Lemons

“It’s not that I don’t trust him. It’s just that I don’t think he’s trustworthy.”

I’m having this all-too-familiar conversation with my dearest friend, Lily, who is blessed with the face of a supermodel and the heart of a saint, which makes her a veritable magnet for every grifter within a twenty-mile radius. So of course, she ended up marrying a complete jerk. Which came as no surprise to any of us except Lily.

I prepare myself to adopt a neutral response, convinced that Lily is about to drop one of her “guess what Mike did now?” bombshells during our weekly phone call. These little nuggets are often delivered with the casual air of someone who has discovered they’re almost out of mayonnaise, when in fact the real problem is that their house is on fire.

“I know you’ll probably think I’m being paranoid, but I’m pretty sure Mike is having an affair,” Lily continues.

The thing is, she’s not being paranoid. Or probably not, anyway. My sister Scheana, who let’s say is less virtuous than Lily, recently informed me that she has been dating a married man, with the caveat “our relationship is really deep so don’t make that face.” She blathered about how this man has a miserable, withholding wife who doesn’t appreciate him. Blah blah blah, you know the drivel people tell themselves when they know they’re trying to mollify their own conscience.

The more Sheana subjected me to the cringy details of her new “relationship”, the more this married man started to feel eerily familiar to me. The very specific aspects of his obsession with hair plugs (they look so natural, she insists!) biohacking, anejo tequila (sourced from the highlands of Jalisco) and propensity for wearing Izod t-shirts without any sense of irony are causing a pit in my stomach. These are the very same inclinations that my virtuous friend Lily has endured from her juvenile husband over the years. I don’t believe in coincidences.

I suppose it is possible that any midlife crisis adjacent aged man might have some of these same nauseating interests, but it was the fact that my sister shared her boyfriend’s repugnant manner of calling her “his favorite side dish” when for years, Lily’s husband has called her his “lifetime main dish” that my synapses were leading me to the sickening connection. Was it possible that my sister didn’t know she was dating my best friend’s husband? It’s true that Sheana had never actually met Lily’s husband, at least not through me, seeing as Lily and Mike live two hours away and he seems to be too busy with work to do much else. Except maybe sleep with my sister.

I don’t have actual proof. Just a gut feeling that will keep me awake for the next two weeks as I try to convince myself that these are in fact two different men who share a love of outdated leisure wear and stupid nicknames.

You’re probably thinking this conversation is my sign from the universe that I should share my suspicions about Lily’s husband’s infidelity. With my own sister, no less! What kind of friend does that make me if I don’t tell her? Even if for no other reasons than disease prevention and hygiene purposes—blech.

Or maybe you’re in the other camp, the one that dictates my allegiance should firmly remain with my sister, no matter how atrocious her decisions. Blood is thicker than water and all that.

Luckily, I don’t need to wrestle with these decisions—my conscience is clear. I recently adopted a strict no meddling policy after my 20-year-old daughter refused to speak to me for six months when I disagreed with her plan to drop out of college to work as an entertainer on a cruise ship. Never mind that she had no dancing or singing experience. She’s finally speaking to me after her motion sickness got her fired her first week and she returned home, begging for her old room back.

My nosy/helpful neighbor was made aware of my parenting conundrum (my husband is very friendly with the neighbors, and no I don’t mean my sister’s kind of friendly) which caused said neighbor to make it her business to educate me on the wisdom of Mel Robbin’s “Let Them Theory”. She shoved a copy of the book into my reluctant hand with the directive, “Just read it. It’ll change your life.” For reasons I still don't understand, I read the entire book that night and was pleasantly surprised by the practicality of Mel’s advice. I was transformed! Not really, but I will admit, Mel’s freeing mindset got to the heart of my control issues in a way that my therapist never could.

So, this new, Zen-like me doesn’t get involved in Lily or Sheana’s drama.

***

The months go by and thankfully, Lily hasn’t brought up any further issues with her husband. I start to doubt my earlier suspicions about Mike—truly, what are the chances he is my sister’s boyfriend? I still have no idea how Scheana met this guy, but she did happen to tell me his name is Michael, though…which is a very common name for men in their age group so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

In the meantime, I’ve been regaled with delightful tales of my sister’s travels with her “super-rich” and “generous” boyfriend. It seems he might be a bit accident prone, as he was evidently on a motorcycle on a narrow windy road in Sorrento, sans helmet, when he miscalculated the width and rise of the road. Miraculously, he emerged with a minor shoulder injury but my sister has some worry that he may have sustained a head injury. When I asked her why she thought this, she shrugged and mentioned that he’s been mistakenly calling her by other women’s names lately—I never said Scheana was a rocket scientist. It was also hard to take her seriously when she was wearing a strapless dress with a bunch of lemons all over it. Why would someone want to dress like a piece of fruit?

***

I’m on the phone with Lily when she mentions that her husband is on leave from work for the next few weeks. She goes on to explain that when Mike was at a dental conference in Italy (there aren’t enough conferences about teeth in America?) he stepped wrong on a cobblestone street, lost his balance, and somehow landed on his shoulder. Sounds just as clumsy as my sister’s boyfriend!

To assuage my returning suspicion, I try to make light of the situation: “Damn, Lily, this getting old stuff sucks. I swear, all I have to do is blink wrong and something hurts.”

“Tell me about it, Amelia! I feel so bad I wasn’t there to help him. I was supposed to go with him this time—I mean, come on, it’s Italy—but turns out Mike put the wrong dates in our family calendar. He is so anal, I don’t know how he could have messed that up. It’s almost like…I don’t know. Never mind.”

“What, Lil?”

“This is going to sound crazy, but it’s almost like he wrote the wrong dates on purpose.” I can hear Lily’s sharp intake of breath.

“Okay…why would he do that? I mean, you’re the one that always picks him up at the airport and it would kind of suck for him if you showed up on the wrong day. Right?” Wait, why am I defending the guy who might have been cavorting with my sister in Italy? Remember Amelia, you're not even an extra on this soap opera.

“You’re probably right, that wouldn't make sense. Unless...no, forget I said anything. And—he did the most thoughtful thing. Even though he was in pain, he managed to find me the cutest lemon dress! I guess he was staying somewhere on the Amalfi coast where people are completely obsessed with the lemons that grow there. I’ll send you a pic, I think I look pretty good even though I don’t usually love my shoulders in strapless dresses.”

This can’t be a coincidence, right? How is it possible that two women in my life both think it is a reasonable fashion choice to wear lemon-themed dresses? Then I remember…let them. Let them wear lemons.

***

Sheana is sitting on my couch, looking disheveled and less pampered than she has in recent months. She’s started one of her monologues and it’s possible I zone out a little. Especially now that I’ve decided her love life is none of my business, thank God. She gets my full attention, though, when she mentions that things have “taken a turn” with Mr. Perfect. She says it all started when they were in Cabo San Lucas a few weeks earlier, embarking on a romantic camel ride. If you consider sitting atop a smelly animal in 90-degree heat on the Baja Coast to be romantic.

Twenty minutes into their overpriced tourist trap adventure, Michael started to get impatient.

“Can’t you get these donkeys to go any faster? My tee-time is in two hours!”

“Uh babe, I think they’re camels. The guide said we’re supposed to follow their pace so we don’t piss off the caravan.” Since when does my sister know anything about camels?

Michael ignored her warning and continued to dig his feet into the unlucky not-donkey that got stuck with him. He didn't seem to notice the animal’s low, guttural groaning noises it had begun making. The sounds grew louder, and before Michael realized what was happening, the camel spit at Sheana before returning its attention back to him. And bit down on the hand that had been just moments earlier been clutching an explicitly prohibited alcoholic beverage.

“You stupid ass! Now you made me spill my beer!” Michael’s hand revealed a huge gash as it began gushing blood. The guide ran over, screaming, “Get him off my camel!” Two other guides joined in, urging the camel to lower itself so its unruly rider could be removed. In all the commotion, the camel lost its balance and toppled over.

I found this hard to believe but Sheana did seem genuinely traumatized even in just retelling the story. She had watched, horrified when the camel landed smack on her beloved’s leg. Michael screamed in pain, using his other uninjured leg to kick up at the poor beast as he yelled, “I’ll sue you mother f*ers for putting me on this rabid animal!”

Shortly after, he passed out from the pain, surely to the relief of everyone around him. It was in that moment that Sheana decided she couldn’t be with a man who had the pain tolerance of an octopus. His wife could have him back.

***

The lawsuit dragged on for nearly two years. Through it all, Lily remained her husband’s ardent supporter, and unfortunately for her, caregiver. Mike hadn’t been able to work for any of that time, which had the unexpected benefit of putting his ego in check. No longer the adored Dr. Mike, dentist extraordinaire, he was just a guy with rapidly expanding medical bills and gut to match. He could no longer afford to maintain his hair plugs or biohacking efforts, which to his dismay, resulted in him looking like well, a middle-aged man.

At last, he was grateful for his wife. She stood by his side, seemingly happy for his increased presence in her life. He was a reformed man, literally kicked into humility and appreciation for the life he had at home.

Lily did her best to understand the trauma Mike was working through after a pack of wild camels came out of "literally nowhere" and attacked him as he was innocently playing golf. While taking a break from the "incredibly stressful" dental convention he had been attending. In Cabo San Lucas.

Mike ended up receiving a huge settlement; apparently, the parent company of Camels of Cabo had a long history of animal cruelty and illegal exotic animal importation, with lawsuits pending in over fifteen countries. The poor camels were already so unhinged from their abuse that they would have lashed out at anyone!

Mike could hardly wait to tell Lily about their 2.7-million-dollar settlement. It couldn’t come soon enough, now that his hand had been so mangled by the bite that he no longer possessed the manual dexterity his work as a dentist required. He was a shell of his former self, having become smotheringly dependent on his wife.

He perked up when he heard Lily’s car pull into their driveway, eager to tell her about their windfall. He met her at the door, grinning like a lunatic.

“Hey babe! Guess what? It’s vindication day!” Coming from Mike, that could mean anything. Ever since his accident, he was forever lashing out at some perceived injustice that had befallen him.

“Vindication for what?”

“For that deranged camel that attacked me in Cabo! That company of shysters freaking caved and settled. I took those barbarians for $2.7 mil! I mean, we took them for $2.7 mil.” He batted his eyelashes in the way that he hoped Lily still found charming.

“That’s so amazing, Mike! Can we trust it, though? I wouldn’t count on anything until you see that money in your account.”

“Oh, it’s there, babe. Trust me.” He proudly displayed the balance on his phone’s mobile banking app.

“Perfect! I guess this really is happening, Mike. I’ve been waiting for this moment, for you to get what you truly deserve.” Mike thought he detected an ominous tone in his wife’s usual upbeat cadence.

“Yeah, um, it’s almost too good to be true.”

“How much did you say you got?”

“2.7. Million.”

“Actually, Mike, it’s going to be more like $1.35 million.” Lily had an undecipherable gleam in her eye.

“No babe, they don’t tax 50%. Remember, for physical injury, there’s no tax at all!”

“I’m not talking about taxes. Well, I guess it is a marriage tax of sorts. For you, anyway.” The gleam was now replaced by a cold stare.

“Wait, what? This is both of ours, no marriage tax required.”

“No, Mike. It’s my payment for putting up with a philandering, selfish, idiotic, and self-absorbed husband for the past twenty-two years. Who I might add, has terrible taste in clothing.”

He stared back, realization not yet setting in. “What do you mean? I have a tailor, for God’s sake. People tell me all the time what a sharp dresser I am for a guy who wears a lab coat all day. Or wore, I guess.” He pushed out a small tear.

“No, I’m referring to your taste in women’s clothing. More specifically, lemon-themed clothing.”

He paled, sensing he was unprepared for what was coming. “It was handmade in Italy. You loved that dress!”

“So did your girlfriend, you buffoon. Only a completely lazy idiot would buy his wife and girlfriend the exact same dress. Or choose a girlfriend who is so stupid that she posts a picture of herself wearing that hideous dress on Facebook. She thought she was being smart by cropping your face out of the picture, but she forgot to cut out those desperate for attention red Jordans you should have thrown away ten years ago.”

“But how would you even see her Facebook? Er, I mean, I don’t have a girlfriend, you’re my wife! My forever main course.”

“Your girlfriend, or should I say, your new favorite side dish, who also happens to be Amelia’s sister. Did you really think I wouldn’t figure it out?”

Mike looked like he was about to pass out. It was then that Lily realized somehow, her imbecile of a husband hadn’t known Sheana was Amelia’s sister. That tracked though—why would he have shown any interest in learning about his girlfriend’s family?

He stammered and tried to reposition his face into some sort of pitiable expression. “Um, it’s not what you think. At least, not completely.”

“Oh, do tell me. What is it then?”

“I don’t know, I was lost—”

“You know what? I just realized I don’t care. You can tell all of this to my attorney.”

“You can’t be serious—you’re not thinking straight. Imagine all the adventures we can have with this money, babe! You deserve the best life, and now I can afford to give it to you.”

“You’ll be giving it to me alright, starting with $1.35 million. And maybe the house and one of your cars. I’m making lemonade, babe!”