by Josie Brown
Having her as a former patient is certainly a testament to Franklin’s surgical skills. Babette’s features are flawless. Anyone would guess her age as ten years younger.
Even more impressive are the framed photos of before-and-after pictures of Franklin with indigent child patients, taken both here in the United States and in war-torn Third World countries.
“He must volunteer overseas,” Arnie reasons.
A collage shows patients in varying stages of recovery. In one of the photos, a little girl, held on her mother’s lap, smiles sweetly despite the bandage over the hole that once was her nose. Three more of the photos document her progress. Another three show progressive results of a burn victim’s skin grafts.
A third photo shows Franklin with another IED victim whose face was partially blown away. A tent shields them from the hot white desert sun. Something is written on this picture. I look closely to read it, but I can make out only part of the scrawled words: Franklin’s surname. The photo is dated from five years ago. Was it sent to Ariel for the family scrapbook? Or was it previously used for promotional purposes of some charitable work on Franklin’s part?
“It looks as if he’s serious about giving back,” Arnie exclaims. “The guy must be a saint.”
“Yes, it’s truly impressive,” I concede. “Well, the quicker we vet him, the sooner we can cross him off our suspect list.”
I continue my search for his computer and cell phone. I guess both items are with him because they aren’t on his desk or in any drawers. I also run the bomb detector around the room as well, but it reacts to nothing.
Finally, I reply, “I guess you’re right. He’s quite a guy.”
I walk out the door, but what I hear next causes me to freeze in the foyer:
Noises are coming from upstairs.
Who else is here?
As silently as possible, I climb the stairs, following the sounds—moans—which come from one of the guest bedrooms.
I peek inside. I see Franklin—
And he’s making love to someone:
Cassandra.
Arnie whistles loudly in my ear. “Well, what do you know!”
She and Franklin are sitting up in the bed. Their legs are entwined, and their orgasms are spontaneous. His back is to me. Thank goodness Cassandra’s eyes are closed. Her sleek chignon has been unfurled. For the first time, I realize how long her hair is: its dark coiling tendrils reach almost to the small of her back.
His cell phone sits on the dresser.
I get on my hands and knees and crawl toward it. When their love calls are at their loudest, I reach up and grab the cell. My fingers fumble to insert the scanner cord, then count off the few minutes needed for it to do its thing…
“Uploaded,” Arnie finally whispers.
I’ve just raised my hand to replace the cell on the dresser when Cassandra opens her eyes.
I freeze.
Her lids shut tightly again as her groans grow even more ecstatic. I take this as my cue to scurry silently downstairs.
“She didn’t see you,” Arnie assures me. “She’s blind without her glasses, which were on the bedside table.”
Thank goodness for that.
As I slip out the back door, I grab another pear: right instinct, since Caesar whines so loudly for it that I think he may interrupt their lovemaking. I toss the pear into a bush before running toward the gate and out into the alley.
For the first time, I notice that Cassandra’s car is parked in the alley, but a few houses away. A big fat black cat sleeps on its hood.
It’s a tribute to the safety of our neighborhood that she left her cellphone in the front center console.
Damn it! When I unlock her door, the alarm goes off.
Startled, the cat arches its back and leaps off the car and onto a garbage can, which then topples over. Still, the cat is curious enough to peek out from around it as I work quickly to scan Cassandra’s phone.
“Get away, fast! Cassandra is coming out the back door,” Arnie warns me.
I duck behind a garbage dumpster just in time.
Arnie is right: she’s now wearing her glasses.
And a smile on her face—
Until she realizes that it is her car’s alarm waking the neighborhood to her presence behind her competitor’s home.
Seeing the spilled garbage, she curses the cat. It responds with a hiss as she tries to shoo it away.
It misses being run over by a mere few inches.
After she drives off, I jog home as fast as I can.
Chapter 10
Mad Men
“Fear stimulates my imagination.”
—Don Draper
Dear Sir, I have no idea why you are so angry! As for which of us has a right to be morose, let us compare notes:
No matter how much Pilates, yoga, weight training, cross training, or cross-country skiing I do, you will always be the physically stronger sex.
Whereas your hard work will assure you of a fast-tracked career, the fairer sex must leap through twice as many hoops to touch—let alone break—the glass ceiling that blocks her from the executive suite.
The same lascivious phrase coming out of both our mouths can position you as a stud but will brand me as a skank.
I must network, lean in, and put out. When it comes to my acceptance, will any of this turn your shrugs into admiring nods?
No? Well then, I give up—
Not on my goals, dreams, or schemes, but on trying to impress you.
As for whether you can impress me? Well, sir, how fast can you run? Is it faster than a speeding bullet? Just give me a second to load up.
You see, I aim to please: myself.
When I pick up the kids from school, they are subdued. This isn’t attributed to any remnants of their hangovers but the ribbing from their classmates as to their new status as television celebrities.
“Apparently, we’re all over the news!” Jeff grouses. “The Today show ran a segment on underage drinking and used us as their example!”
“That’s nothing,” Evan grumbles. “E! Online is claiming that Adam and I are duking it out over Jenna.”
“Well, aren’t you?” Mary asks bitterly. “There are photos of you with her posted all over Twitter! The sadder she looks, the more it looks like you want to kiss her—”
“Mary, come on! Can’t you tell they’ve been Photoshopped?” Exasperated, Evan throws up his hands.
“Well…okay, maybe.” She shrugs. “Frankly, what’s even more embarrassing is that Cosmopolitan is running an online poll as to whether I am still a…”—Mary’s hesitation is accompanied with burning cheeks—“well, a virgin.”
“How dare they! Of course you are!” I nod emphatically to her through the mirror.
She blushes and turns away.
Oh…no.
I shift my stare to Evan.
When his eyes meet mine, they grow wide. He shakes his head emphatically.
Is he signaling, “No, I haven’t dared touch your daughter because I know you’d skin me alive and let wild animals feast on my entrails?”
Or is it, “No, she’s not a virgin, but even though it’s my dastardly doing, please don’t kill me and then cut up my body into tiny pieces so that I’m fish food when you dump me in the middle of the Pacific?”
Or perhaps it’s, “Okay, her virginity is a thing of the past, but I had nothing to do with its untimely demise because I respect her and you too much—and besides, I’ve seen how you slice up raw steak, and I’d never want to get that close to you when you have a knife in your hand?”
In any regard, I find it hard to ignore my oldest daughter’s deep pink blush, especially when my youngest daughter asks, “What’s a virgin? Can I be one too?”
I jerk the car to the curb so quickly that the car behind us barely has time to swerve to miss us. The driver rudely keeps his fist on the horn as he revs his way to the next stop light.
The way the kids stare at me as my head whips around, y
ou’d think I was Linda Blair.
No. Right now I am much, much, scarier…
“Mom! You don’t think…” Mary’s complexion darkens to the hue of a ripened eggplant.
“I…don’t know…unless…” I blather incoherently, “Is there a reason why you’d think that I might have a reason to believe…”
With a quizzical frown, Trisha’s head swivels back and forth between us.
Finally, I stutter: “Oh…never mind!”
“So, the answer is no?” Trisha asks.
“No!” Mary and I shout in unison. And then: “I mean yes—you are!”
Satisfied, Trisha wipes her brow. “Good…I think.”
We make the rest of the trip home in silence.
Neither Evan nor Mary notices I see as he slips his hand into hers.
Have they?…
Seriously, I can’t think about this now.
It’s almost five, but Jack still isn’t home from the golf game. And, although the first hour of every show is taped, edited, and aired right before the live-on-air last hour, he’s still cutting it close.
In the meantime, I’ve had time to make my contribution to the Hawaiian luau potluck: a pineapple upside-down cake and coconut beer-battered shrimp on skewers.
I’ve made double of everything so that the kids can have it for dinner. Now that we have the paparazzi camping out on our doorstep, I warn them, “Stay inside and lock the doors.”
Frankly, I wish I could lock them in their rooms—alone. Instead, I do the next best thing: As I point to the cameras positioned over our heads.
They take the hint. Big brother is watching. Worse yet, so is Mom.
I shower for the cocktail party that takes place in an hour. Afterward, I slip out into the playhouse to make my call to Ryan regarding my earlier reconnaissance. “Was his cell phone clean?” I ask.
“Yes. And so was Cassandra’s.” Ryan’s sigh echoes mine. We’d both like to find our bad guys and wrap up this mission.
“How’s the golf game going?” I ask.
“Jack is scoring—with viewers, too,” Ryan assures me, albeit I detect a note of hesitation in his voice.
“Good to hear…I guess.”
When he doesn’t take my hint for more of an explanation, I add, “Is there something we should be concerned about?”
“Nah. Not really.” Hmmm. He’s doing a lousy job of convincing me otherwise. “Of course, just because Cassandra is clean doesn’t mean Gerald is, too. And he seems to have taken a shine to you.”
I snort at that supposition. “Since when?”
“Apparently you’ve got a couple of admirers. Besides him, James is also a bit…smitten. And Roger has indeed expressed…interest.”
“Oh?” I murmur coolly. What the hell is happening out on that golf course?
“It may make things easier to vet them…if you catch my drift.”
His drift stinks.
“Yeah, okay,” I agree grudgingly. “I’ll play up to the producers.”
“I know I can count on you to do whatever it takes. From what I gather, Cassandra’s party will give you a great start.” Before I can respond, he’s hung up the phone.
What the hell is happening on that golf course?
I text Arnie a request to put all the cameras watching our house on a video loop before accessing the secure cloud to watch the latest footage on the show—
Oh. My. God. What the…
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
I watch the segment until it ends—and yes, it only gets worse.
How dare they!
I don’t mean the producers; I mean the husbands.
Okay, yes, and the producers for going along with this hair-brained scheme because it’s going to be ratings dynamite.
Grrrr. Wait until Jack gets home.
By the time Jack finally appears, I’m already dressed for Cassandra’s cocktail shindig.
When he kisses my forehead, I don’t bother to look up; instead, I focus on the task at hand: putting on my make-up.
His face and arms are sunburned, and he’s sweaty. “You didn’t wait to shower with me?” He’s teasing, but he’s also disappointed.
“Why should I?” I retort. “With all the ‘ample meat on my bones,’ there may not be room for both of us in there.”
He stops short at my remark. “Oh…um…I guess you downloaded some of the videos from the golf game.” He blanches at the thought.
“You betcha.” I reach for the bedroom’s TV remote control. “Just the edited highlights, mind you,” I assure him.
He glances up at the camera in our bedroom. “Are you sure you want to—”
“Don’t worry; Arnie has us looped.” I shrug. “Huzzah! You won the game, so the Craigs earn a few brownie points! Great for us! And you’ll be happy to know that Brin was tickled pink with your little he-man outing overall. However, I don’t think the wives will feel the same way.”
I flick the remote and fast forward to when the men have reached the third hole and Roger nudges Franklin, who is pulling his putter from his golf bag. “So, tell me: what’s it like, being married to a Barbie doll?”
Franklin shrugs but smiles proudly nonetheless. “Yeah, boy, I’m living the dream…but so can you.”
Roger stops mid-putt with a smirk. “Are you suggesting that we share and share alike?”
Franklin laughs. “Tell the truth: if Sienna were perfect, would you want to share?”
James, on the edge of the green with his arms crossed, murmurs wistfully, “She’s not so hard on the eyes. For that matter, neither is Donna.”
Jack, who is pulling his putter from his golf bag, grips it tightly with both hands but says nothing.
Roger shrugs. “There’s always room for improvement, right?”
Gerald adds, “If we’re talking an attitude adjustment, then yeah, for sure.” He then snorts at the thought.
“He wouldn’t be laughing if he saw what I did today—his wife in the throes of passion, thanks to the good doctor,” I mutter.
Jack’s brow raises at the thought, but he keeps mum as I tweak the volume up a notch to catch Franklin’s next statement: “I’m saying that every one of your wives could look as gorgeous as Ariel.”
“Let me put it this way: they don’t all have her ‘bone structure,” James growls. He must be thinking of Patty because he misses the cup by six inches.
“A little liposuction would take care of that,” Franklin assures him. “And a tummy tuck. I’d do a breast reduction and raise them, too.”
Peter sighs as he watches James line up his ball for a bogey. “Let me tell you: Penelope could use a little lift—both there, and on her ass.”
“Yeah, well, you can afford to give it to her,” James points out sourly. “We aren’t all real estate moguls, you know.”
“You don’t have to be,” Franklin insists. “I’d do it for free.”
“Seriously? For free?” Hearing this, James’s putt misses the cup again. But from the look on his face, he couldn’t care less.
“Sure. The producers have already agreed to my making the offer to all of the Housewives—for a good cause, in fact. The usual cost of the procedures will be matched by the show to my charity, Plastic Surgeons Without Borders.”
Roger frowns. “Never heard of it.”
“Its mission is to provide lifesaving surgeries to patients who are victims of war. I founded it in honor of my brother, who died while serving overseas.” He looks down at his feet. “In fact, Hot Housewives of Hilldale will also match, two dollars-to-one, any donations made to the charity from the audience. It’s a win-win for everyone, don’t you agree?”
Peter’s eyes open wide. “But…wouldn’t the show have to stop filming for the women to recover from surgery?”
“Not really. The latest procedures are laparoscopic. You can hardly see the incisions, and healing is quick. They’ll have around-the-clock care so that they’ll be up on their feet in a couple of days, tops. The pr
oducers will intercut the Housewives’ recovery shots with ones showing how we husbands are picking up the slack with the children.” His wink to the other men is barely perceptible by the camera.
On the other hand, to Jack’s credit, his poker face would give him a winning hand at a Vegas card table.
“What do you say, Jack?” Peter asks hopefully.
Jack says nothing. Instead, he makes his putt.
The ball curves toward the cup and circles it slowly before it drops in.
Finally, he replies, “I say if any of the wives want to do it, they should go for it.”
Roger laughs suggestively. “I think what Peter is asking is if you want in on this very generous offer—for Donna.”
Jack shrugs. “It’s true that no one’s perfect. Granted, Donna has ample meat on her bones. But, no, I don’t see anything wrong with my wife.”
Roger winks knowingly. “You wouldn’t want to see some of the fat carved from that sweet meat?”
Jack, bemused, shakes his head. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?”
“I get it. You actually like those luscious love handles! Pushing on the cushion, and all that, eh?” Gerald asks insistently.
I stand up and point to my hips. “Pinch an inch! I dare you!”
Jack smiles as he pinches one of my cheeks—on my face.
“Sienna and I are tying the knot. She’s already looking at skin-tight wedding dresses. Convincing her to accept Franklin’s very generous offer will be a cinch,” Roger predicts.
Peter rolls his eyes. “I’ll get no flack from Penelope. Hell, she’ll be first in line!”
“Patty won’t say no, either,” proclaims James. His grimace suggests he’ll make her life hell if she does.
Gerald thinks for a moment. “I’m all for it, but I think Cassandra will need a little convincing.”
“I’ll have a talk with her,” Franklin promises him. “In fact, let me announce it to all the wives at the luau tonight. I’m sure the producers would appreciate it, and the women will be more receptive with the cameras rolling.” He turns to Jack. “And what about Donna?”