Slightly Suburban

“[A]n undeniably fun journey for the reader.”

—Booklist on Slightly Single

“Markham successfully weaves together colorful characters…. Readers will delight in the main character’s triumphs, share in her pain and overall enjoy the ride.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Slightly Married

“Wendy Markham writes some of the funniest chick lit books out there…laugh out loud funny.”

—Bookloons on Slightly Engaged

“This is a delightfully humorous read, full of belly laughs and groans…It is almost scary how honest and true to life this book is.”

—The Best Reviews on Slightly Single

“The inventive premise of Markham’s winning novel involves a love triangle in both the past and the present. Markham’s latest is an appealing, wholly original yarn.”

—Booklist on Mike, Mike & Me

Slightly Suburban

Wendy Markham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my slightly suburban friends,

Kyle Cadley, Kathy Kohler and Maureen Martin,

who know how to hug,

make birthdays special,

mix fun and fancy cocktails

and throw tiara parties fit for a queen!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

1

It’s all about the timing.

And I keep getting it wrong.

Take tonight: Friday night. Well past nine o’clock.

I’m finally ready to leave my eighth-floor office (with a partial if-you-stand-on-the-sill-and-stretch view of the Empire State Building) at Blaire Barnett Advertising.

All day, I told anyone who would listen—which, as it turns out, was apparently only myself, Inner Tracey—that when six o’clock rolled around, I was outta here.

(Yes, six. Leaving at five is about as acceptable in the industry-that-never-sleeps as wearing tan nylon Leggs with reinforced toes.)

So when 5:55 rolled around, there I was, about to bolt from my just-cleaned-off desk.

But I decided to hold off a minute so that I could pull out a compact and put on some of the new lipstick I dashed into Sephora to buy en route from a Client meeting this morning.

Yes, Client meeting. As opposed to client meeting. At Blair Barnett, Client always starts with a capital C. Given that logic, my business cards should read tracey spadolini candell.

Anyway, my timing was off. I took too long with the lipstick. As I was loafing around putting it on and thinking happy TGIF thoughts, Crosby Courts—whose personal theme song should be “Tubular Bells”—stuck her sleek dark haircut into my doorway.

“Hot date?” she asked.

“Yup. With my husband.” Jack—who also works at Blaire Barnett, down in the Media Department—was taking me to see Black and White, that controversial indie drama that caused the big splash at Sundance in January.

Was being the key word here.

No, it didn’t happen.

Yes, we’d already bought the tickets at the big Regal Multiplex off Union Square and had managed to snag dinner reservations afterward at Mesob, the buzzy new Ethiopian place on Lafayette. We were planning to head over to Bleeker for drinks and music after that. Big night out on the town.

But here in the cutthroat world of New York City advertising, personal plans are insignificant. You can be getting married in five minutes and your boss will hang up from an urgent Client phone call, turn to you standing there all white lace and promises, and say, “I hate to tell you this, but…”

Which is exactly what Crosby, copywriter on the Abate Laxatives account and my supervisor since I became junior copywriter last year, said as she watched me slick on a gorgeous layer of raspberry-hued lusciousness. “I hate to tell you this, but…”

What I wouldn’t give to have a dollar for every time I’ve heard that exact phrase from her. If I’d had any idea that this coveted Creative Department position was going to be way more demanding and far less fun than the lowly one I left behind in the stuffy Account Management Department, I wouldn’t have lobbied so hard for a copywriting position in the first place.

So now, three-plus hours after I was supposed to meet Jack for our hot date, he’s presumably enjoying injera, tibs and wat at Mesob with his friend Mitch, who willingly ditched plans with his latest girlfriend to go in my place.

No surprise there. These days, Mitch is a fixture in our lives. Much ado about that later. For now, suffice to say that one of my favorite vintage SNL skits—“The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave”—is now playing itself out almost nightly in my living room, starring Mitch in the title role. And it’s not the least bit amusing in real life.

Anyway, when I spoke to Jack between the movie and the restaurant reservation, he told me to meet him and Mitch downtown for drinks whenever I finish resolving the Client crisis here. I don’t really feel like going now, though—especially with the perennial third wheel on board for the duration of the evening. I’d just as soon head home, take a long, hot shower and fall asleep in front of a good bad movie.

But Jack is counting on me so off I go, this time sans lipstick. The luscious raspberry wore off hours ago, along with that TGIF glow.

Before the elevator, I make a pit stop in the ladies’ room, where I find Lane Washburn, who works in the bullpen, emerging from a stall. She’s just changed out of her size zero business suit, and it drapes about the same from its wire hanger as the sparkly, clingy black size zero cocktail dress does from her protruding collarbones. Really, I mean that in the most loving way.

How do I know she’s a size zero?

Because the last time I checked, Saks wasn’t selling negative sizes. If they were, I’d peg her for a –2.

“Ooh, you’re all fancy! Where are you going, Lane?”

“Out for drinks with my boyfriend.” She leans into the mirror to put on bright red lipstick. “How about you? No plans for tonight?”

“Going out for drinks with my husband,” I return, and see her give me the once-over.

In that? she’s thinking, not in the most loving way.

I am thus obligated to lie, “I was going to run home and change first, but I got hung up on some Client stuff. Now I’m three hours late.”

Instant sympathetic understanding in her big blue eyes. “That stinks. So now you have to go like that?”

Um, I really was always going to go like this. Is it that bad?

I look down at my brown heeled pumps, topaz Ann Taylor pencil skirt that’s rumpled across my thighs, white blouse and the chestnut cashmere cardigan sweater that I used to love because Jack gave it to me for Christmas and said it’s the exact shade of my hair and eyes.

I’m sure I’ll probably love it again when I pull it out of my closet wrapped in dry cleaner’s plastic next fall. But by March, I’m always sick of my heavy winter clothes—even cashmere—and anxious to start shedding them for pastel sleeveless silk and cotton pieces. Which is still a long way off.

Anyway, I look fine for drinks with Jack and Mitch.

Still, I open another button on my blouse to make the outfit less prim. Which exposes most of my right boob. Oops.

Buttoning up again, I tell Lane, “That’s the thing about living in the city. It’s not like you can just run home before you go someplace after work.”

“Where do you live?”

“Upper East Side. How about you?”

“East Fifty-fourth at Second Avenue.”

Ah, practically around the corner. If I lived that close, I’d run home to change.

I watch Lane put her lipstick into a black cosmetics bag, then zip that, along with her clothes, into a matching black garment bag hanging on a stall door. Wow, she’s organized.

I guess I could have had the foresight to bring a nice dressy outfit to work, like she did.

However, I was too bleary-eyed and stressed this morning from getting less than five hours’ sleep after being stuck at the office till midnight last night.

You know, since I moved into the Creative Department, my life is not my own. It’s really starting to make me wonder…

Okay, it’s not starting to make me wonder.

It’s continuing to make me wonder:

Is this how I really want to spend my life? (Or at least, the career portion of my life, which lately seems to encompass everything else anyway.)

At which point, I wonder, do I finish wondering and start deciding…and doing?

Something else to wonder: if I did bring makeup and a change of clothes to work, would I have to carry them in a quart-size Ziploc and a Handle-Tie Hefty?

The answer to that, at least, is clear: absolutely. The beautiful matching luggage set Jack and I bought for our Tahitian honeymoon was lost a few months ago by the airline somewhere between New York and Buffalo when we flew up to spend Christmas with my family.

Lane, who probably spent Christmas skiing in Switzerland, tosses her auburn hair. “Well, have fun tonight, Tracey! See you Monday!”

She swings out of the ladies’ room in her fabulous, sexy little number.

The number being 0, you’ll recall. In lieu of –2.

I look at myself in the full-length mirror next to the hand dryer.

I’m usually a 6 or 8, though I’m a 4 at Ann Taylor, which is my favorite place to shop. Did I mention I’m a size 4 there?

If there’s anything I’ve learned these last few years, it’s that everything is relative.

Because, you know, back in my size 12–14 days, I would have been envious of someone like size 6–8 me.

You know, this is utterly exhausting. Am I ever going to be satisfied with who I am?

I keep thinking maybe I would be…if I lived somewhere else. But here in If You Can Make It There, You’ll Make It Anywhere, the competition is fierce. Everywhere you turn, someone is more attractive, more successful, more respected, thinner, happier, just plain old better. And everyone is richer.

Here in Manhattan, Status Quo is a curse. There is tremendous pressure to achieve greatness—on a personal, professional, spiritual and, yes, global level.

I’m telling you, all this striving can really exhaust a girl.

Lifting the sweater, I tuck the blouse in more tightly and twist the waistband of the skirt, which has shifted slightly so that the side seams aren’t lined up with my hips. It’s a little big on me, even without my trusty Spanx, which I opted not to put on this morning.

The silver lining in having to work these long hours is that I rarely have time to overeat anymore—and sometimes, to eat at all. Not only have I managed to keep off the fifty pounds I lost over six years ago, but I actually weigh a few pounds less than I did on my wedding day.

So why am I not satisfied?

With my weight?

With my job?

With my life?

With my outfit?

I make a face at the mirror. I might be pleasantly unplump these days, but I’m unpleasantly uncomfortable.

In general, yes. And mostly, right now, in these clothes. Too much bulk caused by too many layers. I wish I could change into something more fun and sexy. I wish I could be someone more fun and sexy.

But you’re not, grouses Inner Tracey. You’re an overworked married woman who’s closing in on thirty.

Does that mean I have to look frumpy on a Friday night?

Yes, because changing would mean going all the way uptown, then all the way down, which, depending on the time of day and various acts of man, God, Mother Nature or the Metropolitan Transit Authority, could take hours.

Forget it.

See what I mean about living here? You can strive all you want, but even the most mundane things are extra challenging.

You know, I haven’t felt this bummed about life since The O.C. was canceled.

My long camel-colored coat—also cashmere, a steal at Saks last April—feels cumbersome as I plod down the corridor toward the elevator. Ho-hum. I look like every other corporate drone in the city.

Plus, my leather shoulder bag, bulging with work I need to go over this weekend, weighs a ton. Lugging it back and forth to the office, I’ve accumulated all kinds of extra junk in there—loose change, wrappers, magazines, papers—the kind of stuff you’d toss into the ashtray or backseat of your car if you had one. But a car is a liability here in New York, so I wind up carrying all of this around town on my back, which—no surprise—has been killing me lately.

Here’s a brainstorm: Maybe I should start wheeling a little wire cart, like those wizened old widows who live in the boroughs. Instead of groceries or laundry, mine will be filled with PowerPoint presentations and endless notes from endless meetings.

For a split second, it sounds like a great idea. Maybe I’ll start a new trend! Maybe I can design a sleek little black cart, patent it, quit my job—key point—and become a rich and successful entrepreneur, marketing chic carts to Manhattan’s upwardly mobile young women.

Mental Note: or maybe you’re just losing your mind.

Yeah. That’s probably it.

“Night, Tracey,” Ryan Cunningham, an assistant art director, says as I pass him in the hallway.

“Night. Have a good weekend.”

“I’ll be spending it here,” he says, striding on past. “Same as usual.”

Having endured my own share of seven-day workweeks, I shake my head in empathy, glad it isn’t me this time.

You know, lately I really miss the good old days in account management. Not that I knew that they were good old days at the time—or that I’d even want to go back there, because it’s not the same.

There used to be four of us who shared a big cubicle space on the account floor—along with countless margarita happy hours, office dirt, diet tips, recipes, advice—you name it.

But Brenda quit two years ago when her husband, Paulie, got promoted to sergeant on the NYPD. Now she’s a stay-at-home mom in Staten Island with two kids and a third on the way.

Not long after that, Yvonne retired to Florida with her husband, Thor. I still can’t quite picture Yvonne, with her tall raspberry-colored hair and tall kick-ass kick-line body (she was a Radio City Rockette back in the fifties), and Thor (her much younger Scandinavian not-just-a-green-card-marriage-after-all husband) hanging around some retirement community.

But Yvonne has reclaimed her showgirl past and is entertaining the “geri’s,” as she calls them, with a torch-song act at the residents’ club.

Of our original foursome, only my friend Latisha still works at Blaire Barnett. She’s an executive secretary for one of the management reps. We try to get together as often as we can, but when we do manage, it’s kind of lonely with just the two of us.

Anyway, I’m usually too busy with Client demands to go for drinks or lunch, and Latisha’s got her hands full with a husband, Derek, and two kids. Her son, Bernie, is in preschool—and wait-listed at every decent grammar school, so it’s nail-biting time. Her oldest, Keera, has a learning disability and Latisha’s trying to get her through junior year with stellar grades so she’ll have a prayer for an Ivy League college, which she has her heart set on.

See what I mean?

Back in my hometown, Brookside, New York, no one ever worried about getting into an Ivy League school. You were lucky if you got a higher education at all. I went to a state college. A lot of my classmates went to community college, joined the military or just started working.

Now they all think I’m this huge success merely because I moved to Manhattan, have a business card and once rode an elevator with Donald Trump, who was at Blair Barnett for a meeting. Do I have to mention I wasn’t even at the meeting?

That didn’t matter to anyone back home.

Seriously, when my mother introduced me to the new church organist at midnight mass at Most Precious Mother, the organist exclaimed, “You’re the one who rode the elevator with Donald Trump! It’s so, so nice to meet you!”

See what I mean?

Here at Blaire Barnett, the eighth-floor reception area is dimly lit and buttoned up, as you would expect at this hour, and as I wait for the down elevator, there’s no sign of The Donald.

I can see fellow Creatives bustling up and down the halls.

A handful of others scurry out of an up elevator that, frustratingly, doesn’t change direction on my floor. They’re clutching cups of coffee and take-out bags, obviously here for the duration.

They all work on the agency’s new spacetrippin.com account, which is just what it sounds like: a company that arranges dream vacations into outer space. Laugh if you want—we in the Creative Department have certainly gotten some good mileage out of it—but it’s a legitimate new business, started by a venture capitalist who has millions to spend on start-up advertising.

“I really hope you’ve got an umbrella, Tracey,” one of the spacetrippin.com guys tells me as they head back to their offices. “It’s nasty out there.”

Uh-oh. I really hope I’ve got an umbrella, too. On a good hair day, my straight brown hair doesn’t exactly incite photoshoot offers from the agency’s Lavish Locks Shampoo account group.

This isn’t a good hair day. Douse me with rain and mist, and a bad hair day goes catastrophic.

I dig through my bag and come across everything else one can possibly need in the course of daily urban travels: Band-Aids, gum, tampons, car-service vouchers, low-fat granola bars, a book, sunglasses and a Metrocard—which I shove into my coat pocket for easier access, along with my iPod.

There are also plenty of things no one could possibly ever need, anywhere: a dried-out pink Sharpie, a limp Splenda packet spattered with coffee stains, an expired 20%-off Borders coupon and a couple of loose, bleached-out Tic Tacs.

But no umbrella. The little fold-up one I usually carry is in the pocket of my jacket at home, I remember. I took it along when I ran out in the rain to get milk the other night, and I never put it back.

Well, maybe the rain will let up by the time I get downstairs. It’s taking long enough.

I wait impatiently, thinking about my father and brother who work at a steel plant back in Brookside, near Buffalo. When they’re done with work, they punch out, walk out the door, get into their cars and drive maybe three-tenths of a mile at most to their houses. I bet they could do their commute door to door in sixty seconds or less, no exaggeration. Who says there are no perks to being a steelworker in a fading, blue-collar, Great Lakes town?

Come on, Tracey. You don’t want to be a steelworker. And you don’t want to move back to Brookside.

No, but I wonder if I really want to be a junior copywriter at Blaire Barnett Advertising in Manhattan, either.

Maybe I want…

Maybe I don’t know what I want.

Other than to get the hell out of this building before Crosby Courts reappears and summons me back to her lair.

I stick my iPod earbuds into my ears and turn it on. Some good, loud music will be an appropriate way to kick off the weekend, right?

Right—except the charge is depleted.

And let me tell you, there is nothing worse than riding the subway without an iPod. It’s the only way to tune out the chaos of the city.

I’m contemplating taking the stairs when at last a down elevator arrives. Naturally, it’s already filled to overflowing with office workers impatient to launch their own overdue weekends.

I wedge myself in and ignore the grumbles from behind me as the doors slide shut two inches from the tip of my nose. Something—it had damn well better be someone’s umbrella—is poking into my butt.

Outside, Lexington Avenue is still engulfed in an icy March downpour. Getting a cab would be akin to landing that Lavish Locks print ad: It ain’t gonna happen.

Blaire Barnett offers a car service to employees who work past ten. Do I dare go back upstairs to wait it out?

I check my watch. It would be about twenty minutes…

But no, I do not dare. On any night at 10:00 p.m., there’s a car-service backup. Friday nights are worse. Plus, it’s raining. That’s at least another hour delay.

Anyway, Crosby is still up there. If she sees me, she’ll need me to tweak a line on the copy I just rewrote for the hundredth time, and twenty minutes will turn into tomorrow morning.

So off I splash to the number six subway a few blocks away. I duck under scaffolding and awnings at every opportunity, but there’s no way around it: I’m drenched.

As I hover in the doorway of a bank on the corner waiting for the light to change, I call Jack from my cell.

“Hey, where are you?” he asks, and has the nerve to sound boozy and jovial.

“I was headed for the subway, but now I’m thinking I might just go home. By the time I get down there—”

“No, don’t go home. I miss you. It’s Friday night.”

Aw…he’s so sweet. He misses me.

And it is Friday night…

“Come on, Tracey!” I hear a voice saying in the background. “We’re having fun! Get your keister down here.”

Oh, yeah. I momentarily forgot about Mitch, aka pain in said keister.

“I don’t know,” I tell Jack, “I’m really wiped out, and it’s pouring, and I’d have to take the subway—”

“It’ll take ten minutes, Trace.”

So will going home.

But it’s Friday night and I miss my husband. I sigh and tell Jack I’ll be there.

As I head toward the subway entrance, I reach into my pocket for my Metrocard.

It’s gone. Seriously. I pull out the linings of both pockets to make sure it isn’t crumpled in with a dry used tissue or something. Nope.

I must have dropped it. Or maybe someone pickpocketed me in the elevator.

It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened—although never in my office building. A few months ago, when I was caught up in a herd of commuters at Grand Central Station, some kid stole a twenty I had tucked into my pocket. I felt myself being jostled, realized what was happening, and shouted, “Thief! Thief!” as the kid took off.

A National Guardsman was right nearby—post 9-11, they patrol all the major transportation hubs wearing camouflage, which always strikes me as slightly ridiculous. The camouflage, I mean. Are they trying to blend into the background? They’d be better off wearing cashmere overcoats with plaid Burberry scarves and polished wingtips.

The National Guard did not come to my rescue when I was robbed. Apparently, Homeland Security is only interested in apprehending potential terrorists, not pickpockets. Understandable, I guess.

I haven’t run into any yet—terrorists, I mean—but that doesn’t mean I’m not always on the lookout. Don’t think the prospect of suicide bombers doesn’t cross my mind every single time I walk down the steps into the subway.

Like right now.

As always, I warily scan the crowd to make sure no one appears to be packing an explosive vest. You can never be sure.

If you see something, say something—that’s my motto.

Well, not just my motto. It’s actually the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s motto, but I’m down with it.

I spot a couple of candidates who look as if they might be up to something, but they’re probably just your garden-variety street thugs. There’s a woman who’s acting furtive and seems to have something strapped across her front, but then she turns around and I see that it’s a baby. Close call.

At the automated ticket machine, I feed a couple of soggy dollar bills into a slot that keeps spitting them back out again. After many frustrating tries, I wind up waiting on a seemingly endless line at the booth.