Chicago Hope

by Carmen DeSousa

  The story is never over as there’s always one more tale to share …

  Thank you so much for reading Chicago Hope. If you enjoyed this Dear Santa novella, please consider posting a review on www.Amazon.com, www.BookBub.com, www.Goodreads.com, and/or wherever you purchase books. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just a few words that will help other readers decide if they’d like to read it too.

  Continue to the next section for a sneak peek at Some Lucky Woman, a contemporary women's fiction with a hint of humor and romance, featuring a thirty-something divorcee who’s trying to figure out where she fits in the world and if she can ever love and trust a man again.

  Some Lucky Woman

  “To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.” – Oscar Wilde

  Chapter 1

  Temporary insanity, I thought as I swung the tire iron I’d plucked out of my Toyota Tacoma against the headlights of my husband’s four-wheel-drive Tundra. I felt bad for hurting such a beautiful truck, but I’d done everything for that lying, cheating, two-timing son-of-a-bitch, and this was the only way I could think of to hurt him.

  Certainly, even a fresh-out-of-college attorney could get a jury of my peers to understand why I had to take revenge against Dick Embers. And since I didn’t have the stomach to pull a Lorena Bobbitt job, a Carrie Underwood meltdown would have to suffice.

  Maybe that would be my defense … She’d been listening to the radio, Your Honor, my attorney would plead on my behalf, and well, the next thing Jana Embers knew, she’d come to with a tire iron —

  “Jana!” my husband’s shrill tone hit me just as I smashed in the second taillight. “Oh, my God! Are you insane?”

  I looked up at my soon-to-be-ex-husband and forced a smile. “As a matter of fact, I am. Meet your creation, Dick!” I swung the heavy steel rod down on the lip of the tailgate, leaving an indentation that no dent-remover tool in the world would ever be able to pull out.

  Dick Embers pressed his clenched fists to his head as he assessed the damage, but then stopped gawking and chased me as I ran to the front of the truck. “Give me the tire iron, Jana,” he said as calmly as I’d ever heard him speak.

  I swung the heavy metal against the hood. “Fifteen years! I’ve given you everything within me for fifteen years. And you repay me by getting some bimbo pregnant.”

  Dick raised his hand as though he expected me to hand him my weapon. “It was a mistake, Jana. I didn’t mean —”

  “A mistake?” I swung my makeshift bat into the chrome grille as though all the bases were loaded and I was going for a home run. “Wearing different color socks is a mistake.” Whack. “Sending a text to the wrong person is a mistake.” Whack. “Sticking your penis in the wrong woman isn’t a mistake, Dick!”

  He dropped his head. “I’m sorry —”

  “Sorry?” I jabbed at a piece of dangling metal that hadn’t fallen. “Sorry because you got caught? Sorry because you didn’t use a condom?” My eyes on him, I backed up to the driver’s door, hopped up on the running board, and then bashed the windshield with all my might. “I made you who you are, Dick Embers. If it wasn’t for me, you never would have been promoted at that stupid car dealership. I handled all of your follow-up calls for your work and still found time to wash and cook and clean. I changed all the diapers, handled all the discipline for our son …” I continued to bring down the iron rod on the front window over and over, aggravated that the safety glass refused to shatter. “We had sex all the time, as often as you wanted …”

  Dick took a step toward me, so I jumped off the side step and held the tire iron on my shoulder, ready to swing it against his head if he came near me. Self-defense, my attorney would call it. Mrs. Jana Embers was in fear of her life after she’d gone temporarily insane.

  “Please, Jana,” Dick whined.

  “Please, what?” I screeched.

  “Please forgive me.”

  “And have to share you with the other woman for the next eighteen years while the child the two of you adulterers created grows up? No! Uh-uh. Not this woman, Dick. I gave you fifteen years. I’m certainly not stupid enough to give you another day.”

  I walked back in the direction of my Tacoma, surprised to see that every corridor of the apartment building where Dick had moved into this week had people standing in the doorways.

  Ignoring the surrounding stares, wondering why no one had called the police yet, I raised my chin to Dick as I opened the door. “Oh, and by the way, I’ll be filing for divorce first thing in the morning.”

  The crowd cheered, some whistled, one woman called out, “Atta girl!”

  Surprised, I twirled my weapon as though it were a baton and curtsied. I skipped to my truck and hopped inside, feeling the most alive I’d felt my entire life.

  Shaking too violently to avoid spillage, I used both of my hands to lift a cup of coffee to my lips, wondering when the police would show up. The adrenaline from my crazed attack on Dick’s Tundra had worn off, replaced with the fear that I might be spending the next sixty days in jail.

  I’d called my cousin on my way home in case I needed someone to drive my fifteen-year-old son to school and then be available to bail me out of jail. Now, we just sat across from each other, staring in silence, fearing the rap on the door that would surely come at any moment. I’d never been incarcerated before. I wasn’t very large. So how would I defend myself in jail? I wondered briefly if the arresting officer would let me take my tire iron. Mmm. Probably not. Especially since it would be marked as exhibit A on the evidence table.

  Angela reached for my quivering hands. “I’m so sorry, Jana. Is there anything I can do? Is there something else you need to handle? Not that I can beat up a truck or anything.”

  A laugh burst out of my mouth that quickly turned into a sob. “No … but … thank you. Before I went on my rampage, I went online and transferred every penny out of our joint accounts, which sadly wasn’t as much as I’d hoped. I dumped every penny into Eric’s account, since it was the only account that didn’t have Dick’s name on it. Then I called all our credit card companies, reported the cards as lost, and ordered new cards. I’m not sure what else I can do.”

  “So this is really happening?” Angela asked.

  I swiped at my tears. “What else was I supposed to do, Ang? Not only did he cheat on me, but he also didn’t use protection. God only knows what type of disease that woman might have … or any other woman he might have been screwing.”

  Angela blew out a long breath. “You’ve just been together so long. Heck, you’ve been married since I was in grade school. I’ve known Dick almost my entire life.”

  “Yeah … me too,” I said on a sigh. “Since I was nineteen. Believe me, I didn’t plan to be a single mother at thirty-four. And what will I do to make money? I have a B.A. in business, but what good is that when I haven’t worked outside the home in fifteen years? I’ve spent nearly half of my life helping him make it to the top. And he —” I burst into tears again, as I’d been doing for the last week. It surprised me that I had enough water left in my body to shed any more tears.

  Angela got up from her chair and wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Jana. I really am. I wish there was something I could say or do that would make you feel better.”

  I sniffed and looked up at my cousin, who also happened to be my best friend. “Ever think about contract killing?”

  Angela laughed. “No, and I’m gonna forget that you asked that.”

  “Okay, so if you won’t kill him, the least you could do is help me figure out how to get back at him. And give me some suggestions of what I can do to make money. I did a budget last night, and even if Dick continues to pay the mortgage, and I scrimp and scrape every dime, I have enough savings to pay for the utilities and food for about a year. After that, I’ll have to hit the streets.”

  “From what you told me last night, I think you already got him back.” Angela sat back down, then picked up her mug, smiling over her steaming
hot latte. “You still look pretty good, too. I’m nine years younger than you and I have more gray hairs than you do. Maybe it’s the dark shade you got from your mom, whereas I got the light hair from your father and my dad’s side of the family. I bet you’d do rather well on the streets.”

  I rolled my eyes, then swiped at my tears again. “Not funny, Ang. Seriously. It’s not like I can go back to cocktail waitressing. Who wants to see a thirty-four-year-old mom in short-shorts and a tank top?”

  My cousin jumped up from her chair. “I got it! Remember when I told you about Jenny, my friend from college who’s doing so well, the one who started that couponing website.”

  I dropped my head into my palm, rubbing my temples with my middle finger and thumb, trying to massage away a headache that was forming from lack of sleep … and stress … and probably because I hadn’t eaten anything in days. Not to mention that the continuous waterworks had more than likely left me dehydrated. “I don’t even like clipping coupons for myself.”

  Angela waved her hands as she paced around my kitchen. “It’s more than that. It’s not really about the coupons as much as it is about the products she displays on her website. She’s an affiliate for several major websites. And get this,” Angela leaned across the counter in front of me, “she makes up to ten percent when someone from her site buys a product. Any product. It doesn’t even have to be the item she’s advertising.”

  I sniffed, then cocked my head. “Go on …”

  “Well, you just have to find something you love, and then start blogging about it. From there, I guess you can add all the links.”

  I huffed out a breath. “What do I love? I’ve never done anything. I know how to be a wife and mother. Other than that, I don’t even have any hobbies. I’ve been too busy raising Eric and taking care of my stupid unfaithful husband.”

  Ignoring my complaint, Angela slid onto a barstool, then rested her chin on her folded hands. “There’s gotta be something, Jana.”

  “I like wine …” I ventured, thinking a tall goblet of Merlot would taste really good about now, but Angela would probably start to question me if I pulled out a bottle of wine at five a.m. “You and I have always enjoyed going to those wine-tasting events. And I’m great at picking out the most expensive.”

  Angela nodded, then shook her head. “You are, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. You know, with your mother’s history … and Aunt Heidi.”

  I didn’t want to think about my mother. Not that I knew her anyway. She’d been dead since I was in diapers. My aunt, on the other hand, had been the closest thing to a mother I’d known. But in the last year or so, I’d only seen her a handful of times. Angela and I both knew she had a drinking problem, but it seemed to have gotten worse lately.

  Not that I was an alcoholic, but with the history of drug and alcohol abuse in both of my parents’ families, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to take up a hobby that required me to drink on a daily basis.

  “Yeah … I guess you’re right,” I said.

  “Oh!” Angela jumped up again. Even pregnant, the woman had more energy than my son, and that was saying a lot. “Reading! You love to read!” she exclaimed with conviction, as though my love of reading would solve all of my problems. Truly, reading had helped me cope when I was a teenager, but I doubted I could disappear into make believe as I’d done when I was an adolescent.

  Still trying to loosen the tension in my head, I pinched the skin above my eyebrow. “Yeah, but how am I going to make money from reading?”

  “You can blog about what you read. Write reviews and stuff.”

  “Angela, you’re a lot younger than I am. You understand all of that computer stuff. I wouldn’t know how to do that.”

  “Jenny says it’s easy. In fact, she’s been wanting to train me. But with the baby, not to mention being pregnant again, I just don’t have the time or energy. I’m sure she’d come over and help you set it up, though, especially if you tell her you’ll link back to her site.”

  I leaned back in my chair. It was worth a look. I didn’t like the idea of starting a full-time job when Eric was accustomed to me taking him to school and all of his extra-curricular activities every day. Since I’d been unable to do much other than go to school and babysit Angela when I was a teenager, I’d wanted Eric to enjoy his high school years.

  “Okay … I’ll look into it. Anything is better than nothing at this point, I guess. Maybe it’ll give me something to do so I don’t spend every minute of my day scheming how to make Dick’s life a living hell.”

  Angela laughed. “Well, it’s been three hours and the police haven’t shown up. Maybe he’s decided not to press charges, hoping he’ll get in your good graces.”

  I inhaled a deep breath, hoping Angela was right about the cops, but then said, “Dick Embers couldn’t earn his way back into my good graces if he were the Pope himself.”

  Chapter 2

  The following week after I dropped Eric off at school, I headed to the library.

  I hadn’t been to the library in years, but I needed to commence with the scrimping and scraping immediately.

  When I’d first learned to drive, my father told me that most people died because they failed to notice that they were in an emergency situation until it was too late. He’d even tied a pocketknife that had a seatbelt cutter and an emergency glass breaker to my gear shifter.

  I wasn’t in an emergency situation yet, but it was time to batten down the hatches. Twenty-dollars-a-pop books were definitely not in my budget, but I needed to read up on blogging. Hopefully, the downtown library had current data.

  After finding the correct station in the three-story library, I handed the librarian the application I’d printed off, along with my driver’s license and a couple of utility bills as proof of my address. “I’d like to apply for a library card, please.”

  The woman looked up and smiled. I glanced at her nametag that read: Volunteer and then Makeda underneath.

  I watched as her fingers flew across the keyboard. I’d taken typing in high school, but even though I remembered where all the keys were located, I was a hunt-and-pecker. Maybe I needed to find a typing class too since I was planning to type on the computer for a living. Speed typing would definitely be a plus.

  Within a few seconds, the woman presented me with a temporary library card, advising me that a permanent one would be mailed to my home address in a few days.

  I tucked the card into the side pocket of my purse. “Thank you, Makeda. I wonder … would you point me in the direction of anything you have on blogging?”

  Obviously happy with her volunteer job, Makeda smiled again. “The reference section is on the third floor. And,” she hunted through papers on her desk, “if you’re interested, we offer a Blogging for Business class on Mondays at four o’clock.”

  Sometimes fate had a way of letting you know you were on the right path, I thought.

  “You’re kidding me! That’d be great. Thank you, Makeda.” And it was. I’d always been better at listening to lectures and taking notes than I was with self-study. Maybe Angela would accompany me, too, so we could learn together.

  Still suffering from lack of sleep and a perpetual feeling of dehydration after my month-long crying jag, I eyed the coffee shop on the first level but then remembered my budget. For years, I’d thought nothing of running into Starbucks after dropping off Eric daily and grabbing a five-dollar latte. But when I’d written out my budget, I realized that was a hundred-dollar-a-month expense that I could no longer afford.

  Since I could afford to lose a few pounds, though, I opted to ascend the open set of stairs instead of taking the elevator to the third floor. As I climbed, I stared through the three-story glass wall at the intercoastal waterway and the Clearwater Memorial Causeway. The library in downtown Clearwater was beautiful, and I quickly wondered why I’d never come inside before today.

  When I reached the top level, I strolled across the open floor, passing rows and rows of m
agazines, another item I’d crossed off my grocery budget. Amazing how I’d thought nothing of a few dollars here and there, but now I realized how one or two extra purchases a day added up to hundreds of dollars a month.

  I took in the different faces of the people who sat at tables, chairs, and squatted in front of shelves. Nearly every age, sex, ethnicity and, based on a few different styles of clothing, social and economic statuses were represented as well. Even a few patrons who appeared to be homeless, based on their attire, were busy reading.

  For just a second, I closed my eyes and inhaled, thinking of the library I used to visit as a child. This new building didn’t have the same aromatic scent, but my mind still latched onto the faint scent of books, searching for that sweet rotting smell of old books and the gardenia scent that had emanated from the elderly librarian who’d introduced me to the Phantom Toll Booth and stories by Judy Blume.

  The scent swept me back to my first love: reading. It felt like coming home. As if the written word could seep out of the books in thin lines like long tendrils of smoke, and then intertwine with my veins, making their way through every inch of my body, enveloping every fiber of my being.

  I sighed. Angela was right. I loved to read. And just maybe … books could be my salvation once again.

  Realizing I had to get busy, I glanced at my phone for the time. Before I knew it, I’d have to get Eric.

  Instead of a card catalog, I was instructed to search in an old desktop computer for the books I wanted. I jotted down several titles, including Mom Blogging for Dummies. Then I realized I should look at the current bestselling fiction books. I had read plenty of books in my lifetime, but I hadn’t read a book with the intention of reviewing it. And truthfully, I hadn’t read very many books lately. I’d been too busy running Eric from school to drama to football practice. And when there wasn’t a school activity, I’d drive him to the movies or a friend’s house.