Sexy on Display

Several years ago, I actually inspired an item for sale at Victoria’s Secret. Well, sort of.

My sister, Holly, and I were at the Mall of America in Minneapolis for our annual Christmas shopping trip. The mannequin in the window of the Victoria’s Secret was wearing a sexy little Santa suit, a red lace bra and panty set lined in white fur and completed with a Santa hat. I nudged Holly and said, “I bet Kevin would like that for Christmas.”

Her eyebrows shot up. Grinning, she said, “Yes, he would.” We entered the store and began looking for the little Santa suit. It was nowhere to be found, so my sister asked a sales associate, a spandexed and stilettoed twentysomething who was rearranging tiger-print bras, if they had sold out of the Santa suits. The girl looked at us with an expression that said, “Who let the nutjobs out of the psyche ward today?”

“It's for display only,” the little snot informed us as she rolled her eyes. We slithered out of Victoria’s Secret, somehow ashamed to have been asking for an outfit in the display window. Like we were some sort of perverts with a Santa fetish, some real-life ho-ho-hos. “It’s for display only,” I said, mimicking the snotty sales girl, “not for personal use.”

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who asked. Because the very next year, we walked into the very same store to see a mannequin clad in a fuschia-colored Santa suit. And behind the mannequin was a whole rack of the outfits just waiting to be taken home for personal use.

A pretty blonde approached and asked if we needed help. Holly said, “I want one of those Santa suits.”

“Aren’t they pretty?” the girl gushed. “It’s like Christmas, only pink! And it's accentuated.”

I looked at the padded hot pink bra. It was studded with tiny rhinestones and lined with the white fur. Accentuated, indeed.

Holly paid for Kevin’s gift and brought it home to Georgia. On Christmas Eve, after all the toys were put together and laid under the tree, they exchanged gifts.

Unfortunately, it was after midnight and they were both battling the flu. So the much-appreciated gift was set aside to be used at a more opportune time.

The next morning, after the excitement over their toys had subsided, one of the four-year-old twins noticed the box. “Mommy! It’s beautiful!” the girls said, obviously thinking Santa had brought the pretty outfit for her. Holly, already busy with the breakfast she was preparing for the extended family, quickly grabbed the box and stashed it in her bedroom.

Later that morning, as Kevin’s parents, our parents, the grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and two teenage exchange students sat enjoying the breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls, and freshly-squeezed orange juice that Holly had so carefully prepared, one of the twins came running out of her parents’ bedroom with an open box in her hands. She headed straight for my dad, stuck the box into the space between his face and his breakfast plate, and excitedly said, “Look what Santa brought Mommy!”

The Santa suit was back on display. It was, I think, a new twist on the old saying, “Use it or lose it.” Because everyone in that room lost it -- except for Kevin’s mother, who somehow pretended not to notice.

On Monday morning, Holly and I are going to Lenox Mall to celebrate her birthday and to finish our Christmas shopping. At some point, we will pass by the Victoria’s Secret on the main level of that mall, and I will nudge her and snicker and say, “I bet Kevin would like a sexy little accentuated Santa suit for Christmas this year.”

And my sister will say back to me, “It’s for display only.”

Measuring Intelligence

One evening in early November 2005, Morgan walked into my bathroom. I was sitting on the floor of my closet packing for my annual Christmas-shopping trip with my sister to the Mall of America in Minneapolis. Morgan was wearing an Abercrombie t-shirt with the words “Dependently Wealthy” on it. She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned against the doorframe, and with her eyebrows arched as high as they could possibly get, said, “Mom, I need to know one thing. Are you and dad planning on having any more kids?”

I laughed. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Just answer the question, Mom.” She cocked her head to the side and waited for my answer.

“Sweetie, you know the answer to that. Of course we’re not planning on any more children. Now tell me why you’re asking.”

My children were fifteen, twelve, and ten at the time. All three were in school, straight-A students, and could take themselves to the potty. A baby was definitely not in the picture.

Morgan had been using her father’s computer. She said, “I hit Dad’s favorites page, and you know what popped up? A vasectomy reversal site.”

Shit.

But I didn’t say a word. I just sat there looking up at my daughter and letting the tears well up in my eyes.

Then she said, “Mom, how much more are you going to take?”

She left the room, and I sat there feeling like a limp dishrag. I couldn’t cry because that would mean I would have to explain to my husband what was upsetting me. Finally, I moved to the bathroom sink and was washing my face as my husband walked in. Now a budding developer who had applied for zoning permits to build a community of ranch-style condos in our town, he commented, “The county is giving me problems again. The Water Authority wants to put more conditions on the zoning approval I’ve already gotten.”

“You may have to sue them,” I said, and he agreed.

I continued the lather in order to hide my face from him, and after a moment, he left the room. Seconds later, he stomped back into the bathroom, threw his hands up in the air, and with his face twisted in fury, yelled, “You don’t give a rat’s ass, do you?”

“Huh?” I answered, looking up from the towel I was using to dry my face. Honestly, I thought I’d given him at least a rat’s ass worth of concern when I’d said he might have to sue the county. What, did he want me to go buy a posterboard and make a sign and picket the next Commission Zoning Meeting? The man was making it extremely difficult for me to keep my cool.

“My businesses are going bankrupt, and you don’t even care. But you’re going to care in about two months when I file for bankruptcy. And that’s when I’m going to know that you’re only married to me for the money.”

He turned and left the room. I heard the alarm beep, meaning he had left the house, and I knew that, just like every other night for the past several months, he would not return.

The next morning, I called a lawyer, and that afternoon I was seated in his office. I needed a divorce; of that I was certain. But he needed to know what I was seeking in the divorce, and I said, “Everything I deserve.” The problem was that if we were in the financial trouble my husband was claiming, I had no idea what to ask for. We left that section blank, my attorney assuring me I was entitled to half and that we would find out, in the process of discovery, just how much half was. He promised to have the petition for divorce filed and ready to serve him within one week. Fortunately, I would be at the Mall of America when he was served, and my children would be at their grandparents’ home, where they would be sheltered from seeing a sheriff at the door.

On the flight to Minneapolis, I remembered that he had always used his birthdate as his email password. When we landed, I went straight to the tiny business center in the Minneapolis Airport Hilton and logged onto his email, something I could have easily done all along. I spent the next two hours and $75 printing out emails. It may have been the best money I’ve ever spent.

There was an AdultFriendFinder alert. “You have three new flirts.” I clicked onto his profile to discover that my husband of eighteen years and the father of my children was single with no kids. Not only that, he was also a young professional in his early thirties (lie) who had never had time to commit to a relationship (a lie unless marriage doesn’t count as a relationship) because he was extremely busy in his professional life (half true). No children (lie). 195 pounds (huge lie). Additionally, he liked all things Latin – music, food, and women. In fact, he was looking for a Latin girl, and this is the God-honest truth, intelligence was only “moderately” important to him.

Another email contained pictures of what must have been the girl of his dreams. She was Latina, and, as proof that she was, indeed, “moderately intelligent,” she was gainfully employed as a shot girl in a strip club. In the picture, she was baring her boobies, and the pictures were courtesy of a professional photographer who was courting my husband’s investment dollars. Basically, the asshole paid for her Glamour Shots!

Hey, Einstein, you’re considering a vasectomy reversal so that you can have a child with a moderately intelligent woman. Did you know that vasectomy reversals are rarely successful ten years after the vasectomy? They’re going to have to stick a needle into your scrotum to suck your semen out. And they’re going to mix it in a little Petri dish with the eggs from a woman with the intelligence of blue-footed booby bird. Just for the fun of it, I took your picture and hers and put them into one of those cool computer programs that shows you what your children will look like. Your kid is going to look like your scrotum.

As crazy as it sounds, I felt a wave of relief in that moment. Knowing that the divorce was inevitable and that I’d only beaten him to the attorney’s office was absolution for a woman still trying to do everything exactly right. I felt better knowing I wasn’t the bad guy. But as I digested all what I had just found, I began to feel like the moderately intelligent one for not seeing what had been right under my nose for so very long.