Sandwiched. Jennifer Archer

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      CHAPTER 1

      Cecilia Dupree

      Day Planner

      Saturday, 11/1

      1. Unpack Mother.

      2. Grocery store.

      3. Shop for Erin’s concert dress.

      Instead of filing for divorce, I should’ve buried Bert in the backyard, in the spot beneath the willow where our bulldog likes to pee.

      I realize my mistake on a Saturday morning while driving home from the Donut Hut. The sun shines bright in a lapis-blue sky; the autumn air is as sweet and crisp as my mother’s famous gingersnap cookies. It seems a shame to go back to the house so soon on such a gorgeous day, back to Mother and a bedroom full of boxes containing her things. So I decide, instead, to take a little drive.

      After rolling down the windows, I choose a chocolate long john from the doughnut sack then proceed to lick off the icing. Which might give you a fairly clear idea of what’s lurking at the back of my mind, though I have a difficult time admitting, even to myself, why nibbling the pastry gives me such an inordinate amount of pleasure. I pretend I’m only attempting to satisfy my sweet tooth but, after more than six months of sleeping alone, deep down I know better.

      Since the separation, I’ve spent my days and nights trying to keep up with my teenaged daughter, checking on my widowed mother, putting in long hours at a demanding child-and-family counseling practice. No time exists for sex; at least that’s what I tell myself. So I avoid anything and everything that might remind me of what I’m missing.

      It isn’t easy.

      In case you haven’t noticed, sex is everywhere these days. Television. Movies. Books. Doughnut sacks. Even my late Friday and Saturday nights of safe, celibate solitaire have turned traitor on me. After a couple of months alone with the card deck, the King of Hearts has started to look appealing; I’d swear he has a frisky gleam in his eye.

      But back to Bert and why I should’ve buried him.

      Somehow or another, I wind up on his street this Saturday morning. And just in time to see him step onto the front porch of his condo with a young, buxom redhead attached to his side. The girl doesn’t look much older than our daughter Erin, the only worthwhile thing Bert ever gave me during our nineteen years of marriage.

      It’s the kiss that does me in. I can’t tear my attention away from their passionate lip-lock, from Bert’s hands kneading and caressing that tight, round, voluptuous butt. Because of that kiss, I don’t see the curve in the road. I hit the curb, run up onto the sidewalk, jerk to a screeching halt only inches from a mailbox in front of the condo across the street from Bert’s.

      That forces my attention away from the kiss. Bert’s too, apparently, because before I can catch my breath, he’s beside my window, looking down at me with the smug, disdainful sneer I know so well.

      Swallowing a creamy bite of pastry that, luckily, I didn’t choke on, I meet his gaze and attempt to act as if nothing is at all unusual about my minivan, aka “the grocery getter,” being parked on his neighbor’s walk. “Hello, Bert.”

      “Cecilia.” His eyes shift to my lap where the prior object of my desire now sits in a smear of chocolate, soiling my gray, baggy sweats.

      Bert, I notice, wears boxers. No shirt. His feet are bare. He’s lost weight and bulked up since the last time I saw him barelegged and bare-chested. Muscles bulge I never knew existed. My once soft and pudgy soon-to-be ex looks buff and disgustingly great, which only makes me wish all the more that I’d chopped him up into little pieces and planted him beneath the willow tree. Maxwell, our bulldog, would’ve loved me for it. The dog never cared much for Bert. I imagine he’d take great pleasure in a daily tinkle over the remains of the guy who called him “girly-dog” and once kicked him for eating out of the trashcan.

      When I realize Bert sees me sizing up his pecs, I shift my attention to beyond his shoulder where a little red convertible backs out of his drive. “How upstanding of you to volunteer to teach the Girl Scouts mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

      Bert doesn’t even flinch. I guess nothing embarrasses him anymore after being caught by me in the arms of Tanya Butterfield, our neighbor’s twenty-one-year old daughter.

      “You’re looking good,” he says, eyeing my sleep-mussed hair and the pimple on my chin, compliments of my frequent flirtation with chocolate. I always thought blemish-free skin would be one of the few perks of perimenopause. I thought wrong. This morning, I left for the Donut Hut straight out of bed and didn’t bother to use a comb or wash my face, much less put on makeup to cover the zit.

      Bert sweeps a finger across the side of my mouth and comes away with a glob of icing. “I see you gave up on your diet.”

      Before I can think СКАЧАТЬ