Praise for RITA® Award-nominated author Jane Graves

“Graves is a solid storyteller with a confident, convincing voice.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Jane Graves is an author whose touch is magic when it comes to creating characters that the reader can identify with, characters that stay with you long after the book is finished.”

—Halifax Chronicle Herald

“For every mass-market author who made the leap to hardcover, a new talent rose to take her place: Jane Graves wowed readers with her wacky debut, I Got You, Babe.”

—Publishers Weekly, “The Year in Books 2001”

“This rollicking romantic comedy explodes off the starting block…Graves’s ready wit and charismatic characters are an abundant source of comic relief. Readers looking for a strong hero and a feisty heroine who face off against each other will enjoy this fast-paced tale.”

—Publishers Weekly on I Got You, Babe

“There’s no question that she knows how to create suspense; she’s the master of the cliffhanger chapter ending. What sets this novel apart from its peers, however, is not the suspense but the characters and their witty, warm-hearted interactions.”

—Publishers Weekly on Flirting with Disaster

Jane Graves

Growing up, Jane Graves dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, but her high school counselor told her it was “a difficult field for a woman,” so she should pick another career—perhaps something as a writer, since she had shown some talent in that area. Since her assertiveness didn’t come until later in life, Jane did as she was told and went to the University of Oklahoma, where she earned a B.A. in journalism in the professional writing program.

Now the author of fourteen novels, Jane is a five-time finalist for Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award, the industry’s highest honor, and is the recipient of two National Readers’ Choice Awards, a Booksellers’ Best Award and the Golden Quill.

Jane lives in Texas with her husband of twenty-four years, a daughter pursuing her master’s degree, and a beautiful but goofy cat. She loves the writing life, so she’s glad her high school counselor pushed her into the right career, even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

You can visit Jane’s Web site at www.janegraves.com, or write to her at jane@janegraves.com. She’d love to hear from you!

Mood Swing
Jane Graves

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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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

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 1

The problem started calmly enough one day when Susan Roth was having lunch in the hospital cafeteria, eating fast as she always did because somehow the E.R. never seemed to have enough nurses and she needed to get back. She’d just sat down, tossed her napkin in her lap and picked up her fork, when Dennis showed up and asked if he could join her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the kind of person who had an arsenal of lies or excuses handy to avoid people she didn’t want to deal with, so she was stuck.

Dennis worked at the coffeehouse, in the strip center across the street from the hospital, where Susan went every day to get her morning dose of caffeine. He was maybe thirty-five. Maybe a little mental. Definitely had a nose the size of a rain-forest banana and enough body hair to survive naked on the tundra. But he had one characteristic that made him a barista par excellence: the ability to commit to memory an endless amount of overblown terminology and use it at will. And no wonder. Any man who can speak Klingon has no trouble remembering what venti half-caf mocha light whip means.

Dennis proceeded to make dumb, painful conversation about things Susan wanted to hear nothing about. His mother was of no interest to her and certainly not his mother’s arthritis. No, she didn’t think Earth had been seeded by ancient astronauts. And no, Revenge of the Nerds was not the most underrated comedy of all time. Once lunch was over, Susan felt as if she’d done twenty minutes of volunteer work with the socially challenged.

Then he showed up the next day.

She told herself not to worry, that Dennis wasn’t actually trying to hit on her. Guys like him rarely got up the nerve to pursue a relationship. Instead, they retreated to their mothers’ basements, where they got on the Internet and found virtual girlfriends who were guaranteed never to say no. That was what she told herself, anyway.

Then came day three.

“Wow, this is really cool,” Dennis said, as he chased a pair of lima beans around his plate. “It’s almost like we’re dating, isn’t it?”

Susan froze. What the hell was he talking about?

“Uh, no,” she said. “It really isn’t like that at all.”

“Yeah, I think it is. I mean, what is a date, anyway? A man and a woman eating together and talking? That makes this a date.”

“You talk, Dennis. I listen.” And only half of that statement was true.

“That’s okay. I like women who are good listeners. Not very many are, you know. It’s always all about them.”

Susan couldn’t fathom any woman having a willing conversation with Dennis, much less dominating it. He was one of those irritating, dysfunctional men who preyed on nice, polite, unassertive women who wouldn’t tell them to bug off.

Nice, polite, unassertive women like her.

Susan left the cafeteria and headed back to the E.R. in a Dennis-induced daze. A few hours later, Evie pulled her aside and asked her exactly how serious she and Dennis were. After all, she said with a sly smile, they were dating now.

Susan’s mouth fell open. “What are you talking about?”

“Come on, Susan. Don’t be coy. Patti from labor and delivery was getting coffee this afternoon, and Dennis told her he’s been having lunch with you every day. Patti told Sam, and Sam told me.”

“Dennis and I are not dating!”

Evie wiggled her eyebrows. “He thinks you are.”

“He also thinks he’s been abducted by aliens. Do you believe that?”

“Actually, yes,” Evie said. “It would explain a lot.”

Susan couldn’t argue with that. But she could argue with Evie’s intrusiveness. If not for the severe nurse shortage in this city, people as irritating as Evie wouldn’t even be employable.

Truth be told, though, Susan really didn’t know why Dennis was targeting her. He was no prize, but she’d never considered herself to be one, either. She was forty-five, and by her own admission no great beauty. She had brown hair she stuck in a ponytail most of the time, brown eyes, nondescript facial features. Cellulite was gaining a foothold in the places where stretch marks hadn’t already taken over, lovely souvenirs from the childbearing experience. Since her divorce a year and a half ago, just the thought of leaping back into the dating pool made her nervous. But if she ever chose to, she prayed to God that a whole school of Dennises wasn’t swimming around in it.

The next day, Susan ventured into the cafeteria a full hour later than she normally ate, only to have Dennis show up again. And when he started talking about their “relationship,” a sick sensation rose in her stomach. She could feel the groundswell of unfounded adoration. The ridiculous assumptions based on nothing.

The creation of a monster.

Be nice, Susan.

Even after all these years, her mother’s voice still resonated inside her head. Nice, nice, nice, which meant avoidance rather than confrontation, so the next day Susan steered clear of both the cafeteria and the coffeehouse.

That was when the phone calls started.

Dennis called twice the first day. Three times the next. At all hours of the day and night. He left messages every time, asking her in that whiny, plaintive voice to pick up the phone, even though it should have been clear to him that hell would freeze over first. How he’d managed to get her phone number, she didn’t know. He was probably one of those dangerously geeky guys who could hack into the White House computer system and start World War III.

After a few nights of not answering Dennis’s calls and then waking one rainy morning to a droning alarm and a demanding teenager, Susan’s nice-girl persona was fading fast.

“I forgot,” her daughter said, as she poured a bowl of Fruity Pebbles cereal. “I need to bring something for teacher appreciation day.”

Susan winced. Words such as those always brought back memories of that horrific evening when Lani was seven and announced, I need a costume for the health play by tomorrow. I’m supposed to be a box of dental floss.

“Something like what?” Susan asked.

“Like a dessert.”

“You know you can sign me up for anything we can pick up at 7-Eleven on the way to school.”

“They want a Bundt cake.”

“That’s the one with the weird pan?”

“Uh-huh.”

Susan grabbed the milk and knocked the fridge door shut with her hip. “They’re getting a box of Ding Dongs.”

Lani did that eye-rolling thing, the one that has driven mothers crazy since the first prehistoric kid was told to stop scribbling on the cave walls.

“I told you they want a Bundt cake.”

Susan checked her watch, as if she expected to see that a couple of extra hours had found their way into her day. “Time’s a little short, Lani. I don’t think I can whip up one of those in the next five minutes.”

“But it’s what they want.”

“If you’d told me about this last night—”

“I said I forgot.”

“But—”

“It’s what they told me to bring!”

Susan clunked the milk carton on the table. “It’s Linda Markham, isn’t it? She’s the one organizing this. This has Linda Markham written all over it. A Bundt cake. Good heavens. As if the rest of us have time to bake. It’s no problem for her, of course. She doesn’t work. She has a cook, a housekeeper, a gardener—”

Susan stopped short. Were Lani’s eyes glistening?

No. Not tears. No, no, no. Junior-high hormones could catapult even the most benign situation into a major crisis.

Susan held up her palm. “Okay, sweetie. Okay. We can stop at the grocery store. They might not have a Bundt cake, but we should be able to find something that’ll work.” And I’ll use excuse #17 for why I’m late to work.

Lani shrugged, but the tears kept coming.

“I told you I’d get the cake,” Susan said, trying to sound patient. “There’s no reason to cry about it.”

Lani sniffed and wiped her eyes, but still she was crying.

“I said we’d go to the grocery store.”

“I don’t care about the cake.”

“Then why are you—”

“Dad’s getting married.”

For several seconds, Susan just stood there, not moving. Don was getting married? She hadn’t had so much as a date in the past year and a half, and Don was getting married?

“When did he tell you that?”

“Last night when I had dinner with him and Marla.”

Marla. That woman made Susan absolutely crazy. Don had a lot of nerve dating a woman who was too nice to hate.

“Why didn’t you tell me last night?” And why didn’t Don tell me before he told our daughter?

Lani just shrugged.

“Well,” Susan said gently, “I guess we knew this could happen, huh?”

Another shrug.

“We really should be happy for him, you know,” Susan said in her best Mother of the Year voice, even though it was all she could do not to choke on the words. “Marla’s very…nice.”

Lani looked up, her eyes shimmering with tears. “But this means you and Dad really aren’t getting back together.”

Susan would have thought by now that her incompatibility with Don would have been clear to everyone on planet Earth, in distant galaxies and into the far reaches of the universe. How, after all this time, had it gotten past the one person closest to both of them?

Actually, it hadn’t. Lani knew. But, in the end, all she wanted was for Mom and Dad to occupy the same household again so everyone could at least pretend things were normal. What she didn’t know was that the longer two people pretended their relationship was normal when it was anything but, the worse it became for all concerned.

A few minutes later, Susan hustled Lani into the car, and on the way to the grocery store she explained again that reconciliation was never going to happen, which made Lani even more miserable. When they arrived at school, she’d dried her tears, but chances were that her classes that day were going to be a total bust. Lemon pound cake in hand, she started to scoot out of the car, only to turn back with a quizzical look.

“And who’s that guy who keeps calling in the middle of the night, anyway?”

That’s it, Susan thought. I have to do something about Dennis.

But once she got to the hospital, she’d lost track of that directive, with room in her mind for only one thought: Don’s getting married. And I’m not.

I don’t care, she told herself later that morning as she was extracting a peanut from a toddler’s nose. After all, it wasn’t as if she wasn’t prepared for it—Don and Marla had been seeing each other for over a year. And she really did like Marla, enough that Susan had considered warning her that if she was going to marry Don, she’d better like her men to be mindlessly inconsiderate and grossly insensitive. But love was blind. There was someone for everyone and maybe true love had won out. She wished both of them well.

Deep breath. Ah. There.

Susan felt so rational and adultlike that she could almost chalk up the sickening twinge in her stomach to indigestion rather than envy. It was Don’s life, after all, and she couldn’t expect him to be a monk for the rest of it. She had just hoped he’d continue to be a monk until she found a way to stop being a nun.

Around noon, Susan couldn’t face another of the vending-machine lunches she’d had for the past few days, so she ventured into the cafeteria. She waited until nearly one o’clock, but Dennis still showed up to make her bad day worse. Now she knew for sure that he had to be getting intelligence on her day-to-day movements from a source in the hospital. And she was pretty sure that source’s name was Evie.

As Dennis started talking, Susan knew she should call a halt to all of this, but she’d dealt with enough crap that day already and the last thing she wanted was to deal with any more. So once again she tried to tune him out, turning her attention instead to the piece of gravy-covered cardboard on her plate. But as she was choking down the last bite, as impossible as it seemed, his loony rhetoric took a quantum leap.

“So I was thinking that maybe on Saturday night you could come over to Mom’s house for dinner. How does that sound? She’s a pretty good cook, you know.”

Susan stopped short. “What did you say?”

“Mom told me to invite you to dinner.”

She looked at him incredulously. “I don’t even know your mother.”

“That’s the point. She always wants to meet the girls I date.”

Susan gripped her fork until her fingers turned white. “Dennis. We’re not dating.”

“Sure we are. We have lunch together all the time. Evie says a relationship is all about togetherness.”

Evie. Change one letter and she became Evil. Why had Susan never noticed that before?

“I’m busy on Saturday,” she said.

“Then Friday.”

“I’m busy then, too.”

“Then pick a day. As long as it’s not Sunday. That’s Mom’s bingo night.”

Susan couldn’t take this anymore. “I have to go.”

She rose and headed for the conveyor belt to dump her tray. Sure enough, Dennis got up to follow her, still yammering away, and all she could think about was how her ex-husband was getting married to a decent woman when the best Susan could do was the quintessential geek with bad hair, bad posture and bad breath, a man she was going to have to break up with even though they’d never dated in the first place.

Suddenly, all kinds of emotions swirled around inside her. Irritation. Apprehension. Resentment. Desperation. Regret over the past. Hopelessness for the future. A plan was forming in her mind to break into a Hershey’s chocolate factory at two in the morning and eat herself senseless, after which she would crawl into a corner, curl up in a fetal position and cry. At that moment, she was a psychologist’s Rolodex all crammed into one person, and that one person was ready to blow.

“So how about seven o’clock on Thursday?” Dennis said. “Any later and Mom’s arthritis starts to—”

“Don’t talk to me anymore.”

“But—”

“I said shut up.”

“But I need to be able to tell her—”

Susan slammed her tray down on the conveyor belt and spun around, skewering him with a furious glare. “Listen to me! I don’t want to go anywhere with you!”

When his eyes got all wide with surprise, Susan was sure she’d scored a direct hit. Then his face morphed into a goofy grin. “Yeah, Evie told me you always play hard to get. She said you like men who won’t take no for an answer.”

Evie was a dead woman.

He inched closer. “She also said you like a man who talks dirty.”

Susan had barely registered shock over that statement when Dennis, in the most graphic language imaginable, proceeded to tell her his fantasy about the nurse in the black hip boots and the naughty barista.

In a flurry of astonishment and disgust, Susan shoved him against a nearby wall, her hand at his throat. His eyes bugged open with surprise.

“Listen to me,” she growled. “I’m not your girlfriend. I don’t even like you. I’ve had it with you calling me at four in the morning. And the last thing I want to hear about are your sick fantasies!”

He tried to say something, but she tightened her hand on his throat, and he gagged and gasped instead.

“How would you like me to tell Mom what a deviant her son is? Huh? How would that be? Maybe I’ll call her at 4:00 a.m. and let her know all about it!”

“No! You can’t—”

“The hell I can’t. And if you so much as breathe another word like that to me again, I’m ripping off your balls and tossing them into that big old vat of soup in the kitchen, and I don’t give a damn what the health department says about it. Got that?”

Dennis’s eyes grew wide and horrified. “Are you crazy?”

“Yeah, Dennis. I’m crazy.”

“This is assault!”

“Assault? Assault? What you’ve been doing to me is assault! I never asked you to hang around, to call me at four in the morning, to be there every time I turn around!”

“I’m calling the cops!”

“Oh, bite me, you little twit!”

Ah, the words felt good, as if they’d been bottled up inside her for years, rattling the cage door, screaming to get out. When she finally let Dennis go, he stumbled out of the cafeteria with his forehead crinkled in Wookiee-like rage, and she couldn’t have cared less. She felt as if she’d just conquered the world. No other jerk would ever pull this crap on her again. She’d scored one for geek-oppressed women everywhere. Until Mr. Right came along, she was through dealing with Mr. Wrong. And she felt that way right up to the time the cops showed up in the E.R. and arrested her for assault.

If only she’d pulled Dennis into a supply closet before going postal on him, there wouldn’t have been any witnesses. He said/she said testimony never got a person convicted. But at noon in that cafeteria sat approximately fifty witnesses who didn’t know the whole story, but they were quite willing to spill the part they did.

But no matter what all those witnesses said, Susan hadn’t actually threatened to kill Dennis. She’d merely threatened to emasculate him and toss his balls into Baptist Memorial Hospital cafeteria’s soup of the day. Unfortunately, Judge Henry Till of the fourth district court of Dallas County hadn’t seen it her way. Leave it to a male judge to associate the loss of a guy’s manhood with death.

Of course, her handprint on Dennis’s throat hadn’t helped matters, either.

After a plea bargain—plea bargain, as if she were a real criminal—she emerged from the experience with an attorney bill that was going to keep her in the red for the next year, along with a request for her presence at an eight-week, court-ordered anger management class. All because a certain banana-nosed freak couldn’t keep his sick fantasies to himself.

Her coworkers were astonished. Lani was horrified. And Don was flabbergasted that his meek little ex-wife would go off on anyone. Apparently he had no idea what a time bomb he’d been dealing with for sixteen years.

So now, in the midst of having to deal with a demanding job, a nonexistent social life, an ex-husband tying the knot and a daughter crying over it, she was stuck in a class designed to teach her how to control her anger just when she was getting the hang of expressing it.

Yeah, life was definitely looking up.

CHAPTER 2

It was five after seven when Susan trotted up the front steps of Andrews Hall, one of the stark concrete buildings that comprised the campus of Henderson Community College. She guessed the court had struck a deal with the college to use its classrooms, which made her wonder if the other students in the building knew they were sharing facilities with hardened criminals who could go nuts and take hostages at any moment.

Once inside, she hurried down the hall to room 124, rounding the doorway to find a tiny classroom, where four of the desks had been arranged in a circle. Two women and a man were already seated. Given the briefcase beside the man and the admonishing frown he gave Susan when she entered the room, he was clearly the instructor. An endomorphic little person, he wore tattered slacks that had lost their crease years ago, a plain white dress shirt with cuffs rolled to his elbows and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. And on his head was a tuft of hair so flaming red it would stop traffic on the tarmac at Dallas Fort Worth International.

She scurried into a seat and slung her purse over the back of it. “Sorry I’m late. I had an emergency at the hospital—”

“Seven sharp from now on. We have a lot of ground to cover.”

No problem. Next time she’d just walk out at a quarter to seven and leave the acute arterial bleeding for the next shift.

“This is our class, ladies,” he said. “I’m thrilled there are so few of you. Some groups are so large we have to move to another classroom, which, of course, is indicative of the societal trend toward the manifestation of anger in unhealthy and aggressive ways.”

Of course.

“I’m Dr. Hugh Danforth. I have a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology. It’s my job to ensure that when our eight weekly sessions are up, you’ll have the tools you need to face stressful situations in a constructive manner and perhaps—” he stopped short, fanning all of them with a supercilious stare “—keep the amount of time you spend in a court of law to an absolute minimum.”

Susan felt her eyes crossing. She was in for eight weeks of this? Danforth was clearly one of those guys who stroked his chin a lot and looked pensive, as if his brain was constantly at work on some esoteric Theory of Great Importance even as he was forced to muck around with individuals who didn’t share his stunning intellect.

Danforth consulted his notebook. “Which one of you is Tonya Rutherford?”

The woman to Susan’s right raised her hand, her metallic gold nails glinting in the fluorescent light. She had short, spiky hair in an unnatural shade of red-orange that was probably very fashionable, but it looked to Susan as if she’d dyed her hair with Mercurochrome. Her knit top and denim skirt showed way too much cleavage and way too much leg for a woman her age, which had to be close to forty. Then again, if Susan had been blessed with that woman’s generous C cup, instead of her own paltry A, and if her legs weren’t crawling with spider veins, maybe she’d consider baring a little more skin, too.

“What do you do for a living, Ms. Rutherford?”

“I own a hair salon.”

“Please share with the class why you’re here.”

“Uh…a judge sent me here?” Tonya replied.

“What was the nature of your offense?”

“Oh, that. My husband had me arrested for assaulting him.”

Okay, now, Susan thought. Maybe this class will be interesting after all.

“Specifically, Ms. Rutherford. What was the situation that culminated in your arrest?”

“Hmm. Let’s see…oh, yeah. I found out my husband cheated on me. I sent a few pieces of stoneware across the room in the general vicinity of his head. He called the cops and pressed charges. I ended up with a bastard of a judge who loves creative sentencing, so here I am.”

“I’d like to remind you, Ms. Rutherford, that had you not lost your temper and taken the unfortunate action you did, a judge wouldn’t have had the opportunity to exercise creative sentencing.”

The edge of Tonya’s mouth lifted in a screw you smirk. “Well, then,” she said, with extra emphasis on her healthy Texas twang, “I certainly apologize for my inappropriate observations about the inappropriate action the judge took as a result of my inappropriate anger.”

Somewhere in the middle of all that there was an inappropriate comment, but Danforth let it go. Either that or he wouldn’t recognize sarcasm if it bit him on the nose.

“Monica Saltzman?”

The woman to Susan’s left came to attention. Actually, she already was at attention, one of those women born with excellent posture who didn’t know the meaning of the word slouch. Dressed in a silk blouse and tweed pants with coordinating handbag and shoes, she was the picture of polished professionalism. As a nurse, Susan was good at spotting women who’d had work done, and this woman hadn’t. Still, at least at first glance, she could pass for thirty-five, even though early forties was more likely.

Susan, on the other hand, knew she looked every day of her forty-five years. Sitting there now between Miss Brass and Miss Class, wearing puke green scrubs and sensible sneakers, she felt like a frumpy nobody.

“What is your occupation?” Danforth asked.

Monica tucked a strand of her sleek, dark hair behind her ear with one perfectly polished nail and raised her chin, pausing a moment before speaking, as if she were one of those women who expected everyone to stop whatever they were doing and hang on her every word.

“I’m an executive assistant,” Monica said, then paused. “Was.”

“The nature of your offense?”

“My boss shared some rather disconcerting news with me,” she said. “I was quite justifiably angry, and I let him know how I felt about it.”

“In what manner did you express those feelings?” Danforth asked.

She stared at him evenly. “His Hummer may never be the same again.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tonya said, leaning in, her eyes wide with anticipation. “What exactly did you do to it?”

Monica’s chin rose another notch. “I put a flowerpot through the windshield.”

“That’s it?” Tonya slumped with disappointment. “So why did you get arrested for assault when it wasn’t a human being you beat up? I mean, it’s a crime to destroy personal property, but—”

“He was in the driver’s seat at the time.”

Tonya sat back, her grin returning. “Oh. Well. Now you’re talking.”

“And what was the disconcerting news that sent you on this rampage?” Danforth asked.

Susan drew back. Rampage? As if she were Godzilla ravaging Tokyo?

“I don’t see the need to go into the details,” Monica said.

“Part of the therapy is recognizing what triggers your anger, and unless I know your threshold—”

“Fine,” Monica said. “If you must know, he promised me a job, then turned around and gave it to somebody else. So you see, what I did was perfectly understandable.”

“No, Ms. Saltzman. What you did was criminal.”

Monica opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it again, a slightly more refined version of Tonya’s screw you smirk edging across her face.

Danforth scribbled something in his notebook, then turned his gaze to Susan. “You must be Susan Roth. Your occupation?”

“I’m an E.R. nurse.”

“Please share with the class the act of violence that caused you to be here today.”

Good Lord. This was beginning to feel like third grade show-and-tell and the Jerry Springer show all rolled into one.

Susan told her story, emphasizing just how much of an intrusive little geek Dennis was before she revealed what led to her handprint on his throat. She thought she’d been pretty comprehensive, only to have Danforth bug her for more details.

“I just threatened him,” Susan said. “That’s all.”

“Verbal threats frequently precipitate physical violence. Once spoken into being, they have a way of manifesting themselves into reality. It’s the continuum of violence. What did you threaten to do?”

Susan looked at the other women, who were suddenly paying close attention, then back to Danforth.

“If you must know, I threatened to rip off his balls and toss them into the hospital cafeteria’s soup of the day.”

Danforth’s already pale complexion turned as white as Elmer’s glue. Gradually he moved behind the lectern, as if he felt the need to have something substantial between Susan and his privates.

“I see,” he said. “We’ll…uh…be doing some cognitive restructuring exercises aimed at preventing that kind of behavior.”

Tonya turned to Danforth. “So you actually think if she doesn’t have all her cognitive whatever restructured, someday she’s actually going to tear the guy’s balls off?”

Danforth cleared his throat. “I’m merely saying that if one can control one’s verbiage, one can frequently control one’s behavior.”

“It wasn’t as bad as it sounds,” Susan said. “Really. I swear it wasn’t.”

“So you have no remorse for the act,” Danforth said. “You’re merely sorry you were arrested for it?”

“Well, no, I didn’t mean—”

“We’ll be working on that.”

Susan glanced at Monica, then Tonya. They matched her subtle eye roll with ones of their own, bringing them into conspiracy together with a single common thought: No matter what this idiot says, sometimes when people get out of line, you just gotta let ’em have it.

Danforth launched into a lecture about the difference between assertion and aggression, and, for the next hour and a half, Tonya interrupted him every few minutes to ask him to define the terms he was using, such as cognitive distortion and neuroanatomy of anger. Susan got the feeling Tonya didn’t give a damn about the definitions, but she sure liked messing with Danforth. Monica spent most of the class wearing a distinctly bored expression as if all of this was so not worth her time.

Susan occupied herself by going over her mental to-do list, which she had to kick into action when she got home: check to make sure Lani had done her homework; do a load of laundry so she’d have something to wear to work tomorrow; pay the overdue electric bill; call Don and remind him about Lani’s basketball game. Then take a shower, climb into bed and dream of a world where money was plentiful, conflict was scarce and she had at least a few hours a day when she wasn’t somebody’s mother, somebody’s nurse, somebody’s ex-wife, or, in Dennis’s case, somebody’s worst nightmare.

Finally, at ten till nine, Tonya asked Danforth if he thought there was any difference between being angry, being livid and being pissed off. He looked at her dumbly for a moment. Then he took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose and dismissed class.

Susan left the classroom and headed for the bathroom. Tonya and Monica followed. They each went into a stall, and a few minutes later they were standing at the sink.

“Could you believe that guy?” Tonya said, swiping on enough lipstick to send Maybelline stock soaring. “I’ve never seen such a self-important little creep in my life.”

“He’s definitely on my top-ten list,” Monica said, touching up her makeup with the precision of a micro-surgeon. The compact she held looked unfamiliar to Susan, which meant it had come from somewhere besides Walgreens.

“Cognitive restructuring,” Tonya muttered. “Please.” She held up a middle finger. “Wonder how he’d like to restructure this?”

Monica raised an eyebrow. “You’re not a particularly subtle person, are you, Tonya?”

“As if you are? I noticed you made a pretty obvious statement with that flowerpot.”

“Yes. Well.”

“Not that I don’t admire you for it. A boss who promises you a job and then gives it to somebody else had better expect a faceful of broken glass.” Tonya leaned into the mirror to wipe a stray bit of lipstick from the corner of her mouth, which made her too-short denim skirt hike even farther up her thighs. “And the little geek you went off on deserved it, too,” she said to Susan. “So what if you threatened to castrate him? You were in a hospital, weren’t you? They’re doing wonders these days with all kinds of reattachment surgeries.”

Susan smiled. After her ex-husband, her daughter, her coworkers and a certain Dallas County judge had acted as if she were criminally insane, she liked having somebody’s stamp of approval, even if that somebody was just as criminally insane as she was.

“And if your husband cheats,” Susan said, “I think he should expect a few flying dishes.”

“I agree,” Monica said.

So they’d reached a consensus. They’d all been railroaded. Susan suddenly felt a weird kind of camaraderie she hadn’t expected, as if it were the three of them against Dr. Pompous.

She said goodbye to the other women and left the bathroom, thinking about the hundred other ways she could productively spend this one evening a week. Then again, the women’s magazines always said that a working mother needed a hobby or activity away from her family and coworkers that was uniquely her own. Courtesy of the criminal justice system of Dallas County, it looked as if Susan had found one.

CHAPTER 3

Later that night, Tonya pulled her Ford Fiesta to the curb in front of her house, half expecting to see Kendra Willis’s car in the driveway getting cozy with Dale’s 4 x 4, while Kendra was in the house getting cozy with Dale. But the only other car she saw was Cliff’s old Buick with the bad transmission, which was undoubtedly leaking fluid all over the driveway.

The living room blinds were open. The two men sat sprawled on the sofa with their feet on the coffee table, which meant they were probably watching Monday night football, and that irritated the hell out of Tonya. Her husband was in there drinking beer and watching the game with one of his firefighter buddies, while she sat out there with her hands clenching the steering wheel and her heart tied up in knots.

Two weeks ago, after the court proceedings, she’d given him the cold shoulder—no talk, no sex, no nothing—just so he’d never forget how pissed she was. When he hadn’t seemed to care about that, she’d gotten progressively more frustrated, until one day she lost it a little and gave him an ultimatum. She told him that if he didn’t apologize for everything he’d done and swear he’d never look at another woman again, she was going to leave. He told her he wasn’t apologizing for anything. Then he went into the kitchen, grabbed a beer and a sack of pretzels and headed for the living room, where he sat down on the sofa and flipped on a NASCAR race.

It stunned her so much that she said fine, packed some clothes, her toothbrush and her makeup and told him she’d be in the apartment over her hair salon whenever he came to his senses.

A week later, she was still there.

Go, she told herself. Drive away. Go back to your apartment and stay there until you get that apology you’ve got coming.

But deep inside she had the most horrible feeling that the week she’d already waited would turn into two weeks, then three, and then Dale would realize he didn’t need her after all and she’d go to the mailbox one day and the divorce papers would be there.

Tonya lit a cigarette and took a hard drag, forcing herself to think. Finally she decided that the house was hers, too, so of course she had a right to walk in anytime she wanted to. And she looked just hot enough tonight that she was sure to get Dale’s attention. He’d always told her he didn’t like her wearing this particular skirt around other men because they couldn’t keep their eyes off her. Maybe if she strutted through the living room, Cliff’s gaze would wander a little, and then Dale’s possessive streak would take over and he’d want her to come home. Men weren’t like women. Sometimes you had to get right in their faces to remind them of what was important.

She took a last drag on her cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray, before popping a few Tic Tacs. After checking her makeup and putting on more lipstick, she took a deep breath and got out of the car. On the way to the door, she made up a reason why she’d dropped by just in case Dale didn’t jump right up and beg her to stay. But she hoped he would, if for no other reason than that he hadn’t had sex in a week.

Unless he’d gone back for another round with Kendra Willis.

Shoving that horrible thought aside, Tonya stuck her key in the lock and opened the door. Dale came to attention right away, and when their eyes met, she smiled. Just a little. And when he sat back on the sofa, his face stoic, her heart crumbled.

“Now, don’t you boys get up on my account,” Tonya said, with just the right amount of offhanded sarcasm, as if she really didn’t give a damn about any of this. “I just came by for a few things.”

She went into their bedroom, where she found the bed neatly made. That didn’t surprise her. Whenever she told other women that Dale actually did housework, they always said, All those good looks, and he helps out, too? It had always made her feel so good to be able to give them a superior little smile that said, you bet he does, and he’s all mine.

But that wasn’t true. He wasn’t all hers. Not anymore.

She pulled back the bedspread a little and gave the pillowcases a sniff, relieved to find no evidence of Kendra’s god-awful perfume. They just smelled like Dale. She leaned in closer and inhaled again.

“Tonya?”

She spun around to see Dale leaning against the door frame, his arms folded, those big, beautiful biceps bulging.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I told you, honey,” she said, dropping the bedspread and heading for the closet. “I came to pick up a few things.”

She opened the door and blindly pulled a few sweaters off hangers, then grabbed a pair of shoes.

“Those are sandals,” he said. “It’s forty degrees out.”

“Fashion before comfort, you know?”

“Did you go to your first class tonight?”

“Of course I did. Legally speaking, I didn’t have a choice, now did I?”

“Because we’re not going to work this out until you learn to control your temper.”

“We’re not going to work this out,” she said, “until you stop screwing other women.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could yank them back. Making him mad wasn’t going to help things. A little shaky, she turned to grab another sweater.

“Why are you really here?” Dale asked.

“To get some things, like I told you. Oh, yeah. And I was thinking maybe you’d want to give me that apology I’ve been waiting for.”

“It’s the other way around. You assaulted me.”

“Yeah, and you cheated on me.”

“I’ve denied that all I’m going to.”

“And you called the police on me, too. That was really low.”

“It wasn’t the first time you’d thrown a few dishes around. Enough was enough.”

“But calling the cops?” She rolled her eyes. “Didn’t the boys down at the station house think that was a little wussy?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“They’ve all met you.”

The insult hurt more than she would have imagined. “You’re six-three, two-twenty! Like I could actually hurt you?”

“Size doesn’t matter.”

Tonya snorted. “Is that what Kendra Willis told you?”

He turned away. “Take the clothes and go.”

As Dale disappeared down the hall, Tonya felt her eyes tear up. No. Don’t you dare cry.

She sniffed a little and blinked a lot until she finally got herself under control. Then she strode out of the room with her sweaters over her arm and that stupid pair of sandals dangling from her fingers.

Damn it, damn it! How had everything gotten all turned around? She hadn’t wanted to fight with him. She’d wanted to make up with him and enjoy all the perks that went along with that. She missed his big, strong body wrapped around hers at night, his warm breath against her ear, the slow, steady beating of his heart. Just the idea of him holding another woman like that was more than she could bear.

She went back into the living room, where Dale and Cliff were whooping up a storm over a Cowboys touchdown. At the sound of her footsteps, Cliff turned around. His smile evaporated, and he gave her a look that said he hoped she wasn’t thinking about grabbing a few cups and saucers to use as projectiles.

Dale didn’t bother to look at her at all.

Tonya left the house, resisting the urge to slam the door behind her. She got into her car and reached down to start the engine, only to have her eyes fill with tears again.

Men cheat.

She’d heard her mother say that since Tonya was old enough to remember. With three cheating husbands, her mother probably knew what she was talking about. The minute you give a man an inch, she always said, he’ll take a mile.

And her mother had never given an inch. Not one.

Tonya still remembered cowering in the hall when she was seven years old, listening to her mother screaming accusations at her father. When he left for work the next day, her mother had dumped his stuff on the front lawn and changed the locks on the doors, telling Tonya that her father was gone and to quit crying because they were better off without him.

Two stepfathers came next, and the story was the same. Through it all, Tonya grew more and more suspicious of men and their motives. At the same time she would lie awake at night and imagine a forever kind of love with a man who would want her and only her. It was nothing but a fairy tale, of course, but that didn’t keep her from wanting it.

Then, when she was twenty-three, Jared had come into her life, a charming motorcycle mechanic with a line of bull a mile long. Six months into a marriage that seemed to be going along just fine, she saw his car parked at a no-tell motel on the east side of town. When she confronted him about it later, he spun some story about stopping by to see a buddy from out of town who was staying there.

Relieved, she had told the other stylists at work what had really been going on. To her surprise, they had laughed out loud. Tonya had shouted at them to shut up, telling them that Jared loved her and would never cheat on her. A week later she had dropped by his shop unexpectedly and found him and a slutty little blonde going at it on the ugly vinyl sofa in his office, and she wondered how many other times it had happened that she’d never known about. That was the moment she had come to believe wholeheartedly that her mother was right.

Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.

Eventually she’d had to tell the girls what had happened and face the humiliation. They’d acted sympathetic, but she could see that look in their eyes. You’re such a sap. Didn’t we tell you he was a cheating fool?

Tonya had walked away from that experience wondering if, like red hair or brown eyes, attracting cheating men ran in families, and for the next twelve years she believed that her dream of a forever kind of love was well and truly gone.

Then she met Dale.

She turned and looked back at the house, at Dale lounging on the sofa. No matter how big a fool it made her, she still wanted him so much she could barely breathe. She thought she’d been in love with Jared, but she knew now that she couldn’t possibly have been because he had never made her feel the hot, breathless, swooping sensation that came over her every time she looked at Dale.

But now everything was a big, fat mess. Was she supposed to listen to his lame excuses the way she’d listened to Jared’s? Defend him? Tell everyone that even though it looked bad, of course he’d never cheat on her?

If she did, she had the most terrible feeling that the joke was going to be on her again.

She wiped away her tears and started the car, intending to go to her apartment and stay there until hell froze over if she had to. She refused to be a silly little fool who went back to a cheating man as if she had no self-respect at all. Unless he apologized and promised never to do it again, Dale wasn’t going to have a chance of getting her back.

At nine o’clock the next morning, Monica sat in the lobby of Cargill & Associates, a cramped office inside a low-rent building filled with plastic ferns, walnut-veneer furniture and dollar-store art. Behind the reception desk sat a young redhead with a ring on every finger and probably a few on her toes, sipping a cup of Starbucks. On Monica’s arrival, the woman had her fill out the obligatory application. She said Mr. Cargill was tied up right now, but he’d be with her in a minute, then turned her attention back to a dog-eared copy of Cosmopolitan, moving her lips as she read about the seven ways to drive her boyfriend wild in bed.

Monica closed her eyes for a moment, trying to calm her churning stomach. How in the hell had it come to this?

Thirty-two résumés, eleven job applications, four interviews and four no-thank-yous. That was how.

No. She had to stop thinking about how she’d failed so far and focus instead on how she could succeed. She knew how lightweight her résumé was, so she was going to have to compensate for her lack of skills in other ways.

She unfastened another button of her blouse and spread the neck apart, calling attention to the one asset of hers that men had never been able to ignore. She turned in her chair to allow the slit of her skirt to inch open farther. Then she pulled her shoulders back, lifted her nose a notch and assumed an air of total indifference, because the only people who got jobs were those who acted as if they didn’t need them, even though she needed this one badly. Once Cargill came out to the lobby and she had his attention, she’d slink into his office like a lioness and go in for the kill.

She heard a door open. “Ms. Saltzman?”

Count to three, she told herself. Don’t act too eager.

With a studied grace that came from all her beauty pageant years, Monica slowly turned her head for her first look at her future boss. And for another count of three, she gritted her teeth and tried not to cry.

She was used to bosses who wore raw silk and Italian leather. This guy was double-knit polyester and leatherette. He was pushing sixty, with a shiny scalp showing through an embarrassing comb-over and a hefty set of jowls tumbling over his shirt collar. If the guy happened to smile, which at the moment didn’t seem likely, she was sure he’d have tobacco-stained teeth.

He wore no wedding ring. No surprise there.

She took a deep, calming breath, reminding herself of her dwindling savings and the mortgage payment she wasn’t going to be able to make in a few months if she didn’t get a paycheck coming in soon.

She rose from her chair, gave him a dazzling smile and extended her hand. “Hello, Mr. Cargill,” she purred, like the lioness she was. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

His eyes never met hers. She was used to that from men because they were usually busy checking out other parts of her body. But when he didn’t bother looking at any of the rest of her, either, she felt a shot of apprehension.

He gave her hand a cursory shake. “This way.”

She followed him into his office, where he plopped down in his pseudo-leather executive chair.

“Catch the door,” he said.

Strike one: he was ugly. Strike two: he had no manners. God only knew what strike three was going to be. Just the thought of unleashing her feminine charm on this man was making her a little queasy.

She closed the door and took a seat. He slouched in his chair as he looked at the application she’d filled out, frowning the whole time. “It says here your most recent experience was as an executive assistant to a bank vice president.”

“That’s right.”

“You worked for him for five years.”

“Yes.”

His frown deepened. “I’m not seeing much computer experience. What programs do you know?”

“Well, Word, of course. And Excel. And maybe a little bit of PowerPoint.”

“Those are pretty much the baseline. What else do you have?”

Not a blessed thing. Her job at First Republic Bank had been to keep Jerry Womack’s calendar, make travel arrangements, answer his calls, chat up any clients who came by for meetings, order lunch and look like a million dollars.

In the past five years, while she’d been working her way toward the forty-fourth-floor executive suite where the espresso machine was the most complicated thing she’d have to run, technology had taken a quantum leap. Unfortunately, she hadn’t leaped along with it.

“What about office machines?” Cargill said. “Typing?”

She could type. Just not very well. As far as office machines, a simple phone system, a fax machine and a copier were about the only things she was sure she could handle.

If he persisted in this useless line of questioning, they were going to get nowhere.

“Let’s cut right to the chase here, Mr. Cargill.” She leaned in and folded her arms on his desk, slowing her words and letting her voice drop to a deeper register. “You and I both know that you can hire just about anyone to perform all those technical tasks. But that’s not what makes an executive assistant so valuable, is it? In the end, there’s only one qualification that’s even worth talking about.” She fixed her gaze tightly on his, giving him a smoldering look that had been known to bring men to their knees. “What you need, Mr. Cargill, is an assistant who can anticipate your every need—” dramatic pause “—and fill it.”

She nearly choked on the words, even though they were something she could easily take back later. You thought I meant what? Her words appeared to have the desired effect. He sat up slightly, his bland brown eyes widening with interest. His gaze roved over her face, dropped slowly to her breasts, hovered there for a moment or two, then rose again—every flick of his eyelashes so blatantly assessing that she knew she had him on the hook.

Five seconds passed. Then ten. And no matter how unsightly he was, she forced herself not to look away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t think you’re qualified for the job.”

Monica felt a jolt of shock, followed by a deluge of humiliation. He tossed her application onto his desk, pushed away from it and stood up.

Oh, God. He was brushing her off. How could this be happening?

“But…but I’m a very fast learner,” she said, “if only you’ll give me a chance.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I know I’m a little shy on technical knowledge, but I’m perfectly willing to—”

“Thank you, Ms. Saltzman.”

Just like that, rock bottom sank even lower.

Monica rose from her chair, feeling a little shaky, but she forced herself to thank him for his time and walk away with her chin up because she had more class than this big, blind bozo could ever hope to have.

She opened the door to his office and stepped into the lobby. Another woman was waiting there now to be interviewed, a platinum blonde who looked as if she’d cut cheerleader practice short to make it on time. And suddenly a different man was standing in Cargill’s fake leather shoes.

“Well, hello, there,” he said with a smile, practically tripping over himself to usher the woman into his office. As he closed the door behind them, Monica stared with disbelief, feeling like a wallflower at a high school dance.

“Well, she’s a shoo-in,” the receptionist said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she’s got all the qualifications he’s looking for, if you know what I mean.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky he didn’t hire you.”

“Why?”

She leaned over and whispered. “Because he’s a dirty old man. I’ve got more bruises on my ass than I can count.”

When she turned back to her Cosmo, it occurred to Monica that she used to read that magazine herself when she was younger.

About twenty years younger.

During the other job interviews she’d had recently, she’d told herself that she just wasn’t pouring on enough charm to get the attention of her prospective employers in a tight job market. But now she had to face the truth: she had nothing left that even a man like Cargill would be interested in.

One of two things was going to happen here. She was going to cry, or she was going to get mad. Since getting mad had recently bought her eight weeks in an anger management course, she left the office and hurried down the hall to the ladies’ room, where she grabbed a tissue from her purse just in time to keep mascara-laden tears from rolling down her cheeks.

She turned her gaze up to the mirror, leaning in to take a closer look at herself, and maybe for the first time in years, she saw herself as she really was.

Lines she swore had never been there before fanned out from her eyes. Skin sagged slightly at her jawline. Wrinkles had crept onto her neck. She’d been coloring her hair for so long that it could be gray all over by now for all she knew. But time had marched on, in spite of all her efforts to halt it.

All her life she’d had only one thing going for her, and that was her looks. It seemed to astonish everyone that anyone so strikingly beautiful could have been raised in such a dirt-poor family. In light of that, her mother had dragged her to beauty pageants from the time she was old enough to twirl a baton. She learned how to wink at those judges long before she knew that about half of them were dirty old men who loved looking up little girls’ skirts. Because she’d always been told she was all beauty and no brains, she’d goofed off in school and skipped college, doing what a lot of beautiful but brainless girls did—she set out to marry a rich man. And she’d almost accomplished that goal. Three times. But something always happened to nip her plans in the bud.

The first man had a wife he hadn’t bothered to tell her about. The second one decided, after a three-year relationship, that it was time for him to come out of the closet. The third time around, when Monica actually had a ring on her finger, she told herself that for the Highland Park lifestyle, she could overlook her fiancé’s drinking habit. And she did, right up to the moment he got his third DUI and a judge threw the book at him. Conjugal visits during that five-year sentence just hadn’t seemed all that appealing to her.

Somehow she turned thirty-five. Then she was pushing forty. During those years, she hadn’t bothered to acquire job skills beyond basic clerical ones, telling herself that marriage was just around the corner, only to realize that the pool of wealthy, available men was drying up, at least those wealthy, available men interested in her. And she was still working in the same low-paying, dead-end jobs she had been for the past fifteen years, so her financial future looked pretty bleak.

Then, one night at an uptown bar, she met Jerry Womack, a vice president at First Republic Bank. He was fifty-four and recently divorced. As he stared at her breasts, he told her his executive assistant was leaving and Monica might be just the woman he was looking for to replace her. The next day when she went to his office to talk to him, she discovered that the job came with a bigger paycheck than she’d ever seen in her life and very few responsibilities.

At least, very few responsibilities within the confines of the office.

At first, the whole situation made Monica a little sick to her stomach. Marrying rich was one thing, but putting out to keep a job was something else.

But the money. God, the money.

Suddenly she could afford to shop at Neiman Marcus rather than sift through the junk at outlet stores. She could buy a car that didn’t end up in the shop once every three months. She could afford a condo in a decent neighborhood rather than rent an apartment next door to a guy she was pretty sure was dealing crack.

So she did it, telling herself that maybe one day she’d marry that boss she was sleeping with. A couple of times Jerry even suggested it might be a possibility. So when the bank president had retired and Jerry ascended to that position, Monica had been thrilled. Only, it wasn’t Monica whom Jerry decided to bring with him to the executive suite. It was pretty, perky, young Nora O’Dell.

You understand, Jerry had the nerve to say. It’s just business.

So she showed him some business in the form of a flowerpot right thought the windshield of his lemon-yellow Hummer. And right now, she was thinking about the fake potted palm in the corner of Cargill’s office, wondering what kind of car he drove.

No. She had to get Cargill out of her mind. This had just been a fluke. He was simply a man who needed to rescue his own aging self-image by surrounding himself with young women. And losing out on those other four interviews had simply been a run of bad luck. That was all.

She repaired her makeup and left the bathroom, telling herself that everything was going to be fine, that a new job was just around the corner. Still, it was hard to ignore the scary little ball of nerves rolling around in her stomach, the one that was telling her that finding a job was going to be a far greater challenge than she’d ever anticipated.

CHAPTER 4

The gymnasium at Parker Heights Middle School was old, musty and smelled like dirty athletic socks, and every time Susan climbed the bleachers to sit on one of the metal benches, she actually wished she were back in the hospital, which smelled like antiseptic and sick people. The bounce of basketballs echoing off the gym walls and the squeak of shoes on the wood floors grated on her nerves the way nails against a blackboard grated on other people’s. But she still showed up with a smile on her face, cheering when she was supposed to, because that was what moms did.

She sat down on a bench by herself, thinking about how she’d always felt sorry for the single and divorced moms who showed up alone to school events. They always had that look in their eyes as if they were frantically trying to remember everything they had to do. At the same time there was a droopy-shouldered weariness about them that said completion of those tasks was going to be impossible. Now she was one of them. Of course, in a world where divorces were more common than lifelong marriages, she was really just a face in the crowd.

She turned to see Lani hopping up the bleachers. “Mom, gimme a hair scrunchie.”

Susan dug through her purse, eventually having to put half its contents on the bench beside her before finally locating one wound around a box of Band-Aids. Lani grabbed it and swooped her hair toward the crown of her head.

“Where’s Dad?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you remind him?”

“Yes, honey. I reminded him.”

“Did you tell him I was starting?”

“Yes.”

“Then why isn’t he here?”

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

She hoped he would be, anyway, because Lani didn’t handle it well when he didn’t show up. Lani didn’t handle much of anything well these days. Susan’s happy, perky daughter of a few years ago seemed to have vanished, replaced by an adolescent girl whose moods were so volatile that Susan never knew what she was in for from one moment to the next. In the span of an hour, she could go from crying to laughing to being angry to shutting down communication completely, and there was no way to predict which one it was going to be.

“He didn’t come to my last game,” Lani said.

“He had to work late.”

“I’m starting tonight. What if he doesn’t get here until the second half?”

Lani! We’re divorced! Don’t ask me these questions! Ask him!

“He told me he was coming, so I’m sure he’ll be here.”

Lani frowned. “Is he bringing Marla with him again?”

“I really don’t know.”

“I hope not. It’s weird when she’s here.”

Susan had to agree with that.

Lani hopped back down to the gym floor to warm up with her teammates. Susan had thought when she signed those divorce papers it meant she was no longer her husband’s keeper, but somehow it hadn’t turned out that way. She stuck all the stuff she’d unloaded from her purse back into it again.

“Hello, Susan.”

At the sound of the woman’s voice, Susan turned around to see Linda Markham sitting down next to her. Please. Not her. Not now. Not anytime.

“I just wanted to thank you for the pound cake you sent for Teacher Appreciation Day,” Linda said.

Which had been a while back, so what did she really want? “You’re welcome.”

“I think on the whole the teachers enjoyed it, even though it wasn’t homemade.”

Speaking of not homemade, you came this close to getting a box of Ding Dongs. “Oh, I’m so glad,” Susan said. “I’m just so rushed some days that it’s hard to fit everything in.”

“I’m sure it is. If you’d like, I can recommend a wonderful time-management course. Why don’t I e-mail you the information?”

Why don’t you shove the information? “How sweet of you, Linda. I’d really appreciate that.”

“And next time, just let me know if you don’t have a Bundt cake pan. I have three. I’d be happy to let you borrow one.”

She gave Susan an angelic little smile, but Susan was sure she could see horns sprouting from the top of her head. Linda was one of those insidious women who masked their condescending nature with just enough cutesy smiles and sweet words that you couldn’t come back at them without looking like an ungrateful bitch. Susan’s theory was that motherhood was the only identity Linda had, so becoming queen bee of Parker Heights Middle School was her pinnacle of success. She’d guilt-tripped all the mothers into following after her like a bunch of mind-numbed minions, but still Susan wondered… If one of them ever got up the nerve to toss a bucket of water on Linda, would the others cheer as she melted?

Then Linda put her hand on Susan’s arm and dropped her voice. “Tell me, Susan. How are things since the divorce? Lani seems to be holding up well, but how are you?”

“It’s been a year and a half,” Susan said. “I’m good. But thank you so much for asking.”

“I know how difficult it can be. Not personally, of course. But I’ve had acquaintances who were divorced. It’s such a traumatic thing.”

Then she leaned in and spoke softly. “Is it true what I hear? That Don is getting married again?”

“Yes. It’s true.”

“So how do you feel about that?”

How do I feel about it? As if I’m losing some kind of race I never wanted to enter in the first place. That’s how I feel.

“His fiancée is a nice person,” Susan said. “I’m sure they’ll be very happy together.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Linda said, patting Susan’s arm. “You’re so brave.”

Susan had discovered that wrapping her hand around the neck of somebody who was bugging her didn’t make her feel that bad, and right now making history repeat itself was a pretty tantalizing thought.

Linda’s gaze drifted to one side. “Oh, I suppose I’d better hush. There’s Don.”

Susan turned, relieved to see her ex coming up the stairs. As Linda scurried away, Don sat down beside Susan, one of Lani’s textbooks under his arm.

“You were talking to Linda Markham?” he said.

“Yeah. Didn’t you know? We’re best friends.”

“Right.” He shook his head. “I always wondered what it would be like to be married to a woman who was that uptight. She probably keeps her vagina under lock and key.”

Susan blinked with astonishment.

“What?” Don said.

“Do you know that in all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never once heard you utter the word vagina?”

He shrugged. “I always thought it would embarrass you.”

Right. She was an E.R. nurse. She blushed at the mere mention of genitalia.

No. If anybody had been embarrassed by the word vagina, it had been Don. He’d been the “lights out, no talking” kind of lover who would flatline any woman’s libido. But given the glow that seemed to surround Marla these days, evidently Don had gotten a whole new attitude where sex was concerned. They weren’t actually living together, which relieved Susan from having to deal with Lani’s feelings about that issue, but “not living together” didn’t mean “not having sex.”

Or maybe he’d finally found a woman who actually turned him on.

“Lani’s math textbook,” Don said, handing her the book under his arm. “She left it at my house yesterday.”

Susan took the book with a sigh. “What are we going to do about her forgetting stuff?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should talk to her.”

“I have talked to her, Don. About a dozen times.”

“She’ll grow out of it.”

Yes, and in the meantime Lani would continue to get zeros on assignments she left at home. Thanks for the insight, Don.

Susan asked “So where’s Marla?”

“Late getting off work. She’ll be here soon.”

Susan didn’t know how she felt about Marla being so diligent about coming with Don to Lani’s games. Nice Susan thought it was a good thing to do, particularly since she and Don were getting married. But Bitter Susan was getting a little tired of Marla being so sweet and kind. Damn it, just once couldn’t she do something rotten and bitchy?

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Don said. “Marla and I are going away for the three-day weekend coming up, so I won’t be able to see Lani.”

“Going away? Where to?”

“San Francisco.”

Susan looked at him dumbly. “You’re flying to San Francisco for the weekend?”

“It’s kind of a spur of the moment thing.” He smiled. “We like being spontaneous.”

No, you don’t. Or, at least, you didn’t. What happened?

Susan couldn’t believe this. In sixteen years of marriage, Don had never once taken her anywhere on a plane. If they couldn’t get to it within five hours by car after weeks of planning, they didn’t go. It was a travel mentality that had led to some ultra-exciting trips to Sea World, the Best Western on Galveston beach and the Alamo, usually with Lani in tow. And now he was taking Marla to San Francisco, which meant a beautiful hotel, whirlwind sightseeing and romantic dinners.

All Susan had ever gotten was an ear infection at Hurricane Harbor.

“Why don’t you take Lani with you?”

Don went pale. “Take Lani?”

“Why not? If Marla’s going to be part of the family, it can be like a family vacation.”

“Uh…yeah. But I really hadn’t intended—”

“Intended what?”

“You know, we have just one room booked, and—”

“Then it’ll be really cozy, won’t it?”

“Uh…”

“Just say it, Don. You want to go away with Marla over the weekend, and you don’t want anything messing up all that fun you’d planned on having in the bedroom.”

Don looked relieved. “Then you do understand.”

Lord, this man was such a dimwit sometimes. “So what about my bedroom activities?”

He looked at her dumbly. “What bedroom activities?”

“Exactly,” Susan said. “I don’t have those. Not with a fourteen-year-old in the house.”

“So are you dating someone?”

“Did you hear what I said? I have a fourteen-year-old in the house.”

“Lani’s with me every Saturday and other times if you need me to take her. Why can’t you date then?”

“Because by the time Saturday rolls around, I’m too damned tired to do anything, much less get all dressed up to go out. That’s why.”

Susan didn’t like the way she sounded, all cranky and whiny and defensive. But the truth was that as much as Don saw Lani, Susan still felt like a single parent. Don merely visited every once in a while, took her out, bought her things, then brought her back home, where Susan had the privilege of nagging her to do her homework and telling her no, she couldn’t pierce her tongue.

“If you really need Saturday,” Don said, “we can stay home.”

Susan waved her hand. “No. It’s all right.”

“If you have plans—”

“I already told you. I don’t have any plans. Go.”

As soon as she said the words, she gritted her teeth with irritation. She’d spent sixteen years of marriage giving in. She’d learned that behavior from her non-assertive mother, who saw nothing healthy about the expression of emotion and would turn herself inside out to avoid a fight, which was probably the reason she had high blood pressure and a stomach full of ulcers. Susan had never wanted to be like her, and to this day she didn’t know quite how it had happened. How ironic was it that the one time Susan had jumped into a confrontation with both feet, she’d gotten arrested for it?

“Hi, Susan. How are you?”

Susan looked up to see Marla inching her way down the bench to sit next to Don. She smiled, that perfect, glowing smile that was more genuine than the Hope Diamond. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she had that helpless feminine thing going on that made men fall all over her. How she’d decided Don was the one, Susan would never know.

They exchanged a few pleasantries that only made Susan feel worse, so she was glad when she heard the buzzer signaling the start of the game.

Don and Marla stood up. “We’re going to sit closer to the court,” he said, and Susan knew it was because he wanted to be able to yell along with the other fathers in that annoying way men did, as if their junior high daughters were playing in the championship game of the NCAA tournament. Susan also had the terrible feeling that Don wanted to sit down there with the other men because he was with a woman like Marla.

As they walked hand in hand down the bleachers, it occurred to Susan that just once she would love to be the kind of woman men couldn’t take their eyes off of. Actually, not all men. One man would do. Just one, before she got so old and decrepit that the very idea of it was laughable.

Then she looked down at her jeans, her sweatshirt, her tennis shoes and her oversized, utilitarian mom purse, and she was overcome by the most terrible feeling that happily ever after was never going to happen. Getting by ever after was going to have to do.

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