Elise Lanier - Treading Lightly

“I’ll tell you how committed I am to it, you big doubting Thomas, you! I bought a treadmill.”

He’d looked as if she’d slapped him in the face. “What?”

“You heard correctly,” she’d said snootily. “I bought a treadmill. I’m cleaning my room so when it’s delivered tomorrow, there will be a place for it.”

He’d nodded his head slowly. “Good for you, Mom. I’ve been trying to get you to do some exercise for a while now, and I’m glad you’re finally listening.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve nagged me long enough, plus it’s hard keeping up with such an active son. I had to start doing something.”

He’d grinned crookedly. “Good for you. I’m proud of you,” he’d said as he left her room so she could finish clearing and cleaning.

“Well, I haven’t done anything yet,” she’d called after him.

“You will, Mom. If you set your mind to it, you’ll do it!” he’d yelled back.

“Hey, that’s my line,” she’d whispered to herself.

She shook her head at the memory. And now, months later, here she was, walking on a treadmill every day, just as she’d foretold. Who would have guessed extortion—and the threat of deformity—would be such a big motivator?

Done with her coffee, still depressed at her lack of morning, son-written note to cheer her up and start her day, she ambled back to her room and looked disgustedly at the treadmill shoved in the corner. “Looks like it’s just you and me, bud,” she said to it as if it were a person. It was the only thing she related to besides her son these days. And now that Craig was no longer talking to her, it was all she had left. Too bad it wasn’t a man. It would’ve been ideal: it was hard, built, always ready for her, made her sweat, got her blood pumping, and never said a word! Their woman/machine association was probably the closest thing to a perfect relationship she’d ever had in her entire lifetime. “And you don’t leave your crap all over the floor, either,” she said to it as she climbed on after swiping the hand towel she’d used yesterday off the floor. She’d used it to mop up the sweat that had poured from her during her laborious exertion, but after she smelled it and found it wasn’t too pungent, she shoved it into the towel-holder hole, figuring what difference did it make? She’d take a shower right after the torture session anyhow.

She hopped on and began her walking, her mind traveling in five different directions at once. Her latest book, her son, her infuriating ex, her flabby, jiggling thighs, and her pain-in-the-butt mother. When she couldn’t home in on only one problem, she decided to forget them all momentarily.

“Why can’t I go with Dad?”

She sighed heavily. “This fight again? How many times can we have the same fight?”

“Until you give me a good answer!”

“You mean the answer you want to hear.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up a little. “Well, why can’t I go?” This time it was more of a whine than a demand.

“Because it’s too dangerous, and he’s not the most athletic person on earth.”

“So? What does that have to do with anything?”

“If the raft goes amuck, he’ll have a hard enough time saving himself, much less rescuing you!”

“First off, the raft isn’t going to ‘go amuck.’ Secondly, there will be a guide in there with us. You don’t think he’s going to let me drown, do you? He’ll lose his business!”

“He’ll have other people in the boat with him, and he’ll save them first, assuming your father will save you—which he won’t because he’s an inept spaz who couldn’t save a drowning fly from a cup of coffee—and you’ll be left, dead, floating down the river after you hit your head on a rock!”

“Mom, how do you think of these things?”

“They just pop into my head.”

“Well, get it to pop out! That’s not going to happen!”

“How do you know?”

“Because the odds are astronomical!”

“Don’t raise your voice to me, young man!” she screeched.

Her son stared at her in disbelief; he was no longer amused and hate now flashed from his eyes like daggers.

“Oh my God. Now look at what you’ve done. You’ve got me sounding like my mother!”

“Another bitch on wheels,” he muttered under his breath.

“That’s it! Get to your room!”

“My pleasure!” The entire building heard his door slam. How did things get so heated so quickly? They both needed time to cool down. And what she needed was to ram a hot poker up her ex’s butt for putting this maniacal pipe dream in her son’s head. Martin knew damn well she wouldn’t let Craig go on a trip like that. As far as she knew, Martin himself wouldn’t want to go on a trip like that. He was probably having another of his midlife crises, which she could care less about. What did concern her was that he had to throw it out there, knowing their son would want to go, and also knowing she’d be the bad guy by putting her foot down with a resounding no. That son of a bitch.

Trying to distract herself from her ex’s latest manipulative stunt and her son’s formulaic response to his artful maneuver, she moved to the pile of mail and ripped open the top letter with pent-up anger. Not noticing it was from the Internal Revenue Service, she hadn’t expected to read the imposing and alarming words the businesslike letter contained.

“Damnation! I can’t believe it! Why this? Why now? Why me?”

She threw the letter on the table and immediately ran to her room to her trusty computer to fire off an emergency message to her agent.

Sid:

Help! They’re after me! The stinkin’ IRS wants more money! Lots more! What’s up with that? They state that I couldn’t possibly have made so little in the last two years. What do I do about this? They’re saying I owe thousands in back taxes!

And have you sent out the last manuscript I sent you? I know Evette doesn’t want it, but there’s got to be someone out there who does!

—Janine

Her ire spent, she stomped back to the kitchen to grab some ice cream. That would help her mood. “The IRS! Those bloodsuckers. Does it look like I’m rolling in dough?” Some Cherry Garcia was what was needed right now. With chocolate syrup. Lots of chocolate syrup. Grabbing a spoon in anticipation, she opened the freezer to find a huge gaping space where they kept the ice cream. Two half-gallons were gone. Vaporized. The Chunky Monkey and the Phish Food were missing. (Phish Food being Ben & Jerry’s chocolate ice cream with gooey marshmallow, a caramel swirl, and fudge fish. Not, you know, “fish” food—food for fish.)

She shook her head but dared not ask her son if he had eaten them. In his present frame of mind, she winced at the thought of his possible response and figured he must’ve been the one to eat it. Who else would have? Unless her former stalker was back. But she hadn’t heard from him in a while. Perhaps she had another stalker. A new stalker. A violent stalker. The thought scared the heck out of her—worse than this IRS scare.

She thought about her previous stalker situation.

Only she, Janine Ruvacado, would have a stalker who actually broke into their stalkee’s apartment, ate their food, and tried on their good lingerie and shoes. She shook her head and smiled with the memory. Fans. Obviously she couldn’t live with them (if they were obsessed and touched in the head), and, as she was finding out lately, she couldn’t live without them either (if she needed or wanted to make a living).

“How can those leeches at the IRS think I’ve got money flying in? I can barely afford to keep my human-vacuum of a son supplied in Cherry Garcia and Phish Food!” She slammed the freezer shut then pulled it open again. “Just look at that freezer!” There were two icicle-covered lumps that had not been touched since Hoover was president. They were there when she moved in, and Lord only knows what they were. No one ever dared to find out by defrosting the things. If you could pry them out of the frozen tundra to thaw! “I should invite those sons of bitches here and let them look at the opulence I live in! One look at the Taj Mahal I call home, and they’d back off pretty damn fast,” she muttered.