now, there’d be no way he’d call me trusting like he did all those years ago.

“Home, huh? I thought you grew up here in Port Townsend,” Tina says.

She likes to make fun of my divided loyalty; though, if you put a gun to my head, I’d choose New York every time.

“Do you have a cigarette?” I ask.

“Nice try. You told me not to give you one no matter how much you beg.”

“I just want to put it in my mouth.”

“That’s what she said,” Tina jokes.

She rummages around in her bag and pulls one out: Marlboro.Ew.I stick it between my lips and close my eyes in pleasure.

“You’re pathetic,” she says when I hand it back to her.

“I know.”

“—but beautiful.”

“In New York I’m Billie, and here I’m plain ol’ Wendy.”

“Oh my dear,” she says, spinning my seat around to face the mirror. “You’re anything but plain.”

I smile at my reflection. A lot has changed since I arrived home two years ago, my tail tucked between my legs. And Tina is right, partially right: I am no longer the plain girl I once was. Rejection is a fine motivator.

“When do you leave?” She unclips the robe from my neck, and I unfold myself from her chair. The breeze from the fan finds me and I close my eyes in pleasure.

“Tomorrow.” I turn to face her.

“Will you see Woods?”

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