Susan Mallery - The Girls Of Mischief Bay

Sure, she’d had kids young. She’d married John at nineteen and had Jen when she’d turned twenty-two. But that was what she’d always wanted.

She and John had met at Mischief Bay High School. He’d been tall and sexy, a star player on the football team. His family had a local plumbing company. One that worked in new construction rather than fixing stopped-up toilets.

John’s plans had been set. He was going to get his AA in business from Mischief Bay Community College, then work in the family firm full-time. He would start at the bottom, earn his way to the top and buy out his parents by the time he was forty.

Pam had liked how he’d known what he wanted and went after it. When he turned his blue eyes on her and decided she was the one to share the journey, well, she’d been all in.

Now as she studied her oddly familiar and unfamiliar reflection, she wondered how the time had gone by so quickly. One second she’d been an in-love teenager and now she was the mother of a twenty-eight-year-old.

“No,” she said aloud, turning away from the mirror. She wasn’t going to freak out over something as ridiculous as age. She had an amazing life. A wonderful husband and terrific kids and a strange little dog. They were all healthy—except for Lulu’s ongoing issues—and successful and, best of all, happy. She’d been blessed a thousand times over. She was going to remember that and stay grateful. So what if she wasn’t firm? Beauty only went skin deep. She had wisdom and that was worth more.

She headed into the kitchen and flipped on the wall-mounted TV. John got home between five fifteen and five thirty every day. They ate at six—a meal she’d made from scratch. Every Saturday night they either went out to dinner or had an evening with friends. Sunday afternoon the kids came over and they barbecued. On Memorial Day they held a big party, also a barbecue. It was LA. When in doubt, throw meat on a grill.

She automatically collected the ingredients for biscuits. Self-rising flour, shortening, sugar, buttermilk. She’d stopped using a recipe years ago for nearly everything. Because she knew what she was doing. John liked what she served and didn’t want her to change. They had a routine. Everything was comfortable.

She measured the flour and told herself that comfortable wasn’t the same as old. It was nice. Friendly. Routines meant things went smoothly.

She finished cutting in the shortening, then covered the bowl. That was the trick to her biscuits. To let them rest about twenty minutes.

Lulu sat patiently next to her bowl. As Pam approached, the dog wagged her fluffy tail and widened her eyes in a hopeful expression.

“Yes,” Pam told her. “It is your dinnertime.”

Lulu gave a bark, then followed her to the refrigerator, where the can waited.

Lulu’s diet was an on-going challenge. She was small so didn’t need all that much. She had allergies and skin conditions, not to mention a sensitive stomach. Which meant she ate prescription dog food, consisting of a “novel protein” diet. In her case, duck and sweet potato.

Pam stuck a quarter cup of water into the microwave and hit the start button. After measuring out the right amount of canned food, she swapped the plate for the measuring cup, then started the microwave again. Hot water was stirred into kibble. Lulu had delicate teeth and couldn’t eat regular kibble. So hers was softened with hot water.

They went through this ritual every night, Pam thought as she held out the bowl. Lulu immediately sat, as she was supposed to, then lunged for the bowl and devoured her meal in less than eight seconds.

“You do remember you had breakfast this morning and a snack after lunch, right? You act like we feed you weekly.”

Lulu was too busy licking her bowl to answer.

Pam rolled out the biscuits and put them on the cookie sheet. She covered them with a clean towel and started the oven. She’d barely finished setting the table when she heard the faint rumble of the garage door opener. Lulu took off running down the hall, barking and yipping in excitement.

A few minutes later John walked into the kitchen, their ridiculous dog in his arms. Pam smiled at him and turned her head for their evening kiss. As their lips touched, Lulu scrambled from his arms to hers, then swiped both their chins with her tongue.

“How was your day?” John asked.

“Good. Yours?”

“Not bad.”

As he spoke he crossed to the bottle of wine she’d put on the counter in the butler’s pantry off the kitchen. It was a Cab from a winery they’d visited a few years ago on a trip to Napa.

“Steven’s working on a bid for that new hotel everyone’s been talking about. It’s right on the water. Upscale to the max. He said they were talking about the possibility of twenty-four-karat gold on the faucets in the penthouse. Can you believe it?”

“No. Who would do that? It’s a hotel. Everything has to be scrubbed down daily. How do you clean gold?”

“I know.” John opened the drawer to pull out the foil cutter. “It’s a bathroom. They’re idiots. But if the check clears, what do I care?”

As they spoke, she studied the man she’d been married to for thirty-one years. He was tall, just over six feet, with thick hair that had started going gray. The dark blond color meant the gray wasn’t noticeable, but it was there. Being a man, it only made him look more appealing. A few months ago he’d asked why she wasn’t going gray, too. When she’d reminded him of her visits every six weeks to her hair person, he’d been shocked. John was such a typical guy, it had never occurred to him she colored her hair. Because he thought she was naturally beautiful.

Silly man, she thought affectionately, as she watched him.

He had a few wrinkles around his eyes, but otherwise looked as he had when they’d first met. Those broad shoulders had always appealed to her. These days he claimed he needed to lose ten or fifteen pounds, but she thought he looked just fine.

He was handsome, in a rugged kind of way. He was a good man. Kind and generous. He loved his wife and his kids and his routine. While he had his faults, they were minor and ones she could easily live with. In truth, she had no complaints about John. It was the her-getting-older thing she found faintly annoying.

He pulled out the cork and tested it with his thumbnail, then poured them each a glass of Cab. She slid the biscuits into the oven and set the timer.

“What are we having?” he asked as he handed her a glass.

“Beef burgundy and biscuits.”

His mouth turned up in an easy smile. “I’m a lucky man.”

“Even luckier. You’ll be taking leftovers for lunch tomorrow.”

“You know I love me some leftovers.”

He wasn’t kidding, she thought as she followed him through the kitchen. His idea of heaven was any kind of red meat with leftovers for lunch the following day. He was easy to please.

They went into the sunroom off the back of the house. In the cooler months, the glass room stayed warm. In the summer, they removed the glass and used the space for outdoor living.

Lulu followed them, then jumped up on the love seat where Pam always sat and settled next to her. Pam rubbed her dog’s ears as John leaned back in his chair—a recliner with a matching mate in the family room—and sighed heavily.

“Hayley’s pregnant again,” he said. “She told me this morning. She’s waiting until three months to make a public announcement.”

Pam felt her mouth twist. “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “That poor girl.”

“I hope this one takes,” John said. “I don’t know how much more of her suffering I can stand.”

Hayley was John’s secretary and desperate to have children, but she’d miscarried four times over the past three years. This would be try number five. Rob, Hayley’s husband, wanted to look into adoption or a surrogate, but Hayley was obsessed with having a baby the old-fashioned way.