Picture Imperfect

by Lea Santos

  Synopsis

  Paloma and Deanne Vargas thought they were destined to grow old together. But after fourteen years together and two children, Paloma finally accepts she has based her life on the foolish dream of two passionate high school sweethearts. Heartbroken that Deanne seems more devoted to being a cop than a partner, Paloma tosses her out and tries to move on.

  But Deanne is determined to get their marriage back on the road to happily ever after, by way of Memory Lane—and Lover’s Lane...

  Third in the Amigas y Amor Series

  Picture Imperfect

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  By the Author

  Amigas y Amor Series

  Little White Lie

  Under Her Skin

  Picture Imperfect

  Picture Imperfect

  © 2010 By Lea Santos. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 10: 1-60282-180-1E

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-180-4E

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: September 2010

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

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Stacia Seaman

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri (GraphicArtist2020@hotmail.com)

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to all the readers. You make the magic happen.

  Dedication

  For my best friend, Terri. Love you!

  Chapter One

  From Paloma Vargas’s journal, Saturday, September 1

  I don’t know if Iris’s impending commitment ceremony is pushing me to this point, or if I’m just tired of feeling like an orphaned wife. But I can’t take it anymore.

  Deanne forgot our anniversary.

  Again.

  And, thanks to the ever-available excuse of a “work obligation,” she wasn’t here to wish the boys well on their first morning of school. Considering it’s Teddy’s first year of all-day school, well, I can’t tell you how it hurt to see the disappointment on his little face when his mommy didn’t show. Pobrecito.

  Not to mention Deanne and I still haven’t made love…

  Damn. Fourteen years of love I’ve given to that woman. If you count the time we dated, we’ve been together more than half my life. (Scary.) I have never loved a woman other than Deanne Vargas. I always will—she’s our boys’ mommy, too. But I need more than a wife and so-called breadwinner. I need a lover and a best friend. If that makes me selfish, so be it.

  I wish I could figure out when things changed and go back. Make things turn out differently. But I can’t, any more than I can go on living like this. A woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do, no matter how terrifying. And I’ve never been more scared in my life.

  Thunder rolled, and fat angry raindrops slapped the windows of Paloma and Deanne’s west Denver home. The dreary slate-colored sky gave the impression of day’s end, though it was only a few minutes after four o’clock. Paloma set aside her journal and released a long sigh, her eyes fixed on the water-blurred grayness outside. Just perfect. The day might not be over, but a long chapter in her life was. The dismal weather seemed to reinforce the awful, inevitable step she needed to take.

  One hot tear slid down her cheek, and she smacked it away, determined to discourage any of its followers. She rarely cried. No sense blubbering now. Standing, she crossed to the antique iron bed and resumed her awful task, folding the last of her wife’s clothes and placing them into the suitcase.

  She glanced down, fingering the cream-colored note card with their vows printed on it:

  Sometimes when we say

  “I love you,” we forget it isn’t a simple thing

  or a sentiment we can take for granted.

  As we join hands, hearts, and lives, may we always remember

  where we’ve come from to reach our “I love yous,”

  how lucky we are to be here now, and exactly where we’re headed

  in order to whisper more of them against each other’s skin, always.

  May we forever cherish the you…and the me…and the us.

  Jesus. If this was being cherished, Paloma would hate to experience being taken for granted. So help her God, this was the last damn time Deanne would bring storms to her life or pain to her heart—

  “Mama?” Pep blinked at her from the doorway, his perplexed gaze ping-ponging from the open suitcase to her undoubtedly ravaged face. Hesitant, Pep stood on one tennis shoe–clad foot, the second shoe resting atop the first. Flour dusted the Denver Broncos T-shirt that was almost too small for him. His innocent eight-year-old face was smeared with the chocolate he’d been using to make cookies with his little brother. “Are you leavin’?”

  Pain unlike anything she’d ever felt shot through her.

  The us had become far more than Deanne and her alone.

  Their sons.

  Dear God, their sons.

  Paloma wobbled toward Pep and knelt, pulling him against her until she could feel his heartbeat on her face. She might have told herself she was trying to comfort Pep with the gesture, but the opposite was closer to the truth. His warm little-man body made her feel like, somehow, she would find the strength to get through this horrible task of ending the marriage she’d thought would last forever.

  “No, m’ijo. I’m not going anywhere. Mommy—” Paloma’s words caught, and her heart pounded a funeral dirge. How could she explain a failed marriage to the boys when she’d hardly grasped it herself? Would they understand without hating her, blaming her?

  “I’m staying right here with you and Teddy. But Mommy has to…go on a trip,” she finished, clearing her throat. A trip to Get-A-Clue Land, where absentee moms and wives realized they couldn’t continually put their families last or they’d find themselves alone.

  Knowing that everyone assumed she and Deanne had the perfect life hurt almost as much as admitting to herself that the so-called high school sweetheart, fairy-tale romance was finished. Hell, Deanne had barely touched her for…she didn’t even know how long.

  Sigh.

  Okay, she did know.

  Six months, one week, three days, and—she checked her watch—four hours.

  Lesbian bed death in a big way.

  Paloma knew because she’d written it down, along with every other important detail in her life. Keeping journals as she had since she’d been a young girl was a double-edged sword. Yes, she had a chronology of the good times, the memories, the milestones. But lately, every time she reread the entries from the past few years, she also faced the black-and-white reminder of all that her fraud of a marriage lacked.

  Deanne missed dinner tonight and didn’t call. I was worried.

  Deanne forgot Pep’s birthday party today. Pep cried.

  Deanne forgot our anniversary. Again. Fuck it. I don’t care anymore.

  Paloma fought the urge to sob. Perfect life? Ha! As long as she could remember, she’d been the one to accommodate, to compromise, to make things better. Smile and the world smiles with you. Damn, she was sick to death of it.

  Now, if not making love for six months was the only rock on their
marriage path, she could maneuver around that. She certainly wasn’t so shallow that she’d give up a fourteen-year commitment over six sexless months. But, if she were completely honest, things had started changing when Pep was born.

  Yeah. Pep was eight.

  The lack of physical intimacy was clearly a symptom of a much larger underlying rift. It wasn’t that Deanne treated her badly or abused her in any way. She had simply forgotten Paloma existed, which was, frankly, a deal breaker. One Paloma couldn’t overcome. Whoever said apathy was worse than hate was a damned smart cookie.

  “When’s Mommy comin’ back?”

  Pep’s plaintive question yanked Paloma back to reality. She blinked several times, unsure how to answer. “I don’t know, baby.” She smiled tenderly. “Where’s Teddy?”

  “Downstairs watchin’ cartoons,” Pep said about his six-year-old brother. “We’re ready for the oven. We did all the dough balls on the cookie sheet.”

  “Good boy.” Paloma ruffled his soft crew cut, a style both he and Teddy wore and loved. “Any problems?”

  “Nuh-uh.” He scratched his chin, where some melted chocolate had dried and cracked. “Teddy dropped a few chunks of dough on the floor, but he picked ’em up and ate ’em, so the floor is still clean.”

  Paloma cringed at the mental image of how her kitchen probably looked right now. That, and the fact that her son had been scarfing raw cookie dough straight off the floor. But, what the hell. She’d mopped the day before. The boys couldn’t do permanent damage to themselves or to the kitchen by spooning cookie dough onto a sheet—or eating it off the floor, for that matter. Besides, she had desperately needed the time alone to think.

  And pack.

  Letting them do the cookie prep had been the perfect solution.

  Paloma took Pep’s hand and stood. “Come on. After the cookies are done and you yard monkeys take baths, I’m driving you over to spend the night with Aunties Emie and Gia.” Emie Jaramillo wasn’t a blood relative, but she, Paloma, and Iris Lujan, the third musketeer in their little band of pals, had been the best of friends since high school. As far as Pep and Teddy were concerned, Iris and Emie—and now the women in their lives, Torien and Gia, respectively—were familia. And Paloma couldn’t agree more. “How’s that sound?”

  “Cool!” Pep brightened. He loved his Auntie Gia, due in part to Gia’s big, rumbly black truck. Paloma’s sons were hard-core vehicle freaks. Just like their mommy.

  As though a fresh and amazing idea had popped into his head, Pep sucked in an excited breath. “Can I—?”

  “Yes, beetle bug.” Paloma chuckled, answering patiently. “I’m sure if you ask politely you can sit in Auntie Gia’s truck.”

  Pep’s face lifted into a mask of amazement. “How’d you know I was gonna ask that?”

  “I’m your mama, little man.” She bent and kissed him on the head, then smacked him lightly on the rump. “I know everything.”

  They started down the stairs. “But…you don’t know when Mommy’s comin’ home, do you?” Pep’s little voice sounded searingly grave and much too wise to the reality of the modern family.

  Make that broken family.

  Damn, Pep was only eight years old. Teddy, just six. This is going to be sheer hell.

  *

  “Hello!” Paloma called out before shutting the unlocked front door and entering Emie’s and Gia’s house in Washington Park. She stomped the rain off her shoes onto the mat and peered around the lamplit hallway. The house felt so warm and welcoming, as opposed to her home, which lately had seemed about as inviting as a body bag. Pep and Teddy, toting sacks of oven-warm cookies, took off at a run to find their favorite truck-owning auntie.

  “Don’t run, boys! Your shoes are wet.” They continued unheeded, and Paloma didn’t have the energy to scold them.

  “We’re in here,” called Emie from the vicinity of the kitchen. Muffled laughter danced through the house, waltzing with the aroma of fresh coffee. Iris and Torien were also there. Happy couples whiling away a bad weather Saturday together. Probably discussing Iris and Torien’s impending commitment ceremony in P-town, something Paloma didn’t think she could stomach discussing at this point.

  Maybe I should’ve called first.

  She sighed, feeling so out of the loop. For the longest time, she and Deanne were the only ones living in happy coupledom. Now Emie and Gia were expecting their first baby in November—something Emie had always wanted and never thought she’d have. Iris and Torien were so much in love, it literally hurt to look at them. Paloma was the consummate fifth wheel.

  The divorcee.

  The failure.

  Soon, anyway.

  She set the boys’ overnight bags aside, then shrugged listlessly out of her raincoat and shook it over the mat before hanging it on the bent wood hall tree. For the first time in her life, she didn’t look forward to seeing her friends. She dreaded their shock when they learned she was leaving Deanne. Leaving Deanne. So surreal.

  “There you are.”

  Paloma spun around, hand on her chest. Beautiful Iris, who had recently retired from her long, successful modeling career, peered around the corner of the living room, luminous green eyes smiling down at her. Considering the foot of height difference between five-eleven Iris and Paloma, Iris always smiled down at her.

  “You scared me,” Paloma breathed, her voice too airy, too brittle. Oh, God. She was teetering on the brink.

  Iris tilted her head in curiosity. “What’s taking you so long, girl? You forget the way to Emie’s kitchen?”

  “No. I just…I was…” Paloma’s nose burned, her throat ached, her muscles sagged, heavy and inept. She’d managed to stave off every potential crying bout since she’d made peace with her decision, but right now, she had the overwhelming urge to fling herself face down on the floor and bawl like a baby. But she was a grown woman and a mother.

  Soon to be a single mother.

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  Unable to stop the torrent of pain, Paloma slumped onto the bottom step of the staircase and surrendered to the tears.

  “Pea? Jesus, what on earth is wrong?” Alarmed, Iris squatted in front of her. “Did you have a car accident?”

  Paloma shook her head.

  “PMS?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t c-cry.” Paloma felt the comfort of her friend’s arms encircle her. Resting her face on Iris’s shoulder, she reached up and smeared at the tears blurring her vision in time to see a very pregnant Emie waddling into the hall.

  Emie stopped short and nudged up her fashionable new eyeglass frames. “What happened?” Fear laced her voice.

  “I can’t believe it has c-c-come to this,” Paloma slurred.

  “Mama?” ventured Teddy’s tiny, quavering voice. All three women glanced toward where he stood tentatively in the archway to the living room. “What happened to my mama?” Tears cracked his words, his eyes round and serious. His little chest heaved with frightened breaths.

  “Oh, hijito, it’s okay,” Iris soothed, beckoning him over. “Your mama just…”

  “Stubbed her toe,” Emie blurted, “and she’s being a big whiny baby. That’s all.”

  Teddy glanced from Emie, to Iris, to his mama, questions in his troubled eyes. “Mama? You have an owie?”

  She struggled to give him a reassuring smile. “I’m okay, baby. It doesn’t hurt much.”

  God, how it hurts.

  “Want me to kiss it?” he asked in a solemn tone.

  Paloma sniffed loudly and held out her arms for her big, brave boy. She didn’t know what she’d do without these kids. “Come here, you. Kiss me, instead.”

  Teddy scampered into his mother’s arms, and she showered his face with tear-moistened kisses. He settled onto her lap, nestling his head in the crook of her neck. She could smell his wind-whipped little boy scent and the chocolate chip cookies on his breath. It didn’t surprise her they’d dug in already, and really, what did it matter? The cookies would spo
il their dinner, but no more than finding out their mama and mommy weren’t going to live together anymore.

  “See?” Iris tucked a lock of long black hair behind her ear and flashed him a Colgate smile. “Mama’s all better.”

  “Mama looked like she was gonna cry earlier when she was packin’ all of Mommy’s clothes up, too,” said Pep, who had just come into the hallway. His tone was matter-of-fact, far too wise for such a little guy.

  “Pep,” Paloma chastised, softly.

  Blotches of red stung his cheeks, and he darted glances at the adults before hanging his head. “Well, you did.”

  Paloma cast a furtive peek at Iris and Emie before lowering her gaze to the floor as well. Leave it to Pep to bust her in front of her friends.

  After a moment, Emie leaned into the living room, bracing her lower back with a fist. “Gia?” she called. She turned a falsely bright face to the boys. “You guys want to go outside with your other aunties and look at the truck?”

  “Nah. We’ll stay here with my mama,” Pep said, ever protective.

  “Yeah,” Teddy chimed, snuggling closer to Paloma’s warmth.

  Gia’s sculpted form darkened the archway, and one glimpse of the smoldering, love-wrought look she exchanged with Emie caused Paloma’s tears to come anew. Paloma remembered the heated glances Deanne had given her when she was pregnant, brimming with pride and excitement over the children they would raise together.

  Those were the good days, the memories that made the stark reality of today so goddamned unbearable. Now, when Deanne spared a glance in Paloma’s direction at all, she seemed to look right through her. Clearly, Deanne wasn’t attracted to Paloma anymore—that much was obvious. Granted, Paloma did weigh twenty pounds more than she had when they’d fallen in love, but she’d also given birth to two freaking sons. Didn’t that earn her the leeway of a few extra curves?