Secrets of a Shoe Addict

by Harbison, Beth

  For a long moment, Abbey sat frozen. She’d never felt more vulnerable. If Damon had a gun trained on her, he could get a clear shot right through her head right now. But that wasn’t Damon’s style. At least it hadn’t been more than a decade ago. Who knew how his time in prison had changed him? Who knew how desperate he was to get revenge on Abbey?

  No, she was being paranoid. Damon was acting 100 percent true to form, trying to scare her into giving him what he really wanted, what he’d always want more than revenge: money.

  She set her cup down with a shaking hand, hoping he couldn’t see that. Then she turned the TV and light off so she was in the dark. It took a couple of moments for her eyes to adjust, but when they did, she stood up and walked to the window and looked out.

  “Hello?” she called softly, on the off chance it was just a neighbor and not Damon at all.

  But there was no answer, just the pale orange glow of a cigarette being tossed through the air into her backyard.

  She felt sick. The son of a bitch was trying to gaslight her, to make her so paranoid that she spent her whole life in fear that he was there. Well, she wasn’t going to do it. She wasn’t going to live like that.

  “Next time I’ll call the police!” she shouted.

  The only answer was the sound of someone whistling as they retreated into the distance.

  It was the theme to The Brady Bunch.

  Loreen, who was now in Mimi mode, finished with a late appointment on Wednesday, picked Jacob up from his friend Austin’s, took him home for a quick crap dinner of frozen pizza, then let him watch TV while she went to Gregslist.biz to place the ad for Happy Housewives employees.

  Phone actresses needed. Excellent phone voice and manner necessary. Must be uninhibited. Experience with telephone counseling helpful. Discretion required. Contact Happyhousewives.com for more details or click here.

  “Mom?”

  Loreen jumped. “Shit!” She’d forgotten Jacob was up. She’d been concentrating so hard on the ad that she hadn’t even heard him come in.

  “I heard that!”

  She grimaced and shut down the computer page she was working on. “I know. I shouldn’t have said that. You startled me.”

  “So I can say that if I’m startled.”

  She leveled a look on her son. “I didn’t mean to say it. And anyway, no, you can’t.”

  Jacob shrugged. “You shouldn’t either.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Dad called.”

  “He did?” She looked at the clock. It was a little after ten. “When?”

  “Just now. Didn’t you hear the phone?”

  She really was out of it. “No, I didn’t. Is everything okay?”

  “Guess so. He just told me to tell you to call him.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can I watch TV some more?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, please?”

  “It’s way past your bedtime.”

  “But there’s no school tomorrow!”

  “There isn’t?” Loreen clicked on the calendar on her computer. Professional Day for teachers, no school. “Oh, yeah. Well, then, I guess you can. For half an hour. No more than that, you understand?”

  “All right, all right.” Jacob was only nine, but he’d already perfected the art of male glumness.

  Loreen tried to keep from laughing as he schlumped off, looking for all the world like a miniature version of his father. It gave her a strange combination of pride and melancholy to see that.

  Then she took a minute to steel herself to call Robert—these days she never knew if a conversation with him was going to be tense because of their new separation or comfortable because they both remembered what it felt like to be in love with each other.

  She tried not to think about that too much, because it only hurt. There was no redeeming value to the sadness at all.

  “I was wondering if you’d mind if I got Jacob tonight,” Robert said, and again Loreen marveled at how sad it was that they had to talk to each other in this formal way. Would she ever get used to it?

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s pretty late.”

  “But there’s no school tomorrow, right?”

  Jeez, Jacob had just reminded her of that! “Right, but like I said, it’s late. Why do you want to get him tonight?”

  “There’s a meteor shower. With all the rain this afternoon, I didn’t think it was going to clear up, but it has, and I’d really like to take him up to Little Bennett Park to see it.”

  “That sounds great,” Loreen said, wishing she was, at least occasionally, the one who came up with this sort of thing. How could she refuse? “Of course I don’t mind.”

  They hung up and Loreen went upstairs to tell Jacob to pack his things. He was thrilled to be going on an adventure like this in the middle of the night.

  Thank goodness Robert was always on top of this stuff. If anyone was the June Cleaver in their fractured family, it was him. He found the Halloween events—like the Sea Witch Festival in Rehoboth Beach last year; he took Jacob to the Christmas concerts and light displays, like at the Mormon Temple in Kensington.

  Yes, Loreen kept Jacob clean, fed, and healthy, but there were many occasions on which she thought she could, and should, do better. In her lower moods, usually right before her period, Loreen worried that she’d failed her son since becoming a single mother, because now she wasn’t always able to be the mom who took him strawberry picking, pumpkin carving, Christmas caroling, and so on.

  But she was so harried all the time, what with her real estate business—such as it was—and her PTA work that she rarely had a spare moment to do something purely recreational.

  Even if it was for her child.

  But that had to change, she decided.

  After tonight, that was. Tonight wasn’t going to win her any Mother of the Year awards. While Robert was taking Jacob out to do wholesome educational activities, she’d be home performing phone sex for money in order to pay off her male prostitute and gambling debt.

  Though, actually, if this phone sex thing worked out the way Tiffany thought it might, maybe Loreen would be able to relax enough to do those things with her son that now seemed like such luxuries. This was no justification, the Happy Housewives business was a means to an end, and as long as no one got hurt, what was the harm?

  Robert picked Jacob up twenty minutes after they spoke, and Loreen watched them both walk off into the night, and into Robert’s dark sports car, with a sense of loss and longing she couldn’t quite understand.

  Why was she so melancholy lately? Everything made her feel like crying. Life was one big long-distance phone commercial, with one maudlin moment after another.

  Good thing she had enough to keep her busy tonight.

  Loreen spent the next two and a half hours carefully piecing new images together out of movie stars and models, careful not to use enough of any one person to make them recognizable and therefore actionable. She wanted to have a good stable of characters in Happy Housewives, even if there weren’t really that many of them yet. There would be, she hoped. The sooner their overflow and off-duty calls stopped going to the relay company for them to make the money, the better.

  She wasn’t sure how many guys would be calling during any given time period, but Sandra had cautioned them that the callers were likely to comprise everyone from the family man who was calling from the broom closet at 2 A.M. to the slacker who was sitting in front of Wheel of Fortune and paying for his calls with his unemployment check.

  But she had to be glad for all of them, because each of them was helping pay off her debt.

  Yes, it was a little unorthodox. And no, she’d never been the type to talk dirty in—or out of—bed, so this wasn’t exactly going to come naturally to her. She was actually a little bit afraid that she’d freak out in the middle of a call and hang up, getting a bad reputation for the Happy Housewives and screwing things up for everyone.

  B
ut . . . could she do it?

  Suddenly she missed Robert.

  She missed the family life she would have had with Jacob and Robert. Maybe they would have been home watching TV together, or playing Uno. Maybe she and Robert would have read Jacob a story, tucked him in, and gone downstairs to have a glass of wine and relax together. Maybe she would have the peace and security she was suddenly lacking.

  But that wasn’t true. Things hadn’t worked out with Robert. She couldn’t give him what he needed. She was alone again. A single mother.

  And she was taking steps now—great, determined steps—to be the very best mother she could be.

  Something was going on with Tiffany Dreyer, Abbey Walsh, and Loreen Murphy, Deb Leventer just knew it.

  First off, there had been a peculiar absence of crowing after the band competition, even though Tuckerman had come in third. If Deb had been PTA president—as she should have been—she would have made absolutely sure there was a big celebration, maybe a banner, and certainly a trophy case put up in the entrance hall. Yes, that would have cost some money, but it was the first time Poppy—that is, the school students—had ever won anything, and it deserved recognition.

  She noticed it now as she walked into the school. She’d been called in because Poppy wasn’t feeling well. There, by the door, was the perfect space for a trophy shelf, but instead they had that big construction paper chart of “character kids,” otherwise known as kids who never won anything legitimately and needed to have a pat on the head. A lighted cabinet would be perfect there, and if they wanted something more than the band trophy, there was no reason Poppy couldn’t lend them her T-ball participation trophies. At least until they got something else.

  After all, she was a student in the school.

  The PTA should already have thought of all this, set up incentives like this for the kids. But no. The current PTA officers always seemed busy chatting away on their phones instead of paying attention to school matters. As a matter of fact, she’d noticed all three of them, at various times, blabbing on their cell phones in line to pick up the kids. Whom were they talking to? Each other?

  Deb was positive they were plotting next year’s election coup. In fact, they were probably cheating, because it was the only explanation Deb could come up with for her baffling loss in the last election.

  What Deb wouldn’t give to listen in on one of those conversations.

  There was Loreen Murphy now, Deb noticed. What was she doing in the school office? Her bratty son had undoubtedly gotten into some sort of trouble. Again.

  “Mrs. Leventer,” Sally Tader, the school secretary, called as Deb walked past.

  “Hello, Sally. No time to talk, I’ve got to go get Poppy from the health room.”

  “Poppy’s not in the health room. She’s in the principal’s office,” Sally said, indicating Deb should come in and wait in the chair next to Loreen Murphy.

  This made no sense. “Why is she in Dr. Steckman’s office?” Deb asked. She cast a sly glance at Loreen. “Did someone do something to her?”

  The buzzer on Sally’s desk went off, and she said, “Dr. Steckman can explain all of that to you. Go right in.” She looked at Loreen with, it seemed to Deb, some sympathy. “Dr. Steckman will explain everything.”

  Obviously that brute Jacob Murphy had done something to Deb’s Poppy, and she would say it right now, she was not afraid to take legal action if that’s what was called for.

  They went into Dr. Steckman’s office, where Poppy and Jacob were already sitting, hands folded in their laps, looking shamed, while the principal ushered the parents in.

  Jacob had a black eye.

  Good. Poppy had defended herself. Deb was glad to see it.

  “Jacob, what happened?” Loreen ran to her son and cupped his face with her hands. “Good Lord, that looks awful! Does it hurt?”

  He cast a hostile look at Poppy, then said, “No.”

  “It seems that Poppy tried to kiss Jacob during recess,” Dr. Steckman began, and gave a chuckle like this was perfectly normal. “And from what I understand, Jacob didn’t want that, and things got a little ugly, as you can see.”

  Jacob’s face turned beet red.

  “He attacked her?” Deb asked incredulously.

  Dr. Steckman and Loreen looked back at her like they didn’t understand what she was asking.

  “Jacob is the one with the black eye,” Loreen said sharply.

  “Only because Poppy got a good shot in defending herself,” Deb said. “Isn’t that right, Pops?” She really hoped it was right. Because none of this was stacking up in a way that made sense to her. Particularly the fact that Poppy wasn’t standing up for herself.

  “He was being a jerk,” Poppy said.

  “I was not!” Jacob growled back. “You just wouldn’t leave me alone. I hate that! Just leave me alone.”

  Deb had a hard time not rolling her eyes. “Clearly this boy is very hostile toward my daughter,” she pointed out to Dr. Steckman.

  “Deb Leventer, you are trying to incriminate my son over something he didn’t do,” Loreen snapped, a bit wild-eyed. “I am so sick of the way you do this!” She turned her attention back to Dr. Steckman. “Is there anything else we need to discuss here, or can I take my son home?”

  “I think we’ve covered everything.”

  “Good.” Loreen huffed up and told her son to come with her.

  Deb watched them go, and then turned back to Dr. Steckman. “There’s one to keep an eye on,” she said, putting her arm around her daughter, as if that gesture could protect her from all the Jacob Murphys the world would throw at her. “I expect you’ll be doing that.”

  Dr. Steckman, surprisingly, didn’t look all that sympathetic. “We’ll keep an eye on both children,” she said, then turned her attention to Poppy. “And I don’t want you to take any more potshots at anyone, young lady, do I have your word?”

  Poppy hung her head. “Yes.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Deb corrected automatically, even while she herself was already mentally composing a letter to the superintendent of schools to complain about Dr. Steckman’s incompetence.

  Imagine! Blaming a little girl for just trying to defend herself! What kind of message was this woman sending?

  As she bundled Poppy up and huffed from the office, she thought about how different Dr. Steckman’s attitude might have been if Deb were the PTA president, as she should have been, instead of Tiffany Dreyer.

  Then maybe both Deb and Poppy would get the respect they deserved.

  Tiffany was doing the dishes after dinner when Charlie came in holding a piece of paper.

  “What the hell is this?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know.” She fished Charlie’s dirty napkin out of his milk glass. She hated how he did that.

  “It’s a receipt,” he said, and her blood ran cold. “For a store in Las Vegas called—” He looked at it. “—Fiona Pims.” He looked at her expectantly.

  Now was not the time to tell him it was Finola not Fiona. Unfortunately, she didn’t know what this was the time for, since she was blank on what to say. “I don’t know,” she said. “What about it?”

  “It’s for five thousand dollars,” Charlie said, not letting up an inch on his indignation. “Five thousand dollars.”

  “Okay, someone spent five thousand dollars at a store in Las Vegas.” She put a plate in the dishwasher and hoped the shaking of her hands wasn’t so noticeable to him as it was to her. “So what?”

  Charlie just looked at her. “Tiffany, don’t embarrass us both by lying. This is your credit card number at the bottom of the receipt.”

  Tiffany felt her face grow hot. He’d caught her lying, he knew what she’d done, and he’d been going through her purse. Though she didn’t really have a best defense at the moment, Tiffany decided nevertheless to try the only offense available to her. “Why were you going through my purse?”

  “I wasn’t going through your purse. I was looking for a pen. And don’t eva
de the point. You spent five grand on clothes.” He shook his head. “This is exactly why I separated our finances.”

  “Why you what?” She stopped midrinse and set down the plate. “What do you mean?” She turned off the water.

  “I took my name off of this credit card, and took your name off of mine. Don’t use the Bank of America card anymore, by the way.”

  This was unthinkable. “You’ve been shuffling our names around on our finances without telling me?”

  He shrugged. “It was just a business maneuver,” he said evasively, “for my expense accounts and whatnot. But now I see it was very fortunate.”

  Tiffany was not buying the “business move” nonsense at all. “The company provides the credit card for your expense account.”

  Charlie gave her a hard look. “Are you questioning my business?”

  “No, I—”

  “Let’s stick to the point. This is a huge debt, and I resent the idea that it might come out of the income I work hard for. I think it’s time you got a part-time job.”

  She was dumbstruck. “You do.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  “In between taking care of the kids, keeping the house clean, making dinners, and handling everything from your dry cleaning to cooking for you and your buddies, you think I should get a job.” It didn’t matter that she already had one. He didn’t know about it, and she wasn’t about to let him find out. Their relationship was winding up toward something ugly, she suspected, and she didn’t want to give him any ammunition against her.

  He nodded, and an outsider might have thought he looked patient. She knew he looked condescending. “I think it’s best. Also, I’ve opened another bank account and need you to sign off on me leaving the joint account we’ve been sharing.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll still pay the bills from that account,” he said, as if reassuring her. “Nothing will change. I just want to shift our liabilities.” He smiled, but it didn’t seem even remotely warm. “Don’t worry, as far as the running of the house goes, nothing will change.” As he turned to go, he added, “Like I said, it’s just business.”