The Breakup Doctor by Phoebe Fox

leaned over on the patio to put on his water wings. It was a sick thing, but it seemed to work for them.
    â€œSis, how’s it shaking?”
    â€œMellow like Jell-O, my bro.”
    â€œWhere’s the Master of the Universe?” That was what he called Kendall.
    â€œWorking.”
    â€œOn a Sunday?”
    I shrugged. “Busy season.”
    Stu held out an arm toward Sasha as they both came around the front of the car. “It’d be my pleasure to escort inside a fine piece of tail such as yourself, little lady.”
    She tucked her arm in his. “How kind. Do try to keep it in your pants.”
    Stu shook his head mournfully. “Mind always in the gutter, this one.”
    My mother was waiting at the door when we rounded the corner, and Stu kissed her on the cheek before skirting by her and disappearing into the house. I joined Sasha in the doorway.
    â€œHi, Mrs. Ogden,” Sasha said in the obsequious tone reserved for my parents alone.
    Mom hugged her. “Hello, honey. Look how thin and toned you’re looking! Brook Lyn, why don’t you join Sasha’s gym and have her show you some of her workout moves?”
    â€œAre you kidding, Mom? She’s had me pumping iron for months now—can’t you tell?”
    I kept walking into the house, past her baffled search for my fictional new muscles. There was no point answering the question seriously. No matter what I offered up, it was never enough. When I opened my counseling practice she’d reminded me how much more money I could command if I’d finished my graduate psych degree. When I’d proudly brought her and Dad over to see my house the day I’d closed on it, she’d spent the whole tour pointing out everything that needed to be repaired, and not a conversation had gone by in the last year that she didn’t ask about the money I still owed her and my dad from my forfeited wedding deposits.
    Outside on the lanai Stu was already in the pool, the puddles of water sloshed over the sides attesting to a recent cannonball. My dad sat under the overhang at a patio table, a newspaper spread between his hands, and his glasses resting on his nose with the sunglass lenses flipped up like big plastic eyelashes. He looked up when he heard the slider open, and a smile branded his face.
    â€œHey, there’s my girl!” He lifted the paper a few inches. “Not as good as Friday’s edition,” he said. “That article of yours was a humdinger.”
    â€œThanks, Dad.” I swung over for a kiss, then dropped into the chair opposite his, plunking my beach bag down on the concrete. “What’s the news?”
    He folded up the paper and set it on the table, jerking a thumb toward a headline. “Another six months on the new overpass. Your mother and I don’t think they’ll finish it before next season.”
    I made a sympathetic face. “That’s a shame. We needed it this year.”
    â€œDon’t I know it? I don’t know what’s worse—the seasonal traffic or the awful construction. Just a mess.”
    Even though my family had never lived anywhere else but Fort Myers, we discussed the traffic problems every season as though they were a fresh vexation.
    â€œBombs away!”
    A shout at the sliding glass doors caught our attention, and Sasha barreled by in a streak of tan skin and yellow bikini, dropping her bags en route to leaping into the pool with all the grace of a bullfrog. She’d have landed right on Stu’s head if he hadn’t ducked under the water just before she hit the surface with a wince-inducing slap.
    â€œHey, you kids...take it easy,” Dad called out mildly. “You know your mother doesn’t like water outside the pool, Stu.”
    â€œSorry, Mr. Ogden,” Sasha said primly as Stu surfaced, lifting her into his arms. “You got faster,” she said to my brother.
    â€œAnd you got fatter.” He