by Laura Levine
Aside from the fact that there was no ranch dressing for the carrots, it was heaven.
Dickie began to tell me about his rough week at work, coming up with ideas for his new ad campaign. To tell the truth, I wasn’t paying much attention, too busy staring at the tiny dimple in his cheek that flashed whenever he smiled.
“I’m just glad I had my spin class,” he was saying. “What a great way to release tension.”
Remembering the feel of his ripped bod as he held me in his arms, I was grateful for his spin class, too.
“And of course, I couldn’t have made it through the week without one of Hapi’s affirmations. I kept telling myself, I am always prepared to dig in and do what is needed.”
“How inspirational,” I said, wishing we had something more to eat than those darn carrots. Oh, well. A small sacrifice if it meant lounging next to my new and vastly improved ex-hubby.
After watching the sun set in a glorious orange ball, we went back inside for dinner—an appalling kale and tofu salad, accompanied by the merest speck of a gluten-free dinner roll.
But I didn’t mind. Much.
At least there was no furry ball of fury nudging her way between us. I’d left Prozac sulking on the sofa, where she was no doubt at that very moment shredding one of my cashmere sweaters to ribbons.
“How’s the chow?” Dickie asked.
“Yummy,” I lied.
“I’m so glad you’re sticking with Hapi’s diet.”
Dickie had emailed me Hapi’s no fat/no fun diet earlier that week, with its rules about what I could eat (virtually nothing) and what I couldn’t eat (virtually everything).
All of which I perused while scarfing down a bag of M&M’s.
“If you feel yourself weakening, here’s a great affirmation to keep you eating healthy: I feel good only when I eat wholesome, natural food. I abhor junk food.”
“I’ve got to remember that,” I simpered, trying to look like a woman who abhorred junk food and not the kind of woman who kept an emergency carton of Chunky Monkey stashed in her freezer.
All this chatter about Hapi’s diet was making me more than a tad uncomfy. So I was delighted when Dickie reached across the table and took my hand in his, an electric charge zipping through my bod.
“God, how’ve I missed you,” Dickie moaned.
“Me, too!” I said, at last speaking the truth.
“You’re so much more fun than Allison.”
Wait. What? Who the heck was Allison?
“Allison?”
“My old girlfriend. We broke up right before you and I got together. She was very sweet but sort of dull. My heart just wasn’t in it.”
Whoa, Nelly. I had no idea he’d recently broken up with another woman.
“I felt the same way about Roger,” I parried back. “He was a wonderful guy, and I loved being showered with gifts and swept off on weekend getaways to Santa Barbara, but in the end, I didn’t feel a connection with him.”
Of course, this was all doo doo of the highest order. There was no Roger. I just made him up so Dickie would have no idea of the vast wasteland formerly known as my love life.
If Dickie had an ex-girlfriend, I’d have an ex-boyfriend.
“Let’s forget about Allison and Roger,” Dickie said, gazing at me with what I hoped was lust in his luminous brown eyes.
And indeed it was. Because the next thing I knew, he’d scooped me up for another blockbuster kiss.
Soon we were stumbling off to his bedroom, our ghastly salads forgotten.
Undeterred by jealous felines, we hurled ourselves onto Dickie’s California king bed. And, because my mom sometimes reads these little tales of mine, let’s just say we spent the next hour “cuddling.”
Twice.
Thank heavens the TV was off, no ESPN blaring in the background, as it used to when we were married, Dickie taking time out from sex to check the scores.
No, that night he was the perfect lover, the Dickie I remembered from our very first tryst. When we’d finished, we both lay back in his bed, slightly sweaty, still clinging to each other—me praying Dickie wouldn’t take out his dental floss and begin flossing like he did on our honeymoon.
My prayers were answered. All he did, after a while, was kiss me on the forehead and ask me if I wanted some more wine.
He went off to get it, and when he was gone, instead of lying there, enjoying my post–dipsy doodle glow, I opened his night table drawer to see what he kept there.
I can’t help it.
I’m a natural born snoop.
The minute I looked inside the drawer, however, I was sorry I did. My heart sank to see a framed picture of a stunning blonde. A perky beauty in shorts and a halter top, without an ounce of fat anywhere.
Was this “dull” Allison, Dickie’s old girlfriend?
She sure didn’t look very dull to me.
At first I told myself it was probably his sister, or a cousin. And then I remembered Dickie didn’t have any sisters. And I’d met all his cousins at our wedding. None of them had been even remotely this hot.
What if this doll baby was Dickie’s ex-girlfriend? And what if Dickie wasn’t really over her? What if he still had the secret warmies for her?
Why else would he keep a picture of her in his night table?
I looked down at my naked bod and suddenly felt like a beached whale.
I made up my mind then and there to sign up for that spin class Dickie had been raving about and whittle myself down to a taut bikini-ready bod.
What’s more, I’d get started on Hapi’s ghastly diet.
Really. I would.
Just as soon as I finished that emergency carton of Chunky Monkey in my freezer.
Chapter 8
I woke up Monday morning in a post-Dickie glow. Although he had to work over the weekend during the day, we had the nights together.
Utter bliss.
Prozac, of course, was in major snit fit mode.
She sat on my bed, yowling in protest, as I got dressed.
I can’t believe you abandoned me for two whole nights! What if I’d needed an emergency belly rub?
“Can the drama, Pro. Dickie and I could’ve stayed here if you weren’t so awful to him.”
An angry thump of her tail.
Dickie, Dickie, Dickie. That’s all I ever hear around here. He may be cute, but can he poop in a slipper?
Normally I’d race to her side and stroke her until her snit fit was over. But not that morning. If I wanted things to work out with Dickie, it was time that cat got a much-needed dose of tough love.
Ignoring her yowls, I finished getting dressed, then grabbed my car keys and headed out the door without a shred of guilt.
Prozac’s days of manipulating me were over.
I sailed off to La Belle Vie, happy snappy, energized by my weekend of dipsy doodle.
For the first time, I felt like I was making progress on Fifty Shades of Turquoise. Finally getting the hang of this romance thing, I was able to write about loins of steel and throbbing manhood without a barf bag on call.
I zipped through the pages, eating lunch at my desk, taking time out only to stab a few pins in a voodoo doll Kate had bought on Amazon.
She called it Voodoo Tommy (she’d even written his name across its chest with a Sharpie), and we both had great fun stabbing its throbbing manhood.
“If only I could do this to Tommy in real life,” Kate sighed wistfully. “What fun that would be.”
Tearing ourselves away from our castration hijinks, we got back to work.
Once again I was swept up in a tide of steamy romance as I chronicled the amorous adventures of Clarissa Weatherly.
When I finally checked the time, it was after six. Kate had long since gone. I packed up my things and was heading for the front door when Daisy called out to me from the living room.
Looking over, I saw her sitting on one of the two sofas flanking the fireplace—Tommy lounging next to her, picking his teeth with a doohick
ey on his Swiss Army Knife.
Esme and Clayton sat across from them on the other sofa as Solange and Raymond bustled about, serving hors d’oeuvres and pouring champagne.
“Jaine, dear!” Daisy said. “Won’t you join us for cocktail hour?”
Wiped out from my day of purple passion, I just wanted to go home and have a nice long soak in the tub. But then my eyes glommed on to the serving platters, chockablock with Bagel Bites and—my favorite appetizer!—franks-ina-blanket.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I said, hotfooting it over to the franks and nabbing one.
(Okay, two.)
After which I parked my fanny in one of Daisy’s antique armchairs, hoping I wouldn’t drop any pastry crumbs on the nosebleed-expensive upholstery.
“Are the Bagel Bites to your liking, sir?” Raymond asked Tommy, oozing contempt.
“Could be crispier,” Tommy decreed.
Raymond opened his mouth to say something—a string of colorful curses, no doubt—but Solange shot him a warning glance, and he clamped his jaw shut.
Sensing her cook’s ire, Daisy piped up, “The Bagel Bites are absolutely delicious, Raymond. A fun change of pace from your divine pate.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Raymond said through gritted teeth.
When everyone had been served a glass of champagne, Solange asked, “Will that be all, ma’am?”
“No, don’t go yet,” Daisy replied. “I’ve got an important announcement to make.”
She held up her champagne glass in a toast.
“Wonderful news! Tommy’s found a job as a financial planner!”
Huh? This tooth-picking slacker actually landed a job?
“Who on earth hired him?” Esme asked, echoing my own skepticism.
“Me!” Daisy cried. “He’s going to be my personal business manager.”
Esme’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Okay, so what she really said was “How nice,” but it was clear she was royally gobsmacked.
“But he has no training in the field!” Clayton pointed out.
“True,” Daisy said, “but Tommy’s got a wonderful grasp of financial matters. Don’t you, darling?” she added, turning to Tommy, gazing at him with undisguised longing.
“I don’t like to toot my own horn,” he said, “but I think Warren Buffett could learn a thing or two from me.”
Puh-leese! What planet was this guy living on?
“Here’s Tommy’s new business card,” Daisy said, jumping up and passing out thick, embossed cards, heralding Tommy as an “Executive Financial Planner.”
“Best of all,” she beamed, “Tommy will be staying here at La Belle Vie indefinitely.”
Solange and Raymond gasped at this newsflash, exchanging looks of utter panic. Then they quickly excused themselves and hurried off, no doubt to update their ré-sumés.
Esme managed a lame, “That’s wonderful.”
But Clayton didn’t bother to hide his emotions. This young wiseass had just stolen Daisy out from under him.
He proceeded to give Tommy the royal stink eye as Daisy rattled on, oblivious.
“I’m thrilled Tommy’s staying on,” she was saying. “Now the home gym won’t go to waste. I’m afraid I haven’t been using it at all. I only wish you wouldn’t spend so much time in that tanning bed, Tommy, dear.”
She tore her eyes away from him to explain, “He’s there like clockwork every morning at ten, tanning himself for twenty minutes. I worry he’s overexposing himself to dangerous UV rays.”
Clearly, she was the only one worried. Clayton and Esme seemed to be rooting for the UV rays. Especially Clayton, who looked as if he’d like nothing better than to see Tommy sprout a few skin cancers.
As for the newly minted financial whiz, he just sat there, blithely picking his teeth with that doohickey on his Swiss Army Knife.
“Must you pick your teeth like that?” Clayton finally snapped. “It’s really most unappetizing, old chap.”
“Old chap?” Tommy looked up lazily from the detritus on his toothpick. “I’m not the old one around here, buddy.”
“Who are you calling old?” Clayton sputtered. “My doctor says I’ve got the body of a thirty-year-old.”
“Better give it back,” Tommy sneered. “You’re getting it wrinkled.”
By now, Clayton was practically foaming at the mouth.
“I’m not so old that I can’t tan your hide in a tennis match.”
At last, Tommy put down his toothpick.
“Really?” he said, a calculating gleam in his eye. “Why don’t we play and find out?”
“You’re on!” Clayton countered.
The two men glared at each other, battle lines drawn.
No doubt about it.
This meant war.
Chapter 9
I’ve never actually played tennis—way too much sweating, and not nearly enough thigh coverage—so I’m sort of hazy on the details. All I know is that Clayton and Tommy had decided to play what’s known as a “set” of six games.
Tommy insisted that everyone attend.
As he put it, “I want an audience to watch me take down the old coot.”
And so, if you’d been snooping around the grounds of La Belle Vie the next day at three PM, you would have found us all sitting in folding chairs alongside the tennis court: Daisy, Esme, Solange, Raymond, me, and Kate—who, just five minutes earlier, had been sticking pins in Voodoo Tommy’s tennis arm.
Clayton, looking every inch the Silver Fox with his snowy mane of hair, showed up in spotless tennis whites with a state-of-the-art racquet.
Tommy, on the other hand, wore cutoff jeans and a tank top, brandishing a banged-up wooden racquet, probably from the sports equipment section of Goodwill.
He strutted out onto the tennis court, cockily bouncing a tennis ball.
“You’re going down, old man,” he called out across the net to Clayton.
Or so he thought.
Clayton, the pride of the Bel Air Country Club, opened fire with a smashing serve. Tommy raced to return it but missed by a mile.
A look of utter astonishment crossed his face. And stayed there throughout the game as Clayton took him to the cleaners, slamming balls over the net that Tommy, flailing about, failed to return.
“Poor Tommy,” Daisy sighed. “I’m afraid he didn’t realize how strong a player Clayton is.”
The rest of us, of course, were grinning from ear to ear, thrilled at the sight of Tommy going down in defeat.
Next to me, Kate applauded wildly every time Clayton scored a point. If she could, she would have been in a cheerleader’s outfit, waving a set of pom-poms.
“Daisy asked Tommy to be her financial planner?” she’d gasped when I told her the news. “What—Bozo the Clown wasn’t available?”
On my other side, Raymond and Solange practically high-fived each other every time Tommy missed a ball.
“Eat dirt,” I heard Raymond mutter, “you Bagel-Biting bastard!”
And so it went for the first two games, Tommy clearly outmatched by the silver-haired tennis maven.
But then, during the third game, things took a decided turn for the worse.
Tommy, who’d been standing around looking bewildered on the court, suddenly lost his awkwardness and started slamming balls over the net.
Clearly he was a good player. A very good player.
All those stumbles at the beginning were just an act; he’d been toying with Clayton, letting him believe he was going to win, waiting until the older man was tired before pulling out all his stops.
Now he had Clayton running ragged on the court.
“Too bad, old chap,” Tommy sneered at Clayton whenever the Aarpster missed the ball.
The mood in the peanut gallery had turned from festive to funereal, everyone dismayed by this distressing turn of events.
Even Daisy looked upset.
“Oh dear. I’m afraid Clayton’s no match
for Tommy after all. I just hope he doesn’t hurt himself.”
I, too, feared for Clayton.
Sweating profusely, he looked like a prime candidate for a coronary.
At last Clayton was put out of his misery when Tommy scored his final point, winning the set. The two men approached the net to shake hands, Tommy bouncing a tennis ball in victory.
“Nice try, old chap,” Tommy said, still bouncing the ball.
Fury blazed in Clayton’s eyes.
“You may have won this set,” he said, reaching over the net and snatching the ball from Tommy mid-bounce. “But our little game isn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.”
It looked like the war between Daisy’s two suitors was still raging full throttle.
Chapter 10
Tommy swaggered into Daisy’s office the next morning, flush from his victory on the tennis court.
Kate, who had been hard at work jabbing Voodoo Tommy in his erogenous zones, quickly shoved the doll in her desk drawer. Lucky for her, Tommy didn’t see it, too busy admiring one of the Rolexes Daisy had given him—turning his wrist this way and that, watching the platinum gleam in the morning sun.
“What do you want now?” Kate asked, eyes narrowed. “Blintzes from Minsk? Crepes from Paris? Tamales from Tijuana?”
“I’m not here to see you,” he said, finally tearing his eyes away from his wrist.
That could mean only one thing:
I was in the hot seat.
Sure enough, Tommy turned to me and said, “Daisy wants to see Chapter One of your book. She’s waiting for you in her bedroom.”
And then he lowered the boom.
“She wants you to send me a copy, too. In case I have any suggestions.”
Phooey. The last thing I needed was input from this Neanderthal.
“Send it to me at my business email,” he said, tossing me one of the embossed business cards Daisy had handed out the other night.
“I can’t believe I’ve got to show him my pages,” I groaned after he sauntered off.
“Me, neither,” Kate said. “I didn’t know he could read.”
With a sigh, I returned to Turquoise-Land and did a quick polish of Chapter One.
When I was through, I printed a copy for Daisy and sent off an attachment to Tommy.