It’s A Plunderful Life Read online

  It’s A Plunderful Life

  Ginger Kidd

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Thank You!

  1

  Four days before my forty-ninth birthday, Brad took me to lunch at the food court at the mall. I know it doesn’t sound all that romantic, but we had our first date at a mall food court, twenty-nine years ago, so I thought it was pretty sweet of him.

  Plus, the food court really was the ideal place for us to eat together as we’ve never really liked the same food. At the food court, he could get a hot dog and I could get pad thai, and we were both happy.

  He hadn’t said anything, but I was pretty sure it was more than just a casual Saturday lunch date. We’d been talking for several months about Brad taking early retirement, and it would be just like him to surprise me with the announcement over lunch.

  Finally. Goodbye, long days that ran into the evenings. Hello, sunshine and vacations and visiting our daughter in Chicago whenever we felt like it. I knew Brad was more conservative than I was financially, but since he’d talked me into selling my business a few months ago, even he had to admit we had enough money for a long, blissful retirement together.

  He definitely had something on his mind as we sat across from each other at our favorite table, on the edge of the food court by the fountain. He lifted his napkin, stared at it as if he couldn’t remember what it was for, then set it back down again.

  I hid a smile behind a bite of pad thai. He was so cute when he was nervous. He’d acted just like this when he proposed, too.

  “Mall’s crowded today,” I said. “I imagine it’s a lot less crowded during the week.”

  There. That should help get the conversation headed in the right direction. Once he stopped working, we could have lunch at the mall on a Tuesday if we wanted.

  “Cass, listen,” he said.

  At the next table over, a young man stood up suddenly. He was maybe fourteen or fifteen, his dark blond hair gelled practically to death, a smattering of pimples marking his baby face. He wore a white button-up with a bright orange bowtie snugged up to his over-sized Adam’s apple, and he looked even more nervous than Brad did.

  “The thing is…” Brad said.

  But it was very hard to pay attention to him at that moment because the kid started to…well, rap.

  I mean, as much as a nerdy white high school kid can rap.

  And then another kid stood up, this one on the other side of the food court. He was also wearing a white shirt and a tie, although his tie was yellow. He waited a beat, and then he joined the first kid.

  “Do you know what this is?” I said as several more young men in ties stood up around the food court. “It’s a flash mob!” And they were doing an a cappella version of “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot, which was a nice touch. It was good to see today’s youth still appreciated the classics.

  And that’s when Brad blurted out, “I want a divorce.”

  It took a moment to hear him, really hear him. In the meantime, I clapped my hands together and said, “Can you believe we get to see one of these in person? I thought they went out years ago.”

  Then the words Brad had just said hit me. Right when the kid three feet away was singing about his anaconda in a surprisingly rich baritone. “Wait. What did you say?”

  He swallowed hard. By that time, the music was all around us, and he waved his hand helplessly. “We’ll talk later,” he mouthed.

  Um, no. Flash mob or no, I wasn’t about to let him drop that bomb and then go back to eating his hot dog. “I don’t think so,” I said, raising my voice so he could hear me over the singing. “We’re going to talk now.”

  His lips compressed in the straight line that told me he was annoyed. He hated being told what to do.

  Well, too bad. As it turned out, I hated being told my husband wanted a divorce.

  The kid closest to us began dancing, or at least I assume it was supposed to be dancing. There was a lot of balancing on one leg while holding his arms out to the sides and thrusting his chest forward. It could just as easily have been his impersonation of a hangry flamingo. Judging from the misplaced confidence all over the kid’s face, someone had told him his moves were on point.

  Someone who apparently didn’t like this kid very much.

  I forced myself to focus on Brad. “But…why? We’re so happy.” We really were. We were the happiest couple I knew. Unless…“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” What an idiot I was. Late nights at the office? More like late nights at the Motel 6.

  But he shook his head. “Honestly, there’s not. It’s just…” He picked up his napkin again, worrying at the corner. When he met my gaze, his eyes looked weary and sad, and I had to stop myself from reaching out to comfort him. “I realized that I didn’t want to retire because I don’t want to spend all my time with you.”

  I sat back hard in my chair. Well. So much for my so-called happy marriage. My husband didn’t want to spend time with me. Not just in a “maybe I’ll take up fishing so I can get some me-time” kind of way.

  No, he was willing to blow up our life just to get away from me.

  Somewhere, someone was beat boxing very badly.

  Now, normally I am a sane and rational human. If you had asked me how I pictured myself handling just such a situation, I would have said that I hoped I would handle it with grace and class, that I could at least walk away with my dignity intact.

  Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

  It’s just that it hit me, as my husband was shouting the words “equitable division of assets” over the music, that he was talking about the proceeds of the sale of my business. The line of skincare products I’d developed in my spare time, the business he’d cautioned me about putting too much of myself into. “Look, it’s not that I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he’d said when I brought it to him. “It’s just that you already have so much on your plate. What about Margot? What about her volleyball practice and theater and flag squad? And the PTA and all your other volunteer stuff? Won’t you be burned out? I can support you on this emotionally, but if you expect me to suddenly be able to do more around the house just because you’re bored…”

  Oh, of course not. Brad was the breadwinner—his job was to make the money. And I’d assumed it would always be that way, until it turned out I could make money too. A lot of it.

  And so I’d stayed up late sourcing ingredients, talked to suppliers while waiting for my daughter to finish volleyball practice, asked other moms at the PTA if they wanted to test out various formulations, gotten up an hour early to ship out product. I’d answered customer emails while I’d cooked dinner. Later, when I’d grown the business enough to bring on help, I’d conducted conference calls while folding laundry, my laptop open beside me, my eyes flicking from sales reports and P&L sheets to my husband’s crisp, clean boxers.

  And now, after all that, he wanted half.

  So, no, it turned out I did not handle the situation with grace and class.

&nb
sp; I lost it.

  I can’t remember exactly what I said, and even if I could, I’m not sure I would admit to knowing some of the words I may have used. I know there was some yelling. Definitely some tears, and not the pretty kind. We’re talking full-on snotty sobs mixing with an unfortunate amount of mascara. Also…gestures. I talk with my hands at the best of times. Get me emotional and it’s like I’m directing the freaking Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

  And then I just couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t stand looking at that face I loved so much, knowing it was responsible for my broken heart. The kid next to us was now doing what I thought might have been something like the running man, although more of how an early-generation robot might do the running man. Everyone around us looked enthralled, caught up in the delight of this strange, unexpected event.

  And instead of getting to sit back and just enjoy the show, I was having my heart ripped out of my chest and stomped on, robot-running-man style, by my very own husband.

  I shoved away from the table, hurling one final, pained shot at him. “You’re ruining Sir Mix-A-Lot for me!”

  There was an audible gasp, and it was only then that I realized the flash mobbers had come to an abrupt, jazz-handy finish, and silence had descended over the food court.

  I turned to the young man at the next table. He looked stricken. “Not you,” I said, patting him on his bony shoulder as I moved away from Brad. “You guys were fantastic. Really…” I choked back a sob. “Really great.”

  And then I fled into the relative safety of the rest of the mall, the water splashing into the fountain the only sound behind me.

  We decided that I would stay at the house and Brad would get a hotel room for a few days. He didn’t want to disrupt my life.

  Because, no, tossing out divorce over lunch isn’t a huge disruption or anything.

  I took the opportunity to hit him where it hurt the most: his cherished cocktail garnishes. I had already worked my way through an entire jar of expensive cocktail olives and was in the process of dumping a full jar of Luxardo cherries onto a bowl of cheap birthday cake ice cream when my phone rang.

  My first thought was that it was Brad, calling to tell me that it was a mistake. No—a surprise. A birthday surprise where he pretends to want a divorce but then ta-da, he actually bought me a lake house or even just that cordless vacuum I’d been eyeing. But now he realized how much I was hurting and what a stupid trick it was, and could he please come back if he brought the vacuum?

  But when I pulled the phone out of my purse, I saw that it was just Margot.

  I winced at that thought. Not just Margot. My daughter was my favorite person. Especially now.

  Wiping my hands over my face, I cleared my throat a few times and tested my voice out. A little scratchy from all the crying, but I thought I could pass it off as a cold.

  I pushed Accept. “Hi, sweetheart,” I said.

  “Mom? What’s wrong? What happened to you?”

  “I think I have a little cold coming on.” I pasted a smile on my face, hoping that would come through over the phone. “But other than that, everything’s great!”

  Even to my own ears, I sounded suspiciously chipper. But I certainly wasn’t about to tell my daughter that her dad and I were divorcing. At least not until we’d had a chance to cool down and talk somewhere without fifteen-year-olds rapping an ode to big butts and possibly—hopefully—decided that divorce at our age was stupid.

  “Mom,” Margot said, lowering her voice. I pictured her with her eyebrows drawn together and her chin tucked against her chest the way she did when she was serious. “It’s all over the internet.”

  “What’s all over the internet?” I asked, my mind tumbling with possibilities. Had Brad posted that we were getting divorced on his Facebook page? He wouldn’t, would he? I didn’t think he even knew his password anymore. The last time he’d posted anything was six years ago when he’d wished his mother a happy birthday. He wasn’t about to suddenly air our—his—dirty laundry online, was he?

  There was a jingle in the background, and my shoulders tensed. I knew that jingle—it was Georgie’s charm bracelet. You know that kid your child befriends that you just can’t wait for them to outgrow? That was Georgie. The girls had been BFFs since elementary school, and I was still waiting for Margot to realize that Georgie was trouble. She’d even followed Margot to Chicago. “It’s so much cheaper to live there with a roommate,” Margot had explained. “And I’m so glad I’ll have someone I know with me.”

  And then I heard something else over the line, a tinny thread of music. It was “Baby Got Back.” An a cappella version. And it was coming from somewhere on my daughter’s end. “Mom,” she whispered. “You’ve gone viral.”

  There was a distant chuckle, and then I heard Georgie snicker, “Nice flailing, Mrs. Lindstrom.” Then some shushing from Margot. “It’s not funny,” my daughter hissed. She was muffled, probably with the phone tucked against her neck so she could talk to Georgie.

  “It is a little,” Georgie said.

  “Are you okay?” my daughter asked, her voice no longer muffled. “Were you…screaming at Dad?”

  “I wasn’t screaming,” I said, although now that I thought about it, I probably was.

  “Mom…” Margot trailed off, then took a breath. “They’re calling you the Flash Mob Freakout Lady.”

  “Who’s calling me that?”

  “The whole internet.”

  In the background, Georgie laughed so hard I thought she might throw up.

  Of course it was on the internet, I realized. How many people pulled out their phones to record the flash mob? Probably half the people there. And if they were recording the kids singing, how many of them managed to capture my…Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a freakout.

  But maybe a little.

  And there it was. Four days shy of forty-nine, and I had become famous for the worst moment of my life.

  2

  When you get divorced, all your friends want to know what went wrong. What were the signs? What did you do/did he do/did you stop doing? Did he say anything that should have tipped you off, and, if so, what were his exact words?

  I understood their curiosity. It was self-preservation, really. Because no one wants to believe that a happy marriage can end after so many years. Sure, some people had marriages that were clearly destined for a lawyer’s office. But since my friends hadn’t seen any signs of trouble in our marriage, it was important that they got me to tell them what they were.

  Because as long as they knew what not to do, what early warning signs to look for, they could keep this from happening to them.

  Which is super fun, because after a while you realize that your friends really need someone to blame. This can’t be just one of those things that happen. They need a bad guy. And if you refuse to deliver your husband up, then it must be you.

  “Do you think if you had put as much energy into your marriage as you did into your business, then this wouldn’t have happened?” one of my well-meaning but really dumb friends asked me.

  Why didn’t they ever ask that of him? Why didn’t they go to Brad and ask him whether he had any regrets about not putting our marriage first? He certainly didn’t seem to have any regrets about the money I’d made from selling skincare products. I heard from friends that he finally put in for retirement and bought a boat just two weeks after he told me he wanted a divorce.

  It looked like maybe he might get into fishing after all.

  But what did I have? Sure, I had enough money that I could, if I lived conservatively, stay retired. I might need to get a roommate or two, and I definitely had to sell the house, but I could make it. But…then what?

  My daughter lived six hours away in Chicago and was busy with her own life, starting her career and discovering the cool bars and doing all the things you’re supposed to when you’re newly graduated from college and in your early twenties. And my friends, the people I’d assumed I could look to
for support, basically just wanted me to reassure them that my fate wouldn’t happen to them, that I’d made some immense mistake or done something to karmically deserve being dumped.

  And my business was gone. Sold, the whole thing. The cute little boutique, the formulas. Everything. Had I known this was going to happen, I would have kept it. It would have given me something I loved to do, something to look forward to every day.

  But I didn’t have that any longer, and I did the only sane thing a woman with almost a half century behind her could do—I went home.

  There’s just something about grief that makes you homesick, and with nowhere else to land, I decided home was going to have to be it.

  At cocktail parties, I usually told people I grew up at a theme park on the coast of South Carolina, which is technically true. But if you’re picturing Disney World, let me stop you right there.

  The Enchanted Forest was definitely not Disney.

  For one thing, there were no rides. For another, it was, quite literally, a forest, with hiking trails winding through it and fairy tale elements sprinkled throughout.

  At least there was a castle.

  Or, sort of a castle. In my mind, it had been an imposing structure, with gilded windows and a heavy drawbridge and half a dozen turrets reaching for the clouds. But as I pulled into the parking lot of the Enchanted Forest, I realized I may have exaggerated the size and grandeur of the castle in my memories.

  Still, there was something so wonderful about that quirky castle, with its chalky white exterior covered in ivy and climbing roses, chipped gold paint on the trim, and squat, uneven towers. It wasn’t the busy season yet, but the parking lot was still a third full. As I watched, a young family piled out of a minivan and headed for the entrance to the park, the parents swinging a toddler dressed in a lobster costume between them as they walked.