Lipstick Is My Drug of Choice

I grabbed a tube of Nars Catfight, a rich, semi-matte nude mauve, on my way out of the salon. Easy access to beauty products is one of the perks of the business.

There were lots of cars in the parking lot, but I saw him almost as soon as I pushed the door open. He was sitting in the driver's seat, leaning back with his eyes closed. I was surprised I couldn't hear that big fat snore of his all the way from here.

I was across the parking lot before I knew it. I had a large chocolate brown shoulder bag with me, and I swung it sideways to gain some momentum. Then I picked up speed and hurled it at the windshield as hard as I could.

My ex-husband jumped like he'd been shot and crashed his head into the window beside him. In that instant I understood every wronged woman who had ever run over her husband. Or cut off his penis. I could have killed him. Easily. And then gone back for seconds.

Craig was looking at me with real fear in his eyes. I liked it. He looked down at the ignition, maybe calculating his chances for escape. He reached for the lever and lowered the window about two inches. "What the hell was that?" he asked through the crack.

"What the hell was that? What the hell are you doing here?"

"Sophia's car's in the shop," he actually said. "She needed a ride."

If there was a gene for getting it, my former husband had clearly been born without it. "You're pond scum," I said. "No, you're lower than pond scum. If there's anything lower than pond scum, you're it." I stretched forward and started picking up the contents of my shoulder bag, which were scattered all over the hood of Craig's stupid Lexus. He didn't even own it. It was leased. I hoped he got completely screwed when it was time to pay for the scratches.

My Nars Catfight, which had somehow ended up on the hood, too, twinkled up at me. I reached for it and covered my lips in slow, soothing strokes. A round hairbrush rolled to the pavement. I bent down and picked it up, then stood up and pointed the sharp end at him. "Get off my father's property. Now."

Craig shook his head like I was the one with the problem. "Bella, it's Sophia's father's property, too."

"Great," I said. "Let me go find him for you. Then he can be the one to kill you."

That did it. Even before he'd left one of my father's daughters for another one of his daughters, my father hadn't been too crazy about Craig, and he knew it. He started up the car. "Just tell Sophia I'm waiting down the street for her, okay?"

"Sure," I said. "I'm all over it."

Up until then, he'd been looking over my head or off to the side of my face. Now he looked me right in the eyes, just for a second. Despite myself, I felt a little jolt of something, possibly insanity. Embarrassing as it would be to admit it, I had this sudden crazy urge to keep him from driving away.

I rested one hand on the hood of the car. Craig flinched. "How're the kids?" I asked.

He put the car into drive. "They're not your kids, Bella," he said. "Forget about them."

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The next feature book of the Getting Better All the Time group, Summer Blowout by Claire Cook is a hilarious and rambunctious story about a recently single woman who finds herself on a new path and hits all of the bumps life throws her along the way.