Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Gwen

I sat at my desk, rapidly tapping my pencil against it. Thwack, thwack, thwack. I felt as if five thousand angry gnomes had set up residence inside my brain and were chattering away. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It didn’t help. I opened my eyes and tried once more to focus on my work. The loud blast of the TV thwarted any attempt.

“Jessica, can you please turn it down?” I pleaded, looking over at the slumped form of my fourteen year old daughter. I almost couldn’t distinguish her from the couch, so embedded in the cushions was she.  I twitched as a bratty child turning sixteen cussed out her mother for not buying her a 2010 Range Rover. My lovely child, however, ignored my request and continued to watch the sixteen year old to be create pure and utter havoc. How these parents didn’t simply eat their young, I’d never understand.

“Jessica! Turn it down now!” The gnomes in my brain had now invited all their friends and were proceeding to have one badass party, at my expense. The lump on the couch continued to ignore me. The pencil snapped in my hand. I threw the broken pieces onto the desk and stormed into the kitchen. The small space didn’t help my mood at all. I paced the tiny box, digging my nails into my palms. I ran my fingers through my short blonde hair, desperately wishing for a cigarette. Inhaling deeply I prayed for the strength not to go into the other room and murder my offspring.

The pounding in my head had begun to subside when the phone shrilled. I yanked the phone from the cradle and did my best to sound sweet.

“Hello?”

“Hey Darling, how are you? Look, I’m not gonna make it home for dinner. Boss just dumped a whole shit load of work in my lap, and frankly I don’t know when I’m gonna get out of here. So it’s you and Jessie for dinner.”

I shook my head, clenching my jaw until I feared my teeth would shatter. I should have known. Nothing would ever change. Why had I even expected him to be home? I wondered if the shit load of work had a name and a bust line.

“Jonathan, you promised.” Why was I even arguing? I knew it would do me no good. Pleading and begging had got me nothing in the last five years, so why did I think tonight would be any different?

Because he promised. Because he looked you in the eye and swore he would change.

I scowled at the tiny voice in my head, not even hearing Jonathan’s next excuse.

“Yeah, okay, fine. I’ll see you when I see you.”

I hung up the phone, staring at it. When had things turned to such shit? I had a sullen daughter, an absent husband and a whole lot of issues. Scrubbing my hands over my face I yanked open a drawer and pulled out a stack of take out menus.

“Jess, we’re on our own again. Do you want Mexican or Chinese?” I called as I made my way into the living room. I stopped in the entrance way, my eyes on her.

She looked up at me, her blue eyes baleful. My heart ached at the slump of her shoulders, the disappointment on her face.

“Where’s dad?”

“He just called. Boss man dumped another case on his desk. He’ll be getting a hotel tonight.” I moved into the room and sat beside her. My fingers itched to tuck her deep brown hair behind her ear. It’d been so long since she’d allowed me even that small motherly habit.

“But he’ll be here tomorrow, right?” Her eyes seemed to bore into my soul. My heart clenched and my throat closed up.

“Probably not, sweetie.”

“He promised! Tomorrow’s the play! He promised me he’d be there! Front row, center. That’s what he said!”

I swallowed a gasp as my heart broke. He could hurt me all he wanted, but I wished he would spare our daughter. I blinked back tears as I looked down at the menus in my hand.

“I know, baby. But his work is important-” I looked up as her slender form stood and strode from the room. I couldn’t help jumping when her bedroom door slammed shut.

“Damn it.”  Rising I threw the menus onto my desk and dropped into the chair. I swiveled back in forth, silently cussing the man I’d chosen. I lifted an eyebrow when my computer dinged at me. Wiggling the mouse I scanned the monitor.

A smile stretched my lips as my eyes landed on the name. I doubled clicked it and eagerly began typing in the message box.

LadyGwenever: Hey there, good looking. J

Jodibeans23: Hello. How are you?

I quickly told her what an asshole my husband was and how my daughter had locked herself in her room.  Before long I was laughing until my sides ached.

LadyGwenever: Damn, I love you girl. Always know how to make me smile. J

Jodibeans23: Same. I always find myself laughing with you.

I sat back in my chair, wondering at my luck at finding Jodi. She was like my other half. She completed me in ways I didn’t know I’d been missing. I chewed my lower lip, watching the small black line blinking, waiting for me to type my reply. I glanced at the framed picture of Jonathan, Jessica and I sitting on my desk. We didn’t laugh anymore. Hell, we were hardly a family anymore. Jonathan was never home, and when he was, he was locked up in the office working. We hadn’t even had sex in the past three months. I ignored the cold lining the pit of my stomach at that thought. No man could go that long without pleasure. And no woman could either, as I was rapidly finding out.

I blew out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and followed instinct.

Fuck it, my fingers flew over the keyboard as if in rapt anticipation of a response.

LadyGwenever: Let’s meet.

Chapter One

Chapter One

Jodi

I never thought my life would take me down this path.
You see the movies, a desperate housewife who does something drastic and winds up in this awkward situation - or dead.
I was one of those people, the ones who sat at home and watched those movies and laughed, secretly wondering to myself how someone could end up in that situation and yet here I was.
You're probably wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Sit back and listen as I tell you my story.

**********

My life started out as lives usually do. A mommy and a daddy fall in love and yada, yada, yada.
I grew up in a safe neighborhood with my older brother and younger sister. I married my high school sweet heart and had my own kids.
Husband grew older, grew boring. I was stuck at home with the kids. It was a good life when the kids were younger, but as they grew up and started school I found myself wandering around the house, bored silly with nothing to do.
That's when I discovered the internet.
It started innocently enough, a conversation in a chat room that led to all day conversations on an IM. Her name was Gwen; she lived in Columbia, in South Carolina. She was a mom, and a wife - bored like me.
We had a lot of things in common, we both loved to write and do the artsy craftsy thing. But more than that, we thought the same. As our relationship progressed we were able to answer each other's sentences and finish thoughts. It was weird, kind of like we were fated to meet and be together.
The first time I talked to Gwen, I had no idea what to talk about. I didn't know her, nor she I so I just sort of sat behind my computer, fingers awkwardly poised over the keyboard. Blaine kept me cooped in this house starved of adult conversation. I wanted to spill my guts to this woman, yet something held me back.
Lizzie and James came home from school that first afternoon, Lizze bubbling with excitement, James sullen.
I quickly told Gwen I had to go and logged off. I took the kids backpacks and ushered them to the kitchen table. Lizzie climbed into her seat and started babbling about her day at school.
James sat opposite her, twirling a pencil. He had his father's brooding dark eyes and elegant cheekbones. I rinsed an apple and asked James, "How was your day, sweetie?"
He scowled at me and cracked the pencil he'd been twirling in half. I swallowed hard and pulled a knife out of the block and started chopping the apple up. Sixth grade and ridiculously moody, most days I wanted to smack him as soon as he walked in the door. Now Lizzie, however, Lizzie was my sparkling ray of sunshine.
She too looked like her father, with his olive skin and dark eyes, but she was happy. Sort of like how I used to be before marriage and moody pre-pubescent son.
On the outside we were this happy, picture perfect family. Handsome, successful husband, two beautiful children and an AKC registered Black Lab.  We were the picture of perfection - on the outside.
I set the plate of apples on the table between James and Lizzie and took their Tuesday folders out of their backpacks. I handed them each their homework and sat down to look over the papers.
"Mrs. Kensington," a note inside James' folder began. "James has been acting out in class again..."
I stopped reading and shut the folder. What was the point anymore, nothing I did or said, or didn't do or say ever made an ounce of difference and I was tired of fighting him.
I set the folder aside and decided I wasn't going to deal with it. Blaine could handle it, I was done. I opened Lizzie's folder and smiled at the glowing reviews her teachers always put in her folder. I signed her sheet and pulled the papers out, satisfied that at least one of my children wasn't going to be a juvenile delinquent.
I left the kids at the table to work on their homework and started dinner.
That was my routine. I was so boring and so thoroughly so, you could set your watch by my routine.
Five forty-five, wake up; lie in bed for fifteen minutes wondering to self if this was really my life.
Six am, finally crawl out of bed, pee, shower, brush teeth.
Six thirty trudge, grudgingly, down the stairs, empty remains of Blaine's coffee, make my own, stare at news paper while waiting for first viable cup of coffee to brew, shake head at all the violence in the world, pour coffee.
Six forty-five begin daily struggle to wake James from his nightly coma.
Six fifty wake Lizzie; hear about her dreams, whether it be ponies or unicorns or whatever. Try to rouse James, again.
Seven thirty, breakfast and a second cup of coffee.
Put the kids on the bus at eight; spend four hours cleaning up the messes they made between three and eight thirty the night before. Figure out what to have for dinner, do laundry, fold laundry or put laundry away - or some combination of the three.
Somewhere in the course of all this I had to walk Mickey, the dog, and clean up his crap out of the backyard.
I passed through the computer room four times in an hour, each time the instant messenger service called my name, whispering for me to log on for just a few minutes.
The last time I went in, I fought the urge, stood there staring at the humming computer wondering what it would hurt. Deciding the world wouldn't end if the laundry waited just one day, I sat down and typed in my screen name. It wasn't very original, or eye catching.
I checked my email, replying to an email from my sister asking me when we were coming to visit. A box popped up.
I quickly glanced at it and smiled. "Hi Gwen," I said as I typed and returned to my email.
She replied almost immediately. Hi, how are you this morning?
I shrugged and stifled a chuckle. Okay. Did some housework after the kids went to school. How are you?
A smiley face appeared. Then she typed, the same. Husband is on a business trip, left me with kids for the week.
I smiled sympathetically at the computer, and typed, Sorry to hear that.
And so it went. I would do a dismal amount of house work then hop on the computer as soon as I could and talk to Gwen until the kids came home.
As the summer approached we were on the computer talking to each other from the time our kids got on the bus until the kids got home, then again after they went to bed.
At first Blaine didn't seem to notice. I think he was glad for the distraction. He no longer had me hounding him to sit and watch this show or that show with me. He came home from work one June afternoon with a sleek eggplant colored leather briefcase looking thing.
"What's that?" I asked, eyeing the slim case.
Blaine smiled like the brightest and only boy in the class that had the correct answer. "It's for you," he said pushing the case across the kitchen counter.
"Open it," he said slyly.
I hated the stupid mysterious game. I sighed and wiped my hands on a dish towel and pulled open the case. Inside was a sleek black laptop.
"What's this for?" I asked pulling the computer out of the bag.
"Well I thought you could use it. I noticed you were writing again and thought you might like to have something of your own to work on."
I smiled and leaned forward, careful not to get sauce on him, and kissed him. "Thank you, it's wonderful. I appreciate the gift."
He smiled and loosened his tie. Two things would happen next. If you thought I was predictable Blaine was worse. As expected, he loosened his tie and said, "How much longer till dinner?"
I made the show of glancing at the clock above the stove even though I knew well enough that dinner would be done by six pm, as it was every night. Instead of telling to cut the crap, that dinner would be on the table the same time it had been for the last fifteen years, I smiled sweetly and said, "fifteen minutes."
Next, he would walk around to the opposite side of the ridiculously large kitchen, take a glass tumbler out of the cabinet and pour two fingers of scotch into the glass. He did as expected and then meandered out of the kitchen.
I leaned down and pulled the homemade chicken parmesan out of the over and set the pan on the counter.
I was so tired of this mundane routine. I wanted something new and exciting. I wanted an adventure, and a tiny part of me wanted to take Gwen's offer and drive to South Carolina to meet up with her for a weekend.
But I knew I couldn't so I shoved the fantasy away, locking it back in its box to take out and play with on a rainy day. I sighed and carried the bowl of salad to the table, then went back for the chicken and the pasta.
I set them down on the table and stared out the window at Mickey who was digging a hole under my azalea bushes. God damn dog had a death wish and I was envious.