Susan Mallery - Almost Perfect

She eased out of line and started to turn toward the freezer case, when a woman in her fifties, someone Liz had never met, stopped her.

“Are you Liz Sutton?” she asked, looking more annoyed than friendly.

Liz hesitated. “Yes.”

“I thought I recognized you. I’m friends with Denise Hendrix and I wanted to tell you that I think what you did is just awful. What kind of mother keeps her child from his father? There’s no excuse for that. You hurt a wonderful family with your selfishness. I hope you’re happy now.”

“Not so much,” Liz murmured as the other woman stomped away.

Still astounded by the encounter, she grabbed a second bag of ice, and returned to the checkout line. As she stood there, she felt as if everyone was staring at her, judging her.

“Hateful old cow,” she muttered quietly, wishing the name-calling would make her feel better. It didn’t.

When the clerk announced the total, Liz picked up her wallet and pulled out the bills.

There should have been over one hundred dollars, but instead there were only three twenties and a single five. She frowned, sure she’d checked her cash before she’d left the house, but obviously not. She shoved the money back into her wallet and zipped a credit card through the machine.

The girls were home by the time she arrived at the house and Tyler had returned, as well. They competed for her attention as they talked about their day. She listened and nodded, doing her best to keep smiling, to forget the woman at the grocery store and not get lost in thinking about Ethan, either. Which was tough with Tyler starting every sentence with, “And then my dad…”

She got the food put away, chicken breasts in the oven for the kids and explained about the women coming over that evening.

“I thought the three of you could go to the video store and rent movies for tonight,” she suggested.

Abby and Tyler agreed. Melissa tilted her head.

“Maybe I could stay with you,” she said. “You know, not with the kids.”

Abby and Tyler rolled their eyes. “We’re not kids,” Abby chided. “And you’re not all that grown-up. You’re only fourteen.”

“I’m a teenager,” Melissa reminded her.

Liz didn’t know what exactly happened at girls’ night in, but she knew there was a lot of drinking.

“How about if you stay for the first half hour,” she suggested. “While everyone is getting here. Then you can go upstairs.”

“Fine,” Melissa conceded with a sigh. “But I’m very mature.”

“I know, honey. You did a great job while you were alone.” She hesitated, then asked the girls to sit at the table. “I want to talk about your dad.”

Tyler hovered by Liz. “Should I go upstairs?” he asked in a loud whisper.

She nodded. “I’ll explain all of this later.”

“Okay,” he said, and ducked out of the room.

She settled across from the girls who were huddled together, shoulders touching, identical fearful expressions in their eyes.

“I saw your dad today,” she began. “He really misses both of you and said to tell you how much he loves you.”

“Did you tell him about Bettina?” Melissa asked.

“I did. He was angry and hurt, but so proud of you for taking care of your sister. I explained how you got in touch with me and he was really impressed.”

Melissa looked both pleased and afraid. “He’s not coming home, is he?”

Liz reached across the table and took their hands in hers. “No, honey, he’s not. He’s going to be at Folsom for a while longer.” She drew in a breath. “I’m going to be taking care of you.”

Abby and Melissa exchanged another glance.

“I want to see my dad,” Abby said.

“In a couple weeks we’ll go for a visit. And your dad said he’d write you.”

They both nodded. Abby’s eyes filled with tears. Before Liz could go to her, she pushed back her chair and ran up the stairs.

“I’ll talk to her,” Melissa declared, sounding far older than fourteen.

Liz wanted to ask who would take care of Melissa, but knew this wasn’t the time. Damn Bettina, whoever she was, and Roy for getting in trouble in the first place. He’d been impulsive when he’d been younger and it didn’t sound like that had changed. Unfortunately, now his daughters had to pay the price.

She checked on the chicken, then went through the list of snack foods she’d bought. There were different cheeses, some frozen bruschetta she would heat after the chicken was done, chips, salsa, avocados for guacamole. She’d bought boxes of crackers, various cookies, the ingredients for a quick seven-layer bean dip and a presliced veggie plate. If Pia and her friends wanted something fancier, they were going to have to give Liz more than four hours’ notice.

She climbed the stairs and went into the master bedroom. She kept her clothes here and shared the master bath with her son. After going through the few items of clothing she’d brought with her, she picked a dark green wrap shirt made out of one of those amazing fabrics that never wrinkled. She changed her shirt, decided her jeans were fine, and replaced her Ryka walking shoes with cute flat sandals.

Tyler and Abby walked into the bedroom. The young girl looked a little puffy around the eyes, but otherwise fine.

“We’re going to get the movies,” Tyler announced. “Is that okay, Mom?”

“Sure.” She gave him a twenty and smiled at Abby. “You’d probably like something funny for tonight.”

Her niece nodded, then barreled toward Liz and threw herself into her embrace. Liz hugged her tightly.

“I know it’s scary right now,” she whispered. “But I’m going to take care of you.”

Abby nodded and stepped back.

“We’ll be right back,” Tyler called as they headed for the stairs.

“Get something funny,” Liz yelled after him from the doorway.

“Oh, Mom.”

Liz grinned and returned to the bedroom.

She pinned back her hair, then washed her face before smoothing on moisturizer. Melissa inched into the bedroom.

“Abby’s better,” she said. “This is hard on her.”

“On you, too.”

Melissa shrugged.

Liz opened her zipped cosmetic bag. She pulled out concealer and smoothed the cream under her eyes, then blended with her ring finger. The mineral base she used went on next. When she’d covered her freckles and blended the color, she dug in the bag for her eye shadow.

“How do you know what to do?” Melissa asked. “I bought some makeup at the drugstore. You know, before. I couldn’t get it right. Plus, I didn’t like how that liquid stuff felt on my skin.”

Liz glanced at her niece. At fourteen Melissa was old enough to wear some makeup. At least mascara and a little lip gloss. The girl’s skin was smooth and had that glow older women spent a fortune trying to duplicate.

“A base is for smoothing out the color of your skin and hiding imperfections,” Liz told her. “Your skin is practically perfect.”

“Unless I get a zit.”

“They happen. As for the rest of it, I learned by doing, mostly. We can practice together this weekend. The basics aren’t hard.”

“Really?” Melissa looked both hopeful and almost afraid. As if anticipating anything good was a mistake.

“Sure.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Liz dug around in her bag again and pulled out a tube of gloss. “In the meantime, try this. It’s one of my favorites.”

Melissa took the container and turned it over in her hand. “Sugar cookie?”

“Oh, yeah. It looks good and tastes better. Sometimes it’s very cool to be a girl.”

LIZ GOT THE KIDS FED, THE movie started and the frozen bruschetta in the oven. The schedule was tight enough that she didn’t have time to let her nerves get out of control, which was good. Well before she was ready, her doorbell rang and it didn’t stop for about twenty minutes.

Nearly a dozen women piled into the cramped living room. She already knew Pia. Jo Torelli was new. Jo owned the local bar and was a relatively recent transplant to town. The Hendrix triplets arrived together and Liz was relieved they seemed relatively friendly. Before she could do more than say hello, Pia walked in with Crystal Danes.

Liz remembered the pretty blonde from high school. “It’s so great to see you,” she said with a laugh.

Crystal smiled and hugged Liz. “Hmm, I thought you’d be sending me a cut of your royalties. Who do I talk to about that?”

Pia glanced between them. “I didn’t know the two of you were friends. Crystal was three years ahead of me in high school, so she was what? Two years ahead of you, Liz?”

Crystal linked arms with Liz and grinned. “I met Liz in our senior creative writing class. Even though she was a lowly sophomore, our teacher thought she had talent and invited her.”

Crystal had been the only student who would speak to Liz. All the others had resented her presence and basically ignored her. A few of the girls had made mean comments about Liz’s clothes, while two of the guys had hounded her about her reputation.

But in the creative writing class, Liz had done her best to ignore all that. She’d found she could forget everything in the writing process.

Each of the students had to write a short story every three weeks, then read it aloud. The first time, Liz had been terrified. While the teacher had offered glowing praise, the class had been silent when she’d finished. Feeling embarrassed and exposed, Liz had slunk back to her seat.

But at lunch that day, Crystal had sought her out and told her the story was amazing. That the other students had been silent out of shock, or maybe jealousy. Crystal had encouraged her to keep writing.

Four years later, when she was alone with a baby and terrified in San Francisco, she’d remembered Crystal’s words and had signed up for a writing class. While she’d begun with another short story, eventually it had become a novel which had turned into her first published book and the beginning of her professional writing career.