Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Sam: And by “it” you mean a lot of crap.
Jory: If you’d prefer to decorate, then you—
Sam: No. Hell no. I’m just saying, it’s a lot of stuff.
Jory: Until it goes away to make room for the Christmas decorations.
Sam: Oh God.
Jory: It’s important.
Sam: Yes, dear, I know, and you make everything warm and inviting and beautiful.
Jory: Nice save, Marshal.
Sam: I try.
That’s it, everyone. Have a safe and happy Halloween, and I’ll talk to you in November!
NOVEMBER 2018
Hello, all, Jory Harcourt here. I meant to answer more questions this time, but we got new neighbors, and Sam and I were invited to a cocktail party, and just…I had one of those eye-opening experiences that I don’t have all the time. It used to happen to me on almost a daily basis. Something would go sideways that I never expected, but not so much anymore. So the fact that I was forced to stop and think was a surprise.
Anyway, the Takashimas, who lived across the street to the right of us, when their youngest went off to college—they have six kids in all—sold their house and bought a condo in Lincoln Park. I couldn’t very well blame them; they were centrally located, and it was just the two of them. But for months we wondered—my daughter, Hannah, and I because Sam and Kola couldn’t be bothered—who would move in. We were finally rewarded with Mr. and Mrs. Prentiss, who had two teenage daughters who were away at boarding school. She was a curator at one of the many art galleries downtown, and he was a corporate tax attorney. I found that out when I took over a vegetarian lasagna the first night and she gushed all over me but turned down my offer of food.
“Who doesn’t like lasagna?” I asked Sam when I brought it back home.
“It’s because there’s no meat in it,” he assured me.
“You don’t like it either, do you,” I accused him.
“I like it when you put meat in it,” he said gamely.
But whatever the reason, she did pop over on a cold, wet, rainy Thursday to invite Sam and me to a cocktail party on Saturday. Since that seemed nice, I informed my husband that we were going.
“But I hate that kinda crap,” he grumbled as he got out of the shower. Sam had become a two-shower-a-day guy over the last few years: a super-fast one in the morning to wake himself up, and the long, hot one at night to ease his muscles from whatever happened during the day.
“You’re going,” I insisted and gave him a look, and he rolled his eyes and agreed.
As things happened, though, there was an emergency at work, so he had to go in for a bit, and so that Saturday, even waiting an hour past when the party started, I was alone as I crossed the street with a bottle of wine that my brother had recommended. It was expensive; that was all I knew.
Inside, the house was lovely, full of things that made it look more like a cross between a Williams Sonoma and a Pier 1 than a real home.
When I found the hostess, she thanked me for the wine, seemed impressed with the label, and put her French-manicured hand on my bicep.
“And where is your handsome husband tonight?”
People always put handsome in front of husband when they were talking about Sam. “He’s coming. He was just stuck at work for a bit.”
She smiled, a press of her lips together, and then moved me over to the bar where her husband was mixing. “Tell James what you’d like, Joey, and he’ll make it for you.”
“Okay,” I said, not correcting her flub on my name because why would I?
He was talking to other people, not really focused on me, but he did ask what I wanted, and I had bourbon neat, because that way I could sip it and not need anything else. The last time I had some with Aaron and Duncan, I had good bourbon. Whatever Mr. Prentiss was pouring didn’t taste the same, but I took it and walked away, thinking I would just leave the glass by the door and wander right back out.
“He’s smoking again,” a woman whispered to the other two women standing with her. “He promised he wouldn’t and he is.”
“It’s just a party, Steph. I’m sure he won’t have any more than the one cigarette.”
“But he told me even if he drank, he wouldn’t smoke.”
“It’s just one,” the other woman chimed in. “You shouldn’t come to parties if you don’t want him to have any at all.”
Moving on, there were two men next to a window looking out in the backyard where a group of women were clustered next to one of the many heaters.
“She’s still sleeping with him.”
“No,” the taller man assured his buddy, hand on his shoulder. “You told me it was over two months ago.”