Page 2 of The Fix-Up

So, I’d put on actual makeup, shaved my legs, tamed my long blonde hair into loose curls, plucked that one stubborn chin hair, and put on a pale-pink dress with fluttery cap sleeves and strappy sandals. It was a far cry from the jeans, t-shirts, and tennis shoes I wore six days a week at the café. I was kind of feeling myself.

I worked hard to feel good about my body these days. I came from a family of Amazons—big, strong, strapping Amazons. Amazons who were part milkmaids or Vikings or something. My brother was six five, one of my sisters was pushing six feet. Iwas but five nine. But I used to be a willowy, waif-like five nine. The kind that could fit in sample sizes and ordered side salads at restaurants as a meal.

Then I’d gotten pregnant at twenty-one and I didn’t quite lose all the weight. I started eating real food, and yes, even dessert. I was more a size twelve or fourteen these days than a size two. I was so much happier, even if it had taken me a while to get used to this new me. I appreciated it now. This body had grown a whole human child, and it could make the best muffins on thisand thatside of the Mississippi.

I strolled into my favorite restaurant, the Texican, only five minutes late. For me, that was practically early. Being on time had never been one of my strong points.

Unfortunately, I knew the second I saw Liliana’s face the primping was all for nothing. Liliana and her husband owned and operated the Texican, a perfect blend of Mexico and Texas on a plate. Seeing as how it was halfway between Houston and Two Harts, the small town I lived in, it was where I tried to hold all my first dates. I’d probably paid for most of the mortgage on this place at this point.

Liliana eyed me over the top of her reading glasses. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but that look was easily in the seven figures.

“Is he here?” I asked.

“Yes, he is.” Her voice practically dripped with displeasure. She was tiny, the top of her head barely hitting my shoulder, but she had a backbone made of steel and reinforced by hard work. Everyone knew Liliana was not one to mess with. Me included. “Ellie,mija, your man picker is broken.”

“But he’s an engineer,” I whined, slumping against the counter, careful not to upset the bowl of complimentarybuñuelos—fried pieces of tortilla covered in cinnamon and sugar and scarily addictive. I picked one up and took a bite.

Liliana harrumphed.

“He’s a homeowner.” I stuffed the rest of thebuñueloin my mouth and tried to keep the desperation from my voice. “He’s never been married. He’s a dog person.”

She shook her head. “He is not the one.”

“But—”

“No, not him.” She patted me on the cheek. “I had to put him at the table by the bathrooms.”

“The bathroom table? He’s that bad?”

She leaned in and lowered her voice. “He is crying.”

“He’s what?” Maybe he was in touch with his feelings? Please be that. Please be th?—

“He’s crying and staring at photos of a woman on his phone.”

So not that.

Curtis wasn’t hard to find. I just followed the sniffling. Nor was it a challenge to get the story out of him. The woman on his phone? His ex-girlfriend. The crying? She’d texted him a picture of…her cat.

“That’s Sugar-Bear.” He pointed at a photo of an orange tabby with a supremely bored expression on its whiskered face.

“How long were you together?” I asked, determined to give this date the old college try.

“Three beautiful months.” He sniffled again and glanced forlornly at the cloth napkin he’d already repurposed as a tissue.

Three months? I’d had rashes that lasted longer than three months. “How long ago did you break up?”

He swung his red-rimmed eyes in my direction. “Nine months ago.”

A whole human person could be conceived, grown, and hatched in less time than he was taking to get over this woman. The saddest part? I was a little jealous. I doubted I’d been the cause of such heartbreak in a man.

“We were so happy.” He held his phone out, pointing at a new photo. “This is us in Galveston. We had such a good time. We went to the aquarium, and you would not believe what we saw.”

He told me in minute detail what they’d seen while he flicked through photos on his phone, occasionally stopping to sob softly into his hand. I thought engineers were supposed to be stoic and unemotional.

I tried to get my brain to stay focused. Be in the present, my therapist Sunny liked to remind me. Bet Sunny had never been on a date with Curtis.

My eyes wandered to the wall mural of a mariachi band. Across the room, several sombreros in varying sizes hung from the wall. That warm terra-cotta color on the walls might be nice in the bathroom at home. We needed to get rid of the pink?—

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