Madam Of The House. Donna Birdsell
Brian’s first few weeks away had almost killed her, their son had adjusted beautifully to the boarding school and was improving every day.
“Brian is getting a fantastic education at the Catalina School,” she said to Ben. “But that kind of individualized attention doesn’t come cheap.”
“That’s what it always comes down to, doesn’t it? Money.” Ben’s tone was bitter.
“In this case, yes. When it can pay for the best education for our son, it does.”
“Why is everything about Brian? Ten years it’s been all about him. I needed a little attention, too, you know. I could have used some sympathy.”
Cecilia squeezed her eyes closed. “I was there for you, Ben. I tried to be understanding. I know what you’re going through is hard, but you’ve got to pull it together.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do.”
“I want you to see someone,” she said. “A psychologist or a psychiatrist or something. I really think you have an addiction.”
“An addiction?”
“Yes, a day-trading addiction. It’s like gambling. How much do you have to lose to stop?”
“You’re always blowing things out of proportion,” he argued.
“You don’t think losing almost seventy thousand dollars qualifies as a problem?” She could feel a tiny vein pulsing in her forehead.
“It takes money to make money.”
How many times had she heard that? Enough to know that he’d never change his mantra.
She rubbed the vein in her forehead and forced herself to calm down. “Whatever. Just send me some money before you blow it all on your IPO, okay?”
“Great. Thanks for the vote of confidence.” The dial tone hummed in her ear.
He’d hung up on her. Again.
She grabbed a glass of wine and walked out on the deck, lighting a cigarette and staring out over the lawn.
The green of the seventh hole of Boxwood Country Club, the golf course her development was built around, winked like an emerald through the trees. In one corner of the yard sat a little patch of hard, brown dirt.
Brian’s garden, his project for the past summer.
Unfortunately, he’d planted it in a section of the yard that got about thirteen minutes of mild morning sunlight, and never managed to grow more than a single daffodil and a couple of small, rubbery carrots.
They’d eaten the carrots one night with dinner, and she’d never seen her son so proud.
She smiled. He was allowed to come home for the long Columbus Day weekend, and she had lots of things planned. A trip to the aquarium in Camden, and maybe the Franklin Institute. He loved exploring the giant replica of the human heart there, and putting his hand on the static generator so his hair stood on end.
Someday, she hoped, he’d be living with her again, and they could do fun things all the time, not just on long weekends and during the summer.
She blinked against the stinging behind her eyes— Cecilia Katz did not cry—and stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray she kept on the deck.
At least she had a night out with the girls to look forward to.
The last time they’d gone out, they’d ended up in Atlantic City at three in the morning, playing craps with a busload of senior citizens from the Pleasant Park Rest Home in Jersey City.
One hot roller, an octogenarian named Myra, walked away with a stack of twenty-five-dollar chips as long as her liver-spotted arm. But Cecilia and her friends hadn’t been so lucky. They’d cleaned all the change out of the bottoms of their purses, maxed out their debit cards, and had to pay the tolls on the way home with a credit card.
But damn, it had been fun.
She needed another night like that. Desperately.
“Let’s face it, Cecilia,” she said out loud. “You need a lot of things desperately.”
CHAPTER 3
Everyone likes a new house. Everything is shiny and the roof doesn’t sag. But the older ones, they’re the ones with real character.
Caligula, the club where Cecilia was supposed to meet Dannie and Roseanna, was cool and stylish, boasting faux-marble columns and several seating areas strewn with over-stuffed throw pillows and understuffed young women.
Cecilia scanned the room, but Dannie and Roseanna hadn’t yet arrived.
She checked her watch. It was early, and the place wasn’t anywhere near capacity yet. The hard-core partyers wouldn’t roll in until the next shift. At thirty-nine and three-quarters, Cecilia was well past her partying prime, sent down to the minor leagues along with the other Gen-Xers and the kids with fake IDs.
Cecilia grabbed a table and lit a cigarette, watching the door for her friends. A heart-stoppingly gorgeous waiter in a short little toga and gold-leaf headpiece wandered over to take her order.
“Would you like a drink?”
“How about a club soda with lime for now. I’m waiting for some friends.”
“Sure thing.” He winked, and her stomach fluttered just a little.
She admired the flex of his calf muscles in the laced up sandals he wore. She imagined Jake would look pretty good in that getup.
Oops. Another impure thought for confession. She was really racking them up.
The DJ made an announcement to kick off Caligula’s ’80s night, and started with one of Cecilia’s favorites, “Superfreak” by Rick James. She watched the door as a group of twenty-something women trickled in, with tiny shirts and tiny waists and tiny rhinestone-studded cell-phone purses hanging from their wrists. They pretended to ignore the group of twenty-something guys hanging by the door who were giving them the once-over.
Dannie and Roseanna came in behind the young women, their heads pressed together, laughing. They made no bones about checking out the guys near the door, and much to Cecilia’s satisfaction, they got several appreciative glances in return.
The women located Cecilia and navigated through the growing crowd.
“Hey, chicklet!” Roseanna plunked down into one of the seats and gave Cecilia a peck on the cheek. “How’s it going?”
“Eh. How about you?”
“Eh.”
“How’s work?”
Roseanna, a die-hard music fanatic, was a writer for the local music-scene magazine. She always joked it wasn’t so much the poor man’s version of Rolling Stone, it was the really, really destitute man’s version.
“I don’t know, Cece. Maybe I’m getting too old for this job.”
“Oh, come on. You know more about music than anybody I know.”
Roseanna shook her head. “I just can’t get into the new stuff, you know? I feel like my parents sometimes. I just want to say, ‘What is this crap? This isn’t music.’”
“Well, sit back and relax, ’cause you’re not going to hear any of that crap tonight,” Dannie said. “It’s all oldies but goodies here.”
As if to punctuate Dannie’s words, a song by Roseanna’s all-time favorite band, the Aching Loins, blasted out over the dance floor. The three women screamed.
The hot waiter materialized with Cecilia’s club soda.
“No way, Spartacus. Take that back,” Dannie said. “And bring us a round of Gladiators.”
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