Published by Bookouture
An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN
United Kingdom
www.bookouture.com
Copyright © Nancy Barone 2013
Nancy Barone has asserted her right to be identified
as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
eISBN: 978-1-909490-06-2
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Loads of awesome people to thank:
First of all, Oliver Rhodes of Bookouture for seeing
my potential as well as that of my heroine Erica.
It took a keen eye and a lot of guts.
Huge thanks also to my editor, the lovely Emily Ruston
who patiently trudged through long sentences, complicated thought processes and a plot that took quite a bit of unraveling.
To Simona, Liz and Arianna, my Tuscan sisters. Over the last twenty-five years we have stuck together through losing family, jobs, lovers, and even a few pounds. I miss you guys so much!
To all of my Matera Brainstormer Buddies and
powerhouses—Kim, Rosemary, Sheila, Lizzy, Claude,
Anselm, Eloise, Beate, Shannon and everyone I haven’t mentioned. Particular thanks go to Elizabeth Jennings and Christine
Witthohn for their wisdom and constant encouragement.
To the owner of Book-Obsessed Chicks, Kimberly
Radicy Rocha. You are a special Chica!
To my parents and sister who have put up with me all these years, believing I’d eventually get there.
To my beloved husband—who has absolutely nothing in
common with Ira—and who has always supported me
by cheering me on, doing the dishes, putting laundry
away and bringing me flowers to say he loves me just the way I am.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1:
Comical Visions of Murder
Chapter 2:
Operation Seduction?
Chapter 3:
Stage Four?
Chapter 4:
Mother Marcy?
Chapter 5:
Cuts like a Knife
Chapter 6:
One Way (Out)
Chapter 7:
The Final Countdown
Chapter 8:
Dieting Disasters?
Chapter 9:
Spider Man
Chapter 10:
Home Truths
Chapter 11:
Turbo Mama
Chapter 12:
Ball and Chain
Chapter 13:
Two Beds Are Better Than One
Chapter 14:
The Superman Syndrome
Chapter 15:
Spider Man Meets Family
Chapter 16:
Hungry Eyes
Chapter 17:
Catharsis
Chapter 18:
Bullies and Baseball Bats
Chapter 19:
Losing a Friend?
Chapter 20:
Gaining a Lover?
Chapter 21:
In the Lion’s Den
Chapter 22:
Juan and the Hooch
Chapter 23:
Birthday Suit
(Stilettos and Panties)
Chapter 24:
Ti Amo
Chapter 25:
Free to Be
Chapter 26:
Love Stinks
Chapter 27:
Irreconcilable Differences
Chapter 28:
The Amazing Erica
Chapter 29:
Jingle-Bell Hell
Chapter 30:
New Year’s Revolution
Chapter 31:
Separate Lives
Chapter 32:
The Return of Ira?
Chapter 33:
Ira and the IRS
Chapter 34:
Carpe Diem
Chapter 35:
Seduction / Abduction
Chapter 36:
April Fools and Irises
Chapter 37:
Truth is Freedom
Chapter 38:
A Woman’s Wait
Chapter 39:
While You See a Chance…
Chapter 40:
Coming Up For Air
Chapter 41:
Old Continent, New Life
EPILOGUE
THE END
Prologue
“Miss Cantelli?”
I looked up from my desk at the two beaming men in suits. “Yes, Mr. Lowenstein?”
“Can you see our very favorite client out, please?”
“Certainly, sir. This way, please, Mr. Smith,” I nodded with a courteous smile and ushered the satisfied duck with the golden eggs out of the office.
“Have you locked up for the night, Miss Cantelli?”
“Yes.”
“And have you sharpened all the pencils?”
“Don’t push your luck, Ira.”
“Okay,” my boyfriend grinned. “Let’s go home, honey.”
Home was just over the threshold of Ira’s spare bedroom from which he operated his newborn company, Tech.Com.
Once in the living room, he slipped his tie off and grinned. “That’s two excellent clients in two days, Erica,” he rejoiced as he gave me a smacking kiss on the mouth. “At this rate we’ll be a known brand within a year!”
I smiled. Ira was on top of the world. Was now the time to tell him?
“I need a smoke. Order a pizza or something, we’re going to celebrate. Back in a mo,” he promised and let himself out through the back door of the small apartment we’d rented out together.
It was the second week of October and the snow had fallen, plunging autumn right into the dead of winter. The afternoon before, Ira and I had been sipping hot chocolate by the window, naked under the patchwork quilt, admiring the red and orange landscape. And, just like the sudden winter had fallen upon us, catching us unprepared, so had some unexpected news of my own.
I sighed, changed into my nightie, and studied my stomach. I wouldn’t be showing for another couple of months. Could I wait that long before telling him? Slipping into my galoshes and throwing a coat over my bare shoulders, I ventured out into the tiny backyard of our first home together. Not being exactly a gazelle, I slipped and slid, desperately trying to stay upright, flapping my arms frantically to stay on my feet. He watched me, puzzled and helpless, and before I could even yelp, I landed on my ass in a heap of snow.
“You okay?” Ira laughed as he ditched his cigarette and came over to crouch next to me.
“Argh,” I huffed. “Sure.” Considering my ankle hurt, that I’d snapped a nerve in my back and loo
ked like a homeless streetwalker, I was peachy.
He smiled down at me, his face red from the cold. How to tell him? It was way too early in our relationship; he’d only asked me to move in with him—and into his company—just a few weeks before. How could I spring this on him with minimal damage to our relationship, and just as he was starting out?
I looked around, stalling as he helped me up. Our backyard had suddenly become a palimpsest of mud and snow, and depending at what angle you scraped your boots into the ground, you’d get either dirty wet brown caking the last of the dead leaves, or the purest, whitest snow. A bit like our present situation. If I could rub my galoshes the right way, it could be a clean, happy start to the rest of our lives. If I scraped haphazardly, I’d find only mud.
I looked at the love of my life, the man of my dreams. Ira Lowenstein was the one I wanted to be with, and if we were going to build a family together, here was step one. A little too early, perhaps, but I knew we’d be okay.
“Come on,” he said with a grin and pulled me up, using both hands—for balance I hoped, and not because I was beyond the one-arm job. Ira pulled me close and kissed my lips. His nose was cold.
“It’s a mess, this backyard, isn’t it?” he said.
I nodded, rubbing my cheek against his shoulder.
“Ira...” I swallowed, my heart rate picking up, already tap dancing against my ribs and in my ears. I had to tell him. It was now or never. But I kept holding my breath, hoping I’d turn blue in the face, be rushed to a hospital where, after hours of agony (not mine, but Ira’s, being afraid that I was going to croak), the doctor would finally emerge and say, “It was touch and go there for a while but now she’s perfectly all right—and thankfully so is the baby.”
To which Ira would blink and whisper, ‘Baby? I’m going to be a father?’ And he’d be so happy he’d take me home and we’d celebrate with nice hot chocolate and glazed doughnuts.
Ira chuckled, bringing me back to reality. “I know, I know, I’ve been neglecting the garden. But I promise as soon as spring comes, I’ll put up a nice deck for you and we can have barbecue parties and invite all your friends, okay?”
“Maybe even a swing set for kiddies,” I suggested, watching him as my heart leapt into my throat. Was that the right way to introduce the news? How was I supposed to know? A glance in his direction told me it probably wasn’t.
Ira’s red face went white. “Well,” he tittered. “It’s a bit too soon to talk about that. Maybe one day, who knows?”
My heart thudded against the bottom of my stomach, dead still. Geronimo. “Ira—I’m pregnant.”
“What?” he said. It wasn’t a, ‘What did you say?’ what. It was a, ‘Please tell me you’re joking?’ what.
“Three weeks, at the most.”
Ira scrambled and slipped on the ice. I steadied him. Not a good start. His face was sweaty, his eyes wide. I sighed.
“Look, I know you’re shocked—even I can’t believe I’m going to be a mother. But it’ll be okay.”
He looked at the ground for a long time, as if trying to find insect footprints in the snow. After what seemed like forever, he looked up. “I’m not sure I’m really ready to be a father just yet, Erica,” he said quietly. “I think we should consider our options.”
I blinked at him. “Options?” I whispered, understanding but hoping I hadn’t.
“We’re much too young to start a family. We have a company—our livelihood to nurture. How is a baby going to get our lives into gear?”
And then, the realization. The painful truth. I was too numb to move. But I could still think, and I could certainly still speak.
“You don’t love me, do you?” I whispered. Any man in love with his woman would have been overjoyed to learn she was expecting a baby from him. At least the men in my historical romances would.
He looked at me for a long moment, like when you examine fruit at the grocer’s before buying it. Please say you love me, I silently willed him. Please don’t tell me I’ve thrown my heart away.
Ira sighed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Of course I do, silly. Now why would you get so dramatic?” And then he kissed me tenderly and broke out into a grin. “Let’s get married. Let’s have kids.”
I stopped holding my breath. “Really?”
Ira tapped my nose gently. “I love you, you love me. Hell, how hard can it be?”
Chapter 1:
Comical Visions of Murder
Time: Fast-forward to twelve years later, to any night of the year. It doesn’t make a difference.
“Ow! For Christ’s sake, Erica—can’t you keep this place a little tidier?” Ira grumbled as he tripped over our son Warren’s baseball glove in the hall.
Oh, God. Here we go again. I could have sworn Warren had put the glove away when I told him to. I did tell him to. Didn’t I? I bared my teeth at Ira in a lame effort to smile. One of these days I’d get lockjaw besides migraines. Had I subconsciously left that glove there to trip him?
Place: Our new, large, white-brick house on 3566 Quincy Shore Drive, Boston. Good piece of real estate. It had taken many years and a lot of sacrifices to buy it and make it our home. Ira’s company still didn’t earn enough to keep us afloat, despite what he always said. And I was happy to do my bit.
But who knew I’d end up like this? Married with children at thirty-four, with thoughts of comic murder drifting through my mind—like clobbering my husband over the head and shoving him into the oven to roast for a couple of days before anyone would ask about him? Not that anyone would miss him.
Have you ever, just for a moment, wished your husband would disappear into thin air—or at least to another country far, far away? Or, more simply, go back to being the guy you married ages ago? What the hell had happened to us, I wondered every day. What had started out with a promise of love had become routine, mundane, deathly dull.
I remembered the days I used to serve him his espresso coffee (in bed) in an elegant cup and saucer. Then we’d gone on to just the cup minus the saucer. And after Warren was born, Ira was making his own and using Styrofoam cups.
And now I was having murderous daydreams where I wiped him out of my sight with a single swat of my hand, or pushed him off a cliff (not that there were many on my daily route to work, back from work, picking up the kids and grocery shopping).
But I wasn’t the only one faltering. At least I had a reason—many, actually: a full-time job, two kids, a house to run, meals to prepare, laundry to do—while Ira had become a ghost-like presence, appearing very late at night and disappearing in the wee hours.
“Are you having an affair?” I’d asked him brusquely one rare Saturday he was home.
He’d looked up from his paper, his eyes wide, studying me, and finally sighed. “Erica…”
“Just please tell me, Ira. No beating around the bush.”
“No, I’m not having an affair. Besides, when would I even have the time?”
He had a point there. Ira was always at work. Assuming he was at work and not, say, bonking the cashier girl from the bakery opposite his office building.
He put the paper down and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “And thanks for dropping this on me the one time you see me home relaxing, by the way.”
“When else would I ask you, when you’re never around? Ira, the kids and I never see you anymore,” I said, lowering my voice from attack mode to a more persuading pitch. “We miss you.”
Ira nodded. “I know, I know, and I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m always so busy. I’m overwhelmed. There’s just so much to do and so little time, and Maxine only has two hands.”
His secretary was a college student who came in after her classes to do the paperwork while Ira concentrated on trawling new clients. He paid her next to nothing, but it was still more than he’d ever paid
me. The story of my life. I sighed. “Maybe, if we could arrange something—a deal; if you could spend one day a week with us, like maybe Saturday, then I’ll spend some time on your accounts. How’s that?”
His eyes widened. “Really, you would do that?”
“Of course. We’re a family. And it’s time we remembered that.”
Ira nodded, his eyes searching mine. “Okay. Thanks. I appreciate it.” And then he did something he hadn’t done in a long time. He folded his paper and came over to kiss me on the cheek. I wished it had been on my mouth.
“Things will get better, Erica. The business will pick up and I’ll have more time for you, Maddy and Warren—for all of us.”
I nodded back. “I know. It’ll be okay.”
That had been three years ago.
Still today, he’d come home and bury himself in his paper or surf the Net (in search of more golden egg-laying ducks that would supposedly save his company), taking very little interest in Warren, who was now going on twelve, and Maddy who was eight. It seemed at times that he simply endured their presence, always too tired to play with them or help them do their homework. The truth was that by the time he got home, I had already fed, washed, played and homeworked them and there was nothing left for him to do. Except to do me. Which he hadn’t in ages, by the way.
What had gone wrong? Exactly when had we started taking the slide? Ira’s work was absorbing him completely, killing any other interest in family life. Not that he had ever been a real family man. He’d tried. He had tried so hard, but year after year he became more and more detached from us all. We never went places together anymore, he never came to parents’ night or to family reunions at my aunts’ Italian restaurant.
He was always cranky, but refused to tell me why, no matter how many times I’d sat him down to try and get to the bottom of it. I’d even suggested marriage counseling but he always said I had too much imagination.
And then one day, it simply got worse.
“Erica—you know I don’t like eggplant! If you can’t even keep track of the basics, just quit your job, already!”
Yeah. And then with what he earned, for the rest of our lives we would be having our dinners at Chez le Salvation Army. I scooped up Maddy’s dolls and Warren’s tractors, plunked them in their toy bins and rushed the kids through dinner and off to bed, anxious for the next day to come.
The Husband Diet (A Romantic Comedy) Page 1