Tree Climbing For Beginners

by Joyia Marie

  “Sweetie, I’m sorry. I’m at the office so I’m in agent mode, but let me switch hats and get in friend mode,” Sonya said after a pause.

  I just shook my head at Sonya and her ‘modes’. This did make for a good working relationship. I didn’t have to worry about our friendship getting in the way of telling me if something I’m writing is tripe.

  In addition, I trust Sonya explicitly. Her honesty might be harsh, but never malicious and she didn’t pander. She had more faith in my talent than I did, so I just wrote and let her do the critical thinking.

  I was a moderately successful freelance writer and a less successful romance writer in the beginning. I wrote erotica for my own amusement. It was a place to put all the naughty bits that couldn’t go in my romances.

  One day I sent Sonya a file I hadn’t deleted the naughty bits from and a new career was born. Sonya held my hand as the book went to the publisher under a new pen name and the contract came back. She hadn’t crowed or screamed she was right when she showed me the advance check but her grin was blinding.

  “I told you darling,” she told me over a celebratory dinner, “sex sells, and in your case sells big.”

  It had, my first erotic romance novel sold better than all my ‘straight’ romances combined. Therefore, Leslie Vandersmoot was born. Sonya helped me by being the go between.

  The only other person who knew was Mr. Pierce, the lawyer who handled the paperwork that changed Leslie Vandersmoot into Helen Dudley and he was bound by the attorney/client privilege. Moreover, I think it gives the little old man a thrill to be in the know about the true identity of a famous erotic romance author.

  Chapter Eight: Helen

  “Now, tell me sweetie, how are you? What led to this? I had always hoped you would leave that little small-minded paper pusher for someone more worthy of you, but I never thought it would actually happen. So is that what happened, did some big strong artist sweep you off your feet and away from the boring Harold?” Sonya asked excitedly. Sonya loved a good story.

  “Uh, no, actually it’s Harold, who has someone else,” I said with a laugh, still not quite believing it.

  Harold was supposed to be safe. Here I was in the same situation as if I had taken one of my artists for my husband. The irony was just about killing me. 14 years of lackluster sex and I’m still left behind? What was the point?

  You see, before Harold, I dated a long line of artists, writers, poets, and playwrights. If there was a branch of the arts I hadn’t swung from, I can’t think of it. I dated potters, sculptures, glass blowers, and metalworkers. I dated it all.

  They all had a few things in common, universally sexy, universally driven, universally broke, and unwilling to do anything to change that other than the bare minimum. Looking for a writer or a poet? Check out your local Starbucks, chances are you’ll find one. Either crouched over a cup of coffee and a laptop in the dining room or manning the espresso machine as a barista in the back.

  When my mother trapped me into a date with Harold, I thought she was crazy. Her life was much like mine to that point. Talented men floated in and out. Usually out when they figured out success couldn’t be absorbed through osmosis and they couldn’t accept being the least successful one in the relationship.

  “What’s so special about this one?” I asked my mother when she kept insisting on dinner.

  Several of my past loves came from my mother when she decided they were too young for her. My mother refused even the appearance of being a sugar mama. Therefore, her men had to be her age plus or minus 10 years. So anything eleven years or younger were passed my way.

  Most I passed right back into the dating pool, but a few I kept for further study. My mother and I believed in the catch and release school of love. My mother did, rather. Me, I was looking for my one true love, but until he showed up, I was keeping that tidbit to myself.

  “Darling, he’s exactly what you’ve been saying you want,” my mother said distractedly as she worried with a developing pan. I swear I am hard pressed to recognize my mom in normal light. My earliest memories of my mom are her in the red light of her dark room crouched over a vat of developing solution.

  “What is that, Mother?” I said skeptically, slapping a pair of tongs into her searching hand. She looked up and smiled thanks before swishing her picture around.

  “He’s normal, darling. Isn’t that what you said you wanted,” mother said, lifting the print and eyeing it critically.

  I looked at my mother in surprise. I was shocked she had actually been listening. Ever since my stay with the McGuire’s, my temporary foster family, normal was my new touchstone. My mother had ignored my efforts to instill normality into our rather bohemian lifestyle, thinking it was a phase I was going through, and would soon get over it.

  I think she breathed a sigh of relief when I announced I was going to become a writer. I’m sure she thought all the time I spent on the computer was leading toward a career as a personal assistant or maybe data input.

  However, even though I embraced the artistic tradition of my family I still wanted normal. I sought it but didn’t have any idea how to accomplish it. The normal guys in college looked at the normal girls not a beret wearing freak like me. Therefore, I dated the artists and secretly lusted after the business majors. Call me kinky but the heart wants what it wants.

  “Has what?” Sonya gasped, snapping me out of my memories, which was just as well. I knew how that story ended. Just like it had with all my other loves. Me alone and wondering what happened.

  “Is it a man? I always thought Harold might be a little light in the loafers. It is a man isn’t it? Harold’s gay and you found him and his boy toy Fernando doing the wild thing in your bed?” Sonya said excitedly, her mind already fleshing out the plot.

  I have always thought Sonya wasted herself as an agent. She was a writer down to her stilettos but she just wouldn’t take the plunge.

  “No, it is a woman,” I said with the first genuine laugh I had had since this all started. “Where do you come up with this stuff? In addition, when did you think Harold was light in the loafers? I don’t recall you mentioning that when I first started dating him.”

  “Oh please, like you would have listened. You loved that man from the second you got a look at his three-piece suit and briefcase. Harold was your ticket to suburbia and nothing like a little sugar in his shoes was going to stop you. Therefore, I just kept my mouth shut and my fingers crossed and hoped I was wrong. I was wrong, right? You did say Harold has another woman. A woman-woman? You know some of those drag queens can pass for the real deal.”

  “Yes, as far as I know Jillian is all woman,” I said thoughtfully.

  I only saw Jillian a couple of times and I didn’t follow her into the ladies room so I had no firsthand knowledge of what she had under the hood. I shook off the thought. It didn’t really matter if Jillian was an original woman or surgically created. Either way, she had hooked Harold and broken up my happy-ish home.

  “Jillian? He has a woman named Jillian? Let me guess blond hair, big blue eyes, and a body like a modern day Marilyn Monroe. You know same bust and hips without the tummy or thunder thighs?” Sonya asked in a rapid-fire manner in complete contrast to her normal rather languid way.

  “Yeah, how did you know?” I asked, surprised she had bagged Jillian so correctly.

  As far as I know, Jillian and Sonya never crossed paths. Sonya lived and worked in Dallas and Jillian was new to town. Sonya never went to any of the company functions at the paper factory, though I had invited her.

  She refused on the grounds that a party at a paper company would probably cause her to slip into a coma. As much as Sonya loved to sleep and as laid back as she normally was that wasn’t much of a reach.

  Sonya was one mocha latte away from narcolepsy, most days, so I’ve learned not to push. The only reason I invited her was to entertain me and lord knows, keeping her face out of her plate would be amusing. However, I needed her more as an agent and a fr
iend, then as a momentary diversion.

  “Her name is Jillian. They only hand that name out to blue-eyed blonds built like Marilyn Monroe. It’s the law,” Sonya said firmly as I burst out laughing.

  I was glad she called, I needed this. Something to take my mind off Harold and the fate of my children. I looked at my watch, noted Harold should have my children by now, and I was tempted to call one of them on their cell phone to make sure. However, that would express doubt and any sign of doubt right now might cause Harold to test me. Harold really didn’t need to test me right now.

  “Okay, okay, now you have all the dirt, chica,” I said, trotting out one of the few words of Spanish I knew. “Why did you really call? You usually don’t from your office unless it’s business related. So spill…”

  “Not all the dirt, puta,” Sonya shot back. “How are the kids taking all this? I know they didn’t see all that much of Harold and now we know why, but they were used to seeing him daily. Where are they sleeping in that loft? You only have that futon and I really can’t see you all snuggling up with them on that. You swore once you gave birth that was the last time you were sharing that close a quarters with them.”

  “As far as I know they don’t know yet. They’re still at the house with Harold,” I said slowly, trying to prepare myself for whatever might come out of Sonya’s mouth.

  Not that it would change my position, but it would be nice to have someone in my corner. My mother would never understand. She fought like a badger to keep me and it would have been easier to give me up.

  After that trip to China, she didn’t go on another until I graduated from high school. She took one or two day trips here in the states, but no more out of the country. I don’t know how much money she lost by turning down work but she did it.

  The second I graduated, she was on the next thing smoking and I don’t think she’s spent a month stateside since. She comes home to process her film then she’s off again. She managed to attend me and Harold’s wedding barely. Harold’s mother arranged everything and my mother cut Gwendolyn a check.

  The twins were almost 6 months old the first time she saw them, but she did take some beautiful baby pictures that had all the other mothers begging her to do the same for their precious tykes. I lost a few friends when she said no then promptly disappeared for Fiji.

  “You left the children with Harold,” Sonya said in delight then burst out laughing. “You are a devious witch. After a few weeks of playing full time dad, he’ll do anything to get you to take over again. You’ll make out like a bandit. Man, I wonder why other mothers don’t think of this. Talk about alimony. Whatever he coughs up will be less than a full time nanny.”

  I looked at the phone and wondered if this is what the rest of the world would think. That I did this to get Harold to cough up a decent settlement in the divorce. Not that I would and if I needed it, all I would have to do is go to Harold Sr. to get Harold to do the right thing.

  Harold Sr. loved his grandchildren. Somehow, the twins were a reflection of his virility. How I’ve never been able to work out seeing as he only had one child, the thin and pasty Harold, but there you go.

  “This isn’t a ploy,” I said hesitantly. “I’m serious. Harold has had it light for the first twelve years of the twins’ life and now he’s trying to duck out completely? No, not on my watch.”

  “Not a ploy?” Sonya said disbelief clear in her voice.

  “No. A ploy to get what? Harold already offered me the house. You know I don’t need the money. The kids are too old for a nanny anyway,” I babbled not sure what I was trying to say.

  “So you really intend to let Harold and his blond bimbo raise your children in your house?” Sonya asked even more disbelief in her voice.

  I snorted, as if that was going to happen. Tonya wouldn’t allow that. Tonya was a mama’s girl from the second she popped out of my womb. The only person she loved more than I was her twin and her father came a distance third. He wouldn’t even come there if he tried to move another woman into the house in my place.

  “Not to worry. Not going to happen. Harold has already informed me that Jillian doesn’t do kids,” I said scornfully, still amazed Harold let that come out of his stupid face and thought it would have some bearing on my leaving.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure if that was the only way she could get her man. She might actually love Harold and consequently Harold’s children,” Sonya said determined to play devil’s advocate.

  “Please, Jillian is in her twenties. How many children of the men you were involved with did you love in your twenties? Jillian doesn’t love Harold. She loves Harold’s money or what she thinks is Harold’s money. Harold’s father holds the purse strings in that company and I don’t see him loosening them for Harold’s concubine,” I said firmly ignoring that tiny frisson of doubt.

  Chapter Nine: Helen

  Last night the thought of Harold and Jillian raising the twins seemed like a good idea, but now in the clear light of day I wondered. Tony wouldn’t say much and Tonya might think it was cool having a woman like Jillian around. I wasn’t much on all the girly stuff and I was willing to bet Jillian would love to play dress up with Tonya.

  “I don’t know, chica. I might have tried it if I had loved any of them. You can’t swear Jillian doesn’t love Harold or his money enough to give it the college try. After all, she got him to leave you even if you were the one who actually left. You’re out of the picture now and all that’s left are your children,” Sonya said seriously.

  “Well, she hasn’t signed on yet, or Harold wouldn’t be trying to find me and talk,” I said the last part scornfully. Jillian was a non-issue. She thought she could get Harold away from me and the kids and she was half-right, but I didn’t see her signing on for full-time mother. It wouldn’t happen.

  “What do you mean trying to find you?” Sonya asked. “I thought you said you were in the loft?”

  “I am but Harold’s never been here,” I said proudly. “He thought I was still at the loft I was living in when he met me.”

  “Haven’t you had that loft for five years? He’s never been there? Not even once?” Sonya said.

  “Nope, Harold preferred to ignore my writing and everything associated with it so when I lost the old loft I felt no need to inform him I had bought this one,” I said smugly.

  “What did he say when you spent all that money on what was essentially part of a warehouse. Didn’t he object?”

  “No, he never knew. Harold and I don’t combine money. He takes care of the house and the kids and I use my money for my writing,” I said.

  “Even all the Leslie Vandersmoot money? Wow, I would have thought he’d want a sports car or something,” Sonya said admiringly.

  “He had no idea how much money I’ve made as Leslie Vandersmoot. When I say he ignored my writing and everything associated with it, I meant everything,” I said, still slightly hurt about that. No, he didn’t know about LV but he did know I wrote, but I couldn’t think of the last time he asked me about it.

  When we married, he thought I would give up the loft and I intended to but I was under a lease and I didn’t want to break it and the amount of money the dick of a landlord would want to break it, it made more sense to ride it out.

  By the end of the lease, I enjoyed having somewhere to go and I’d spent a lot of money getting that loft just the way I wanted it. Well, when I talked to Harold about keeping it, he was adamant about getting rid of it. He was paying the rent from our joint account and I was supporting it but just barely.

  Then when he demanded I get rid of it, I dug in my heels. Yeah, I was married and yeah, I wanted normal, but I didn’t want a dictator. So then, my loft became a symbol of my independence. Harold insisted we maintain our money separately and I was solely responsible for my bills including the loft.

  For some reason he thought I’d fold after about six months. Why, I don’t know because I supported myself as a writer for years before he and I met. I just picked
my writing back up to my pre-marriage levels and went on. He’d get up in the morning and go to the factory and I’d go to the loft to write.

  When I got pregnant with the twins he tried again to get me to get rid of the loft and again I refused. By then I was in the middle of another lease and the landlord was being a dick again.

  Harold tried to break the lease behind my back while I was on bed rest with the twins but the landlord was no fool. The money he would get for breaking the lease was a pittance to what he would get for me fulfilling the lease.

  After that, we had a huge blow up and Harold disowned it. He refused to even discuss my loft and by extension my writing. He used to ask me about it every day, but then it was as if my work ceased to exist. This went on for years.

  Then the landlord got an offer to buy the building and jumped on it. I thought this was a sign for me to finally give up the loft. Harold and I were married for almost ten years and maybe it was time to move on. I sold all my furniture, put my keepsakes in storage, and prepared to embrace normal.

  Well about this time, Leslie Vandersmoot was born and the money started rolling in. Then an artist friend of mine told me about some new lofts being developed and the rock bottom prices if you got in before the developer did a lot of work. I went with her to look around and fell in love. I ended up buying a loft next to her and the rest was history.

  The only furniture I had left was my office furniture, which I had intended to move home and set up an office in a spare bedroom. Our house had five bedrooms and even with the twins each having a room of their own there was still a couple left over. One we kept for my mom when she breezed through town, but the other was still open.

  I moved my furniture to the new loft and started going there when the kids were at school or I needed time to polish a piece for publication. I hadn’t told Harold about the old loft being demolished as I intended my move home to be a big romantic gesture.