Bethany Campbell - P.s. Love You Madly

Darcy cleared the scraps of Velcro from the corner of her worktable and sat on its edge. “Yes?” she prodded.

“I don’t know where to start,” Emerald said. Her voice quivered.

Darcy wanted to snap just start, dammit! But she knew this tactic never worked. Instead, she mustered her best semblance of kindly patience. “Well—why don’t you just begin?”

Emerald slumped more deeply into the chair and gazed more fiercely at the ceiling. “Do you know that laptop computer you bought Mama?” she asked. She gave the word computer a sinister fillip.

“I should,” said Darcy. “I’m the one making the payments.”

She had bought the computer so their mother could e-mail them from Maine. It was cheaper than ordinary mail and than phoning, and Darcy, who was new to the computer world and excited about it, had thought it an inspired idea.

“Well,” said Emerald, “you know how she said she had a phobia about it?”

Darcy waved away the thought dismissively. “Once she gets used to it, she’ll wonder how she lived without it. That phobia’ll fly out the window.”

“It has flown out the window,” Emerald said ominously. “And guess what’s flown in?”

Darcy lifted one brow. “I can’t guess. Just tell me.”

“A man,” wailed Emerald, sitting up straight again. “She’s got herself a gigolo! This—this e-mail Don Juan. She’s head over heels. She’s gaga—she sounds like a teenager—our mother!”

Darcy looked at her sister and shook her head. “No,” she said with certainty. “Not Mother. Not Olivia.”

“She has,” Emerald said, her cheeks flaming even more hotly.

“She’s only had the computer six weeks,” Darcy argued. “I don’t think she’s ever turned it on.”

“She took it to Maine,” Emerald said accusingly.

“Only because I nagged her. She hasn’t sent a single message yet.”

“Maybe not to you, she hasn’t,” Emerald said, her eyes suddenly glittering with tears. “But to him she’s sent plenty. I’ve got proof—she sent me one by mistake. It’s this—this steamy love note.”

“What?”

Darcy did not want to believe this improbable news. Yet Emerald’s tears were disturbingly real, and despite her sense of drama, she truly hated for anyone to see her cry.

Emerald got to her feet and began to forage in her scabbard. “Damn!” she said. She stripped off her black leather gloves and threw them to the floor. She groped in the scabbard again. “I’ve got the letter,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

“You could,” Darcy said dryly, “carry a purse, like other women.”

“Joke all you want,” Emerald retorted. “You won’t think it’s so funny when you read this.”

She thrust a folded paper at Darcy, then angrily dashed the tears from her eyes. “Mama’s too old for this kind of thing,” she said bitterly.

The paper crackled as Darcy unfolded it—it clearly was an e-mail printout—but she told herself that Emerald had to be exaggerating; she always did.

But as Darcy read the message, she felt the blood drain from her face and her brain dance dizzily.

SUBJECT: I Saw You in My Dreams

From: Olivia@USAserve.com

To: BanditKing@USAserve.com

Copy To: MaidOfOrleans@USAserve.com

Hello, you big sexy thing—just a little mid-morning hello (and a hug and a kiss and a squeeze and another hug and another kiss…I could go on and on!!)

Last weekend was too fabulous; you’re too fabulous. I dreamed of you again last night, of your green eyes, your slow hands, your deep chest, and your divine Etcetera.

I had a thought for your free week—what do you say to coming here? I got the brochures you sent on lower Florida. You’re right; it looks like an excellent buy.

Oh, darling, I’ve got to figure out when to tell my girls about this, but I think it’s way too soon. They don’t even know I’m online yet. You’re so-o-o brave to tell your family.

But I will try to drop Em a short note today. I worry about her. I know she’s twenty-one, and it’s time for me to let her fly on her own, but it’s hard for a mama to let go. You know, darling—you’re a parent yourself.

Love to you (and your Etcetera)

Olivia, whose mouth waters for another taste of her BanditKing.

P.S. Thanks again for the anniversary roses. Who could believe we met only three weeks ago? Blessed be the name of the Chat Room. Oh, darling, we do live in an age of miracles!!

Darcy stared at the message in bewilderment. “Ye gods.”

“Well,” demanded Emerald. “Still think it’s funny?”

“Maybe we’re reading too much into this,” said Darcy. “Maybe we’re—misconstruing it.” But the explanation struck her as pathetically weak, even as she said it.

Emerald snatched back the paper. “How do you misconstrue something like this—? Her ‘mouth waters for another taste of her BanditKing’?”

“Maybe he’s a chef,” Darcy said lamely. “Maybe he cooked for her.”

“Something’s cooking, all right,” Emerald retorted. “Mama’s libido. She’s spent the weekend with this man. She’s going to do it again. And she barely knows him—it’s here in black and white.” She rattled the paper under Darcy’s nose for emphasis. “Three weeks—and she’s having an affair. She met him in a chat room. God—a seventh-grader would be more careful.”

“Let me think,” said Darcy. She raked her hand through her hair and tried to control her wildly spinning thoughts.

None of Olivia’s marriages had been happy—certainly not the ones to Darcy’s father or to Emerald’s father. But the third and last, to Gus Ferrar, had at least been tolerable—some of the time.

Gus had been good-hearted, but oversexed and quarrelsome and brash. He had clearly adored Olivia, but just as much, he loved bickering with her. He had honed complaint into an art form, and the older he got, the more he demanded to be the center of Olivia’s universe.

After Gus’s death last year, a well-meaning friend had told Olivia that she was still young and attractive, that someday “someone else will come along.”

“I’m through with marriage,” Olivia had said with cynical conviction. “I’m through with men. I’m going to get a Pekingese. A Pekingese doesn’t argue, it doesn’t nag you about how much you spend, and you can make it sleep in a separate room.”

Olivia had been true to her word. Because she was beautiful and well-off, eligible men tried to court her. She’d rebuffed them all.

“In my golden years, I’m going to be as chaste as a nun,” she’d told Darcy. “Besides,” she’d added thoughtfully, “sex has never been as much fun as shopping. Not really.”

Olivia bought the Pekingese, got it neutered, and named it Mr. Right. Mr. Right was spoiled rotten and had an engraved collar of silver links and ate from a silver dog dish. But he made her sneeze, so she gave him to Rose Alice, saying that apparently she was allergic to all things male.

“Mama said she was through with men,” Emerald fumed. She began to pace. “I don’t want another stepfather. One was enough.”

More than enough, thought Darcy, who had lived through two. But someone had to be calm, she thought with wry resignation. It wouldn’t be Emerald—she’d spent too many years competing with Gus for attention; his tempestuous ways had rubbed off on her.

“She’s not going to marry anybody,” Darcy said, almost certain it was true. “She’s having a little fling, that’s all. This thing will run its course, and she’ll snap out of it. She’s not a stupid woman. Or a naive one.”

Emerald stopped pacing and drew herself up to her full height of five feet one inch. “She is naive. She knows nothing about the Internet or these chat room Casanovas. She’s like a little child—a total innocent.”