Life Without You

I shook my head. “Charlie, you’re crazy,” I said. “I just don’t see it. You’ve got three kids and you look more put-together than I do. And I don’t even have the saggy booby thing going on. I’ve got the no booby thing, remember?”

“Believe it. This is the same nursing bra I used on the last go round, so it’s looking pretty sad.”

I smiled. “Well, your underwear might be sad, but I seriously doubt that Mike is,” I said wickedly.

“O-delle!” she scolded, sounding slightly scandalized. I could almost hear the blush in her voice. But there was also the slightest tinge of delight.

“It’s true, and you know it, Charlotte. Don’t try to be all sweet and innocent preacher’s wife with me.” I laughed. “I know better than that. I don’t care what the sorry state of your underwear might be, Mike can’t keep his hands off you. And why not? He’s a man of God, and you and I both know that God is a huge fan of sex. Remember that sermon Mike preached on Song of Solomon? Some racy stuff right there,” I sniggered oh-so-maturely. It seemed so easy to be silly when we were talking about something else other than me. “Plus, I happen to know for a fact that eighty percent of the women in your congregation would trade places with you in a heartbeat, and the other twenty percent are playing for the other team and just haven’t ’fessed up to it yet.”

“Stop it! You’re being terrible!” she managed through giggles.

“Mommy, is Daddy tickling you?” I heard from somewhere on the other end.

“Oh, is that what they’re calling it now?” I snickered.

“No, sweetie, Mama’s just talking on the phone with Aunt Dellie, and she told Mama a joke,” she called through the laughter.

“Aunt Dellie! Hi, Aunt Dellie! When can you come play?” I heard my niece screech in excitement.

“Yes, Aunt Dellie, when can you come play?” Charlie echoed.

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said. “Don’t bring your sweet little angels into this to throw me off topic,” I commanded.

“Never,” my sister agreed.

“I mean it, Charlie. You’re like the Proverbs 31 woman and Heidi Klum all in one. I think half the women on the planet hate you just on principle.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You do occasionally look in the mirror, right?”

“Only when I have to,” she sighed.

“No pity here, babe. Nu-uh. If I didn’t love you so much, I’d hate you. But you’re far too awesome for that. And that husband of yours is definitely not hard to look at.” I paused, feeling a little ding in my head go off. “Ooh, there’s gotta be an article there. ‘Below the Bible Belt: Hot Southern Preachers and the Women Who Stoke the Fires of their Pulpits.’” I tittered.

“Shame on you! Does Mama know you talk like that?”

“Where do you think I get it? You can add us both to your prayer list,” I teased. “Or tell that church gossip of yours MayBeth Andrews. She’ll have an email chain out faster than you can blink.”

“Now, now,” Charlie tsked. “MayBeth means well.”

“Of course she does, bless her heart,” I said sarcastically, invoking the phrase Miss MayBeth loved to insert into every possible moment of conversation. Now there was a drinking game in the making—MayBeth said, “Bless her heart!” Everybody drink!

“She does. I think it’s just misplaced good intentions. You know how her mother is, and that’s where I think she gets it. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.”

“Uh-huh. Well, maybe MayBeth could use some new panties of her own,” I grumbled.

“Bless her heart,” Charlie said, dissolving into laughter.

The panties exploding in a riot of color from their various drawers at the lingerie store were nothing if not a bold statement in celebration of the right to decorate your derriere. And various other lady bits, of course. And since I hadn’t been to the lingerie store for more than a year, I felt a bit like a little kid in a candy store as I rifled through the multitudinous styles and fabrics that came in my size.

Throngs of thongs and billions of bikinis, heaps of hipsters… It made the eyes cross. If I was going to be honest, I wanted them all. I wanted to gorge myself on them and not have to choose. I wanted to lay claim to every pair that even hinted at impracticality and march my soon-to-be-spectacular butt up to the black-clad ladies behind the cashier’s counter and plunk down my pile of goodies.

Not so much for the panties themselves, but for what they represented. All through my mess of a marriage, my cache of fun, flirty panties had gone either unappreciated or scoffed at—a reaction that I had definitely not expected. Naive perhaps, but I had thought that the man I married would take one look at my lovely little lacies and light up with glee. Instead, I got raised eyebrows or shrugs, followed by a dismissive, “They’re a pointless waste of money.”

So I had done the logical thing, the economic thing.

The defeated thing.

I had taken stock of all of my brand-spanking-new-with tags but un-returnable pretties and posted them for sale on Craigslist and eBay, netting me far less money than they were worth, perhaps; but soothing my sense of having made an unnecessary and extremely unwise splurge on something so silly as panties.

Which, consequently, now left me with a huge hole in my underwear drawer—not only number-wise, but in regards to variety and style. Everything was either black, white, or nude. And now, after so many wears, all of it had seen far better days. Hence my mother’s concern at the TSA agents catching a glimpse of the sad state of affairs if they so happened to rifle my drawers. Not to mention Charlie’s support of my bucket list and her insistence that I make a concerted effort to replace the contents of my lingerie drawer with something a little more racy.

We were all, in a way, trying to resuscitate me, one pair of panties at a time.

One bucket-listed goal at a time.

“These are perfect, Dellie!” Charlie squealed, gleefully holding up a pair of extremely pink, extremely sparkly pair of bikinis that were covered in sequins.

They were loud.

They were proud.

They were the most impractical, most sparkly pair of panties I had ever seen.

And they were going to be mine.

“Oooh, Charlie,” I breathed, taking the substantially sequined slip of fabric in my hands, stroking the sparkles reverently. “They’re beautiful.”

“And you’re going to get them, even if I have to drag you to the register by your hair,” she insisted.

“They’re so pretty,” I said again, still not raising my voice above a whisper.

“And you’re getting them,” she repeated. “Right?”

I flicked the price tag. “Good God, they’re expensive. I can’t get these, Charlie. It’s ridiculous. They’re so far from practical it’s insane,” I said, feeling my desire for the panties and my resolve at working on my project slipping under the surface of my budget consciousness.

Charlie narrowed her blue eyes at me. “Odelle Pearl,” she said, her previously radiant glow of triumph now replaced by a glower. “Do they cover your ass?”

“You said ass,” I squeaked, eyeing my eighteen-month-old nephew as he peeked out from the baby backpack currently strapped to her back.

“Zeke’s not going to rat us out, so stop trying to distract me while you come up with excuses about why you really shouldn’t get them. You. Are. Getting. Them,” she growled.

“But they’re…they’re…” I stammered.

“They cover everything that needs to be covered, Dellie. They just do it in a spectacularly sparkly way, which makes them absolutely, insanely perfect. And therefore, they are necessary.”

I looked down at the panties in my hand. They were so pretty. I could imagine myself wearing them. Feeling pretty, feeling strong. Feeling special and confident, even though no one would know I was wearing them.