by KG MacGregor
* * *
Next to the family hour after dinner, late evening was Anna’s favorite time of day. The house was quiet, homework was finished, the kids were in bed. These were her precious moments alone with Lily. Once their bedroom door clicked shut, they connected as best friends, as partners, as lovers.
They’d renovated the master suite a few years ago, giving up space in their bedroom for a larger bath and two walk-in closets. The window alcove, which years ago had held the twins’ cribs, was now a cozy TV nook with a small L-shaped sofa and ottoman, and colorful throw pillows. The rest of the bedroom held only a platform bed and a pair of nightstands.
Lily emerged from the bathroom, adorable as ever in her usual sleeping attire, flannel boxers and a worn tank top. “Sounds to me like you’ve made up your mind already.”
Anna had laid out the substance of their meeting with Pinnacle along with the pros and cons of accepting their offer. The more details she shared, the more convinced she was of its merits. “The whole reason I bought all these dealerships was to grow the company and increase its value. I’ve done that. But it’s only worth something if I’m willing to sell it.”
“It’s so wild to hear you talking like this,” Lily said as she drew back the comforter on their king-sized bed. “I can’t imagine Anna Kaklis not in the BMW business. You’re like a kid at Christmas every time a new model hits the market. What would you do with all that pent-up energy?”
Excited by her growing resolve, Anna wrapped her arms around Lily and they crashed together onto the bed. “How about I lavish it on you instead?”
They laughed as they wrestled, each trying to pin the other on her back. When Lily finally surrendered, Anna noticed raised eyebrows that flirted and dared. After fifteen years of lovemaking, she knew that look—Lily was up for it tonight.
“Where should I start?” Anna teased as she playfully began to walk her fingers across Lily’s collarbone, knowing how much the anticipation of being tickled somewhere would wind her up. Suddenly she buried her face into Lily’s neck and pretended to devour it. “Chomp, chomp, chomp.”
Lily squealed and wriggled, trying to protect her neck. “Not there, not there. Please, not there.” She gasped for breath and braced for the next assault.
“If not there, then…” Anna lifted the threadbare tank top and drew a spiral on her breast, each ring bringing her closer to the stiffening nipple. “I think I’ll start riiiight…”
“Good God, just bite it already!” Lily tugged Anna’s head down until her lips finally met the nipple. “I want teeth!”
Anna obliged, nipping and tugging as Lily squirmed with delight. It thrilled her to hear Lily plaintively voicing her desires, unabashed about her wants. As Anna’s excitement surged, she gave up their playful game and covered Lily’s mouth with a hungry kiss. Their bodies followed, with legs tangled and writhing.
“Tell me what you want,” Anna murmured. “Anything.”
Lily was swarming every part of Anna’s body her hands could reach. “Stay here with me. I want to look at you.”
As Anna kissed her again, her hand slid inside the waistband of Lily’s shorts and cupped her sex. She knew exactly what Lily liked when they lay face-to-face like this. Two fingers gently tracing… teasing… opening. Every stroke growing wetter. In and out, up and around. Lily’s hips rolling like waves in the ocean. Then the tremors started and her nails dug into Anna’s skin.
“That’s my girl,” she said, their eyes connecting as Lily climaxed. After barely a moment, Anna tested her readiness for another.
“I’m good, babe,” Lily panted, covering Anna’s hand to hold it still. “Just give me another couple of minutes to enjoy this.”
This too was a part of their familiar coded dance. If Anna wanted to be touched, she could signal that with a simple word or gesture. She had something different in mind for tonight. “It’s fine. You can lie there and relax. I feel like touching myself.”
“Oooh.” Lily shuddered so hard it shook the bed. “Keep talking like that and you’ll make me come again.”
Chapter Two
Andy, still in his school uniform but with his tie in his pocket and his jacket who-knows-where, entered Anna’s office bouncing a tennis ball that happened to slip from his hand and knock over a framed photo on her bookshelf. “Oops. You wanted to see me, Mom?”
“Please shut the door and take a seat,” she said sternly, nodding toward the chair in front of her desk.
“Sounds like I’m in trouble. What’d I do now?”
“I should hope you already know what this is about, Andy. Jason Frick is furious, and he has every right to be.” She’d practiced this in her washroom so she could get it out without losing her temper. “In the first place, you don’t get to jump the line in the service department. We work by appointment so our customers can plan their day and we can schedule staff accordingly.”
“I’ve seen you do it for your friends, like that Clemmons guy.”
“Craig Clemmons buys two new BMWs every year for him and his wife. If anyone deserves quick service, it’s Craig. Do you not see the difference?”
“I guess,” he said sheepishly as he twirled a pen on her desk. “I was just trying to make Jason feel special.”
“And I’m sure he did…until Dean came out and told him his front axle was bent and a new one would cost him two thousand dollars. He said you told him it was the driveshaft and not to worry because it was under warranty.”
“Wasn’t there a recall?”
“The recall was only for the X models, and besides, a bent axle is body damage. He probably hit a pothole or drove up over a curb. Those things aren’t covered under warranty, but thanks to you Jason is convinced the damage was caused by a faulty driveshaft, and he expects us to eat it.” As her temper started to get the better of her, she snatched the pen he was twirling and slammed it on her desk. “And since when do you speak for the service department? You haven’t spent five hours in there in your whole life. You can’t possibly learn how to diagnose problems without working alongside a mechanic.”
“It’s boring,” he whined, and in a mocking voice added, “‘Hand me that wrench, Andy.’ A moron could do that.”
“A moron.” Anna was dangerously close to telling him only a moron would make an uninformed guess about a car repair. “You’re saying one of our mechanics took the time to show you which tools they used—and gave you the opportunity to watch so you’d learn something essential to our core business—and you couldn’t be bothered because you were bored.”
“I don’t like that kind of stuff, okay?” He began to pace in front of her desk, once again bouncing the tennis ball.
“Please put that ball away before you break something. This isn’t a playground.” This conversation was long overdue, but also moot if she followed through with the sale to Pinnacle. On the other hand, if she could get Andy to admit that he wasn’t interested in pursuing the skills he’d need to run the business, it might soften the blow when she broke the news. “To be honest, pal, I’m trying to figure out what it is you actually do like. I’ve tried to get you to spend time with Holly so you can learn what it takes to run a dealership, but she says you glaze over every time you go into her office. Holly’s a top-notch general manager, the best we have. Do you realize how lucky you are to have someone like that willing to teach you what she knows?”
“But I don’t have to know that stuff as long as I can hire someone who does. That’s what you said about Uncle Hal, that you didn’t have to think about finances anymore because he does all that.”
“Waaait a minute,” Anna said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “How will you know who’s good at their job if you don’t understand what it is they’re supposed to be doing? Just think about that for a second. What if your foot traffic dried up because your GM implemented a lousy ad campaign? If you don’t know what kind of ads work for what, how are you going to fix that?”
“Simple. You fire that GM and hire a new o
ne.”
“But how can you be sure the next one knows their stuff if you don’t know it either? And what if the finance manager you hire is skimming your profits? You could be cleaned out before you knew what hit you.”
He almost bounced the ball again but wisely pocketed it instead. “I feel like I should focus on what I want to be good at—selling BMWs. I want to be the best there is. I figure the more I know about which cars have what options and packages, the better I’ll be able to help a customer buy the car that’s right for them. That’s what it’s all about really. Right?”
Anna’s anger dissipated as she grasped where he was coming from. Her son—with the world practically laid at his feet—aspired to be a car salesman. The best car salesman, to be fair. But there was nothing in his words to suggest that he even wanted to run the company. Which was all the more reason to sell it.
“From now on, Andy,” she said, “I want you to stay away from the service department.”
* * *
LA winters weren’t terribly cold but they sure were dark. Lily couldn’t wait for next month’s return to Daylight Savings Time. She’d gladly give up an hour of sleep to get home before dark.
Seeing the back gate ajar, she veered toward the French doors of the patio. Anna was in the kitchen stacking plates and setting out glassware. To the casual observer she might have been cooking but Lily knew better. Wednesdays were family night, a tradition they’d started a couple of years ago when Serafina started taking night classes for her nursing degree. Anna knocked off work early and picked up Chinese takeout from Chin Chin. They ate together in the family room and took turns choosing a movie.
Anna paused to deliver a hello kiss. “Were you sneaking up on me?”
Lily opened a carton and snitched a crunchy snow pea. “Just making sure you weren’t sprinkling roofies on my dinner so you could take advantage of me later.”
“Ha! I’m not stupid, Lily. I’d roofie the kids, not you.”
“How’d it go with Andy?” she asked, her voice low so it wouldn’t carry. Anna had called earlier to fill her in on Andy’s fiasco with the service department. “You sounded like you were ready to go ballistic. Not that I’d blame you.”
“I managed not to throw anything but he didn’t make it easy.” Anna shared the gist of their conversation with a surprising conclusion. “What’s interesting is that I’ve worried all this time about Andy getting upset over the sale. Now I realize it doesn’t matter. He has no real interest in running the company anyway. All he cares about is selling cars, and he can do that anywhere.”
Lily didn’t doubt Andy would make a terrific car salesman, but she believed he had far more potential than that. Furthermore, she expected Anna to be on the same page when it came to their children’s futures.
“Let’s not give up on him just yet, Anna. He needs to go to college first and get exposed to the arts and anthropology and political science and”—she ticked them off on her fingers—“you get what I’m saying. If he does all that and still wants to sell cars, fine. But I’d like to see him challenge himself, not just take a job he could practically walk into today.”
“Hey, Ma.”
Startled by Andy’s voice behind her, she was relieved when Anna shook her head to indicate he hadn’t heard their conversation. She turned and greeted him with a hug. “Hi, sweetheart. How was school?”
“Fine. Can we eat now? I’m starving.” He swiped a chunk of beef in brown sauce with his fingers, avoiding a scolding from Lily since she’d done that herself.
“I need to go up and change clothes. What about Georgie and Ellie?”
“Not my job to watch ’em.”
Anna sucked in a breath as he returned to the family room. “This is how he responds to being called out over something. And to top it off, not one word of apology for all the trouble he caused with the service department. And he wonders why we won’t let him get his driver’s license.”
“Teenagers. Can’t live with them, can’t smother them.”
“To answer your question, Eleanor’s in the living room with a book and Georgie’s doing his homework in his room. Everything’s ready for dinner. I’ll go help him finish up.”
In her closet upstairs, Lily checked the coffee stain on her favorite houndstooth blazer and tossed it in the hamper for dry cleaning. She donned her softest sweatpants and a red flannel shirt that had belonged to her mom, and was rinsing off her makeup when Anna joined her.
“Georgie’s done with his science questions so we’re ready when you are. I didn’t even ask how your day was.”
“If it’s true what they say about everyone having fifteen minutes of fame, mine’s probably coming tomorrow in the supermarket tabloids. You know Claré Zepeda, right?”
Anna did a shuffle and rapped the hit tune, “All ice no thaw, Ima drop your call.”
“Yeah, that one. She released it a month before she filed for divorce, so her ex is owed half the royalties—forever. We’re talking millions. I tried to get her to work it out with him but she wouldn’t listen. She thinks she’ll get a jury to side with her, but the law’s the law.”
“Wowza. Her fans are going to hunt you down.”
“Apparently it’s already started. Perfect strangers on Twitter hope I choke on pool boy’s penis. It’s ridiculous. My poor secretary has more important things to do than screen obscene emails and flag the ones that look like a genuine threat.” She instantly regretted saying that since Anna would worry about the threats. “Speaking of messages, did I tell you Eleanor’s been texting me pictures of kittens up for adoption? Three this week.”
“I guess being subtle hasn’t gotten her anywhere, and those big brown eyes of hers are getting harder to ignore. Maybe we should think about it. Alice is getting one for her birthday this weekend. Besides, it’s been three years.”
“I don’t know, Anna. Last time was just so hard on all of us.”
Last time meant Chester, the basset hound that had belonged to Lily’s mom. He’d lived to an extraordinary age of fourteen, with Anna and Andy carrying him up and down the stairs in his final years. While Andy had taken it quite hard, Georgie had been especially traumatized by his introduction to death.
“The kids are older now,” Anna said. It was obvious she was trying to sound objective, but Lily could tell she was starting to cave. “They’ll be adults before they have to go through it again.”
“The problem as I see it is if Eleanor gets a kitten, Andy will want another dog. And then Georgie will want something he isn’t allergic to, like—God help us—a pig.” She pretended not to hear Anna snort. “Next thing you know they’re off to college and we’re living in a…”
“Ee i ee i oh.”
“Exactly. So you need to think long and hard before you go collecting stray animals.”
Eleanor’s commanding voice sounded through the door. “Mom, Georgie’s eating all the shrimp right out of the carton. Come on, we’re starving to death.”
Lily sighed. “Our poor neglected children. It’s a wonder child services hasn’t taken them away.”
Chapter Three
The gaudy pink tour bus had slowed to a crawl down what many considered the prettiest of all the palm-lined streets in Beverly Hills. This one came like clockwork three times a day along with half a dozen others.
Creeping behind the bus in her car with Anna, Lily drummed her fingers on the steering wheel waiting for her chance to pull through the gate of the Big House, their name for the stately mansion where Anna grew up. “Have you ever thought about taking one of those tours? For all we know, they could be telling people this is Taylor Swift’s house.”
Anna replied, “When we were kids, Dad would play along with it. Every time he’d see it coming, he’d go out there in his Ray-Bans and pose like he was some big Hollywood star.”
“It takes so little to entertain your father.” Finally Lily was able to pull around the brick circle and wedge her X3 into the row of BMWs belonging to Anna’s father Ge
orge, her sister Kim, and Hal.
Sadly, their weekend birthday celebration had been interrupted by a funeral.
Lily killed the engine and waited quietly for Anna’s cue to exit. It was rare to see her looking so vulnerable. The birthday party would be a comforting counterweight to their solemn morning, a service in Pasadena for Anna’s ex-husband, Scott Rutherford. They’d only heard of his death the day before through a mutual friend.
Sensing Anna’s heartbreak, Lily grasped her hand. “Is there anything I can do, sweetheart? Anything I can say?”
Anna inhaled sharply and blinked several times to disperse a new wave of tears. “I’ll be okay. I keep getting these waves of disbelief…and regret. He was such a nice guy. We traded notes on Facebook, but apparently he didn’t feel close enough to tell me he had cancer. Why didn’t I just ask how he was doing? It would have been so simple. Instead I don’t show up until it’s time to grieve. His family must have wondered what the hell I was doing there.”
“No one thought that, Anna. You were friends and you had every right to be there. Scott wasn’t just some guy you knew. He was an important chapter in your life.”
“A good chapter, I think. I learned a lot about myself.”
“And in the end you both went on to better lives and you were happy for each other.”
To their credit, they’d ended their marriage on friendly terms and stayed in touch for years through social media. Scott left behind a wife and four children, the youngest only eight.
“Sara really appreciated you being there. She said so. I think their oldest son did too.”
“Matt…Scott was so proud of him. I wonder if he’s done the math by now and figured out he was born while his dad was married to me…so he’d know why we got divorced.” Her voice creaked with emotion and she choked back a sob. “If he did, I hope he forgave him. I did.”
Lily hated to see Anna hurting but she wasn’t the only one whose emotions were in turmoil today. Funerals were hard on her too. Since losing her mom, she could hardly bear to see the suffering of loved ones left behind. To make matters worse, today’s funeral mass had stirred up spurious fears about Anna’s mortality. It horrified her to imagine sitting there like Sara with their children. Cancer could happen to anyone. So could a host of other diseases or accidents. A long life wasn’t guaranteed.
