Deadly Housewives Read online

  Now cradling her face in his hands, he grinned, said he adored her, and began to sing hideously off-key that sappy Paul Anka song “You’re Having My Baby.”

  Laughing, Annie stretched up on her toes and curled her arms around his neck. “And you, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Studly, are havin’ a vasectomy before me and your baby come home from the hospital.”

  Spring passed into summer with little outward change, aside from Annie’s circumference. Or so it seemed; her mother-in-law as yet unaware that the novice had exceeded the master’s grasp of appearances’ deceptive qualities.

  That “something” Annie promised the baby she’d think of never materialized. Her old boss at the ad agency sympathized, but said telecommuting smacked of the Three Musketeers: one for all and all for one equaled the entire office staff opting for bathrobes over business casual.

  Myriad home-based income opportunities were researched on her semiantique laptop. The old-chestnut envelope-stuffing scams were still alive and well. Or she could DOUBLE HER INCOME peddling cosmetics, baskets, interior decorating, naughty lingerie, and toys for discerning adults. Which was true, as zero times two equals zero.

  Mrs. Fields and Famous Amos had cornered the homemade cookie market eons ago; eBay auctions required inventory and inventory required seed money and square footage for storage. And her brain was hardwired to invent advertising slogans, not gadgets she could patent, then hawk for $19.95 (plus S&H) on infomercials.

  Opportunity knocked by accident, not design. While she was scouring a borrowed Sunday newspaper’s real-estate classifieds, her attention drifted from houses for rent to homes offered for sale.

  The copy’s slew of misspellings, typos, and bizarre phrasing included walkin closets, a stunning vault with a loft room overlooking, and a quiet view of a pond—as opposed to what? she wondered. One with an airport runway between the windows and the water?

  On a lark, she crafted tongue-in-cheek e-mails to the respective listing agents to ask how, for example, a scruplelessly manured lawn was maintained and whether livestock was involved.

  One respondent blamed the newspaper’s “proofreeder.” Another threatened to lodge a spam complaint with Annie’s ISP. Three inquired how much she’d charge to compose and copyedit their ads.

  Before week’s end, the stable of clients expanded to eleven agents, two mom-and-pop agencies, and she was writing the local board’s bimonthly newsletter. Rich, she wasn’t getting, but the beauty of freelance was in its multiplication factor.

  All the work was done by e-mail, billing included. Payments for services were electronically deposited in an online account, leaving no paper trail for Thalia to sniff out.

  And boy, was she sniffing. Sensing Annie was “up to something,” but unable to figure out what, was driving Thalia nuts. Plying Tyler with ice cream, then interrogating him like Gammaw Good Cop/Bad Cop tipped her to the hours Annie spent at the computer.

  Her drop-ins increased; Annie added locks to the doors to which only she had keys. Then Thalia logged when and for how long the phone line was busy and accused Annie of having a virtual extramarital affair.

  Had Lars told his mother to get a life, another hobby, or psychiatric help, Annie would have told him the truth.

  He didn’t, so a half-truth sufficed. “For your information, I’m trying to find a bigger house we can freakin’ afford that doesn’t have freakin’ burglar bars on all the freakin’ windows.”

  Right on cue, Thalia poked in her beak, waving brochures about a new subdivision catering to first-time home buyers with Mason jars full of pocket change for a down payment.

  “Been there, tried that, not interested,” Annie said, abrim with newfound, albeit depressing real estate savvy. “They bundle the closing costs and down payment into a high-interest loan, wrapped in a lower-interest loan.”

  Thalia’s eyes swept the rooms perfect for one, cozy for two, and claustrophobic for three. “Since you have the answers to everything, where is this baby going to sleep? In the bathtub?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Annie shot back. “It’ll take months for the kid to outgrow the kitchen sink.”

  “Think you’re funny, do you? Well, I wouldn’t put it past you. You can’t handle one child, much less two.”

  “My problem, not yours.”

  “No, it isn’t just your problem. My son and grandchildren don’t have to live like this and you don’t, either. I’ve told you, I can loan—”

  “And I’ve told you, I’ll live in a cardboard box before I borrow a nickel from you. Get this straight, Thalia. Crummy as this house is, it’s my turf. Every teensy inch of it. You can lie, connive, manipulate, interfere, criticize, what ever, till you’re blue in the face, but if you think I’m stupid enough to let you own a square of the shingles over my head, you’ve got another think coming.”

  Whether by virtue of Annie’s parting advice, or the speed by which Thalia took her leave, the door didn’t bang the old bat in the ass on her way out. Nor did she darken it, surveil it, call Annie, or tail her anywhere.

  Thalia’s previous record for pouting represented the happiest seventeen days of Annie’s life. Now, at the nineteen-day mark, the dread peculiar to Floridians monitoring a hurricane’s progress had Annie edgy.

  Hostilities would resume. Gammaw couldn’t stand being away from Tyler much longer. Annie deliberated saying yes to his pleas to call her. Except giving in was the same as a declared truce and usually the losing side of battle’s idea. “Let’s let Gammaw call you, sweetheart. Okay?”

  Lars remained oblivious to the feud, in part due to a bid proposal he was working overtime to complete. Salaried employees don’t earn time-plus, but Annie scored a hundred-dollar coup when real-estate agent Roberta Pendergast sent an e-mailed SOS.

  Roberta had photos of a new listing for Sunday’s newspaper spread, but was showing properties to a “live one.” Could Annie tour the house and submit the copy before deadline?

  As she saw dollar signs for another service she could provide her customers, Annie’s enthusiasm evaporated as hers and Tyler’s footsteps echoed in the fifty-year-old, renovated four-bedroom rancher.

  The original hardwoods had been restored throughout, their patina richer than new flooring could ever be. Two-and-three-quarter bathrooms. Gasfired, wood-burning fireplaces in the living and family rooms. Granite kitchen counters, stainless-steel appliances, a utility room, and a bonus room off the kitchen that would make a fantastic home office.

  “Look it, Mommy.” Tyler pointed through the family room’s French doors at a cedar jungle gym surrounded by a humongous sandbox. Bouncing up and down, he beamed at her, as though Santa had come early this year. “That’s mine, right?”

  Incapable of telling him it was destined to be another little boy’s, or girl’s, Annie just shook her head and said, “Time to go home, son.”

  Composing the ad felt like doing color commentary on the Oscars from an alley blocks away. Annie copied the finished product to Roberta, along with the jokey aside about the house being one she’d kill to own, if she could get away with it, and if the owner reduced the price several zeroes, please let her know.

  A simmering amalgamation of self-pity and envy shortened Annie’s temper and mocked her penny-ante entrepreneurship. She tried, but couldn’t shake it. Her mood swung from not giving a rat’s ass when Tyler spilled milk all over the coffee table to obsessive house cleaning, until aches in her pelvis sharpened and branched downward to the backs of her knees.

  In the twilight lull before sleep, she decorated and redecorated her dream house, painted accent walls, rearranged furniture, cooked tandoori chicken or tortellini with prosciutto, and watched Tyler from the window building real sand castles to billet his army men…then jerked awake, hair plastered to her cheek, the nightmares of the house burning to the ground so vivid, she tasted ashes and wood smoke.

  Roberta Pendergast’s bonus was transferred from the online account to Annie’s debit card. Every dollar was spent on Lotto tickets.
The clerk at the convenience store smacked his lips and said, “Man, I ain’t never seen nobody buy that many scratchers and not win back a buck ’r ten.”

  One day at breakfast, Lars said, “Been kind of down, lately, haven’t you. Like with Tyler, the ‘will this kid ever get here?’ stage is setting in.” He patted her arm. “I’ll call Mom to sit with Tyler Wednesday night and take you out for a steak dinner and a movie.”

  His breaking the silence checkmated Thalia, but Annie sighed and gestured indifference. “Thanks, but let’s wait till this weekend. Or maybe some night next week.”

  “Whoa, time out, sports fans. For once, in fact, for the very first time ever, it’s Mrs. DeArmond who’s forgotten what day her wedding anniversary falls on.”

  And he insisted on celebrating it, even with a surly, stone-faced wife in a god-awful rayon maternity dress and swollen feet jammed into a pair of scuffed loafers.

  “Take me home and I’ll give bubbly and charming my best shot,” she said, when Lars pulled over the car and took a silk scarf from the console. “I mean, really. Strangling your pregnant wife is so 2002.”

  “Humor me. I want your anniversary present to be a surprise.”

  Truth be told, riding blindfolded, listening for clues like a shrewd kidnap victim on Without a Trace was kind of neat, until the baby went ninja. Vicarious sensory deprivation, Annie presumed. She was about to push up the scarf, when the car veered right, whumped over something, and stopped.

  Lars helped her out and wrapped a guiding arm around her. Scraping her shoes, she deduced that she was walking on concrete. Eat your heart out, Sherlock Holmes.

  Step up. Scrape, scrape. Step up. Scrape. A clack, a fraction higher step, then…a slick surface, but not wet, or greasy. Smooth. And familiar orangey scent. Orange Glo? That’s what she’d clean with for a baby shower disguised as a wedding-anniversary celebration.

  Any second now, voices would chorus “Surprise” and the baby would go “Hee-yah” and karate-chop her bladder.

  Lars fumbled with the knot in the scarf. He kissed her neck and murmured, “Happy anniversary, darlin’.”

  Eyelids fluttering, squinting against the light, a dizzy, sinking sensation staggered her, her heels skidding on the refinished hardwood floor.

  Recessed halogen lights. Pristine white woodwork, trim and crown molding. Terrazzo marble fireplace surround. A giant, red satin bow stuck to the mantel. “You…bastard,” caromed off the pale sage walls. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

  “No, no, listen to me.” Lars caught her shoulders, turned her around. “It’s ours. Or will be, in a couple of days.” Grinning and nodding, as though transcending a language barrier, he went on: “I know, I know, you’ve been mooning about this place for days and I probably shouldn’t have gotten cutesy with the blindfold, but I…”

  His voice fading to white noise, Annie thought back to Roberta Pendergast’s e-mail. To the drive over here that day, on guard, as usual, for a glimpse of Thalia’s car. Telling her, If you think I’m stupid enough to let you own a square of the shingles over my head, you’ve got another think coming. Tyler’s chubby fingertip squashed on the glass, pointing at the play yard. That’s mine, right?

  She raked back her hair, wadding fistfuls, her nails digging into her scalp. Thalia set her up. Laid a trap so devious, she’d not only fallen for it, she’d helped her spring it.

  Roberta’s agency represented that no-down-payment subdivision Thalia had been all excited about. After Annie smarted off, sent the old bitch packing, Thalia had hired Roberta to find a house Annie’d sell her soul to have. It was only natural for Roberta to mention Ann DeArmond, the freelance ad copywriter. When she did, Thalia must have thought she’d won the lottery.

  One e-mail, a hundred bucks for bait, and wham. Annie was hooked and didn’t even know it.

  No jury in the world would convict you…

  Her arms dropped to her sides. Tears rimming her eyes, she looked at Lars, mystified why God had chosen to take her mother away and leave his to torture her.

  “Thalia reeled you in first, though, didn’t she. Like she always does.”

  “Honey, please, why are you crying? I thought you’d be thrilled. Thought you loved this house—”

  “You knew all along that Thalia and I weren’t speaking. That day you said you were taking Tyler to the park to play on the swings. You came here, didn’t you, but Thalia couldn’t, for fear Tyler would tell me he’d seen Gammaw. He didn’t say anything about the house when he and I walked through. All he remembered was the jungle gym in the yard.”

  Lars clapped a hand behind his neck, pacing in a circle, cursing under his breath. “It was a secret, dammit. Like that one-woman ad agency you made Mom promise not to tell me about.”

  She did, of course, telling him how sorry she was about accusing Annie of online adultery and how proud she was of Annie’s ingenuity. Her success was evident in their savings-account balance, which Annie realized had been enriched by Thalia’s clandestine deposits. Not enough, though, for the down payment on the dream house Thalia later admitted she’d tricked Annie into touring.

  Lars explained how Thalia had convinced him that a real-estate investment wasn’t a loan, Thalia sold her patio home to another of Roberta’s clients to provide the rest of the down payment. Freed of her own mortgage payment, Thalia would rent the room off the kitchen to offset their care for Tyler and the baby while Annie ran her Internet gold mine from a spare bedroom upstairs.

  “Look, sweetheart, I know this is a lot to spring on you all at once, and maybe Mom butted in when she shouldn’t have, but think how great it’ll be for Tyler and the baby. And especially for you. As of nine o’clock Friday at the closing, you’re gonna have it all. Everything you’ve always wanted. A beautiful house, a career, and you’ll still be a stay-at-home mom.”

  All that night, while he and Tyler slept, Annie sat silhouetted in the glow of the computer terminal, desperately searching for a loophole to crawl through. File for divorce? Inform the mortgage company that her husband had forged her name on the sales contract? (Couldn’t spoil the surprise.) Refuse to sign the paperwork at closing?

  At this late date, if Annie did anything to kibosh the deal, the remodeling contractor/owner would sue them for breach of contract. Legally, the box Thalia had put her in was escape-proof.

  After Lars left for work Friday morning, Annie took down a black maternity suit from the closet rod, eyed it, then returned it in favor of navy slacks, her favorite paisley top, and an off-white blazer.

  In the bathroom, applying her makeup, she almost dispensed with the mascara. Without it, her lashes were invisible. What the hell. The brand she used was waterproof.

  “Don’t you look nice,” Barb said, when Annie arrived with Tyler in tow.

  “Thanks.” Annie smiled the brave smile of a good soldier. “I shouldn’t be gone over an hour, or so.”

  “Take your time. No problem.” Barb winced, stepped out on the stoop, and hugged her. “It’s a big house, Annie. If Thalia stays at her end and you at the other—sure, that’s a lot to hope for, but things have a way of working out better than we expected, sometimes.”

  “I know. Believe me, I’m trying my best to think positive. For Tyler’s and the baby’s sake.”

  “Atta girl.”

  Driving across town, not once did Annie look in the rear-view or side mirrors. She entered the title company’s office at eight forty-eight, precisely nine minutes after she waved back to Tyler, standing beside Barb in the doorway.

  Lars strode into the conference room just after Annie had declined a foam cup of coffee and taken a seat at the table. Then came Roberta Pendergast and Brian Bowen, the dream house’s owner.

  Introductions were exchanged. The closing agent’s name was either Nat or Pat. Small talk ensued as a tray with the coffee carafe, cups, and accoutrements went around. In answer to Nat or Pat’s question, Annie said the baby was due in January. No, they didn’t know its gender. Tyler wanted a boy to
play with. She and Lars didn’t care, as long as it was healthy.

  Lars fidgeted, spun around in his chair, checked his watch against the wall clock. “I wonder what’s keeping my mother. She’s never late. Usually, she’s way early.”

  “Maybe she forgot,” Bowen said, obviously annoyed by the delay.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Thalia had chirped, at last night’s bygones-be-bygones family dinner. “I can’t tell you how happy I’ll be to present that cashier’s check for my share of our…investment.”

  Later, in the kitchen when Annie was rinsing the dishes, she’d sneered. “Starting tomorrow, you’re nothing but a squatter in my house, missy. And don’t think for a minute I’ll ever let you forget it.”

  Now the others seated around the conference table reached a consensus that traffic was to blame for Thalia’s tardiness. Where do people learn to drive these days? From a correspondence course?

  Annie nodded, gnawing her lip, unable to take her eyes off the door. Any second, Thalia could waltz in, gushing apologies and excuses.

  Lars snagged Annie’s hand, their skin equally cold and damp. Roberta reported that the machine had picked up her call to Thalia’s house. Lars confirmed that no, his mother didn’t have a cell phone.

  The baby stretched and turned in utero somersaults. Annie flinched, sat up straighter, aware her escalating heart rate was the cause. Free hand splayed, the heel braced on the table edge, she studied the fingernails she’d clipped to their quicks yesterday afternoon. Not very attractive, all blunt and unpolished, but they’d grow back again in a few weeks.

  Citric acid from the lemons she’d scrubbed her fingers with, then her hands, advancing up her arms to her elbows, like a surgeon prepping for a appendectomy, had inflamed the cuticles and left her skin paper dry.

  Lars hadn’t noticed. Neither did anyone else, that day.