"Show me," she said, holding out a hand.
He reached into one of the bags, but before handing anything over, he asked, "Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"There's good news?" she asked, amazed.
He pulled out two tabloids and handed them to her. The headline on top read: WHERE ARE LANCE AND JULIA?
Lance pulled an apple from one of the bags, rubbed it on his sleeve, and took a bite. A small trickle of juice ran from the corner of his mouth as he spoke and gestured toward the paper with the forbidden fruit. "They don't have a clue where we are. Evidently, we've been spotted around the globe. That one says Barbados." A sly grin slid onto his lips as he licked juice from the corner of his mouth. "I think we've lost them."
The relief almost knocked Julia off her feet. A sudden whoosh of air swept into her lungs. Freedom, she wanted to sing as she ran barefoot through Easter lilies. She wanted to recreate entire numbers from Grease. She was an Old Navy commercial just looking for a place to happen.
As the apple core hit the bottom of the trash can, the thunk drew her out of her daydream. Lance's hand reached back into his bag, and Julia remembered that there was more to the story. "The bad news is . . . well . . . we're still news."
Chapter Twelve
WAY # 21: Shop smart to meet your needs.
List-making and careful budgeting will help you keep everyday living expenses in check. But don't allow yourself to fall into the ruts of routine. Try one new product from your grocery store every month. Variety is the spice of life.
—from 701 Ways to Cheat at Solitaire
It never ceased to amaze Julia what strangers will do in a woman's kitchen. During the remodel, Julia had complained that they were making the room too large. I don't want to run a marathon every time I need something from the freezer, she remembered saying. But Nina had cocked her head and said, "Kitchens are the new living rooms," and insisted on the additional space. Now, with Lance continually under foot, Julia was starting to believe Nina was a genius.
Watching him, she knew he probably wouldn't dare rearrange her underwear drawer, but here he was, trying to wedge a gallon of milk into the Diet Coke shelf of the refrigerator door.
"That doesn't go there," she said, trying to remember if there had ever been an entire gallon of milk in her refrigerator. She was pretty sure there hadn't. "That's going to go bad, you know," she couldn't stop herself from saying. "I can't use a whole gallon of milk before it goes bad."
"Maybe you can't," Lance said, "but we can."
The "we" hit her hard. She scanned the kitchen island where he'd emptied the bags and saw white bread, guacamole, and full-calorie pop—all three signs of the apocalypse. Then came the straw that broke the camel's back: the plastic monstrosity in Lance's hands was whole milk.
"Whole milk!" Julia said, appalled. When Lance looked at her, she threw her hands to Heaven and said, "Skim!" Then she got out of the kitchen.
In the living room later in the day, things only got worse.
One television set plus two virtual strangers must be a recipe for disaster, Julia thought, realizing she should probably write down that pearl of wisdom—it would make a great chapter for a book someday. As Lance zoomed through seventy-five channels at Olympic-record pace, she thought she could now understand a little of what married women go through. His underwear hadn't appeared on the bathroom floor yet, but one could only assume it was just a matter of time.
That's assuming he wears underwear, her inner Nina chimed, so Julia went outside to take a head-clearing walk.
When she came back, Lance had settled on a station. It was ESPN Classic. Where is the suspense in watching something that happened twenty years ago? When he said, "I remember this game!" it took every ounce of her restraint not to say, "Then why do you need to watch it again?"
Instead, Julia settled herself in the comfy chair and picked up a book. She consoled herself by realizing that at least when he was watching TV, he wasn't walking around on her creaky floorboards, making more noise than a marching band, disturbing the blessed stillness of her quiet house. Even on the couch, however, he still managed to shatter her peace with the perpetual shaking of ice cubes in his glass of Coke. Full-calorie Coke. Julia winced and Lance asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I'm just not used to other people's noise."
He looked at her as though she'd just told him she kept a UFO in the basement, then went right back to cheering for a team he already knew was going to lose.
She shivered and began to regret telling him where to find the thermostat. Sun streamed through the windows, and outside it had to be near eighty, yet the house was a brisk sixty-nine. She wanted her chenille afghan, but it was beneath his beefy leg.
"You've got to watch this shot," he said as he held the remote control like a magic wand that he could use to manipulate the players. "Wait, it's coming up," he said. "It's coming . . . it's ..."
The doorbell rang, so Julia had to miss whatever play had happened so many years before. She went to the door and looked through the peephole, thinking it would be Nina or Caroline.
"Yoo-hoo!"
Miss Georgia's drawl was like sugar dissolving in tea. "Anybody home?"
With one eye glued to the peephole, the surrealness of her life was starting to seep in. There was a man spread across the couch behind her and a porch full of Georgias in front of her. Julia had never felt so trapped. The doorbell rang again and she felt Lance come to stand behind her. "Press?" he asked.