Love, Suburban Style Read online

“No,” he says firmly.

  “But—”

  “Katie,” Meg cuts in, and feels Sam’s wary gaze immediately on her. “You need to listen to your dad. You don’t want to break a family tradition, do you?”

  “No,” she says in a small, disappointed voice. “I guess I don’t.”

  She halfheartedly cuts off a piece of pancake with the edge of her fork and thrusts it into her mouth, chewing glumly.

  Meg sneaks a peek at Sam.

  Their eyes crash into each other, and her heart skips a beat. There’s a whole new layer now to what she was feeling for him before. The attraction isn’t just physical anymore. It’s emotional.

  There was a time, not so long ago, when Meg would have found that to be reason enough to stay.

  But not anymore.

  Now, it’s reason enough to walk away.

  She pushes back her chair.

  “Come on, Cosette,” she says, and for the first time her daughter tears herself away from Ben’s eyes, looking startled.

  “What?”

  “It’s time to go home.”

  Cosette is about to protest, but seeing the look on her mother’s face, she mercifully doesn’t.

  “Thank you for everything, Sam,” Meg says, as they step out into the muggy August morning.

  “You’re welcome. Good luck.”

  It must be ninety degrees out, Meg notes, hearing him close his front door firmly as she and Cosette make their way toward home, but as far as she’s concerned, the heat wave—hers and Sam’s—has already broken.

  Chapter

  12

  Meg wakes up Saturday morning to see rain pouring down the bedroom windowpane.

  She climbs off the mattress that was delivered yesterday afternoon—still no bed frame, but this is luxury compared to the hard floor—and looks out. What a dismal day.

  She reaches over to turn on a lamp to dispel the gloom, then waits for it to flicker out again. That happened a few times yesterday, in various rooms in the house.

  Either the ghost has been up to new tricks, or there’s a problem with the wiring.

  Meg decided to go with the wiring.

  This time, the light stays on. Good.

  She’s determined not to experience another haunting episode like the one that sent her straight into Sam Rooney’s arms the other night.

  To her relief, there have been no further incidents.

  After what happened, she expected Cosette to put up a fuss about staying here, but she hasn’t. In fact, she’s been almost docile the last day or so. She was particularly happy to get her computer set up on a makeshift desk in her room, and has been spending her spare time in there, apparently surfing the Net and reading. She said she wants to get caught up on the summer book list she picked up from the library back in New York in June. She spent a lot of time there these last few months, with little else to do.

  Meg was thinking she might be bored enough at this point that she won’t complain about going to soccer practice today, but there’s absolutely no way in hell that she’s going to have it in this weather anyway.

  She says as much—without the “in hell” part—when she pads barefoot into the kitchen to find her daughter standing by the counter wearing jeans and a T-shirt. The shirt is black, but the jeans are not. It’s an old, faded pair Cosette hasn’t worn in at least a year.

  Meg bites back a comment about the attire, knowing better than to call attention to her daughter’s welcome addition of color, even if it is just denim.

  “Yeah, I already know, practice is canceled.” Cosette peers into the toaster, waiting for it to pop.

  “Officially?”

  Cosette nods.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Sam told me.”

  Meg’s heart skids into a brick wall at the mention of his name.

  She’s successfully avoided hearing and saying it, not to mention seeing him, since she left his house after the pancake breakfast.

  “When did you see Sam?” she asks, trying to sound casual.

  “He was up walking the dog when I went for a run with Ben this morning,” Cosette says, just as casually.

  Meg’s jaw drops at this bombshell.

  The “run” part is surprising enough. Cosette hasn’t shown any interest in athletic pursuits in ages.

  But… Ben?

  That’s the real shocker.

  As far as she knew, Cosette hasn’t had any more contact with Ben than she herself has with Sam. She half expected to see Cosette mooning around, looking for him. When it didn’t happen, she chalked up both her daughter’s romantic interlude and her own as getting caught up in the heat of the moment. When the moment was over, so was the heat—or so she believed.

  So much for Meg’s intuitive skills.

  “I didn’t know you went for a run with Ben,” she says as the toast pops up.

  “How would you?”

  “I’d know if you told me. I guess you didn’t want me to know.”

  “I guess I didn’t. Ow!” Cosette burns her fingers. “Where are those wooden toaster tongs?”

  “Wherever the alarm clock, the raincoats, and my Tony Award are.”

  “You mean still lost in some box somewhere?”

  Meg nods. “And we’re going to need that stuff.”

  “The Tony Award?”

  “Especially that,” she says ruefully.

  Olympia and Sophie are coming here on Monday afternoon for Sophie’s first voice lesson, and Meg really wants to have the Tony sitting out on the mantel when they get here.

  Normally, she doesn’t flaunt it, and she frowns upon her fellow award-winners who make a big deal out of it. She hates that she feels as though she has something to prove, but she does with Olympia Flickinger.

  When the woman called yesterday to regally announce that she and Brad had agreed to allow Meg to give Sophie a trial lesson, Meg wanted to say, “Don’t do me any favors.”

  She managed instead to say graciously, “I’m so glad. I’ll look forward to working with her.”

  She desperately needs the money. The handyman she found in the PennySaver will be charging her a fortune, but at least he’s available to come next weekend, which is late, but better than not at all. The first six handymen she called weren’t free until mid-to-late September.

  Apparently, the home improvement industry is thriving in northern Westchester County. Surprise, surprise.

  Anyway, Meg figures it can’t hurt to display her coveted Tony and show Olympia Flickinger that she’s more than qualified to teach voice to a thirteen-year-old aspiring diva. Especially at the astronomical rate she’s charging.

  When Olympia—after proving herself to be the most high maintenance potential client imaginable—asked about Meg’s hourly rate, she more than doubled the one the handyman had just quoted, hoping to scare her off.

  Alas, Olympia didn’t bat an eye, and even offered to pay for the first session in advance, to secure a spot. An hour after she left, two of her friends called to inquire about Meg taking on their children. So things are looking promising.

  But if somehow the voice lessons don’t bring in enough cash, I can always become a handyman, she decides. That, or learn a trade. Plumbers and electricians are also in high demand around here. She can’t get anyone to come take a look at the leaky pipes or faulty electrical outlets until after the weekend.

  “So should we go shopping today?” she asks Cosette.

  “Definitely,” is the swift reply, catching her off guard. “Let’s go to the mall down in White Plains.”

  “Great.” Meg smiles.

  Just the two of them, mother and daughter, shopping for back-to-school clothes together.

  That’ll help take her mind off Sam.

  “Yeah, that sounds good,” Sam tells Ben across the breakfast table, thinking a trip to the mall will at least get him out of here and help to take his mind off Meg.

  He can’t help but think about her every time he sees her house. Or the couch
where he made love to her. Or his bed, where she slept. Or a bottle of beer, or a remote control, or any number of ordinary household items that now remind him of her.

  “And afterward, we’ll go to Cheesecake Factory, right, Dad?” Katie pipes up around a mouthful of Cap’n Crunch.

  “Of course. It’s a tradition.” He smiles weakly.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have made such a fuss about her going with Meg instead of him. He couldn’t help but feel a little ridiculous about it afterward.

  He’s pretty sure nobody—least of all Meg—bought his story about enjoying those yearly back-to-school shopping trips with Katie.

  The truth is, he dreads them.

  Not just because it’s no fun to sit, bored, in the department store man-chairs while his daughter spends hours in dressing rooms.

  It isn’t fun.

  But shopping for clothes for their daughter without Sheryl is a torturous reminder of what Katie is missing. He has to watch other moms and daughters parade past in pairs and threesomes, sometimes laughing and chatting, sometimes arguing, but always together.

  Katie is alone.

  Not alone… she has you and Ben, he reminds himself.

  But what do they know about dresses and shoes, proms and weddings? All those milestones in Katie’s motherless future loom before Sam every time he sets foot in a mall with his daughter. Things other parents look forward to, he dreads.

  It isn’t fair.

  But that’s the way it is. He has to accept it.

  And you have, he points out stoically. He rarely allows himself to wallow.

  He won’t today.

  But enjoy it?

  That’s not going to happen.

  Every man, woman, and child in suburban New York is at The Westchester on Saturday at high noon.

  At least, that’s what it feels like to Meg.

  It’s a rainy Labor Day weekend, so she should have realized that the upscale, elegant mall would be jammed with back-to-school shoppers. It wasn’t this crowded when they were here the other day to order the furniture from Crate & Barrel.

  “Let’s just valet park,” Cosette suggests on their third fruitless journey through the packed parking garage.

  “Valet park?” Meg echoes incredulously, and her daughter points to an elegant Scarsdale-type matron emerging from her white Lexus sedan and handing over the keys to a uniformed attendant.

  “I don’t think so,” Meg mutters, steering the Hyundai in the opposite direction. “This is crazy. Maybe we should just go home.”

  “No!” Cosette’s tone is so forceful that Meg nearly hits the brakes.

  “Since when are you so into shopping with me?” she asks.

  “Since I don’t have anyone else to shop with,” is the prompt reply.

  Oh.

  “You’ll make some friends as soon as school starts Wednesday,” Meg assures her. She adds, fishing, “Anyway, you already know Ben.”

  “Yeah.”

  No new info gleaned from that comment.

  But Cosette did admit to jogging with him, but insisted he was just a friend. She wasn’t very convincing.

  Meg has been wondering just what her daughter has been up to when she’s behind the closed door of her bedroom. She has her cell phone, and she also has her computer, with dial-up Internet access, thanks to the phones being turned on. For all Meg knows at this point, Cosette has been in constant contact with Ben Rooney since she kissed him.

  But if she has, she’s not letting on. What can Meg do besides snoop? And snooping isn’t her style.

  “Mom! Hurry!” Seizing her arm, Cosette gestures at a Chevy Tahoe vacating a spot a few feet away.

  Meg flips on her turn signal and prepares to pull in when it pulls out, but a Mercedes SUV appears out of nowhere and slips into it first.

  “Hey!” Meg shouts out the window in frustration.

  “Mom!”

  “That person just stole my spot.” Steaming, Meg watches a pair of Fancy Moms emerge from the Mercedes, clutching designer handbags and effortlessly unfolding designer strollers for their designer-dressed toddlers.

  “We need to go,” Meg decides abruptly. “Let’s go down to the city and shop on West Broadway instead.”

  “No! Come on, Mom, you hate driving in traffic in the rain.”

  True.

  But she also hates mingling with self-centered, arrogant women, and the mall promises to be filled with them today.

  “Cosette, I don’t see how we’re going to shop here if we can’t even find a parking—”

  “There!” Cosette indicates a Volvo station wagon pulling out of a spot just yards from them. She reaches over and flicks on Meg’s turn signal. “Get in there, Mom. Hurry.”

  Meg spots a shiny black sedan coming around the corner in the opposite direction. Seeing the Volvo pulling out, the driver brakes. Puts on her turn signal.

  “She’s going to steal your spot, Mom!”

  “No, she isn’t!” Meg guns the engine and screeches the car forward, just barely missing the exiting station wagon as she swerves in triumphantly.

  Take that, you… you Fancy Mom, she wants to shake her fist and shout.

  “Next time,” Cosette says, as they head toward the elevator, “We’ll valet park.”

  Over my dead body, Meg thinks.

  There was no valet parking at malls when Meg was a kid. In fact, this particular mall wasn’t even here when Meg was a kid. Her parents took her to Caldor for her back-to-school wardrobe, where they could pick up school supplies and lunch box snacks as well, all under one roof.

  Under the towering, skylighted ceiling at The West-chester are tony stores one finds on Fifth and Madison Avenues in Manhattan: Coach, Tiffany, Gucci… there’s even an Elizabeth Arden spa. Elegant white pillars line the marble-floored and carpeted corridors, which are filled with natural light, unlike most malls. Sculptures, fountains, and lush greenery are tucked along with designer boutiques.

  No lunch box snacks here, Meg thinks with regret as she and her daughter survey the directory on the main floor.

  “Wow, Mom. Ch-ching.” That’s Cosette’s verbal shorthand for a whole lot of cash…

  Which is what one definitely needs to shop here.

  Which we don’t have, Meg acknowledges.

  “Let’s go to the Gap,” Cosette suggests, to her relief.

  Okay, so far, so good. Maybe she’ll want to buy some regular jeans—blue jeans—and T-shirts. T-shirts in white and blue and gray.

  To Meg’s surprise, Cosette does just that. She picks up some more black jeans and black T-shirts, too… but Meg is so pleased by the unexpected addition of color to her wardrobe that she doesn’t protest.

  She’s also noticed that her daughter has gone a little lighter on the eye makeup today. It’s still there, and still black, but not quite as startlingly. And she’s tucked her long hair behind her ears for a change.

  She doesn’t look wholesome… not by a long shot.

  But she doesn’t look like Marilyn Manson, either.

  “You should get some new jeans, too, Mom,” Cosette suggests, checking her watch as they make their way toward the register.

  “I have plenty of pairs of jeans.”

  With a pointed downward glance, Cosette informs her, “Yours are cut wrong.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know… they’re not in style anymore.”

  “I just bought these last year.”

  “Exactly. Here, try these.” Cosette expertly plucks a pair from the nearest stack and thrusts them at her.

  “I thought we were ready to pay and get out of here.”

  “Yeah, but you should get some new jeans first.” She sneaks another peek at her watch. “Go ahead, Mom. I don’t mind waiting.”

  Meg glances dubiously at the jeans. “You didn’t even check the—”

  “Yes, I did. They’re a six. Exactly your size. Go ahead, try them. And if they fit, buy them. And get some other stuff, too.”

 
; Meg wants to protest. They’re shopping today to buy clothes for Cosette, not her.

  Then her gaze falls on a nearby woman. She’s fortyish, a married mom, with a pretty face and slender figure. But it’s her style that makes her eye-catching. Her sleek, well-cut clothes aren’t last season’s fashion, let alone last year’s.

  I am feeling a little frumpy, Meg decides.

  How ironic that in cosmopolitan New York City, she rarely felt that way. Mostly because she traveled in artistic circles there. You went to rehearsal in sweats, and so did everybody else. And nobody on the subway or in Hell’s Kitchen or the East Village gave your wardrobe a second glance.

  In Glenhaven Park, however, they do. Running to the A&P for milk and eggs and bread last night, Meg was very conscious of her no-frills shorts and tops and her no-makeup, no-manicure state… and so was everybody else in the store.

  I need to step it up a little, Meg thinks.

  Not, she adds defiantly, because I want to become one of them.

  No, it’s because she doesn’t want to call negative attention to herself, for Cosette’s sake and because you can’t launch a successful career if your clients don’t respect you. She wants to make a living teaching voice here in the suburbs—not just because she needs to supplement her alimony and child support checks, but because she could use the self-esteem boost after leaving behind her stage career.

  All right, then. It can’t hurt to try on the jeans.

  Anyway, it’s not as if this is Chanel. It’s the Gap, for Pete’s sake. She can buy something for herself here. It doesn’t mean she’s defected to Team Fancy Mom, at risk for becoming shallow and self-absorbed.

  Not just self-absorbed, but child-absorbed, too. Women like Olympia Flickinger don’t just dote, they obsess, micromanaging every detail of their children’s lives.

  I’ll never be like that, Meg thinks, and for the first time, she doesn’t lament Cosette’s foray into gothdom. At least I’ve given her the space to breathe, and experiment.

  She suspects that’s more than Sophie Flickinger will ever have.

  In the dressing room, she quickly sheds her old jeans and pulls on the new.

  Surveying herself in the mirror, she’s startled to find that she feels transformed. Not just outside—the jeans are lean and sexy—but inside as well.