Donna Birdsell - Suburban Secrets

But, worst of all, the papers she was supposed to return to Tom that morning were in that purse.

When she went out to the garage, she realized she had to go back to Caligula anyway, to pick up her car. Surely her purse would be there, safe and snug in the arms of the Game Boy–playing bouncer.

She’d chosen to ignore all logic to the contrary. Her stomach just couldn’t take it.

So she’d snagged her spare keys from the hook by the door, and took the minivan for her morning appointments.

“Helloooo?” Mrs. Beeber called her back to Earth, and made a sour face. “Are you coming in with that?”

She held the screen door open and Grace entered, bearing a white tray covered with plastic wrap she’d picked up on her way there.

Mrs. Beeber squinted at the tray. “Is it a kosher meal?”

Grace bit the inside of her cheek. “You aren’t Jewish, Mrs. Beeber.”

“Yeah, but they give you more with them kosher meals.”

Grace set the tray on Mrs. Beeber’s mutton-gray Formica countertop. “I’m pretty sure everyone gets the same amount, whether it’s kosher or not. Is everything okay with you?”

“As a matter of fact, my sciatica’s a bitch and my son never calls me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“And I got the runs from that ham casserole you brought the other day.”

“I didn’t bring you a ham casserole.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

Mrs. Beeber scratched her chin. “Now wait, I remember. It wasn’t you. It was my neighbor, Peggy. I should know better than to eat anything she gives me. One time, oh, I guess it was nineteen-seventy-eight or nine…I remember I was watching Dallas…she brought me this disgusting meat loaf—”

“Mrs. Beeber, I really have to get going. I have three more meals to deliver.”

“Oh. Well. Can you help me with something before you leave?”

“You know I’m not supposed to…”

“But it isn’t for me. It’s for Mr. Pickles.”

Mr. Pickles was Mrs. Beeber’s cat, a giant old Persian with male pattern baldness and a lazy eye, who’d hissed at Grace on more than one occasion. Not a huge motivator.

“Please?” Mrs. Beeber’s wizened face sank deeper into the turtleneck sweater.

Grace sighed. “Okay. What do you need?”

Saturday, 10:41 a.m.

Shake It Up

“Rough night, eh?”

“Will you just help me, please?” Grace struggled under the weight of the bag filled with clothes, her arms weak from hefting a fifty-pound bag of cat food up forty stairs from Mrs. Beeber’s cellar.

Grace doubted Mr. Pickles would live long enough to see the food at the bottom of that bag.

Martha Moradjiewski, the clerk at the Goodwill, grabbed one side of the garbage bag and helped Grace drag it across the floor to the counter.

“You look hungover,” the clerk said.

“Just a little.”

“Try a vanilla milkshake. They always help me.”

Grace imagined Martha drank a lot of milkshakes, what with having a couple of sons who spent the day sniffing nail polish, a live-in mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s and a husband who considered pot a major food group.

Grace slid her sunglasses on. “I’ll give it a shot.”

Six minutes later she pulled out of McDonald’s, shake in hand, heading for home. She took a sip, her eyeballs nearly imploding from the suction necessary to draw a mouthful of the stuff.

“Ugh.”

She stuck the shake in a cup holder and rolled down the window, trying to clear her head. What happened last night?

There were togas, of course. And cigarettes. And primo butts.

She remembered shots. Lots of shots. And lots of margaritas, too.

She remembered talking about movies and music and high school haircuts. And boys. And men.

Beyond that, nothing.

She pulled into her driveway, not too sick to admire the bright red Japanese maple near the front door. She couldn’t imagine not seeing that maple every day.

What she’d done in order to keep it crept back into her consciousness. One small act of forgery, and the landscaping was forever hers.

She gagged and shoved a fist into her mouth to keep from barfing into the bushes.

Hey, at least they were her bushes. Right?

Saturday, 11:39 a.m.

Lord of the Ring

After the needles in her eyes had been replaced by tiny straight pins and there was absolutely nothing left in her stomach to puke up, Grace made a pot of coffee and braved the thirty seconds of blinding sunlight to fetch the paper from the lawn.

She needed a few minutes to get herself together before she called a cab and went back down to the city for her car.

She sat down with her World’s Best Mom mug and opened the obituaries, half expecting to see her own name, when she stopped short.

Her anniversary band.

The twenty-thousand-dollar diamond and sapphire Tiffany anniversary band.

It wasn’t shooting spectacular prisms of light across the kitchen ceiling. Nor was it catching on the edge of the paper like it always did or digging uncomfortably into the sides of her fingers.

It wasn’t there.

She took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the persistent sensation that her head was going to explode.

The crystal dish on her dresser where she usually kept the ring was empty. Beside it lay a red credit card.

No, not a credit card. A hotel room key.

“Jesus.” She clutched her head between her palms. The previous night played in her head like a Fellini film.

The last time she had seen her ring, it was lighting up that gorgeous guy’s smile. He’d chugged the drink she’d put it in, and caught it in his teeth, like a frat boy playing quarters.

Her stomach churned. Oh, God. What was his name? Nick something. Barlow? Bartlett?

No, something more ethnic.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Balboa. Like Rocky. Yo, Adrian. That was it!

It all came back to her in a rush. He was staying at the Baccus, a swanky hotel in Center City. He’d invited her back there. But she’d chickened out. Took a powder. Scrammed. Punked out.

Why is the voice in my head talking like Sam Spade?

She took a moment to hyperventilate before she grabbed the room key from the dresser.

Okay. Alright.

Just what were the odds a young, gorgeous godlike stud would still be there, waiting for her to show up, with a twenty-thousand-dollar ring between his teeth?

She ran into the bathroom and ralphed in the sink.

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