Tree Climbing For Beginners

by Joyia Marie

  He got up and got undressed. He couldn’t think right now and that made it a bad idea to call Helen. He’d call her in the morning. First thing, he promised himself. He knew Jillian would be upset, but she’d have to understand. It was her fault they were in this in the first place.

  Chapter Forty-One: Jillian

  Jillian looked at the two bottles of hair coloring sitting on the bathroom vanity and tried to decide what to do. One would return her to her natural color or what she remembered her natural color being and the other would hopefully maintain the blonde she had grown to know and love.

  Jillian couldn’t believe this was happening to her. When she saw Raphael with Helen, she knew her days of pampering at Raphael’s were over. The fact, Raphael didn’t even acknowledge her made that point clearer than anything else did.

  Jillian could admit to a slight feeling of hurt as she had spent a mint in Raphael’s salon but she’d get over it. She would miss it as it was the best salon in town, but she was okay with it. She smirked at how naïve she was.

  There was a secret underground salon blacklist and she was on it. Every upscale and even midscale salon in Fort Worth, or even Dallas, suddenly had no openings when she called. The lower end salons were willing to take her money, but she was afraid that their idea of blonde and her idea of blonde might not be the same idea of blonde.

  A cut she could get anywhere. She had when money was a little tight, but coloring, coloring needed the hands of a master, and Raphael was one. He had the magic touch to turn her mousey brown hair into a shimmering curtain of ‘natural blonde’. She sighed as she looked into the mirror at the slim margin of brown at the roots of her blonde mane.

  She picked up the hair coloring in a mad scheme to color her own hair. She used to do it in the past before she had enough money to afford getting it professionally done. If she was going to have brassy blonde hair, she would do it to herself.

  The brown was the idea of maybe she hadn’t been as unremarkable as a brunette as she remembered. Helen’s hair was jet black and she was getting plenty of attention Saturday. Surely, hair couldn’t make that much of a difference.

  She winced at the thought of how much of a difference Helen’s hair had made in Helen. Her new or according to Harold old, haircut transformed Helen into a knockout. If Jillian saw Harold with Helen looking the way she looked Saturday she would have never messed with Harold. Even though she was older, Helen could give Jillian a run for her money.

  Helen looked amazing and then to see her chatting with the cute guy from her loft just added salt to the wound. The man couldn’t have been less impressed with Jillian, but he was looking at Helen like she was a bowl of cream and he was a hungry cat. Jillian was used to men looking at her that way.

  Jillian took comfort in the fact that man may have been more attractive than Harold but Harold was the hands down winner when it came to money. That guy was just a construction worker. Jillian smirked and wondered if Helen knew that.

  Jillian knew men and knew they would boost their jobs in a bid to look more important to a woman. Maybe that man told Helen he was the contractor and Helen was too naïve to know the difference. Jillian felt an unfamiliar spurt of pity for the poor deluded woman. She knew from personal experience how disappointing that was. Jillian sighed again as she remembered her bank teller.

  She set the bottles under the vanity. Things weren’t desperate yet and if it got too bad, she might have to make a trip to Houston. Surely, the news she was a persona non grata in the salon world hadn’t reached the salons, there even though it had reached the ones in Dallas.

  She looked at herself in the mirror and perked up. The brown wasn’t that noticeable, she went longer between colorings in the past. However, ever since that girl, that Tonya, made such a big deal about it, she felt as if she was wearing a brown beanie. If she didn’t know better, she would swear Tonya put some kind of spell on her to make her hair roots the center of her universe.

  Jillian walked into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of wine. She hadn’t drunk anything alcoholic while Harold was over in a bid to keep a clear head and a calm demeanor. She also kept her knees locked together like a nun in a strip club to help Harold focus. She was getting desperate and she was seconds away from telling him to grow a set and fix this. The man couldn’t handle anything. Not his wife, not his kids and not even his 80 year old father.

  She started to head to the bedroom when her laptop caught her eye. She sighed and sat down in front of it to get tomorrow’s fruitless assignments from Mrs. Fitzgerald. This morning Mrs. Fitzgerald had informed her that it didn’t make any sense for Jillian to come all the way into the office for her assignments when Mrs. Fitzgerald could email them to her. So now, Jillian was to check from home.

  Mrs. Fitzgerald was on her shit list as well as Helen and Tonya. Jillian never got along with women and this situation reminded her knew why. They were jealous, vindictive bitches. She moaned when she saw her assignments for tomorrow. She’d use an entire tank of gas in one day.

  Jillian was about to power down her laptop when the jump drive she took from Helen’s loft caught her eye. She tossed it on the table earlier meaning to look for any dirt she could use to blackmail Helen into going home. She didn’t have high hopes, but it was better than no hope.

  Harold seemed incapable of making that happen. Jillian still couldn’t believe the way he had backed down to Helen at the soccer field. She also noticed he left her apartment in plenty of time to make Helen’s deadline.

  She wasn’t what Helen was threatening Harold with. She didn’t even think Harold knew what Helen was threatening him with but he was too much of a coward to call her bluff. After all, what was the worst thing that could happen if Harold wasn’t there when Helen dropped off the kids.

  Helen would have to stay there? Wasn’t that what they were trying to achieve? Jillian made a mental note to mention that to Harold the next time she talked to him. Maybe they were going about this the wrong way. Persuasion wasn’t working so maybe it was time for some brute force.

  All Jillian wanted was for Helen to go home and take care of her brats. Jillian would marry Harold, maybe pump out a baby or two of her own, and then move on. It was the way the world worked, at least the world her mother had prepared her to live in.

  Jillian plugged in the drive and waited for it to boot up. She drank wine and tried not to hope too hard. Nothing else with this ditzy bitch went the way it was supposed to, so why should this? She was still amazed she was outflanked by a middle-aged housewife.

  When the drive was up, Jillian saw it was just a lone Word document called, ‘Love’s Sweet Embrace’. Jillian smirked, Harold said something about Helen writing romances, but he didn’t know what pen name she used.

  Jillian read the first couple of pages and thought it was okay. A little racy for what she expected from the homemaker, but nothing compared to her favorite author, Leslie Vandersmoot. That woman wrote the best smut in the world. Oh, she dressed it up and couched it in subtle terms but smut was smut.

  Jillian had all her favorite passages in Leslie Vandersmoot’s books marked on her Kindle and lately she was reading them before grabbing her BOB or battery-operated boyfriend. She would love to take a lover to take Harold’s place since he was out of pocket, playing daddy to his demon spawn. However, she knew she was too close to the end game to get caught in such a rookie mistake.

  Funny how cheaters were the ones that screamed loudest when they were cheated on. She knew it ate Harold up to see ‘his’ wife talking to another man. Jillian hadn’t forgotten how he was practically eye-fucking Helen with Jillian standing by his side. Jillian knew she would be out on her ear, if Harold even fell asleep and dreamed she was screwing someone else.

  Jillian stopped reading. If she wanted to read, she wanted to read Leslie Vandersmoot. This woman wasn’t even close. Before she closed the document, Jillian pulled up the properties to see what pen name Helen was using. The name Helen Dudley wasn’t ringing any bells
and Jillian knew all the major romance authors.

  Helen had to be a major since Harold informed her that Helen, not he, was paying for that loft. Jillian had pulled up the records for the loft and found out it was fully paid for. With the major renovation, she was doing that she knew Harold wasn’t paying for, Helen had some major money tucked away.

  Jillian’s eyes widened when the author of the piece was Leslie Vandersmoot. What the hell, she wondered. She knew all of Leslie Vandersmoot’s books and she had never written one called ‘Love’s Sweet Embrace’. Was this some kind of fan fiction? Was Helen trying to imitate Leslie Vandersmoot’s work?

  Then the light came on and a horrible, wonderful thought occurred to Jillian. Could Helen Dudley BE Leslie Vandersmoot? The identity of the reclusive author was one of the biggest mysteries in the romance world. Nobody had seen a picture of her. All fan mail went to the publisher.

  Jillian tossed the idea around then tried to toss it out. If Helen were Leslie Vandersmoot, why would she be with a loser like Harold? Leslie Vandersmoot’s book sales had made the author a millionaire many times over according to rumor. Why wasn’t she traveling the world, drinking champagne, and screwing handsome movie stars? Jillian knew that’s what she’d be doing.

  However, the more Jillian tried to dismiss the thought, the more things clicked into place. The money for that loft. The ease at which Helen left Harold. The renovations. Even the handsome construction worker. Maybe he was Helen’s new boy toy.

  The woman she saw Saturday didn’t strike Jillian as anyone’s sugar mama, but she could see Helen as a cougar. Not that the age difference between Helen and the construction worker was in the cougar range, but Jillian thought Helen might be a puma.

  This is it, Jillian thought in triumph. This was what she could use to get Helen to go home to her kids. Finally, she had what she needed to make Helen do what she should. Jillian refused to feel bad about it. Helen shouldn’t have left in the first place.

  Then a more horrible, more wonderful thought occurred to her. Why use this piece of goodness for something that small? Why not use this like a winning lottery ticket and get out from under completely? She could use this to get a nice chunk of change from Helen and blow this Popsicle stand.

  Get out of town, and make another fresh start somewhere else. She still had a couple of good years left in her to make an advantageous first marriage. Helen was welcome to Harold if she still wanted him. However, the way Helen was eye-fucking the construction worker, Jillian doubted she did.

  Jillian took the jump drive out of the laptop and put it in her wallet. Until she tracked down Helen and let her know she was paying Jillian to get out of dodge, the jump drive would go with her everywhere. Jillian would have to do some research to find out where Helen was now so they could have a nice little chat, in private.

  Jillian showered and dressed for bed. She still had to work tomorrow and she still needed to keep up appearances with Harold. However, for the first time in what seemed like weeks she had hope. Better than hope, she had a plan.

  If Helen didn’t want to go with that plan? Jillian was sure the press would have a field day with the story of the suburban homemaker who wrote smut while the kiddies were at school. Stories like that were tabloid gold. Jillian could get paid anyway.

  Jillian fell asleep with a big smile on her face. She dreamed of salons and designer clothes. She dreamed of long blond hair that shimmered like a field of wheat. She dreamed of construction workers that looked at her as if she was a bowl of cream.

  Chapter Forty-Two: Helen

  “Where the hell could it be?” I asked the empty motel room for the numerous times since Monday night. The silent room didn’t answer anymore than it had the other times I had asked. It was content to stand in mute testament as to where it wasn’t. This was anywhere I had already looked.

  Here it was Tuesday morning and I still wasn’t any closer to an answer. The motel room looked like a cyclone had hit it, but I was too panicked to care. “Where the hell is it,” I muttered again. I think the talking to myself, but had developed around hour three of the Great Jump Drive hunt.

  I opened every box, suitcase, and bag I had packed from the loft and Casa Asshole. I had emptied out my laptop case. I had torn apart my car. I went to the house earlier to look in the minivan. The jump drive was nowhere to be found.

  I tried to calm myself. As I had told Aiden, it was just a copy of my latest book. It didn’t even have all the ‘spice’ added yet. I tend to write in waves. First, I wrote the story, then I added the details, then I sprinkled in the color if you know what I mean.

  After an unfortunate laptop crash a couple of years ago, I had become the queen of backups. I had a variety of jump drives for various projects. I had an external hard drive where I did a complete backup every week. Nothing like having to rewrite a book in two weeks to make deadline to make a writer understand that yes, computer crashes did happen, and yes, they could happen to you.

  However, this little fiasco was making a crash look like a walk in the park. I could see all my hard work keeping this secret going down the drain. I could see my kids mercilessly teased about their mother’s books. I could see Tonya in juvie for not taking such teasing well.

  For herself, she wouldn’t care. She might even think it was funny. Her brother on the other hand was a whole ‘nother other as Grandma Gert used to say.

  Tonya would take a bullet for Tony so some time in juvie wouldn’t even make her break a sweat. The only thing that would piss her off was being separated from her twin, but she’d be okay with frequent visits and phone calls.

  I flopped down on the couch currently covered in clothes and made a mental note to clean up before the maid’s next visit. Right now, my motel room looked like it was ransacked in a possible robbery. The last thing I needed was the police on top of everything else.

  Fort Worth’s finest would need to gather their strength to deal with my daughter, should it come to that. They didn’t need to deal with a robbery that wasn’t. It would be embarrassing to have to explain that this was an inside job.

  I tried to comfort myself with the idea that some sticky fingered construction worker seized the jump drive hanging so invitingly on a nail in an empty loft. Jump drives were cheap now, but some people ascribed to the notion that free beats cheap every day of the week.

  Come to think of it, I ascribed to that notion myself, I thought as I remembered the ratty futon I had recently added to my odds and ends in storage. Then I wondered if there was a way the jump drive could be tucked into the fold of the futon mattress.

  I considered a trip to storage, but then I remember that unless the jump drive grew legs and walked from my desk to the futon there was no way it could be there. I never used my laptop while sitting on the futon. I worked at my desk when I worked in the loft.

  Anyway, a thief wouldn’t read the jump drive before they used it. They’d just format it before using it to hold their bootleg mp3’s or their out of focus naked pictures of their significant others. They would have no interest in a word document they hadn’t written themselves.

  Let’s just say they did. The chances of a big burly construction worker either male or female of being a Leslie Vandersmoot fan struck me as being low. My stuff may be hot, but it wasn’t triple X hot. I wrote erotic romance not porn. My books weren’t exactly letters to Penthouse magazine.

  Or, I told myself, maybe it had gotten knocked off and stomped on by a big heavy work boot. I allowed myself to relish the vision of a big heavy work boot smashing that jump drive to smithereens. Ah, good times, good times.

  I tried not to dwell on the fact the nail that Aiden had hung it on was far enough away from the door as to be safe from any accident like that. A person would have to be trying to knock that jump drive down. It was more likely it was stolen.

  I’m sure Aiden would tell me he had caught the thief and now had my property in his hot little hands. Why he didn’t keep it there in the first place is a question
for another time. Right now, I just needed that flipping jump drive.

  After this, I was getting one of those cloud drives that was all the rage. I liked the thought of my work safely tucked away in the clouds amongst the angels far away from pilfering hands. , I hope the angels only guarded my work and didn’t read it or they’d be fallen angels.

  I gave Aiden until noon to question his crew. I knew he’d be on it first thing, as he had noticed my face when I realized my jump drive had flown the coop. I’m sure he was curious about what was on it, but for some reason I trusted him not to look at it if he retrieved it.

  He was a fellow artist, a thought that made my libido sigh. It was years since I was with an artist and let’s just say they didn’t relegate their creativity to their chosen medium. Aiden would make a nice welcome back to the art of creative lovemaking.

  I bit back a moan when I thought about what a painter could do with some edible body paints. I was so ready to be Aiden’s canvas and a midnight snack. Then he could be mine. I might not be able to draw to save my life, but I’m sure I could create a masterpiece on his fine canvas.

  I shook off my fantasies and returned to my premise. As a fellow artist, Aiden would realize that no artist wants his or her work seen before the artist was ready to show it. Although, he seemed a little surprised by the concept last night. I wondered what reaction the news of his work had gotten from past women.

  Probably the same mine got from men. Have you been published? Are you famous? Have you ever been on the New York Times Bestseller list? Can I read what you’re writing now?

  Then I had to deal with the hurt feelings when the answer to the last question was no. Depending on where I was in the writing process, my work varied from barely readable to bland. Sometimes when I was rereading a first draft, even I had trouble figuring out what I was trying to say.

  Even Sonya only gets my finished work or as finished as I can make it before the editor gets a hold of it. The mistake that started this Leslie Vandersmoot nonsense was a one off lucky blunder. I wasn’t hoping for lightning to strike twice.