Free Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir by Stephanie Klein Page B

I’d add that to my online profile.
     
    At Gristedes, I was half-past dejected and a quarter to liberated. You feel the idea of “mine” right away in a grocery store. These are for me. This makes me happy, and this, right here, this is mine . I didn’t have to consider what someone else might like. It felt selfish and wonderful. It meant I could eschew the round pods of tuna fish I normally had to obtain for Gabe. Aside from organs, there’s nothing I hate more than canned tuna fish. I cannot believe they even make it. Who decided one day to can meats? Canned fish, chicken, and oysters—who, dare I ask, awakes with a craving for canned chicken? It’s wrong on too many levels. I’d sidestep the canned gross aisle altogether if Gay Max ever showed up. I was quite certain I’d never prepare canned anything, ever again. It’s the liberty that comes with divorce—using phrases like “never, ever again.” Just then, it was tuna fish. Later, it would become men who tiptoe around confrontation and kowtow at the pedicured feet of their controlling mothers.

    You can always spot a young mother in a grocery store. Her cart is filled with chicken in the shape of stars, boxes of juice, and string cheese. She’s got Band-Aids and wipes. I can spot the married ones, too. Despite being just from the gym, in a frizzy bun with leggings, the woman beside me was undoubtedly married, sans wedding band. I saw it in her potpies and Hungry Man drumstick dinners. Even the dude with the canned Hormel, who might privately be into leather facemasks with rubber ball gags, was shopping for someone else, unless he was also into maxi pads and Skintimate shave cream. Publicly, he was in the mistake that is the color orange, with a hint of a moustache that makes you feel for the safety of your wallet. But his fridge wasn’t single. Even losers have love.
     
    It had been ten minutes with no sign of Max, and I was frozen. Grocery stores are always cold. I was wearing sweats and a wife beater, looking I-really-don’t-care-how-I-look-but-I-look-hot-in-this-don’t-I? Fuck that noise. I’d get a basket. I wasn’t cart-worthy anymore, and I sure as shit wasn’t waiting—Voila! Gay Max to the rescue. Just like that, he stood before me with a shiny silver cart of his own. I was looking for his red cape.

    “Nice tits.”

    “Excuse you?” I looked down covering my nipples with my forearms.

    “Hey, don’t put ’em away on my account. You look hot in a ’beater. What the hell are you doing with a dinky basket? We’re going to cook.” Max stretched his arms out wide, as if he were a child telling his father how much he loved him. “You know, cook !”

    “Well, now you get no say at all in what we’re eating, Mister Late.”

    “Fine, maybe just something I can pronounce this time?” Max swatted me on the tush with a Gristedes flyer as I headed toward produce.

    “Something with artichoke.” I turned to look at him, one finger on my chin. “I love to eat the hearts.”

    “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

    I would put Max to work that night, have him punch out ravioli from the fresh pasta I’d made earlier in the week. “Artichoke heart and brin d’amour ravioli with a wild mushroom sauce, my friend.”

    “ I said , something I could pronounce.” He crinkled his nose as if I’d just asked him to smell my armpit.
     
    “Say it with me, baby. A. More.” I traced my finger along one of his sweet dimples.

    “How about this: Oy. Vey. Miss Fancy Pants.”

    “What the hell is up with that fancy pants shite? Greg said the same thing to me this week.”

    “Which one’s Greg?”

    “Hello, nice to forget my life.”

    “Hello, it’s not like there aren’t too many of them to keep straight,” Max repeated using my snarkerrific tone.
     
    “Greg’s the Lower Least Side guy,” I replied.

    “Ooh, shit. That’s right. That was fucked up. I love when you’re mean and devilicious, just not to me.” I wasn’t