“I did, sweetheart. I’m okay.”
Jason came up and kissed her on the cheek. “That sucks,” he said, the identical sentiment expressed by Bea earlier in the day. Unfortunately, Bea’s and Jason’s vocabulary rules weren’t identical. Ginger was trying to teach Jason how to behave like a gentleman, while Bea had long ago stopped caring about the rules of polite society.
Ginger sighed. “Jason, how many times have I told you not to use that word in the house?”
“Sorry, Mom.” Jason flashed a charming smile eerily similar to Larry’s. “You getting fired really blows.”
Ginger raised an eyebrow, watching her sons stampede past her to get to the kitchen. Doors to the cabinets and the refrigerator were thrown open, and the makings of an afternoon snack began to pile up on the table—tortilla chips, leftover mashed potatoes, Oreos, roast beef, and kaiser rolls. Ginger was grateful for Larry’s generous child support payments, if only because it cost a small fortune to keep the boys supplied with carbohydrates.
“Keep in mind we’ll be eating dinner in less than two hours,” she told them.
“Awesome,” Jason said, his cheeks puffed out with the contents of his sandwich. “I’ll be starving by then.”
“Hey, you got a minute?” Larry hadn’t fully entered the kitchen, but lingered in the foyer, looking sheepish. It had always fascinated Ginger how, after that night he got caught with his pants down, he’d instinctively stopped treating this house as his home. He’d left that night with a duffel bag, and hadn’t slept here since.
“Sure, Larry.” Ginger followed him into the living room. He took a seat in an armchair and she curled up on the sofa. It felt awkward to be with him here, in the living room they’d painstakingly furnished and decorated together, in a house they’d had custom-designed with every comfort and personal preference in mind.
It had always struck Ginger as odd how Larry turned around and bought a house just two blocks away, in the same development, and had it decorated in an almost identical fashion. Whatever made him happy, she supposed. And it certainly made it convenient for the boys, who split their time equally between their parents.
“So what are your plans?” he asked, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands in front of him. He was sporting an unfamiliar platinum pinkie ring. “How is this going to affect our calendar?”
Ginger paused a moment, smiling at him sweetly. “Gee,” she said. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at, Larry.”
“Well, it’s just that, you know…” Larry’s pale blue eyes twitched nervously toward the kitchen, where they could hear the boys arguing and laughing—with their mouths full. “My plans. My schedule. How’s this going to affect all that?”
She knew it! She knew he was going to go there! Ginger had just been fired from the only job she’d ever had—her world in turmoil—and Larry was worried how it might affect his freedom to shag every coed on campus. If only University Hospital’s administrators knew how their chief of urology whiled away his free time.
“It’s just that, you know, I’m planning on going away to Maui next week, remember? And I wanted to make sure any new job wouldn’t, you know, conflict with my plans.”
Ginger maintained her vacant smile as she put all of this in its proper perspective. Back in the day, during his first trip through adolescence, Larry Garrison had been a California fraternity hottie with a .359 batting average, a 130 IQ, and an unholy hankering for pretty girls. That’s the man Ginger fell in love with. She knew what she was getting—a top-shelf guy who was a little on the selfish side. And today, deep in the quagmire of his second adolescence, Larry was a handsome and highly respected doctor with the same unholy hankering for the prettiest girls. And an ego that had swelled to the size of the North American landmass.
“I mean, have you thought about what kind of work you might do? What your hours might be?” Larry flashed her one of his toothy grins. “The boys are old enough to take care of themselves for the most part, obviously, but we will still need to make sure all the bases are covered.”
Ginger sighed deeply, once again awed by her ex-husband’s self-centered stupidity. HeatherLynn took that as her cue and toddled into the living room. Without a glance at Larry, she hopped into Ginger’s lap, circled around a few times, then curled up in a ball. Larry frowned when he realized he’d just been dissed by his prized bichon.
Ginger stroked the dog’s poofy white fur, immediately feeling her blood pressure reset to normal. It was as if her little dog knew exactly when she needed backup.
Ginger looked at her ex-husband and smiled. “You know what, Larry?”
“What?” He perked up.
“You’re an ass.”
Larry’s hands rose in surrender, a stunned look on his face. “Was that really necessary?” he asked, his cheeks reddening.
She sighed. “I’m afraid it was, and I’ll tell you why.” Ginger adjusted HeatherLynn and tucked her feet up under her, getting comfortable. “My career crashed and burned at about nine this morning, and it’s not quite four in the afternoon, so it would be impossible to know how my new job might impact your social calendar, because I don’t yet have a new job, you pompous douche bag.”
Larry said nothing.
“Furthermore, our divorce agreement says that I have up to six months to find another job should I lose my current one, and, in the meantime, you have to increase alimony to replace my salary.”
“What!” Larry stood up as if someone had stuck a pin in his butt cheek. “You’re crazy.”
“No, but as you know, I have an extremely good lawyer,” she said, smiling again. Ginger had anticipated this. So she placed HeatherLynn on the sofa cushion and walked to the dining room table, where she’d left a file folder. She returned, opening the file to a copy of the settlement agreement. She’d already circled the pertinent paragraph with a yellow highlighter.
“Fuck.” Larry slowly collapsed into the chair, running a hand nervously through his thick hair. Ginger watched him scan the pages, thinking that he was a lucky guy. What with all the other requirements of Larry’s midlife crisis—the new sports cars, the too-young wardrobe, the spray tans, the hours in the gym—at least he’d never need a hair transplant. “I don’t know how I’m going to swing this, babe,” he said, shaking his head.
Ginger’s toes curled. Why he continued to call her “babe” was anyone’s guess. Ginger guessed it was because he’d forgotten her name. “I’m sure you’ll manage,” she said.
He peered up from the document. “Aren’t you getting some kind of severance pay or something?”
“Yes,” Ginger said. “I get a month’s salary, which I will put into the college savings plan. If you look on page three, you’ll see that your alimony goes up despite any severance.”
Larry tossed the file to the carpet in disgust. “You just love busting my balls every chance you get, don’t you?” He let out a nasty laugh, scanning her face with fake concern. “You want to know what I think?”
“No, but I’m going to hear it anyway.”
“I think you’re going to use your severance for that little nip and tuck you’ve been putting off, which would be a wise move. It’s definitely time, babe.”
Ginger’s spine stiffened. Larry knew exactly where her buttons were, because the ones she hadn’t inherited from her mother were installed by Larry’s skilled hands. Throughout their marriage, Larry would imply that if Ginger didn’t maintain her beauty she’d only have herself to blame if he strayed. Seventeen years of that crap had done nothing but deepen the crow’s-feet around her eyes and the frown lines on her forehead. And the loneliness in her heart. Everyone else in her life—her friends, coworkers both male and female, her sons—they all told her she was gorgeous. Strangers in the produce section would stop and ask for her autograph, mistaking her for a celebrity. Everyone in her life knew she’d gotten her nickname as a teenager because of her striking resemblance to the glamorous Ginger on the vintage TV sitcom
Gilligan’s Island.
And hadn’t Lucio called her bonita, which was Spanish for “pretty”?
Suddenly, Ginger felt dizzy. Just the thought of Lucio made her skin tingle and her breath come quicker. How awkward! She was staring into the smirk of her ex-husband, yet she had to press her knees together with the thought of her sexual panther man. Oh, how Lucio had touched her! How he’d kissed her’every-flippin’-where.
Larry laughed. “Well, well. Looks like I hit a nerve.” He swaggered through the living room to the front door and Ginger followed him, still in a daze. She’d have to remember to never’ever ’think of Lucio while behind the wheel of a car.
“You leavin’, Dad?”
Jason made his way into the foyer, a wad of Oreos in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. “We still goin’ to the driving range this weekend?”
Larry suddenly looked nervous. “Uh…”
Ginger’s heart sank to her feet. He was doing it again, despite his promise. He said he’d never again break a date with the boys, yet he was about to do it anyway! The worst part was that his excuses were often a lie. He’d tell them something had come up at work, and the boys would accept that, since they’d grown up with an absentee doctor as a father. But Ginger knew better. She knew Larry often traded the company of his boys for that of his latest barely legal girl.
“Sure, sure,” Larry said, patting Jason on the back. “We’ll touch base later this week. Say good-bye to your brother for me.”
Jason grimaced. “Whatever,” he said, shoving another Oreo into his mouth as he turned back to the kitchen.
“Larry—”
He cut her off. “I know. I know. I’ll just have to do some juggling, is all. I’ll make it work.”
Ginger’s whole body vibrated with anger. “Make it work? They’re your sons!” Her voice had become high and squeaky, but she didn’t care. “They are supposed to come first! All that other stuff is what you have to make work—not your own damn children!”
“Right. Of course.”
Ginger lowered her voice to a seething whisper. “You’re damaging your sons, Larry, and you’d better get yourself together or you’re going to lose them, do you hear me?”
Larry shook his head as if he felt sorry for her. “What I hear is the menopause train coming down the track. Woo, woo! ” Larry pulled his fist through the air a couple times, then laughed at his own cleverness. “Listen, babe, would you like me to write you a prescription? Something to take the edge off?”
Ginger moved a step closer to him, refusing to take his bait. “This is not about me. It’s about Jason and Joshua.”
Larry chuckled. “Josh is at the head of his class. A total Goody Two-shoes well on his way to being president of the United States, for fuck’s sake! And Jason is a good kid. He’s just got a bit of a wild streak, is all.” Larry grinned. “It’s perfectly normal.”
Suddenly, HeatherLynn came around the living room archway like a demonic cotton ball, ears flying back, a menacing growl gurgling up from her throat, tiny little fangs exposed. Ginger was shocked—she couldn’t remember ever hearing her sweet little girl actually growl. Maybe they’d been spending too much time with Roxie and Lilith.
Before Ginger could stop her, HeatherLynn leaped from the Mexican tile and nipped Larry right in the crotch. He screeched, more in surprise than pain. Then, just as quickly, the dog skittered back to the living room and dove under the couch.
Ginger’s hand flew to her mouth in disbelief.
“That crazy little bitch!” Larry adjusted the zipper in his chinos and tried to brush away any dog hair that might be clinging to the spot of drool on the front of his pants. “I never really wanted her, anyway.”
Ginger choked on her laughter, the tears forming in her eyes. “And that’s why you spent twenty-five grand to fight me for her custody, right?”
Larry snarled. “Like everyone else around here, she’s become emotionally disturbed without me as head of household. I could report her to animal control as a vicious dog.”
Ginger laughed even harder.
“You think that’s funny, but the city could put her in quarantine.”
Still laughing, Ginger reached around her “was band” and opened the front door. “I’ll drop a note to my lawyer about the alimony adjustment,” she told him.
“Dogs like that can be put down.”
“Good night, Larry.” She turned him around and pointed him in the direction of his shiny new Porsche. “Too bad you can’t stay for lasagna.”
“How many days till they’re home?” Bea tapped her thigh with Martina’s leather leash as she watched her dog tussle with a pair of poodles.
“They fly in late Monday night,” Roxie said.
“I can pick them up,” Bea offered brightly.
Ginger smiled at her friends. She missed Josie, too. For the weeks Josie and Rick were on their honeymoon, the group had been getting together at six A.M. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—just as they had for three years now—but it wasn’t the same without Josie and Genghis, her gregarious Labradoodle. The pair always made them laugh. Their mornings in the dog park lacked a kind of joy without them, Ginger decided.
“Teeny is picking them up,” Roxie told Bea, which made perfect sense, Ginger thought. Teeny was Rick’s best friend and business partner, and he’d been entrusted with Genghis and Rick’s two other dogs while the couple was out of the country. The last time they’d talked to Teeny, he sounded exhausted. He was probably counting the hours.
“Cool,” Bea said. “I sure miss her.”
“God, so do I,” Roxanne said, sighing. As close as the four women were, it was understood that Roxanne and Josie were best friends. They weren’t far apart in age—Roxanne twenty-eight and Josie thirty-five—and they’d instantly clicked when they’d met at the paper on Roxanne’s first day, six years ago now. By comparison, Bea and Ginger were recent add-ons. The four of them had met in the newspaper’s break room and discovered they all had something in common—their love of dogs. That next day, they started their dog-walking group. It had been going strong ever since, through several nasty breakups, a divorce, job loss, family crises, and the death of Roxie’s beloved old collie.
Four months ago, they’d made a vow to give up on men entirely and find happiness in the company of their dogs. Ironically, that’s just when Josie met Rick. They were married three months later.
Ginger watched Roxie struggling with Lilith, a muddy-brown mutt who growled at every man and male dog to come her way. For months now, Roxie had been trying to “socialize” the rescue dog. So far, no luck.
“Have you made an appointment with that dog behaviorist yet?” Ginger asked Roxie. It was an innocent question, asked out of true interest for the well-being of Roxie and her dog, but her friend looked nervous.
“Why do you ask?” Roxie’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?”
Bea rolled her eyes at Ginger.
“Well,” Ginger said cautiously, “I just know Rick introduced you to the guy at the wedding. Rick had just hired him as part of Celestial Pet’s dog-training program, right?”
Roxie nodded. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Okay, so spill it,” Bea said, laughing. “You’re already dating the guy?”
“What?” Roxie looked horrified. “Of course not. I’m not dating anyone. Dating is not part of my business plan.”
Bea shrugged. “So have you started Lilith in his classes, or what?”
Everyone glanced down at the snarling Lilith, tugging desperately at the leash to get at a nearby dog, frothing at her muzzle the way she sometimes did.
“Guess not,” Bea said.
Roxie did a little back-and-forth thing with her neck, then turned her attention to Ginger. “And how about you? Did you get your portrait taken by that Rico Suave dude yet?”
Bea chuckled, but Ginger didn’t. It was happening again—the tingling, the weak legs, the flush of her chest, the smoldering low in her belly—all because the man w
as mentioned in passing. His actual name hadn’t even been uttered! Ginger needed to get a hold of herself. The sad truth was that he’d never called to cash in his rain check and probably never would. It had been over two weeks since she’d laid eyes on him—and he’d laid his tongue on her—but her physical reaction to him seemed to be intensifying instead of waning. She didn’t understand it.
“You okay?” Bea asked.
Ginger nodded. “Just another hot flash.”
Both Roxie and Bea groaned loudly. “Would you stop with that garbage already?” Bea asked. “Seriously, Ginger, you’re not going through menopause! Get it through your head!”
She nodded. In a soft voice she said, “Larry told me I needed a face-lift.”
Roxie closed her eyes as if she were in pain. Bea puffed up her cheeks with air.
“I know. I know. He’s a jerk, and he just tells me that to make me doubt myself.” Ginger looked at her friends, hoping they would know she meant what she said.
“Ginger, you’re damn lucky to have jettisoned that idiot,” Bea said. “He spent nearly twenty years dragging you down. You deserve so much more.”
Roxie touched Ginger’s hand. “You are one of the loveliest women I’ve ever known, and I’m not bullshitting you. Ginger, you are a truly beautiful woman.”
She nodded quickly, trying to hold back the tears.
Bea said, “Just please’please ’don’t tell me you’re going to use this as an excuse to make another Botox appointment.”
Ginger wiped her cheek. “Don’t be silly.”
“Thank God,” Roxie said.
“I canceled it yesterday.”
Ginger knew the whole thing was laughable. Since she’d found out that Larry had been cavorting with wrinkle-free girls, Ginger had been obsessed about her appearance—every fine line, every blotch, every pore. Her friends had watched as Ginger suddenly sprouted symptoms of menopause for which her doctors said there was no medical cause. They’d seen her make dozens of Botox appointments all over town, only to chicken out. Once, Ginger picked up a women’s magazine in the plastic surgeon’s waiting room and found an article that said research showed a possible link between Botox and brain tumors. She put the magazine down and walked out.