by Dee Ernst
“And you can’t get your nose pierced either.”
“Wrong again, Mom.” She sighed and munched more bagel, then and asked, very casually, “Could I sleep at Billy’s Friday night?”
Billy is her so-called boyfriend. He’s a year older and lives six blocks away. He walks over to see her on the weekends and they go out for walks, sometimes into town, where there are places to eat and have coffee. He’s a very quiet kid, with long hair that hides most of his face most of the time.
I put my coffee cup down very carefully. “Did you just ask me to spend the night at Billy’s?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. He’s having a sleepover party.”
“A sleepover party?” I looked over at Lauren for some sort of verification. Lauren was actually nodding.
“Yes, Mom,” Lauren said. “A lot of kids are having boy-girl sleepovers. It’s kind of the new thing.”
I was trying not to hyperventilate. “Who else is invited?”
Jessica shrugged again. “I don’t know. Kids. Jill, I think, and Avery. Maybe Matt.”
“And his parents are going to be home?” This was sounding more interesting all the time.
“Don’t know. Maybe.”
“What are all of you going to do?”
“Don’t know. Listen to music, watch a few movies, I guess.” She shook her hair away from her eyes so she could actually look at me. “We’ll stay up all night, Mom. It’s no big deal. It’s not like we’re all going to be having sex or anything.”
“Well, of course not,” I said heartily.
“So, can I go?”
“As soon as I speak to Billy’s mom, and Jill’s mom, and of course, your father, whom I’m sure will be thrilled with the idea.”
“Mom.” Jessica started to whine. “You can’t tell Daddy. He’ll flip out. Can’t you tell him I’m at Jill’s or someplace?”
I shook my head. “Sorry honey, but what if I get struck by a bus on Friday night and am in the hospital dying? You father would want to be able to bring you to my bedside so you can say a last good-bye. He needs to know where you are, Jessica. I don’t lie to him about stuff like that.”
She slammed down her coffee mug, then threw her bagel across the room where it landed, surprisingly, in the trashcan. She stormed out, muttering under her breath. I looked at Lauren.
“So, parents are actually letting their kids sleep over with members of the opposite sex?” I asked.
Lauren put her bowl and spoon in the sink. “Yes. It’s okay, I guess, because everybody is in a big room together, and if anything was going on, everybody would know about it, and that would be really embarrassing, you know?”
I smiled, but was not convinced. I didn’t think that a teenage boy, faced with the prospect of getting some, would consider embarrassment a major obstacle. Lauren went upstairs and I sighed into my coffee cup.
I love my children. I really do. And I still have some control over their actions. But I can’t help feeling that one day they’ll figure out that there are three of them and only one of me, and it will be all over, like when the great lioness is taken down by a pack of lowly hyenas by force of their sheer number.
I drained my cup of coffee and began to put the girl’s dishes in the dishwasher. I turned the kitchen tap slowly, then breathed a sigh of relief as clear water gushed out. Some days, that’s a real cause for celebration in our house.
Earlier that morning we had a plumbing event. The claw foot tub in the girl’s bathroom made a noise and coughed up something that looked like rusty water. That happens a lot. We live in a very old house, which is what I’ve always wanted to live in, but there’s a downside to high ceilings and beautiful hardwood floors, and that downside usually involves problems that can only be solved by highly paid professionals.
We’ve lived in this great, big old house for about eighteen years, and it’s almost finished. Brian and I originally thought that it would be fun to get an old fixer-upper and do all the work together. You know, bonding. However, older houses have things like plaster walls, so just trying to hang a picture requires expensive tools and titanium screws. We soon found it easier just to pick up the phone and ask for estimates. All our common living areas are beautiful, as are most of the upstairs bedrooms. The master bath has one lone toilet and lots of exposed beams, not to mention various lengths of copper pipe. And the walk-up attic, which is supposed to be my sanctuary, has plywood covering all the windows, because the windows haven’t been actually ordered yet. It’s not money that’s the issue, but time, energy and the red-hot blood-lust that’s needed to actually find the antique window store located down some dark alley in a strange little town and make the decision between four-over-four or six-over-six.
Why do I need a sanctuary? Because I’m a writer, and all writers need someplace quiet, peaceful and totally theirs where they can go to relax and be inspired. Actually, I’m an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author. Now, before you rack your brain, trying to think of that beautifully written family saga that got short-listed for the Booker, or the thriller that Robert Redford optioned as his Next Big Thing, let me explain to you that the New York Times has several bestselling lists. There’s the hardcover fiction and non-fiction list, the Holy Grail of lists. Then there’s the trade paper, fiction and nonfiction lists. Trade paperbacks are those books that you think are hardcover because they’re the same size as a hardcover, but they’re really soft cover, and infinitely cheaper to publish. Then there’s the mass market list. Mass markets are your basic small-enough-to-stash-in-your-purse sized paperbacks. That’s the list I made. I hung on to the number one spot on the mass market original paperback list for almost four months with one of my favorite titles, Passion At Dusk.
Yes, I’m a romance writer. When I started almost twenty years ago, romance novels were pretty much delegated to the back corners of bookstores. Since then, it’s grown to be quite a respected, not to mention lucrative, genre. I write under the name of Maura Van Whalen, because my real name, Mona Quincy Berman, doesn’t have a very romantic ring to it. Because I was a history major in college and am a sucker for old, moldy ruins and rusty swords, I write historical romance. Maura’s heroines are usually raven-or-auburn haired women with fair skin, clear green eyes and warm trembly lips. They are usually named Clarissa, Isabella, or Honoria, have amazing breasts, and are strong-willed and daring. Their brooding, handsome counterparts are usually Drake, Trane or Lord Aubrey Sinclair.
Being a history major, I’m big on historical accuracy, which is tough when you’re writing not only about history, but about sex. Way back in the day, women were having all kinds of sex all over the place, pretty much the same as today, but the only ones who admitted it were the prostitutes, and, of course, royalty. I like to have to get my characters married off in the first chapter or two, often unwillingly, so they can then be separated and/or put through some trying ordeal together during which they realize how much they really do love each other. I write about a lot of arranged marriages, which were, in fact, very common among the gentry. I also like to throw in the occasional Duke who must hand over his gorgeous and willful daughter as payment of a gambling debt to an unscrupulous but amazingly hunky blackguard.
Lately, though, I’d been wanting to write for the twenty-first century, which would allow my characters to sleep with each other without even knowing each other’s names. Their names would eventually be something like Chloe, Zoey, Colton or Paco, and they would have exciting jobs like magazine editors or undercover drug enforcement agents. I even had a new nom de plume picked out, Monique B.
As for my awards, well, let’s say that there are roughly a gazillion groups out there related to the romance business, and they all love to have conferences and conventions, and prizes are awarded for everything from best plot, pluckiest heroine, or most frequent and imaginative use of the word “cock”. I have a number of these awards. Considering what these awards represent, you’d think they’d be shaped like a giant, erect penises, or may
be upright and breathtakingly full breasts. Instead, they are very abstract in nature, and tend to look like falling stars, soaring comets, or something a dog may have thrown up.
Speaking of dogs, and throwing up, that morning as the girls were heading out the back door, I heard Miranda mutter, then, moments later, Jessica growl. Lauren called over her shoulder about something gross on the floor. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention because I had my head down, trying to dig the keys out of the bottom of my purse. Then I stepped in something. It was soft and made a squishy kind of sound. I closed my eyes and sighed. Fred had left me another treasure.
My Golden Retriever is named Fred, after Fred Astaire, because I watched…wait, you already know that. Golden Retrievers are America’s favorite pet because they are beautiful, loyal and good-natured. Fred is beautiful, loyal, etc., but he also has a brain the size of a dried lima bean and is constantly eating the girls’ underwear and then throwing them up all over my beautiful hardwood floors so I could then step on them and flatten them out so they looked like the Best Regency Romance Award I won in 1995.
I returned from driving the girls to school, cleaned up the Fred mess and called Ben. I’m on a first-name, as well as know-all-his-kids-name, basis with my plumber, Ben Cutler. We first met when one of my three then-interchangeable daughters, all toddling and wreaking havoc, flushed several socks down the toilet, causing the entire sewage system of Westfield to back up into my downstairs powder room. Since then, he’s attended to several emergencies, as well as routine maintenance and upgrading activities. He’s charming, polite, and always apologetic when handing me the bill. He also has a network of other highly paid professionals listed in his little black book, so when plaster/wiring/flooring needs to be replaced as a result of his work, he just calls up a buddy and takes care of it for me. Brian had always maintained that there probably was a kick-back in there someplace, but I try not to think about it. Oh, and did I mention that Ben is probably one of the five most beautiful men on the planet? He’s a true inspiration.
In Down To Desire, he was the mysterious and charismatic Devlin Montry, Earl of Northumberland. In Wednesday’s Lover, he was Philip Waters, the conflicted agent of the mysterious and dangerous Lord Buckingham. In Passion’s Eve, he was Sir Jon Allenby, wrongly convicted of treason and on the run from the King’s vengeful agents. Whenever I’m writing, I spend a lot of time thinking about Ben, usually in various states of undress. To be truthful, I spend a lot of time thinking about Ben even when I’m not writing. Then it becomes really distracting because, doing what I do for as long as I’ve been doing it, I tend to think of him in a romantic and historic context.
Usually I get his machine, so I was pleasantly surprised when he answered his phone. Even his voice is delicious, very deep, with the hint of a southern drawl.
“Ben, it’s Mona, your favorite customer.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. ‘You little fool,’ he said, his eyes glittering dangerously. ‘Don’t you know what you mean to me? Do you really think I’ve been keeping away from you because I want to?’ He pulled her close, his lips a breath away from her own. ‘Don’t you know that I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I’m alone with you?’
“Is it the downstairs toilet again?” Ben asked.
“No. The tub in the girls’ bathroom puked up some rust earlier.”
“Ah. Puking rust.” He chuckled. “There’s a lot of that going around. I can come by after lunch, if you’ll be home.”
“Yep. I’ll be here. See you later.”
I hung up the phone and was drinking my fourth cup of coffee, seriously thinking about getting some writing done, when Brian came through the kitchen door. Brian is an accountant. He’s actually head of a department full of lots of other accountants, so he doesn’t actually do much debiting or crediting himself, but he still modestly calls himself an accountant, despite the CPA, MBA, six-figure salary and big corner office. He has a modest, self-effacing way about him that I’ve always liked. He doesn’t look like an accountant anymore. He still wears a suit and tie to work, but they are very expensive, well-cut suits with sexy ties and splashy -colored shirts. He’s a handsome guy for 53. Tall, still slender, and not much gray because he’s got that sandy blond colored hair, you know the color, that hides the gray really well until one day you look and say, oh my God, you’re old. He hadn’t gotten there yet. Something to look forward to, now.
So I was sitting in my big, old-fashioned kitchen, glowing in the mixed warmth of sunshine and hot caffeine, talking to the cat. One of my pet peeves is that I will not allow my cat on my kitchen counter. Ever. I’m sure when I’m not around, she makes it a point to rumba her way from the sink to the fridge, but when I’m home, she sits on the bar stool next to me at the breakfast counter. She’s very good that way.
I love my cat. She is pale orange and white and very fluffy, with big blue eyes and a tiny pink tongue. Her name is Lana. She is my favorite living being in the house, because although she pees and poops an incredible amount for such a small animal, she does it very neatly in a contained space, and sometimes spends as much as twelve minutes at a time sitting in my lap, purring in complete adoration. Well, maybe not adoration. Or, at least, not adoration of me. But she listens carefully to every word I say and never talks back. That alone elevates her to sainthood in my book.
But – back to Brian. He came through the door. I was a little surprised. It was not an unheard-of occurrence, but mid-morning returns home were few and far between.“Hey, hot stuff, back so soon?” I was smiling. I really loved my husband.
He shrugged. “Well, I left this morning just as the girls were screaming about a geyser in the bathroom, so I thought I might check it out. Still gushing?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Besides, I called Ben.”
Brian had taken off his jacket and was leaning back against the counter. “Good. I like Ben. Nice guy. He coming by today?”
“After lunch.”
Brian made a face. “He’ll probably charge extra for the rush job. But he’s still a nice guy. He’s got kids, right?”
“Boys. His oldest starts Yale next fall.”
Brian threw back his head and laughed. “I bet when he got off the phone with you, he called his kid right away and told him to go ahead and sign up for the next semester.”
I laughed with him. “Probably.”
Brian was shaking his head. “Remember when Jess tried to see if her Barbie could swim and tried to flush the damn thing? Ben was laughing so hard he couldn’t get the damn wrench working.”
“God, I’d forgotten that.”
“A defense mechanism on your part, I’m sure. Usually you remember everything.”
“Unlike you, who needs notes left on your shoes so you can remember which one goes on which foot,” I joked.
Brian was grinning broadly. “God, you’re right about that. I have a hard time keeping track of so many things. In fact, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for weeks, and I just keep forgetting about it.”
I sat up straighter, smiled, and tried the dutiful schoolgirl look. “Well, here we are, and you’ve obviously remembered, so shoot.”
“Yeah. Well it’s actually the main reason I came back. I wanted to tell you when the girls weren’t here.”
“Weren’t here?”
“Yes. I didn’t want them to see me pack.”
I was still smiling. “Pack what?”
“My clothes. And my books. And everything. I’m leaving you, Mona. I’m very sorry. This is not about you, really. You’ve been a wonderful wife, but I’ve met someone else and I want to be with her. So, I’ll just pack up my things and go.”
He said this all very calmly. He might have been explaining why the little referee man threw up one of those flag-thingies during a football game. I stared at him, trying to latch on to something that actually made sense.
“You’re packing?” I repeated. I was looking at him. Then I looked at Lana,
still sitting patiently beside me. She offered no suggestions, so I looked back at Brian. “Your clothes?”
Brian cleared his throat and spoke very slowly. “Yes, Mona, I’m packing my clothes and moving out. I want a divorce.” Then he stood up and walked out of the kitchen.
I looked at Lana again. She yawned. I followed my husband out of the kitchen and grabbed his arm as he started up the stairs. “Divorce? What are you talking about? Who did you meet? Where did you meet anybody? Except for your business trips, we go everywhere together. How could you meet someone?”
Brian ran his hand through his hair. “It’s a woman at work, Mona. Dominique.”
“What?” Dominique? Was he crazy? There are no real women named Dominique.
“You met her,” Brian continued. “At the Christmas party. She transferred down from Boston.”
Wait. Yes. Now I remembered. Her name was Dominique because she was from France, where the name Dominique is not outrageously pretentious, but actually as common as Nicole or Emily or Shanique. She was also about fourteen years old and roughly the size and shape of a bamboo shoot. I remembered her, quite plainly, because at the Christmas party she was wearing an amazing winter-white suit that I had tried on at Nordstrom, but decided against buying because it made my butt look too big, with very chi-chi red alligator pumps.
“Dominique with the accent? And the blonde hair? And red shoes? Are you kidding? You’re old enough to be her grandfather.”
Brian looked insulted. “She’s thirty, Mona.”
“Thirty? You’re leaving me for a thirty-year-old bimbo?”
Brian pulled away from me and started up the stairs. “She is anything but a bimbo. She has an MBA from Georgetown. She actually interned at the White House.”
“So did Monica Lewinsky,” I yelled. “You can’t leave me.”
Brian turned on the stairs and looked down at me. Literally and figuratively. “I am leaving you, Mona. I’ve already spoken to a lawyer. You have a great deal of your own money, but I will be very generous. I’m not going to be a jerk about this. You can have the house and kids.”
