Bitter Sweet Street

by Lena North

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  My thanks

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Continue reading – It was supposed to be easy

  Bitter Sweet Street

  Lena North

  Copyright © 2017 by Lena North

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover design: Copyright © 2017 by FAB Books.

  Illustrations on cover: Copyright © 2017 by Lena North

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Discover other titles by Lena North:

  Birds of a Feather series:

  Wilder

  Sweet Water

  Picture This

  Black Snow

  The Dreughan series:

  Courage

  Reason

  Joy

  Sweet Street:

  47 Sweet Street

  Sissa Raudulfsdatter:

  Runes of Fate

  My thanks

  As always, to my family.

  Chapter One

  Granny-panties

  I smiled politely at the curvy, blonde woman when she gave me the keys to my house, and wished she would go away. I was tired after the long drive across the country, and not at all in the mood for company. Especially not the bubbly, happy kind of company this woman seemed incredibly determined to provide me with.

  “If you need anything, we’re right next door,” she said with a sunny smile. “I’m Louise.”

  “Angelica,” I murmured.

  “My husband is a carpenter, so if anything is broken you can just tell us, he’ll –”

  “Thank you, that’s very nice of you,” I cut her off.

  I knew I was rude but hearing the word husband was not working so well for me. The last time I’d seen my own husband had been twenty-eight hours earlier when I walked into a conference room and saw his naked butt.

  I’d seen him naked before, obviously, since we’d been married for more than twenty years and had two kids during that time. I’d just never seen him naked in the office, not even in the early days of our relationship when intimacy had been frequent and meant something.

  “I’m sorry, Louise. It’s been a long drive, and I’m tired, so I’m going to…” I trailed off and made a small movement with my hand, indicating the door and shrugging apologetically.

  “Of course, absolutely,” my temporary neighbor gushed immediately. “We’ll catch up another day. Maybe you’ll come over for dinner?”

  Yish, I though. There was no shaking this woman.

  “Absolutely,” I said politely, relying on years of dealing with people I wasn’t all that interested in. “I’ll call you.”

  She murmured something my sleep-deprived mind didn’t quite catch, smiled and bounced down the steps. I went to my car to get the small overnight bag I’d packed in a hurry the evening before. When I opened the front door, I saw my neighbor walk up her own porch steps where a good-looking man was waiting. He pulled her into his arms, and I heard her squeal out a giggly laugh before they closed the door,.

  My husband was also handsome, I thought. Not in the same way my neighbor was, though. Stewart was more polished, and since he spent huge amounts on his haircuts, suits, and gym membership – he would be. The man next door hadn’t looked like he even owned a suit.

  There was a strange chirping sound from a pine tree next to the old house I’d inherited unexpectedly from my aunt six months earlier. It didn’t sound like a bird, exactly, although I wasn’t an ornithologist by any means so it might have been.

  I hadn’t known my aunt, so when the lawyer assured me the neighbors were happy to keep an eye on the property, I simply ignored its existence. After quietly backing out of the room where my husband was groaning dirty words into the ear of a girl half his age, I’d decided that it was high time to shuffle the property into some kind of order.

  It wasn’t that I was running from what I’d seen in the conference room, I told myself as I walked slowly through the big living room with its worn-down furniture and dark red wall to wall carpet. Stewart had just slipped. It was a one-off thing with a pretty young girl, and she’d probably chased him relentlessly, like so many of the women in the office did and had been doing for years.

  I pulled out a notepad and a pen and started making lists for what I’d need to do in the week of personal time I’d emailed my boss I needed.

  Sort through Aunt Jennifer’s personal belongings. Maybe the neighbors wanted some of it?

  Find the dump yard and get rid of her furniture, or perhaps a thrift shop would be better? Maybe I should sell the house furnished?

  I looked at the orange and brown wallpaper, which clearly had been there since the seventies, and wondered how the old woman had managed to live in a home which was poop-colored on the inside as well as the outside. Then I walked into the kitchen. Froze. And stared.

  I’d never seen an avocado-colored fridge before, and the green monstrosity clashed horribly with the wallpaper which covered absolutely everything, including the cabinet doors. The psychedelic pattern in purple and yellow made my stomach turn and I suddenly remembered a wide, yellow skirt, bunched up and swaying over the edge of the conference room table, with every move my husband made.

  I cut that thought off immediately. I was there to deal with the house and could think about the rest later. I’d have to find a contractor, which probably meant I should talk to my bubbly neighbor and her good-looking husband, I thought with a sigh. That went on my to-do-list, and I kept adding to it until I was so tired I couldn’t think about anything at all and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep on an uncomfortable couch the color of our cat’s diarrhea that time he’d accidentally eaten a whole bag of cheese doodles.

  The next few days followed the same pattern.

  Fold, pack, list, and clean until I was so tired I couldn’t think anymore and conked out on the couch. I put anything which seemed personal in separate boxes, tucked them into a small room which looked like it had been my aunt’s office, and ignored them. There were so many things to do in the house, and going through her old bills and letters would just have to wait.

  The third day I stopped my neighbor when he was on his way to work, and later that day he did a walk-through of the house with a few of his men. They gave me an estimate that seemed ridiculously low, but I ignored all my professional instincts to scrutinize the contract and signed it on the spot.

  In-between working and sleeping, I spent a lot of time pretending my phone didn’t exist. The office called forty-six times, my children thirteen, my girlfriend Maddie twice.

  And Stewart zero.

  I ignored the office, sent a short message to Maddie that I’d call when I returned home, and texted cheerily to my kids that I was über-busy, telling Johnny his extra tennis shoes were indeed in his closet and assuring Annie her paper would be great even if I hadn’t read it before she handed it in.

  My daughter was in college and had handled her school assignments herself for years, so I was a bit surprised about the level of whining and moaning that ensued. Johnny had a few more weeks left in high school, was starting at Northwestern after the summer break, and usually had pretty good control of where he put his thing
s. I wondered what was going on with them.

  I sent a short email to Stewart, just saying that I needed to deal with my aunt’s house and would he please either get Johnny’s car from the shop because it was fixed or pick him up from soccer practice both Wednesday and Thursday evenings. He replied with an equally brief email saying that John would get a ride from a friend and would I call him.

  I didn’t.

  Then my carpenter-neighbor’s cute wife promptly invited me to celebrate the contract signing over coffee and mud cake. With no good excuse to bow out and a deep love for mud cake, I followed her across the lawn and around their stunning craftsman’s house to their back porch, where a tall, statuesque woman was waiting. This was apparently Louise’s friend, Beatrice.

  I hadn’t expected to enjoy myself, but I did, more than I had in a long time, I realized to my surprise. Both women were hilarious, but they were also extremely sweet, and even though they were a bit nosy, they accepted my short, evasive answers without prodding for details. They had both known my aunt their whole lives.

  “Jenny was a hoot,” Louise giggled. “But you know that, of course.”

  “I never met her,” I said calmly, and took a deep swig of coffee.

  “You never met your aunt?” Beatrice asked in surprise.

  “No, Beatrice, I’m sorry to say that I didn’t,” I said. “My mom didn’t get along very well with her sister,” I added as an explanation, which was a massive understatement, considering all I’d ever heard Mom call Aunt Jennifer was, “that floozy,” or when she thought I didn’t hear, “the ho.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Louise murmured, and I smiled sweetly at her without sharing any of my mother’s offensive comments about a woman they clearly had liked.

  I was about to accept another piece of cake when my phone rang. The display informed me that Stewart Marsden was calling and my belly clenched a little.

  Most of my friends seemed to have their spouses labeled as “the hubby” or “my love”, or some silly nickname. I’d downloaded Stewart’s contact details together with everyone else’s in the office, a few years back when we changed email systems, and had not changed it. I was pretty sure he’d done the same and hadn’t changed mine to Angelicious or something equally absurd. When we met, I’d had him as “Stewie” on my phone, as a joke because I knew how he hated that nickname, forever telling me he wasn’t a damned casserole. He’d never managed to convey his dislike to his mother, though, and even to this day, she called him Stewie, or even worse, Stewie-boy.

  I had been “Angiegirl” on his phone, but that was a long time ago, and I was neither Angie nor a girl anymore.

  “Excuse me,” I murmured and got to my feet. “My husband,” I added and waved the phone apologetically as I walked off to get some privacy for the call.

  “Angelica, you have to come back,” was Stewart’s curt greeting.

  “What?” I asked, wondering why he didn’t even say hello and worrying that something had happened.

  “I have to go to Hong Kong,” he replied.

  “What?” I repeated.

  “Angelica, don’t be like that. I have to go, it’s the new customer…”

  He continued talking, but I didn’t hear a word. Don’t be like that?

  Don’t be like what?

  “… so, I have to go,” he finished.

  “Okay,” I heard myself saying. “When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” he answered. “When will you be back?”

  “I’ll leave immediately, but –”

  “Good, then you’ll be here in time to drive John to school.”

  I blinked.

  “You didn’t take him to pick up his car?” I asked stupidly because obviously, he hadn’t.

  “I’ll be gone for a week, maybe ten days. I’ll leave an itinerary on my desk,” he said, instead of answering my question.

  “Ok –”

  He closed the call without saying goodbye.

  I noticed how the women on the back porch were watching me, so I smiled as I started walking back toward them, and chirped cheerfully into the phone, “That’s okay honey, I’ll see you when you’re back.” Feeling a bit stupid, I added, “Bye darling.”

  As I tucked the phone into my purse, I told them I had to go back home, made my excuses for leaving so abruptly, and explained about Stewart’s vice president job and how he had to go on a business trip. They assured me they understood, and Louise promised to give her husband Daniel my email address so he could contact me with a detailed time plan for the renovations.

  Then I threw my things in the small overnight bag, got into my car and started the fifteen-hour drive back home.

  ***

  I sat on the raised deck and looked out over the lake. Our house had a fantastic view of the water, although it wasn’t beach front, a fact I knew irritated Stewart who had wanted to buy a much smaller house with the coveted beach access. I’d never been especially fond of swimming in the lake, so I didn’t care, but I loved our deck and sat there alone in the mornings to watch the sunrise over the water. I’d done the financials for the options we had back when we were searching for a house, and I’d done them again each time Stewart brought it up. Our big house had consistently proven to be the better investment, and I knew this irritated my husband too.

  “Hey, Mom,” Johnny called out. “Can I go with Benjy and his parents to their cabin?”

  “Sure,” I called back over my shoulder.

  I could call my friend Maddie, and see if she wanted to come over for some Saturday night wine and whine. We used to do that often, though when I thought about it, we hadn’t done it in years. Not since she and her husband split up, and that had been five years ago.

  “Is it okay if we stay one extra night and they take me directly to school on Monday?” Johnny said, walking out on the deck with his phone in his hand.

  “Sure,” I repeated.

  I’d been home for a week and Stewart would come back on a late flight the next day. We would have to talk, and it would be infinitely preferable if Johnny weren't in the house when we had that conversation.

  “You’re the best,” my beautiful boy murmured in my ear as he leaned over me from behind and pressed his cheek to mine.

  “You’re the bestest,” I replied, and heard his deep chuckle.

  We’d been saying that since he was a small boy, and even though he was now a young man well on his way into adulthood, we still did.

  He had apparently already packed, anticipating that I wouldn’t say no to his plans, so I walked outside with him and waved cheerfully as he left with his buddy. Then I called my daughter. She didn’t answer, although I got a text message after a few minutes.

  “Is everything okay?”

  I blinked slowly. Why wouldn’t everything be okay?

  I answered her that I was back in Chicago, that everything was great and was she ever going to come home for a weekend. Since she had been home a few weeks earlier, that got me a long string of smileys.

  Maddie, my best friend since college, didn’t pick her phone up either, and to my surprise, I got the same query if everything was okay from her just a minute later.

  What the hell was going on with everyone? I had gained some weight lately and hadn’t had time to go to the hairdresser, so the gray hairs I had by my temples were showing. I knew I looked my age, but I didn’t look sick, did I?

  “Good. Hot date. Talk to you later,” she texted in reply to my assurance that I was perfectly fine.

  It was early afternoon, and she had a hot date? You dated in the afternoon these days?

  I shook my head and walked inside to search the freezer for something to eat for dinner, and spent the rest of the day cooking a complicated stew, all the while trying to not think about anything. As I moved the food around on my plate, I started on four different books which all had glowing reviews from tons of book bloggers. I couldn’t focus, though, and th
e words seemed to bounce around on the screen without making any sense at all, so I ended up on the deck again, this time with a glass of wine. I’d tried so hard to not think about what I’d seen but as I sat there and watched the dark sky, everything that was happening kept bouncing in my head, escalating with each breath I took.

  My husband was cheating on me.

  My husband of twenty-one years was cheating on me.

  My husband of twenty-one years was cheating on me with a girl half his age.

  My husband of twenty-one years was cheating on me with a girl half his age, on the conference room table in the office where we both worked.

  This couldn’t be happening. Not to me.

  I drank the last of my wine quickly, poured another glass and gulped that down too. Stewart would be home the next day, and he would have an explanation for what was going on. I wasn’t sure what he could say that would erase the image of his butt cheeks clenching as he pushed into that girl, but I would listen.

  I didn’t sleep well that night and spent the next day cleaning the house from basement to attic. The hours passed slowly as I scrubbed floors which due to our weekly cleaning service were spotless already before I started. Finally, I heard his car park outside.

  He walked in, and one look at my face conveyed to him that what he suspected I knew was exactly what I knew. I told him what I’d seen anyway, and it turned out that he didn’t have any explanations at all, except that yes, he had indeed done what I saw him doing.

  “Do you love her?” I asked weakly, wondering what we would do if this were the case.

  Would he want a divorce? Was he planning to marry her?

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he snorted.

  “What’s this about then?”

  He looked at me for a long time, and I couldn’t interpret the look on his face. We’d known each other for many years and had grown into to the middle-aged adults we were together. The man in front of me suddenly felt like a stranger, and I realized he’d been one for a very, very long time. What he said next still came as a surprise, and it hurt.