The news of the charming miniature ballerina reached Harold Farthington by the end of the first day and he called me immediately. “I run hotels, not daycare centers, Erica.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Farthington, but if you keep sending me on business trips away from my family, I have no choice but to bring my family here.”
There was a long silence.
“Three trips per month,” he said finally.
“No. One,” I bargained.
“Two. That’s my final offer,” he bargained back.
“Only if I choose which ones to attend. And that’s my final offer, Mr. Farthington.”
This time the silence was longer. I found I was holding my breath, and I realized I cared about keeping this job more than I thought. It was, after all, our family meal ticket. At least until I could get us to Italy.
“Agreed,” came his final verdict, and I grinned into the phone.
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.” It had taken me eight hours to crack the bastard.
Chapter 12:
Ball and Chain
Weeks later and I was still running around like a madwoman every day of my life. One good thing about divorcing Ira—he’d never taken part in my busy schedule, so now I was a single parent no one would miss him. He was like a pro-forma father, existent in theory but not in practice.
By the time I got the kids to actually plunk their rear ends onto their chairs for dinner, I was exhausted. I could have easily ordered a pizza or KFC and called it a night, but it was important for me to do something for them. So together we baked different kinds of pizzas and a chocolate cake.
That evening when I put the munchkins to bed, their eyes were drooping but at least their mouths weren’t. On her bedside table, Maddy had left me a drawing. Like me, she was very arty. She loved colors, and when she had a packet of Smarties, instead of shooting them down her throat missile-style like I did, she played with them, passing them from one hand to the other, watching the flow of blues, pinks and reds, mystified. She absolutely loved colors. In dismay, I’d often watched her use hand-paints on the living-room walls with vigorous, almost ferocious creativity. And then Paul would come up with some obscure cleaning product that worked miracles, saving the day.
Like me, she was dying to express herself and be free of restrictive boundaries like the lines in her coloring books. Like the thick black lines surrounding my own life.
Maddy was more like me in every way. For this, I have to thank my grandmother’s genes and her solid presence in my life. She taught me everything I know. Thanks to her, I actually had a shot at homemaking. But sometimes, when I dropped the kids off for parties or sleepovers, I craved to be like those suburban cookie-cutter—and slim—moms in pearls and pastel twin-set tops smiling and waving at me from their pristine doorsteps.
If I had more time, my house could be pristine too. I was managing to cook meals and give my children quality time and help with their homework and be the mother Marcy never was. Who cared if my windows still needed doing? Sometimes it was easier to watch the world through an opaque glass anyway.
The other moms, who were all stay-at-homes, knew I had a high-power job, and I’m sure they had something to say about that amongst themselves. I didn’t belong to their circle, and would never be one of those straight-bobbed, tennis-bracelet moms. The elitist group of perfect women would always elude me, no matter how hard I tried.
But exactly how perfect were they? Did any of them have pseudo-homicidal thoughts about their husbands, like me? Did they have satisfying sex lives? Or did they simply survive by taking a lover? I didn’t have time for a man unless he wore an apron, an earring, and his name was Mr. Clean. And of course my erotic Julian dreams, which didn’t count because they didn’t impact on my waking hours.
Sometimes, when I tucked Maddy in, she’d look at me as if I was her fairy godmother and not simply her mom. I guess she saw me so rarely lately that she was beginning to wonder if I was just another fairytale creature that existed only at night, for a brief moment, before she closed her eyes, watching me in awe before her long baby lashes fluttered and she was asleep.
Now I was completely on my own, I needed to get a real nine-to-five job, or better, a seven-to-three job where I could at least pick up my kids after school.
“Why don’t you just quit your job?” my Aunt Maria suggested simply as she prepared Le Tre Donne’s special for the day, the vegetable minestrone. No frozen veggie bags for her restaurant, no sir. Every day, she and her sisters got up at four a.m. to make bread, cakes, muffins and serve breakfast, then they’d start preparing lunch. I often came here on my break to grab a quick bite.
I could feel my eyes pop out of my head as I drank the coffee Aunt Maria had brewed me. “Quit my job? What do you think I’ve been going on about all these years? What if Zia Monica heard you?”
Zia Monica was the youngest of Marcy’s sisters and the most progressive. She is a Xerox copy of my Nonna Silvia in body and in soul. She believes in progress, particularly for women, and technology. For a woman to quit her job and be a homemaker was unheard of. Of course all three sisters were spinsters. The most beautiful spinsters I’d ever seen.
Zia Maria pointed her potato peeler at me and grinned. “You could always come and work here. Give your mother a heart attack.”
I snorted my coffee through my nose. “Give me that,” I ordered, taking the potato from her.
“No—start on the onions for me, would you mind?” she asked.
Mind? I was an expert onion peeler. Plus I didn’t have any make-up on so nothing to worry about.
“I’ve wrapped up a chocolate cake for you to take home,” Zia Maria said. “Think about the job offer.”
And so I thought about it. Could I do it? The hours were just as crazy; half of Massachusetts showed up at lunchtime sometimes. I’d see the kids even less. No. I had to find another way.
“No more, Warren, or you’ll become a blimp,” Ira said as we devoured Zia Maria’s cake after dinner that evening.
What Ira hadn’t said was, ‘like your Mom,’ but I knew that was what he meant. The context was clear as crystal. Just a few more weeks to go and I’d be free.
We were at the point where he’d sit at the dinner table and read his paper without communicating for hours while I did the dishes and cleaned up after everyone except for him. I was done with him. Finito.
Even on weekends, for which I practically made a pact with the devil to be home, we would ignore each other. He’d sit at that same table with yet another paper while I played with the kids or did some chores. Let me tell you, it was a relief to go back to work on Monday.
But once there, I’d start worrying about the children. How badly would they take our divorce? Why was it that I could run that ship of titanic dimensions and hadn’t managed to keep a little dinghy with four passengers afloat? One thing was for sure—there was one passenger whose head I’d gladly hold under water until he stopped kicking. But enough of my fantasies…
* * *
Luckily, at home I had Paul who was living with us more often than not. He took care of the kids until I got home, and then we had dinner and exchanged gossip.
We were sitting on the sofa drinking a lovely Sicilian Corvo Novello, kids in bed, glad to have some ‘us’ time with my second ideal (minus the sex) husband. Every time I needed a hand, it was Paul’s, and not Ira’s, who reached out for me.
“So, how’s your hunky headmaster?” he asked. You can imagine how he’d flipped when I told him Spiderman and Headmaster were one. He’d professed that it was fate and what the hell more did I need to understand that?
“I haven’t seen him for a while but I’m assuming he’s as delectable as ever,” I answered.
He shook his finger at me. “You shouldn’t be wasting your time like this. Things don’t happen w
ithout a reason, and even you said he was the man of your dreams.”
“Dreams—exactly. This is reality, Paul, and men like that aren’t interested in women like me.”
“Meaning?”
I thought about it. Dieting wasn’t impossible and I was getting into the swing of things as the pounds were starting to melt off me, one at a time. It was ghastly work resisting my favorite foods, but every time I stepped onto the bathroom scales, it was pure, unadulterated (if you’ll pardon the pun) bliss. But I’d never be a supermodel.
I huffed. “Meaning I’m still big.”
“Oh, big, shmig,” he said with a wave of his perfectly manicured hand. “What’s wrong with having some fun? Look at you, almost thirty-five, two kids you’re raising on your own, a job that totally absorbs you and your soon-to-be ex-husband can’t be bothered to,” he hooked his fingers into quotation marks in my face, “make the effort.”
Ouch. Put like that, it sounded like pure hell. I gave him the hairy eyeball and crossed my arms in front of my chest. “What’s your point?”
He looked at me, unperturbed. “That you’re looking better and better every day, and that you should have a fling.”
Of course he was right, but I wasn’t ready to admit it yet. “I don’t want a fling.”
“That’s because you don’t remember what it feels like to fall in love, Erica. To feel your insides go all jittery and your heart flutter. Oh, the ecstasy!”
“You’ve been reading too many romances,” I quipped.
“I miss Carl,” Paul confessed with a sigh. “With all his uptightness and dedication to those stupid scripts and no time for me… I still miss having him around.”
I smiled, thinking how similar we were, even if he didn’t realize it. “You’ll find someone, Paul. Everybody loves somebody, like the song.”
“No, honey, the song I remember says ‘Everybody needs somebody.’ And you need this headmaster—spider guy to give you a good—”
“Quit saying spider. I hate that word, and I hate thinking about that episode.” Which was bull. I thought about him all the time, reveling in the feeling of his strong arms around me, protecting me, his lips against my ear, soothing me. And now Headmaster Foxham had gone and spoiled even my fantasies by being a respectable man and not a sex toy for my—
I sat up and listened, my ears pricking while mother instinct (even I had it by now) told me the house was too quiet. I listened some more, waiting. Nothing. But a trip down the corridor was enough to kill me.
All over the walls, at Maddy-level, were big bright wax lines of every color imaginable. She had been trying every single one of her new sixty-four-pack Crayolas. As I stepped toward her, she turned and gave me one of her sweetest smiles. I wanted to choke her on the spot, but instead I scooped her up and put her back to bed, while Paul came to the rescue with a sponge, chasing all the drawings around with the bottle of Fantastic he’d bought and put under the sink where I’d be sure to see it, eventually.
“It’s okay, see?” he said. “All gone.”
“Marry me?” I said. “Now?”
He slapped my shoulder with a giggle. I didn’t care if he was gay, didn’t care if we wouldn’t be having sex. He’d be a major improvement on my present marital situation as we were way more intimate than my husband and I had ever been. All I really needed was someone on my side.
“We’re already married, remember?” Paul soothed, running a hand up and down my arm. The first human—and adult—contact I’d had since Spider Hunk’s hands around my arms weeks ago. I wondered where he was, and what he was doing, and what his girlfriend or wife was like. Was he nice to her, or had the daily grind beat them both into the ground too? I couldn’t imagine someone so kind telling his wife he didn’t like the way she looked or anything. I was sure that if he had kids he’d be a great father. Kind and dedicated.
“But I’ll forgive you if you sleep with another man. Invite Julian out for a coffee. Go out and have fun.”
Fun? I looked up at Paul. He was right. I was going to lower my standards and raise the amount of enjoyment in my life. Screw the walls, the windows, Ira and his scowls. From now on I’d start thinking about me as well. And the little things in life that I’d always wanted to achieve. Like… growing real live flowers and not just my cactus-like succulents, for instance. And start painting again. And maybe, just maybe, have a fling…
Chapter 13:
Two Beds Are Better Than One
I soon discovered that, although at first humiliating and painful, separate beds actually meant oodles of freedom. You get double the space, you can watch late-night movies, make long-distance calls (it was irrelevant that I didn’t know anybody long-distance) eat in bed, receive a booty call or whatever took your fancy.
When I got home from work a couple of days later, I found a simple but pretty bouquet of wildflowers wedged into the door knocker, with a note: I think you’re great. One day I hope to be able to tell you in person. I stared at it blankly. Paul. Or a joke? It had to be. You, a smart chick, might have already figured out who it was, but believe me, it took me quite a while to put two and two together, and even then it still made no sense to me.
* * *
A week later, I had to leave the safety of my car and venture into the school yard with the risk of seeing Julian as the school was having a bake sale and baseball match and I’d had the suicidal idea of volunteering, just to show Julian Foxham I wasn’t the total loser of a mother he thought.
Don’t ask me why—they say the heart has reasons that reason cannot comprehend—but that day I took extra care with my grooming. I guess I wanted to make sure I looked tidy, clean, and stable, the exact opposite of Julian’s first impression of me, so I wore my best (and smaller-sized) skirt and a nice green top. Proper, but still casual and not trying-too-hard like. I’d got over my cold and sent that damn burlap sack-of-potatoes coat and dress to the dry cleaner, hoping maybe they’d misplace them for me.
I baked the biggest and prettiest cake I could, and after greeting everyone politely (him included—I didn’t want him to think I was a nasty grudge-holder), I clung to the cake stand and served fruit juices, strawberry, orange and even a green kiwi that matched my top.
And then, he came to stand next to me and helped with the drinks (personally I could have used a Bloody Mary), making apparently harmless chitchat. He told me that he had moved to Boston from England when he was a lad and that he was bullied because of his accent.
“No, what accent?” I said and he grinned, his eyes twinkling, reaching some deep, deep layer inside me. I found myself smiling back and gulped down an entire glass of kiwi juice in one swig. He seemed to have that effect on me—the dry throat, I mean.
So far everything was going okay, he informed me. The kids (my kids) were having fun and had I said or done anything particular lately, because they seemed happier?
“Mr. Foxham,” I said softly, but with an edge of impatience, like when I told Ira off on that famous evening way back into the annals of our story, “they are happy kids. Maybe a bit wiser than those that come from more solid couples, but I can assure you that everything is going to be all right.”
“What happened to calling me just Julian?” he asked quietly.
The same thing that happened to my erotic dreams about you and my desire to lick you from head to toe, would have been an honest answer, but I shrugged, and he paused awkwardly. Boy, was I being a real bitch or what? But he could hold his own, too.
“So then the letter—the part about you and your husband—it isn’t true?” he asked softly.
I turned to look at him and tell him it was none of his business, but the look in his eyes made me laugh. “Like I said before, not the baseball bat part, no. I mean, we do have one in the remote chance someone tries to break in. He’s still a Jersey guy at heart, but Ira—my husband—
would never ever hurt us. And before you ask, the kids are in no kind of danger. Ira is not a violent man.” At least not physically, I thought to myself.
And I realized that Julian Foxham didn’t need an office and a big desk to make me feel like I was under a microscope. He managed to do it right here in the open air on a sunny day, with his sexy yet professional gaze (how did he do that?) sweeping across my face. Oh, sure, he was pleasant and all that, but I knew what was going on behind those bedroom eyes. His personal Spanish Inquisition.
I pictured him and his perfect looks, his perfect job and perfect life, retiring in the evening to a practically perfect woman, and sighing about how un-perfect Warren and Maddy Lowenstein’s mother was. And to think I’d worked my butt off to make them happy, feel integrated and not stand out—the contrary of my own childhood. At least they were popular and good-looking kids.
A sigh escaped me—a deep, sad one, as if I was moaning, crying and gasping for air at the same time. It was all I could do from breaking down into tears. I took a deep breath and choked on my saliva, gasping for air, and he swatted—again—a hand against the space between my shoulder blades. One sharp blow, but it didn’t hurt.
“Are you all right?” he whispered, and I nodded and blinked him an apology as I drank to the end of my juice. To avoid looking at him, I filled a few more cups, lining them along the edge of the table, pretending to be absorbed by the task. But all I could think of was the effect his hand had had on my back.
He looked at me kindly, his eyes soft, almost like a friend’s.
“Erica Lowenstein,” came his deep, sympathetic voice. I knew in a way he felt sorry for me and it annoyed me tremendously.
“Erica Cantelli,” I said, warding off that dreaded surname.
“Erica Cantelli,” he repeated musically. It sounded nice, the way he said it, with that British twang. Ira always made it sound like Erica—can’t tell ye. If he was questioning my using my maiden name, he didn’t show it, the poker face.
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