didn’t mean Miss Saigon. “The thing is, I like the show, Ruby,” he’d said, “but I may lose my enthusiasm by the sixth time, when you can see it with me.”
In the artificial light of the train Jack was noticeably quiet.
“Think about it, Jack. We pay a premium to be in the greatest city on Earth, but we don’t have time to enjoy it. I can’t remember the last time I attended a gallery opening or shopped in Manhattan. And you’re in a rut, too. When was the last time you went to a concert or an opera?”
“Opera?” Jack nearly choked on the word. “Have you lost your mind? I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than sit through an evening with a bunch of big-mouth fat people.”
His mean-street roots were showing. Sometimes it bothered me when Jack started culture bashing, but then I had to remind myself that I was the one who’d fallen for this decisive bad boy from Queens. “Big-mouth fat people?” I asked, stirring the pot. “The last time you had a poker night at our house, there were quite a few candidates for that category.”
Jack let out a laugh. “God, you’re right.” The guys constituted a group of twenty-some men who had attended grade school with Jack—St. Rose of Lima Catholic School, here in Bayside. “We’re all getting old, though if Gina Moscarella makes me compare hairlines with the other guys next time we get together, I’m going to tell her what I really think of her eggplant parm.” Gina was the official leader of the unofficial Wives of the Guys Club, and she always ran the men through drills, comparing receding hairlines and measuring waistlines.
“Oh, you’re not losing your hair, and I won’t be derailed from my moment of angst. Maybe we made the wrong choice living here, Jack. You know I love being a part of the heartbeat of this city, but when the pulse is fading, you gotta let go.”
He reached back and rubbed the back of his neck, a destressing gesture I’d always found endearing. “I’m sort of not getting where you’re coming from. I mean, I’m the one who always says we should move, and you’re the one who protests, and you always win. There’s a certain balance there, Ruby, and right now you’re screwing everything up.”
“I’m just saying maybe I’ve been wrong, maybe we don’t belong in this city.” I leaned back and rested against his shoulder. “God knows, every time we take our children out in public we get that message. They’re too noisy, too whiny, too active, too inquisitive, at least, according to the lady in the deli or the man waiting behind us in line at the library.”
“Fuck them. Bunch of old farts,” Jack said softly, consolingly.
“I just ignore them, but I find myself wishing that I could silence the kids, button up their childhood so that no one else is disturbed, and that’s wrong. It’s evil. I’m an evil mom.”
“Yeah, well…nobody’s perfect.” He pressed his lips to my temple and slid a hand inside my unbuttoned coat, where his palm smoothed over my waist, pulling me closer to him. It was an innocent gesture, but somehow it seemed secretive and erotic on the Long Island Railroad. Of course, the car was half-empty, and no one could see unless they left their seat and walked up the aisle.
I reached a hand up to his jaw and pressed my fingertips over the bristle there. “Are you trying to distract me?”
Inside my coat his hand smoothed over my rib cage, tickling a little. “Is it working?”
“For the moment.”
His eyes glimmered with the satisfaction of conquest. “Good.” When his lips moved down to meet mine, I was ready to kiss him, breathless and hungry for connection. The lights flashed off for a moment as the train dashed through the tunnel under the East River, and I pictured us as characters in a film noir, two lovers kissing as their train rushed off into the distance.
Unfortunately, this train was bound for three noisy kids and a sink full of dirty domestic bliss. I calculated quickly. Kristen would drive herself home. The dishes could wait, and with any luck all three children would be asleep and not crying about some life-threatening malady. With our cranky old heating system, our bedroom would be stone cold, but we could warm the sheets fast. I crossed my fingers behind my husband’s back. With any luck, I’d be dancing the horizontal mambo with Prince Charming before the clock struck midnight.
6
We Wish You a Manic Christmas
December sped up like a tape of Christmas carols played on hyperspeed—Alvin and the Chipmunks singing: “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” the disco version. We got the tree up and decorated, but Dylan seemed to think those shiny balls were his for the picking, and he didn’t understand why Mommy hyperventilated when he tried to roll the blown glass Santa head she’d gotten from her grandma down the stairs. Becca auditioned for the church play and got the part of an angel, much to her delight until she realized that Shant Kevalian and Alexis Sanford from her class would see her onstage.
Scout kept revising her Christmas list, adding impossible, not-yet-invented toys like rocket boots that could shoot her over houses and yards and land her right in the schoolyard—“No waiting at traffic lights, Mom!” she beamed. She also wanted a hovercraft that could carry a handful of friends to fun places like the bowling alley or out for ice cream, and she’d recently added a shape-shifting device to spoof your friends and avenge bullies. In a sweat, I stared at the emptying shelves of remote-control cars and talking robots at Toys “R” Us and tried to think of what to say to Scout to ease the disappointment of not getting anything on her list.
All along I did my best to appear to be in the game, squeezing in batches of cookie-baking sessions, caroling with the Sunday School classes, and running around the house like a fiend plugging and unplugging Christmas lights at dusk and dawn. I was a merry-old, jolly-old elf, but I was mentally vacant, my mind on the work that kept me at the computer each night until three A.M. or when I faded off, whichever came first. In my mind I like to compare writing under deadline to accepting a mission on a nuclear submarine that takes a dive and stays deep in the ocean for months at a time. I also like to think that in some ways writing is harder since you’re not completely cut off from the outside world, which demands that you participate and contribute and bake twenty-four nondenominational holiday cupcakes for your child’s first-grade class, which is not having a holiday party but a publishing celebration that just happens to be falling in December near Christmas and Chanukah. Whatever.
Knowing I’d be working at odd hours, I’d moved my PC out of Dylan’s room and set it up in the center of the dining room table—the only space available, though I’ll admit that glowing screen definitely detracted from our Christmas decorations.
“Where in the world are we going to eat dinner?” Rebecca asked, throwing her hands up and reminding me of my eighty-three-yearold grandmother.
“We’ll eat around it. Or in the kitchen,” I said, not allowing dining etiquette to waylay my efforts. Must write book… Besides, half the time the kids ate in a daze in front of the television, especially when Mommy was under deadline. I’d read all those articles that warned how it was unhealthy, but one look at them, half-stretched out and dropping grapes into their mouths as if they were sultans surrounded by harem girls and, well…I’m a sucker for relaxation.
Must write book…
I told myself that I didn’t mind working through the holidays because this book was for me. After years of writing to format, I was having some fun writing characters who were more like me. Janna, the main character of Chocolate, was pushing forty, an age that would be considered rode hard and put away wet by most romance publishers. One of her friends was a single mom. Some of her relationships didn’t work out, even after she slept with the guy. I was breaking some rules and enjoying it, and by doing so my story came alive for me. When it was time to string popcorn with the girls, I was there in body but my mind was wrapped around my main character and the choices she would make leading to the climax of the book.
One week before Christmas, Jack was summoned to Dallas. He came home early from work with a look of resignation and a ticket