“Good ol’ Mom.” Tracy went back to the sandal and tried not to listen. Her mother’s phone calls were rare, and one that didn’t center on the past, most notably Tracy’s failed marriage to one CJ Craimer, was as priceless as an invitation to a Brad Pitt wedding. Unfortunately, Tracy could tell from her mother’s tone that nobody was going to pay good money for this.
“Mom, Mom,” she said, shaking her head as her mother’s volume increased. She tried to drown out the phone sermon with her own version. “‘How are you, Tracy? How’s life in Florida? Are you still enjoying your job? This place you’re living sounds charming, if primitive. But I can tell you’ve found good friends and a purpose to your life.’”
She paused, her imagination having run its course, since she had never experienced that kind of real-life conversation with her mother.
In the kitchen, her mother’s voice rose to hog-caller levels. “You know, this is all your fault,” Denise Deloche screeched. “If you hadn’t married CJ, everything he’s done, everything he is, wouldn’t matter to any of us!”
She must have been building to that, because the message ended. Tracy heard a dial tone, then the machine stopped recording.
After savoring the silence for a moment, Tracy filled it. “And how are you, Mom? Are you finding a smaller house easier to take care of, even if it’s not in Bel-Air? Have you thought about starting a book club or buying a bike? Maybe saving to come and visit me?”
Even if her mother had been listening, Tracy had no qualms about asking the last question. Denise Deloche was as likely to come to Florida as she was to start a soup kitchen on her sidewalk.
Since CJ had metamorphosed from the duke of developers to the king of convicts—taking Tracy’s parents’ substantial investments with him—Tracy had borne the brunt of their fury. Her father, who billed himself as “orthodontist to the stars,” claimed that because of her, he would be straightening teeth until he was eighty. His second wife insisted Tracy was no longer welcome in their home. Tracy’s mother was the friendliest of the three. At least she still spoke to her daughter, although mostly to berate her. The fact that Tracy had been clueless about CJ’s business dealings and lost almost everything herself, including her husband, mattered not at all.
She rose, sandals buckled in place, and smoothed her skirt over her thighs. Tonight nobody was going to bring her down. In the past year she had faced and accepted her own stupidity and unwitting culpability. She’d been young when she married CJ Craimer, blinded by the diamonds he tossed in her direction, trained to find character in the cut of a man’s suit and the country clubs he frequented. Besides, if CJ hadn’t chosen real estate investment to make his mark, he could have been a successful televangelist. Her ex was charismatic and persuasive. CJ could make a killing selling banana plantations in Antarctica, and probably had. Sometimes, when she looked back on the years of their marriage and all the things she knew about his profound abilities and limitless charm, the only thing that really surprised her was that he had gotten caught.
Caught, tried, convicted, incarcerated.
“Great!” Now, thanks to good old Mom, instead of thinking about Marsh Egan, the man she might be falling in love with, the man she might be falling into bed with in a few minutes, Tracy was thinking about her ex.
“Bloodsucking leech,” she said. She waited a moment to see if the description sent CJ’s image fleeing. “Washed-up thug.”
She shrugged and marched into the living room to fluff the sofa pillows and turn on one more lamp. As she fluffed, she gave herself a pep talk. “Now I’m thinking about Marsh. Goodbye old, hello new.”
She ran out of pillows and chitchat. In the kitchen, she opened the wine and checked on the Brie, which wasn’t quite finished, so she added a few minutes to the timer. The wine hadn’t been in the cheapest bin at Publix, but it was a far cry from anything CJ would have ordered from one of his favorite Napa Valley vineyards.
CJ!
She thumped the heel of her hand against her forehead, hoping to dislodge him. “Goodbye and good riddance, CJ. Hope the beans and weenies are yummy at Victorville. Maybe if you folded enough laundry today, they’ll let you have seconds.”
Why did she care if the wine had been on sale? Hadn’t she learned anything