Pretty Guilty Women

by Gina LaManna

  Halfway down the hall, her husband stepped out of the resort room and looked furtively around. (Furtive! Such a covert word. Lulu was too old to be sneaking around and dealing with furtive glances from her seventy-four-year-old husband.) He glanced curiously down the hallway toward Lulu, but he didn’t appear to see her. Quite possibly because Lulu had ducked behind a plant, her heart pounding. She hadn’t felt this way since she’d played kick the can as a knobby-kneed girl, and she was so nervous, she felt the sudden urge to use the restroom.

  After a few moments of glancing around, Pierce turned the opposite way from Lulu and headed toward the elevator at the other end of the hallway. Lulu breathed a sigh of relief and waited until the bell dinged, the doors closed, and her husband began the descent to the lobby.

  Letting herself into the room, Lulu flipped on the lights to reveal a carefully prepared suite that spared no luxury. She scanned the area, her gaze flicking past the large whirlpool tub outfitted with the best bath salts money could buy and over the chamomile pillows she’d ordered earlier in the evening.

  A king-sized bed with a fat, perfectly proportioned mattress and fresh-scented, hypoallergenic pillows waited for a lovestruck couple to slide between the sheets. To make gentle, passionate love before drifting off to sleep beneath the lavender-scented diffuser.

  Someone, likely Pierce or one of the staff, must have snuck in while Lulu had been at the bar and started the diffuser, clicked on the television, and changed it to the relaxing advertisement channel flicking on repeat through the resort amenities.

  The staff had also deposited the promised tray of sweets Lulu had been looking forward to sampling with Pierce by her side, along with a complimentary welcome basket from the bride and groom. In it, Lulu spotted a bottle of wine adorned with a custom label stating its contents had been created by a vintner in Napa specifically for the upcoming nuptials.

  Lulu pushed the chocolates away, her stomach churning with frustration and champagne.

  The service here was impeccable. It’s my husband who’s flawed, Lulu thought, on second thought, grabbing one of the expensive petit fours from the tray beside the bed and shoving it unceremoniously between her lips. On any other occasion, she might have fawned over the gold-dusted surface and the way the delicate chocolate melted between her lips, but not this evening.

  Swallowing the sour-tasting treat, she began piecing together Pierce’s footsteps, dragging her gaze over the surface of their combined belongings. That was the thing about marriages: they accumulated a lot of stuff. Always a headache to split said stuff up, which was why Lulu had begun tossing everything after a divorce and starting fresh. Problem solved.

  Pierce kept his things very neat and orderly, unfortunately for him. It made snooping very easy for Lulu, and she quickly spotted the paperback book on the bed. She crept across the room and noted the title—something about war, of course—resting on the bed with its spine cracked open. It hadn’t been there when they’d left.

  Lulu picked up the book, giving a sniff at the title. War. That was what Pierce would get if he planned on leaving her. Or maybe she’d leave him first, and…oh, God.

  There it was. Her worst nightmare.

  The note fluttered to the bed. A crumpled piece of loose-leaf paper with writing that was undoubtedly Pierce’s. Even worse? The man was an oaf. He’d dated the piece of paper. There was absolutely no mistaking the fact that Pierce had come upstairs specifically to write this sordid little letter.

  Lulu’s hands trembled as she began to read the sweet words surely written to her.

  Seven

  Detective Ramone: Mrs. Adler, before your bathroom break, you confessed to killing a man.

  Ginger Adler: Yes.

  Detective Ramone: Walk me through how it happened—and please don’t leave out any details.

  Ginger Adler: I was at the rehearsal dinner in the ballroom when I decided I needed a break. So, I went outside for a breath of fresh air and wandered over to peek at the wedding setup for tomorrow, but I wasn’t the only one who had that idea. There was a man there. It was the two of us outside—everyone else was still eating. I had no clue what this man was doing, but it was clear he was no good right from the start.

  Detective Ramone: How could you be certain if you hadn’t met this man before tonight?

  Ginger Adler: Probably because he came after me before I had time to think. I barely know what happened next. I remember trying to run, but I wasn’t fast enough. Instead, I fought. There was a bottle of wine sitting on a rack outside, and I just picked it up and swung. I hadn’t meant to kill him, but I knew right away when he went down that he wasn’t getting back up.

  Detective Ramone: Mrs. Adler, if that’s the full truth, then why does the victim have a bullet in his body?

  * * *

  “See, honey? I told you we’d make it,” Frank said good-naturedly. “Everything always works itself out.”

  Ginger bit her lip. She wouldn’t call missing a flight “making it,” but that was her husband, all right. Everything always “worked out” no matter the bumps and bruises and twists along the way. The airline had been accommodating enough to get their family of five on the next flight out, even though it meant they wouldn’t all be seated next to one another.

  As Ginger led the way down the aisle of the plane with three little ducklings (Elsie, Tom, and Poppy), and one big duckling (Frank), waddling behind her with the biggest bag, she wondered if she was being too harsh on her husband. She’d been furious when they’d arrived late to the airport and missed the flight. Absolutely furious.

  Ginger had always thought Frank should have been born a rich man. Based solely on his attitude and the way he walked around without a care in the world, touting inspirational quotes like “everything will work out” and “relax, sweetie, you work too hard.” It wasn’t fair that Frank had the attitude of a rich man with the wallet of a poor schmuck, and it didn’t help Ginger’s mood.

  She flinched as she remembered the way she’d blown up at Frank in the car. It was a given that she shouldn’t have exploded in front of the children, and Ginger owed her husband an apology. But it was more than that. Lately, Ginger had been feeling like the worst wife, and an even worse mother. She worried constantly. She worried about flights and Elsie’s withdrawn new attitude. She worried about the cost of Tom’s new soccer cleats and Poppy’s medicines.

  On some level, Ginger even worried about her relationship with Frank—he probably wasn’t a fan of this new, snappy, short-tempered version of Ginger. It seemed the only thing Ginger was successful at these days was the ability to wear the same yoga pants for an alarming number of consecutive days.

  Ginger had pondered why she might be spiraling out of control, watching it happen like a hamster getting trapped on its rotating wheel, as life spun faster and faster around her. Sure, Elsie’s mood was driving her nuts, and her job at the hotel was keeping her up until all hours of the night working double or triple shifts when they let her. Frank was constantly getting on Ginger’s nerves with his stupid little hobbies that weren’t bringing in any money whatsoever, and honestly, if Ginger didn’t get ahold of her temper soon, she just might kill someone.

  Ginger rolled her shoulders, massaged the permanent knot that had appeared on her left side. Frank noticed the movement, the probable look of exhaustion, and thank the Lord, he snapped to attention.

  “Okay, troops,” Frank chirped. “Bags in the overhead bins! It looks like we’re a bit split up now. Elsie, what if you sit with Tom? I’ll sit with Poppy over here, and we’ll get your mother her own seat for a bit of relaxation. Wouldn’t you like that, honey?”

  Ginger wouldn’t exactly call sitting trapped in a tin sardine can with no legroom and screaming children (thank goodness her children had passed the baby phase) a relaxing time, but she’d take what she could get.

  “But I want to sit with Dad,” Tom moaned
. “He said we could play a game together.”

  Ginger opened her mouth to approve the plan when Poppy gave a huge stomp. “But I want to sit by Daddy!”

  “No!” Tom shouted. “I’m the boy. You sit with the girls.”

  “But Daddy said he’ll let me have chocolates,” Poppy said. “Mom won’t let me have chocolates.”

  “Frank, I thought we talked about bribing them,” Ginger said halfheartedly, knowing she’d done the same thing that morning. Only she hadn’t been caught. “No chocolates anywhere unless you listen.”

  “I don’t want to sit next to the baby,” Elsie moaned. “Let me sit next to Dad.”

  “What about me?” Ginger asked. “Nobody wants to sit next to me?”

  The plane suddenly fell silent.

  “Great,” Ginger said. “I suppose I’ll take my seat then and leave you all to fight over the rest.”

  “Er, honey,” Frank said, beginning to panic. “But the children.”

  “Rock, paper, scissors,” Ginger said, heaving her pack above her seat. “I’m done. Hurry along, though; you’re blocking the aisle. Here—Elsie, give me your pack so I can throw it up there.”

  “No, Mom—I want it.”

  “You can only keep one bag with you. Purse or backpack?” Ginger asked. “The attendant will take it away if you don’t store it, and by then, the overhead bins will have filled up. Hurry, Elsie. People are waiting.”

  Grudgingly, Elsie shoved her backpack toward her mother and plopped on the end seat, making Poppy crawl over her to sit in the middle. Ginger grunted, promising she’d deal with Elsie’s manners later, after she got this ragged backpack shoved into bins that were meant to hold a pair of socks, not luggage. Who was the idiot without children that had made planes so cramped?

  “Excuse me,” an older gentleman said from behind Ginger. “Can we keep things moving?”

  “Sorry,” Ginger muttered. “Trying to help my kids get situated. We’ll be out of your way in a second.”

  “It’s been a second,” he said, and inwardly, Ginger rolled her eyes. This old man, who seemed to not understand the stress of traveling with children, was ironically acting quite like one himself.

  “Sorry,” she said again. “This bag isn’t quite fitting—”

  “Maybe if it wasn’t so loaded with stuff,” he said, “it would fit. It’s oversized. That should have been checked.”

  Does he think he’s a flight attendant? Ginger gritted her teeth so hard, she suspected her dentist would suggest a mouth guard (again) at her next visit. Ginger would jokingly laugh it off (husband, kids, ha-ha-ha, I’m so busy I must grind my teeth with stress!) when the real stress of it all was the ridiculous cost of a mouth guard. She couldn’t afford it. She was ready to stick Tom’s old hockey mouth guard in at night to save a few bucks so they could afford to send Poppy to the gymnastics camp she’d been dying to attend.

  “Just—about—there,” Ginger said, giving the backpack a final shove punctuated by a loud riiipppp. Before Ginger could process the sound, an avalanche of her daughter’s things began spilling out in every direction. The books she’d stacked on top were the first to go, sending Ginger into a scramble to catch the free fall of dented, mutilated books her daughter liked to collect from local donation bins and library shelves. “Shit.”

  “Mommy!” Poppy said. “You can’t say that in public! Only when you stub your toe in private!”

  “No, you shouldn’t say that ever,” Ginger said, her face flooding with embarrassment. Why was it that Poppy could remember every curse word she’d ever muttered under her breath, but she couldn’t remember the rhyme to tie her shoes?

  “Great, then,” the man said behind her. “Shall the rest of us take our seats?”

  Ginger barely heard the gentleman’s request because she was too busy staring at the ripped pocket on Elsie’s backpack. Ginger could see the zipper had come completely undone, and her daughter’s stuff—so much stuff!—had gone everywhere. Eyeshadows spluttered blue and pink powder everywhere (hadn’t that gone out in the ’80s?), lipsticks broke and smeared, a compact mirror hovered on the verge of a nasty death-by-shattering, and one last book plopped past Ginger’s arms to the floor. That was the least of her problems.

  “Excuse me,” the man pressed again. “I’d like this plane to take off someday.”

  Ginger was too busy staring in horror at the long, thin sleeve of foil packets dangling down from her daughter’s bag (her fifteen-year-old daughter) to respond. Her eyes locked on those little foil squares that meant her baby girl was no longer as innocent as Ginger thought.

  Condoms. Condoms? Since when did fifteen-year-old girls begin carrying condoms around? A whole rope of them? Ginger’s ears burned, and her heart pounded. The sounds around her melted into a mushy slush of broken phrases.

  Excuse me!

  Mom, my shoe!

  Mom, where’s my tablet?

  Ginger! What’s happened, honey?

  My shoe, Mom! Where did it fall? Can you find it?

  Mom, I thought you packed my tablet.

  Mom didn’t pack your tablet. You had it in the van, buddy. Where’d it go?

  Excuse me, ma’am!

  That’s my wife, sir. She seems to be…er, Ginger? What are you doing?

  Ginger slowly unfroze, shards of icy horror flaking away as she reached up, pointed a finger, and turned her gaze on Elsie. Her eyes narrowed, and two sides warred in her—the angry mother (rule maker!) and the friend (why won’t my daughter talk to me?)—and she gave a deathly hiss. “Elsie?”

  Her daughter, the fearless teenager, suddenly looked terrified. The unshakable, invincible Elsie Adler, trembling in her seat—all from a word. “Mom, it’s not—”

  “Condoms?” Ginger breathed, and then she snatched them from the overhead bin.

  With the force of an Olympic shot-putter, she slammed her arm upward until the compartment crunched shut. The breaking glass signified the end of the poor compact’s life, and a snap of plastic told Ginger at least one lipstick had bitten the dust. Elsie looked mortified.

  Good, Ginger thought in a moment of weakness. And good on the compartment for busting up makeup and mirrors—good riddance. Her daughter should barely be wearing lipstick, let alone keeping condoms in her makeup kit.

  “Where did I go wrong?” she asked, more to herself than anyone else. “I loved you, I hugged you, didn’t I? I breastfed you, even though it nearly killed me.”

  Unfortunately, the man behind Ginger saw fit to answer: “You went wrong when you stopped in the middle of the aisle. Can you move out of the way, lady? This is ridiculous.”

  “I drove you every day to volleyball practice,” Ginger said, trembling as she looked at Elsie. “I fed you veggies and painted your nails and read books to you with good morals in them. I censored movies and books that were too old for you. Sure, I haven’t been around as much the last few months because I have been working, but that’s because I love you too.”

  “Mom, you’re making a scene.” Elsie found her scowl and snarled. “Get out of the way. It’s no big deal.”

  “Ginger, honey, I think the flight attendants are coming back to warn us, and we can’t miss another flight,” Frank said. “Why don’t we discuss this later?”

  “Frank, your daughter packed condoms on a family vacation,” Ginger blurted. “She’s fifteen.”

  “At least she’s being safe!” Frank spluttered right back, his ears turning red. “Now, can we talk about it later?”

  Fuming, Ginger stepped into her seat to let the impatient man pass. If she wasn’t mistaken, his eyes quickly flicked over Elsie. (Admittedly, maybe it was Ginger’s imagination. Suddenly, every male looked like a potential walking hormone with the hots for her daughter. Horrifying.)

  Luckily for him, the man passed right by Elsie and found his seat a few rows back, settled in
, and grumpily closed his eyes. He was one of those passengers who didn’t feel the need to bring entertainment like the rest of the world to occupy his attention during the painstakingly long, uncomfortable flights. If Ginger weren’t so furious at her daughter, she’d be furious at him. Fury, fury, fury. Ginger’s new state of mind.

  Frank had been right about the attendant. She was bustling down the aisle, her gaze fixed not-quite-impolitely on Ginger as she worked her way back. “Everything okay here?”

  No! Ginger wanted to scream. Instead, she gave a thin smile. “Just a bit of stress.”

  “Traveling with children will do that to you,” the flight attendant said, resting an understanding arm on Ginger’s shoulder. “However, we really do need to get you and your lovely family situated so we can take off.”

  Lovely? Ginger wasn’t certain that was the best word to use to describe her family at the moment. Nothing seemed inherently lovely anymore. In fact, as she glanced forward and saw the champagne glasses being handed out in first class along with hand towels she suspected were blissfully warm, she had the flitting thought of trading it all in.

  Giving her kids and Frank away (for a few days—nothing permanent of course) so she could get pampered in first class and go away to a resort where Serenity Spa & Resort actually meant serenity and relaxation and massages and not: Mom, can we go to the pool? Mom, I lost my shoe. Mom, I’m having sex with some random boy you don’t know!

  She closed her eyes. She knew she could never trade it in. But she did wonder how everything had gotten so far out of control. Back when she was first married, everything had seemed more manageable. Everything was new and exciting and fresh.

  The first trip to the zoo with Elsie, the first smile, the first fart (giggle!). Now, passing gas was a nightly dinner table discussion, and they’d practically been banned from the zoo because Poppy continually tried to feed the flamingos and Tommy banged against the glass at the gorillas while Ginger had turned her head (for two seconds) to find Elsie making eyes at the Boy Scouts.