One Perfect Morning Read online

  Chapter 4

  Robin

  NINE DAYS AGO

  My husband was going to kill me if I didn’t get around to it first. Even if I did take my own life, I’d need to make sure it didn’t look like a suicide. Life insurance policies didn’t pay out for suicide. By tomorrow I would be front-page news on the Monroeville Times Express: ‘Husband Murders Wife Over $40,000 Credit Card Debt.’ Even if Grant didn’t kill me, he’d divorce me. I couldn’t let him find out, not until I figured out a way to pay it off.

  Folding the paper credit card statement back into thirds, I tucked it into the envelope, ripped it in half, and tossed it in the garbage, shoving it under a slimy chicken foam tray for good measure. Eliminate the evidence, then deal with the debt. I had no idea how, and I wish I’d considered that sooner – particularly before a twenty-one-percent interest rate hit. Why not enjoy it now when you can pay for it later? That had become my mantra in my quest to live uninhibited, and it was catching up with me. I’d lived in an organized, efficient box for so long. I had wanted out, I had wanted freedom, I had wanted to be like Lily. And now all I wanted was to return to my safe, square box.

  Debt was a persistent stalker.

  In the living room Grant’s cell phone silently buzzed against an antique oak end table. I often wondered why he kept it on silent, what he was hiding, but I never asked. He was the perfect spouse – reliable provider, adoring father, attentive husband. I had no reason to be suspicious of his vibrating phone or calls taken out on the back porch. But a wife couldn’t help but wonder. After all, I had my own secrets, so maybe he had his.

  A moment later the vibration stopped and his deep voice rumbled throughout the first floor. I was hiding a mountain of debt; Grant was hiding his calls. I guess we all had our hidden skeletons. Though mine seemed to be piling up lately.

  As I shut the garbage can lid, Grant strode into the kitchen, pecking me on the cheek. ‘Babe, I’m heading out now.’

  ‘Out? Now? It’s almost eight o’clock at night and raining pretty bad. Plus, it’s Friday. I thought we were going to spend the evening together?’ I hoped the disappointment tinting the question would guilt him into staying home. We were long overdue for a night together. Cold sheets had created a rift between us that only hot sex could bridge; certainly he felt it too.

  ‘Sorry, I forgot it was poker night with the guys. You know I can’t miss it or I’ll never hear the end of it. We’ll do something tomorrow.’

  I groaned. ‘Grant, you were out of town for that medical conference thing all last week, and this week you’ve been working late every night. I need some time with you. I miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too, but we’ve got a flu outbreak, honey. I can’t help it that my schedule’s crazy right now. Patients need me; I can’t turn sick kids away.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to skip work. I’m asking you to skip poker night.’

  ‘Robin, I can’t. I’ve already missed the last couple times. Can’t you wait up for me? I won’t be home late.’

  ‘You know things never work out when we try to plan time together. For once Willow and Ryan are both at friends’ houses tonight, Lucas is in bed, and I finally got Collette nursed, diaper changed, and she’s settled down. We’ve got at least a couple hours of uninterrupted time together.’ I grabbed his hand and kissed his fingers.

  His sigh was weighty as he released my hand. ‘Honey, as tempting as that sounds …’

  ‘I’ll do anything you want tonight – anything.’ My words were laced with desire as I unbuttoned his top button, then another, tickling his chest with my fingertip. I could be persistent when I wanted to. ‘I know what you like …’

  I brushed my lips against the patch of exposed skin, then licked it and smiled up at him.

  ‘Please. It’s been so long, Grant.’ Too long. Months long. We needed this. Our marriage needed it.

  ‘You’re killing me,’ he said, pulling me in for a kiss.

  ‘Is that a yes?’ I said between panting breaths and urgent fondling.

  His hands gripped me hard, almost too hard as if I’d flitter away. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had more than a passing peck on the cheek. His crazy work schedule, four demanding children, a nursing infant – it had taken a toll on our love life and right now, more than anything, I wanted to make up for it.

  My core ached for my husband, and as his hands slid up my back, lifting my shirt with his warm palms, I knew he wanted me too. I remembered the last time we’d made love: a rare night of passion that ended abruptly when Lucas wandered into our bedroom, scared that Mommy was being attacked by a monster. That monster was Daddy.

  Unbuckling Grant’s belt, I pulled him toward the bedroom with my hand gripping his open waistband. I could feel his swelling erection against my probing fingertips. As he tore my shirt up and over my head, his lips searching my neck, my pulse jumping under his tongue, I felt the rush of adolescent newness, the rush of passion, the rush of … Collette’s cries.

  Everything came to an abrupt stop. Collette’s whimper echoed from the baby monitor.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ I grumbled into Grant’s chest.

  ‘Well, that ends that. As usual.’

  He was pissed, and I couldn’t blame him. Hell, I needed it just as much as he did.

  ‘Please don’t leave. She’ll go back to sleep,’ I assured him. But he was already rebuttoning his shirt. I was losing him – and not just tonight. The distance between us was growing into a wide chasm.

  ‘Honey, we both know you’re going to spend the next hour soothing her. Then another hour getting her back to sleep. By then I’ll be home. Let’s take a rain check.’

  ‘I don’t want a rain check. I want tonight – with you.’

  Collette’s shrieks on the monitor intensified. He gestured at the frantically blinking red light.

  ‘Robin, her majesty is summoning you. I’ll see you later.’

  I grabbed his wrist, forced him to look me in the eye.

  ‘Grant, is our marriage dying?’ It was too big a question as my husband was running out the door, but I needed to know. His mouth opened, closed, opened in a tentative sequence. I waited for him to crack the safe and say what I needed to hear.

  ‘Of course not. I promise you, we’re okay. How about this: Ryan can watch the others and we’ll go out tomorrow. How’s a nice dinner at the Wooden Nickel Restaurant sound? I’ll order pizza from Della Sala’s for the kids; you know how they love those square slices.’ He sealed the evening’s fate with a step away from me. ‘In fact, treat yourself to a new dress. Oh, which reminds me, you need to call the credit card company. Something’s wrong – they declined a charge I tried to make, which shouldn’t be possible. Can you look into it?’

  A chill prickled my skin. ‘Sure, I’ll sort it out.’

  ‘I love you, babe, but I gotta run.’ He tossed the words behind him as he closed the front door, leaving me stunned in his brisk wake. My husband the pediatrician didn’t even offer to look in on his own child. Unreal.

  On my way to deal with Collette, I popped in the bathroom to grab a migraine pill. The headaches had grown more frequent as Collette’s colic kept me up all hours of the night. There, on the vanity, was the teal mug Willow had made me when she was six years old, a third full of cold coffee that I’d been missing since this morning. I felt just as empty inside as that cup.

  If only Grant knew I had already bought myself a new dress for tonight – a whole wardrobe, in fact, the last time he ditched me for the guys – maybe he’d have thought twice about leaving.

  Chapter 5

  Lily

  NINE DAYS AGO

  Friends are the flowers you pick to beautify your life. But eventually they lose their vibrancy and begin to smell like cacca.

  I could have slapped Mackenzie through the phone, but I decided to go easy on her. As easy as a fuming Italian woman could be. I had lost my patience.

  ‘You’ve got to be friggin’ kidding me with this merda, Mac
. Stop letting Owen control you. Basta basta!’ I yelled into the phone. It was the same old, same old with her – always committing, always canceling. An exhausting wheel I was tired of being run over with. Once again she had canceled our workout, but more than that, she had canceled on the plan.

  ‘Language, Lily. And stop with the Italian. I have no idea what you’re saying.’ Mackenzie always sounded so defeated that it physically hurt me to hear her speak.

  ‘Enough is enough – that’s all I’m trying to say.’ I paced the living room to work the rage out of my system. It was a wonder I had any carpet left. ‘You’ve got to stand up for yourself. Do what’s best for you, not that asshole husband of yours.’

  ‘Please. No need to swear at me just because I bailed on our workout.’ Mackenzie’s unruffled acceptance of her miserable life irritated me even more than the cancelation. A little righteous anger would have been nice.

  I picked up an empty plate from the coffee table and carried it to the kitchen. ‘I’ll fuckin’ swear if I want to. You’re pissing me off. I have a right to be upset when I clear my evening for you, clear my damn life for you, and you screw me over … again. You realize you have zero credibility as a friend, right?’ I dropped the dish into the sink.

  Mackenzie sighed over the line. I hoped the weight of guilt suffocated her enough to shed the doormat act.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lil, but it’s complicated.’

  ‘What about the plan? Did you decide to just skip it?’ We’d been planning it for weeks. The bank account was set up, money transferred, every detail figured out – even Aria wouldn’t miss a beat. If Mac bailed now, she’d never find the nerve to follow through again.

  ‘No, I’m still going to do it. Just not tonight. It’s not the right time.’

  ‘Every day is the right time to leave an abusive spouse, Mac. Think about Aria – it’s not good for her to watch her mamma die a slow death. But it’s your life, not mine. Do what you want.’

  ‘Are you mad at me?’ She sounded shocked, but she shouldn’t be, because I had made my feelings about their union clear from the first moment I met Owen more than twenty years ago.

  I’d never forget how he used her to pass English 101 for the first four months they knew each other. She was his passing grade; he was her feel-good crutch. I couldn’t blame her for falling too hard and too fast, though. Especially not after what happened to her in the fire. But I knew the truth – Owen used her insecurity against her. He was a jerk back then, and an even bigger jerk now. People don’t change their stripes, and my friend was living proof of this. No matter how many times she vowed to escape him, she never followed through.

  ‘No, I’m not mad at you. I just want better for you and you keep chickening out.’ Having lost my motivation, I headed into the bedroom to change out of my workout clothes. I deserved a Friday off to binge-watch Stranger Things and indulge in a bag of Doritos.

  ‘It’s not as easy as you think it is. We have a child together, Lily. For you, cutting Tony loose had no aftermath. For me, I’m setting Aria’s life on fire. Please at least try to understand my position.’

  ‘I am trying to sympathize.’ I stepped out of my bike shorts. ‘It’s just … sometimes I think you’re afraid to leave him because you don’t think you can do better.’

  ‘Can I – really? You think I can just hit the bar and pick up guys like you do? You try wearing my face for a day and see how confident you are when people gawk at you in public, or kids run away in fear. It’s not easy, let me tell you.’

  ‘Va bene, I get it. I’ll be here when you need me. Now go be a good little lapdog and tend to your overbearing master. I guess I’ll talk to you later.’ I spat the words.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not mad at me? Because it sure as hell sounds like it.’

  ‘No, I promise.’ Maybe I was a little mad at her as I stomped into a pair of sweatpants.

  ‘I love you, Lil. I’m really sorry. I just couldn’t deal with a fight tonight.’

  ‘I know, just go. I’ll get over it.’ I always did.

  I hung up the phone, hating how she let Owen dictate her every move. We were living in 2020, for God’s sake, not the 1950s when women were expected to be mealy-mouthed possessions that kept the house spotless and didn’t bitch about being perennially barefoot and pregnant. Why she purposefully chose a life of servitude was a puzzle I’d never piece together. I would rather be forty, single, and childless than be prisoner to my spouse – and I was … single, childless, and loving it, that is.

  Maybe loving it was a bit much. A slight exaggeration. The dating game was played out, and I’d grown bored with my empty evenings in my empty apartment with my empty love life. Yeah, I’d had my share of one-night stands. I’d done the walk of shame, tottering home and leaving my dignity behind. Can I help it if guys find me irresistible? And I admit, I was drawn to the bad boys, the swaggering hunks that knew how to find my G-spot, but weren’t good for anything else. Mostly bums looking for a sugar mamma that I ditched after I’d used them for what I wanted: a good shag. And, if I’m being honest with myself, to dull the pain of a life less-loved.

  Did I want to find a wonderful man who would treat me right and give me the white-picket-fence life every woman – no matter how hardened – secretly wanted? Sure. But I had already done that and lost him. Maybe singlehood was my fate. Yep, that was me. A whiz with money, a loser with love.

  Except for the one man I couldn’t have. The only man who made me laugh from my belly, who made my skin tingle when he brushed against it, who gave me hot dreams that I wanted to slip into forever. I couldn’t tell anyone about my feelings for him, though. He was my little secret, and I was his. Together we were a dangerous explosive.

  It wasn’t as if we had done anything but flirt … so far. But we toyed with the idea of more. Foreplay at its finest. His fingertips grazing my neck. My lips brushing against his ear. His hands lightly exploring the curves of my ass. He wanted sex; I wanted a love story. I was tired of being the girl who didn’t get the guy. It always ended before it began, but my resolve was growing weary. Especially tonight. I needed an outlet – anything to distract me from thoughts of him.

  I considered heading down to the South Side to see if any live music was playing, but I didn’t feel like putting on my face. It was daunting, going through the whole makeup routine and picking out just the right outfit that said available but not slutty. Then sweating my ass off on the dance floor amid a crowd of twenty-somethings fifteen years my junior while they scowled at me like I didn’t belong. None of it sounded like fun tonight.

  I headed back to the kitchen, thirsty for alcohol but not wanting to throw off my diet completely. Chips and a health shake – a perfect combo for a rainy night in. Throwing a handful of kale and blueberries in a blender, I added a banana, Greek yogurt and almond milk, then watched the concoction swirl into a delicious pale blue. I poured the liquid into a glass and boom – dinner served. Maybe avoiding glutens, eating antioxidant-rich food and working out obsessively weren’t a guaranteed recipe for eternal youth. But I was damn proud of my toned body – it was the only thing that made being single and forty endurable.

  I sipped the blended shake between mouthfuls of chips, sitting at my cluttered kitchen table while scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed. If only Tony could see me now. Ah, the one that got away. My only real true love who got me. There was no act with him. No vow of submissive silence like wallflower Mackenzie, or playing the perfect housewife like Robin. I backed up my bark with a helluva bite. A proud woman who stood on her own two feet, lived by her own rules. And was shamelessly confident. Why hide who I was when it got me what I wanted?

  Don’t get me wrong; I’m not self-obsessed or vainer than any other woman on the planet. But I knew I was a catch, and self-assurance was key at my age. You didn’t dispel lonely nights or find your bliss by moping about at home or worrying if you were pretty enough to keep your husband faithful. Confidence is what I gave my clients – women who ne
eded to discover their beauty and embrace it, enjoy it, flaunt it. My job was as satisfying as sex … or at least a close second. Fitness, nutrition, balance – it’s what I taught, what I lived.

  Except my balance had been recently upended by a man. Of course it had to be the wrong man. The wrongest man.

  I closed Facebook and checked my email. One message, which I would have ignored except for the subject line: Legal Action Forthcoming

  Dear Ms Santoro,

  Because you have ignored my requests for a full refund, I will be pursuing legal action against you and your company, Workout Wonder. This is your last chance to settle out of court.

  Sincerely,

  Irving

  Asshole Irving at it again, this time threatening legal action. The only sincere thing about him was his tenacity to make life a living hell for me. He was the thorn in my side after he’d been using my services for months, then suddenly decided he wanted a full refund. No explanation why. Sorry, but I don’t negotiate with thugs. I filed the email away to deal with later.

  As I scrolled through my spam folder, the phone beeped with a text. A blocked number. I read it, confused by the wording:

  I’m coming for you.

  It sounded too cryptic to be the only person who would covertly text me. I decided to call him and find out, mostly because I needed a distraction from Asshole Irving and his empty threats.

  ‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he whispered after he picked up. His voice had a way of dispelling all my worries. ‘How’d you know I wanted to hear your voice?’