The Husband Diet (A Romantic Comedy) (9 page)

I raised my eyebrow at him. I had never had sex in the shower in my
life
. Just ordinary bed sex—while it lasted. I wondered if Paul could sense my envy.

He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and said, “No, Erica, you’ll never have sex in the shower until you find yourself a new man.”

I stared at him. He was right. Not only was I not having sex in the shower, I wasn’t having any sex at all.

“You look more frazzled than usual,” he observed. “What’s up?”

It took a minute to sink in as my mind was still focused on the steamy showers I’d never had, and then it dawned on me. “I’ve just met the man of my dreams.”

Paul nearly jumped out of bed but his elastic cast stopped him. He slapped his hands together, his eyes mischievous and excited. “You’re kidding me! What’s his name?”

I stared at him blankly. “I don’t know.”

“Well, what does he
do
?”

I thought about it, but could only remember the sensation of pure protector, like in the romance paperbacks I used to sneak behind my chemistry books. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t
know?
Do you at least remember what he looks like?”

Before his overwhelming beauty, the sensation of manliness and kindness came to mind. “Tall. Dark. A deep, soothing voice. A funny accent. Big hands. Lean body, but strong.”

“Oh, great, that’ll help. You’ve just described half the male Boston population. The gay one, mostly!”

I shrugged helplessly.

“Well, how did you meet him? Tell!” Paul urged, getting as comfortable as he could, considering he was anchored to the bed.

But I was already back on earth, anchored and grounded to my own reality. Hell, I had kids and already one failed marriage. I couldn’t afford to fantasize about the first hunk who tore my clothes off. “It doesn’t matter. I met him. And I’ll never see him again. That’s why he’ll always be the man of my dreams.”

Paul’s eyes popped out of his face. “You didn’t get his number? Have I taught you absolutely
nothing?”

I shrugged again. All I knew was that he’d enveloped me in such a way, making me feel protected and not silly for my fears. He had taken control of the situation, but not so I’d feel like an idiot, which I should’ve, actually. But he’d been understanding, not judgmental. If I’d been single and searching, I would’ve found a way to meet him again even if I had to canvass every door in Massachusetts.

Maybe somewhere in this city at that very moment a woman was opening her front door to him, arms wide, and I envied her. I’d never know his name. But I did have his jacket to remember him by. Or, if I were my sister Judy, I’d track him down and bump into him “by chance.” He’d be charming, protective, kind, passionate—a real Alpha male like you see in romance books. He’d be practically perfect. And then he’d get sick of me and break my heart.

My newfound confidence kept me bouncing joyfully out of bed in the mornings, wondering what wonderful things would happen to me that day, the interesting people I’d meet—maybe even The One? And there he was—gone in a flash, before I could even talk to him properly, let alone muster the guts to ask him out for a cup of coffee.

For years I’d longed for the dates, the first kiss, the first time, the, “Oh-my-God-my-period-is-late.” The works. But of course there was no danger I’d ever get pregnant unless someone up there took pity on me and sent me the Archangel Gabriel on a mission.

Some of us are not destined to find love. I’d missed my love boat. But at least I had two children I loved to pieces, Paul, a great job and a lovely house. The rest, well, maybe in my next life.

Chapter 10:

Home Truths

T
he first thing I did when I woke up the next morning was sneeze. My throat itched and my nose was dripping. Shit. I couldn’t afford to get sick. I dragged my butt out of bed and took a hot shower to chase away the microbes, and I was fine—until I stepped out of the shower. I don’t know how I managed to get dressed because my head was so heavy and my bones screamed in pain at every movement.

Shivering, I opened my wardrobe and winced. I’d forgotten to pick up my work suits at the dry cleaners. All I had in the house were some sundresses I hadn’t worn since before I’d got pregnant with Maddy and some jeans from before I met Ira. None of these fitted, so it was either one of my old track suits or a brown suit that consisted of a wool dress and matching coat that never fit me. And even if it did, it would made me look like a sack of turnips. Marcy had brought it back from France and I’d hated it on sight but never had the courage to throw it away. Why, you may ask?

Because Marcy (who has the key to our place) systematically
goes through
my closet to throw out things she says are absolutely horrid and that I shouldn’t be caught dead in. Can you imagine that? Needless to say, that got rid of more than two-thirds of my wardrobe in one visit. At first I was shocked. Then I was angry. Then I was resigned.
My mother would never do that
, you may be saying out loud while shaking your head, but come on, don’t you know Marcy yet? Don’t you know that couture is more important than nurturing your very own children?

We’re practically specular. Where she was hopeless, like cooking and nurturing, I shone. Where she was polished, like social events, couture and beauty, I was grubby and careless.

Anyway, back to the sack-of-potatoes suit I swore I’d never ever wear even if I did lose weight. One lesson I’d learned was never say never. I took a step closer. It was my only solution right now. Did I smell
mothballs
? Yep, another contribution from Marcy. But I had no choice but to see if it fit. If it did, I was home free. If it didn’t, it was my track suit. Maybe if I kept to my office all day no one would notice?

I begrudgingly bunched it up and slowly—
slowly—
pulled it over my head. Shoulders clear—that was a first! Oh, God, was it coming to a halt around my waist? No, it was just the lining scrunching, thank goodness. I tugged on it as delicately but firmly as I could, as if this dress was made of paper
and
the very last one on earth. After this it was the proverbial fig leaf. How Marcy hadn’t foreseen that this suit wouldn’t fit me had been a mystery to me for many years, until one day while scoffing at it, resenting its mere presence in my home, it dawned on me that she’d done it
on
purpose
. To give me a
goal
(as if wearing this dead ringer for a burlap sack was going to inspire me to lose weight) in my life.

At my hips there was a definite stalemate situation. It wasn’t going down any further! Panicking, I eyed my track suit and then my flowery summer dresses, and with a grunt coaxed the suit (the wool stretched easily enough, but it was the damn
lining
that seemed made for a five-year-old) over my curves. All the while holding my breath.

And yes! Mission accomplished! Here we were as one, this horrid piece of couture and me.
And
I’d never been this elated before, not even in my wedding dress. I’d finally proved Marcy wrong.

Admiring the way it didn’t cling, squeeze or underline anything but my newfound curves, I added a shiny burnt-copper-beigey-green silk scarf that changed colors under the light. I had to make up somehow for the lack of make-up. There was no way I could wear mascara with these watery eyes today and not look like Brandon Lee in
The Crow
. Besides, I could hardly keep them open. All I wanted to do was crawl back into my nice warm comfy bed and sleep until Christmas. Or even better, next summer.

If you’re a working mom, you know how difficult it is to balance things. If you’re a
single
working mom,
I
know exactly how you feel, doing everything on your own without a man at your side. My assistant Jackie poked her head through my office door. The look on her face wasn’t good.

“Uh—Erica? We have a teensy-weensy problem.”

I sighed. “Just give it to me straight.”

“There’s a... uhm... flood on the third floor.”

“A flood,” I repeated calmly, as if she were talking about some remote, over-populated and under-fed village in some third-world country that I could sympathize with but do absolutely nothing about.

“And it’s leaking onto the second.”

“Did you see where it’s coming from?” I sighed at the blank look on her face. “Never mind; I’ll do it.”

Jackie was good with people, but she was a disaster with disasters. Me, I was good with disasters—and people that I didn’t share a surname with.

It was the boiler system. It had sprung a major leak, and there was nothing I could do but call the maintenance team and invite the guests on both affected floors to an improvised mid-afternoon lunch buffet and drinks, while the in-house laundry service took care of transferring their sodden clothing to be dry-cleaned or washed and pressed, and we upgraded them all to a superior room. On top of that, I threw in a voucher for a two-night stay in any Farthington hotel in North America, all compliments of the management. By the time I had finished my reparatory spiel, I had charmed the pants off them (their only dry pair) and the incident was forgotten. That was my job and I was
amazing
at it.

And motherhood? I did my damned best. The kids were always fed and read to and everything (well, not quite everything, but at least the most important things) that was natural for a woman to do for her family. I grimly pictured the list of women’s chores and compared them to men’s. Bit of a chasm there, not to say the entire Grand Canyon.

So, faced with the fact that I would never be able to check-mark all those chores, I did what I would normally do at work. Prioritize. What was more important—to clean my windows, or help my kids with their homework? To iron bed sheets (that no one ever sees anyway) or learn to play baseball with Warren (even if it meant knocking myself out and seeing stars in the process) and take Maddy to ballet classes? No contest.

And, gosh, the look in their eyes whenever I dropped my vacuum cleaner and sat down to color? Much to Ira’s annoyance, of course, because he always thought I did it to show him up, to underline the difference between Mommy and Daddy. He never understood it wasn’t about him. He never understood it was simply about making the kids feel loved, about them coming first—before Sunday brunches, before our own hobbies. I had once had a passion for painting and had been told I was good at it too. But I hadn’t painted a landscape in years, though my fingers yearned to. Every time I saw a beautiful view or closed my eyes, I could see a million things I wanted to paint, could feel a million colors exploding within me, dying to get out. But I settled for coloring and making paper dolls with Maddy.

Ira, on the other hand, sometimes, if at all, paid attention to them the first half hour he was home, but then lost interest. He was totally unaware of anybody else’s needs and he’d slowly worsened over the years. A bit like my mom in a way. These people lacked the sensitivity gene. They didn’t realize what was going on around them or if someone, friend or family, was suffering. They had never really loved, in my opinion, never sat up all night worried about someone (
Nonna
Silvia had told me I was never sick as a baby, so I guess that was my mom’s cue to take life easy).

As a child, every time I woke up in the middle of the night with a nightmare, it was always,
always
, my
nonna
who came to my bed with a glass of water and a lozenge, a quiet chat and finally a good-night hug. She was the only one who ever hugged me and said, “Sleep well, sweetheart.”

Sleep well, Sweetheart.
I couldn’t remember the last time someone actually said that to me.

A few confused, foggy hours later during lunch, as I was writing down a list of all the bad words I knew in Italian, like
bastardo
and
stronzo
, and linking them to Ira’s name in a sort of spider-gram, I got a personal call from Mr. Foxham, the kids’ new school principal.

Shit. He’d sent out a letter to the families with a new Mission Statement against the spreading phenomenon of bullying, and what his main goals were, inviting us in to discuss whether our children felt safe, were happy, et cetera. I’d forgotten to RSVP
that
party.

And so, clutching the phone, I feared the worst, conjuring up images of Warren hanging from the light strips or the ceiling beams by his tie, courtesy of an older kid, or Madeleine’s dress being torn to pieces by a posse of vicious girls kicking her and her pretty pink raincoat and matching boots around in the mud.

“Good morning, Mrs. Lowenstein,” came the voice of doom, calling me by a name that was no longer mine. “I’m Mr. Foxham, Madeleine and Warren’s headmaster.”

Headmaster? Right—I forgot he was a Brit. This wasn’t going to be pleasant. Memories of my homeroom teacher, Miss Briton (who was actually Australian) talking down to me in her crisp accent surfaced, and in a single moment I relived the worst years of my school life.

I felt my own diction tighten accordingly. “Yes, good morning, Mr. Foxham. Is there a problem?”

A pause. Oh, that deadly pause where I saw at least one of my kids lying lifeless…

“No, no, they’re quite all right, Mrs. Lowenstein. Warren’s sitting a math test at the moment and Madeleine is doing art, her favorite subject.”

I exhaled in relief. The personal touch hadn’t escaped my notice. They were always nice to you before delivering the blow.

“Warren didn’t cheat, did he? I told them a million times it’s better to get a C that’s yours than someone else’s A.”

He chuckled. A warm, deep chuckle, and I hung on to it as a guarantee that whatever he had to say couldn’t be
that
bad.

“Well, you’re right about that. Mrs. Lowenstein, would it be possible for you to pop round here today? Say an hour or so before the last bell? Would half-two be all right? That way you’ll be just in time to take the children home when we’re done.”

What the hell were we going to talk about for an hour? How bad
was
it?

“Are you going to expel them?” I asked meekly and totally out of context, I don’t know why.

“Oh, no, Mrs. Lowenstein. I just need to talk to you if that’s all right.”

Actually, it wasn’t. Nothing was all right. I knew they were feeling the strain of the household even if Ira and I were civil in front of them. It was obvious by the way they dropped themselves at the kitchen table lately when they got in. Sullen, tired and irritable. They were starting to look more and more like Ira every day. Which was the reason I knew I’d need all the help I could get.

“I’ll be there, Mr. Foxham.”

“Brilliant. See you then, Mrs. Lowenstein.” And he put the phone down.

Besides dreading what he needed to see me about, I couldn’t stand the sound of Ira’s surname next to my name anymore, I realized with a sudden panic. I mean, it really bothered me,
hurt
-bothered me, like salt being inflicted on an open wound.

I knew Mr. Foxham was a good principal, but I had never actually met him, which I knew was bad. I was a terrible mother. And I was now going to get my, as the Brits say,
comeuppance
.

* * *

I had Jackie take over for the rest of the day and drove to Clinton Street Private School (Ira had vetoed Parker, probably because it was free) with my stomach in my mouth and my heart trying to make its way out through my nostrils. I hadn’t felt this nervous since my job interview at the hotel years ago where I sat before Mr. Harold Farthington sweating buckets in my navy suit and silk scarf, looking like an inflatable airline hostess. I did that when I was nervous. Sweated buckets. And wore silk scarves. So really nothing much had changed since then.

In a matter of minutes, I was ushered into the principal’s office in a state of sheer terror, clutching my scarf as if it had magical powers. I attempted to breathe normally, hoping my imminent panic attack didn’t show too much.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Lowenstein,” he said politely, offering his hand, and instantly a strange heat settled over me, like I was in a healing cocoon, where nothing could ever harm me—something I’d experienced only once before. Precisely on the floor of the ladies’ room in a downtown restaurant. The feeling of being enveloped by the warmth and protection of his large, powerful body had stayed with me. Well, truth be told, I’d been fantasizing about him like mad for the past few weeks.

And here he was again, even more gorgeous than I remembered. A bod like a football player, with shoulders so wide even
I
could stretch out on them for a nap, and a chest that looked so lean and solid you could use it as a surfboard. Crap. Just my friggin’ luck. And his
eyes
—the color of the ocean in winter—green with a hint of blue and gold. It had been years since I’d been perturbed by male beauty. I mean
really
overwhelmed. I felt my face catch fire at the thought of him having seen me in my underwear and wished I could vanish into thin air. Now if only he didn’t remember
me
, my whole life would be made.

He grinned, and I was awarded with a perfect white dazzle of a smile. He should’ve been in pictures, with his athletic physique and five o’clock shadow that only made him look terrific beyond bearable.

I felt as if time had disappeared. How long had he been sitting there smiling at me? Was it still daylight outside? I glanced out his window just to make sure I hadn’t been abducted by a gorgeous alien or something, but nope—there I was, on Earth, still trying to breathe properly, my eyes still glued to his beyond-handsome face.