A Really Bad Idea Read online

  He’d say, “Where do you want to go? Just pick a place, and we’ll vanish.”

  We’d choose sleepy towns within driving distance, stay in bed-and-breakfasts, make love all weekend, and come home in the same clothes we left in. If we ever dared to venture out, it was in tourist T-shirts and silly woven hats or anything we could get our hands on.

  He never cared if I took an extra shift, and I wasn’t one of those women who gave him hell about all his fangirls hanging around after his games … although, looking back, I definitely should have.

  We only dated for a year before getting married, and then we bought this apartment.

  I love this apartment.

  It has two bedrooms, an all-white, open kitchen—which is scarce in the city—and a living room with a view of Central Park. It’s not huge, but it’s cozy and perfect and the place I call home.

  When I caught Brock in bed with another woman, he knew from the look on my face that it was over. His main concern was that we hadn’t signed a prenuptial agreement, and he’d recently negotiated an eight-million-dollar contract with the team. I didn’t want a dime of it—just my home.

  So, yeah, it’s been an interesting two years.

  With my dish of ravioli in hand and a glass of pinot noir, I cuddle up on the sofa and enjoy my dinner. I’m only about two bites in when my cell phone rings.

  Christian’s Facebook picture appears on the screen. It’s him in a wet white T-shirt, taken on his father’s boat last year. The way his broad chest is on full display through the sheer fabric sends a quiver through me every time I see it, and I remind myself for the hundredth time to change his ridiculous picture on my phone.

  I answer the call, “You’re supposed to be drinking beer and yelling at the umpire.”

  His throaty chuckle is loud despite the crowd cheering in the background. “Turn on the TV. I’m behind home plate and waving to you.”

  The remote is on the arm of the couch when I grab it. I turn on the television and flip through the channels. “How am I supposed to know where you are?”

  “Just turn it on.”

  The game is on Fox with a wide shot of the field, showing two runners on base. The camera stays on the handsome faces of the ballplayers, and I’m not one to argue with that.

  “I don’t see your ugly mug, but hello, Giancarlo Stanton, you handsome devil, you. Do you think he’s single?”

  “Are you trying to break my heart?”

  I giggle as I watch the camera switch to the home plate view as a new player walks up to bat. “Okay. I’m looking behind home plate. I don’t see—” I pause as my eye catches something bright pink in the stands, just to the right of the batter. I squint in recognition. “Are you wearing a neon fishing hat?”

  Now knowing the camera is on him, Christian waves from his seat. He’s already an imposing man with his strong build and naturally tan skin, but with the fluorescent-pink hat on his head, he is downright ridiculous.

  “I lost a bet with my dad, and now, I have to wear this the entire game.”

  “Why is it pink? And why aren’t they kicking you out for distracting the pitcher?”

  “It’s my mom’s. The old man knew what he was doing when he wagered wearing a hat to the game as the ante.”

  “He’s a sucker!” Thomas says into the phone from his seat next to Christian.

  I scrunch my nose in confusion. “What was the bet?”

  Christian pauses as the crowd around him cheers for a base hit. When the celebration dies down, he answers, “That the centerfield line at Citi Field is exactly the same as Yankee Stadium.”

  “He totally fooled you into that bet,” I say and take a bite of ravioli.

  The view on the television screen goes back to the batter’s box. I can see Christian hunched to the side of his seat, his finger in his ear as he talks on the phone.

  “What are you doing right now?” he asks.

  “Enjoying dinner while watching you talk on the phone in a ridiculous hat from the most high-profile seat at Citi Field, and then I’m hopping into a warm bath.”

  “Want company?”

  “You’re crude.” I take a sip of my pinot.

  He leans back with a laugh. “Usually, when a woman tells me she’s about to get naked, it’s an invitation to come over.”

  “Not with that hat you’re wearing. Besides, I’m not one of your usual women.”

  There’s a slight pause on his end.

  “That you’re not.” There’s another round of cheers and jeers as the Yankees batter hits a pop-up to the Mets second baseman. “But, seriously, want company? I can swing by after the game.”

  “Thanks, but no, thanks.” I let out a loud yawn. “I’m crashing early tonight. My boss is a slave driver.”

  “Imagine being raised by him,” he shouts over the music playing in the background as the players switch positions on the field.

  I laugh at his joke, mostly because I know they have a great relationship. Yes, his father demands a lot of his son, as most successful men do. They also have a rapport that only comes when two men genuinely get along.

  “Enjoy your game, Christian.”

  I can’t see him, but I can feel his warm grin through the phone. “Sweet dreams, Meadow.”

  We hang up, and I’m not surprised to feel a smile on my face. Despite a very messy divorce, I’ve come out on top, mostly because of Christian.

  When I found out Brock was having an affair—scratch that, multiple affairs, I was a mess of tears, and Christian took the red-eye from San Francisco and showed up at my door with a bottle of Johnnie Walker and two shot glasses.

  When Brock had to pack up his stuff, it was Christian who booked me a day at the spa while he stayed here and watched Brock move his shit.

  And, every time we go to a sports bar and the Islanders are playing, Christian slips the bartender a hundred bucks to make sure the TV in my section is playing anything but hockey.

  My hand rises to my clavicle and the wishbone charm Christian got me as a wedding gift. It was an odd choice for a present, as he got nothing for Brock, but it’s my favorite, and I wear it every day.

  I can see why Angela would say Christian and I should be a couple. He’s the best man I’ve ever known, but what we have is too valuable to risk. Besides, what I need and what Christian wants are two very different things.

  So very, very different.

  “Hit B! Hit B!” my nephew Aiden shouts in my ear. His tiny six-year-old body nearly falls into me as he jumps on the couch.

  “It’s hard to steer and press the buttons.” I careen to the right and my Luigi avatar, riding a pretty sweet-looking motorcycle, crashes into the side of Princess Peach’s castle.

  My other nephew Dylan looks cool and confident. We’re in a one-on-one battle to see who can place higher in Mario Kart. So far, I’m losing badly to a ten-year-old.

  “Come on, Aunt Meadow. Drive into the question mark. Maybe you’ll get the bullet, and it’ll zoom you up to third place,” Aiden yelps.

  Dylan’s hands are firm with confidence on the steering wheel controller. His steely-gray eyes he inherited from my brother are narrowed in focus.

  “It’s a given. You always get the bullet when you’re in last place,” Dylan predicts.

  My motorcycle is back on track as I navigate through the race, and just like the boys said, I get the magic bullet, which zips me through the course and past Toad, Bowser, Baby Luigi, and Wario.

  Dylan crosses the finish line first, and his Mario avatar cheers in rejoice. I’m far behind.

  “Fifth place,” I state, disappointed. “That stinks.”

  “Winner!” Dylan cheers for himself, his hands up in the air as he chants his own name. “You’re terrible at this game, Aunt Meadow.”

  “Am not!” I defend.

  Aiden agrees with his older brother as he leans on my shoulder and says, “You get beat by a kid every time.”

  I tap him on the nose. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”<
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  He smiles a toothless grin from having just lost his two front teeth. “Or what?”

  Raising my fingers, I wiggle them in the air and reach out to him. “Or I’ll … tickle you to death!”

  I lunge for his tummy and tickle up and down the sides of his torso, causing him to laugh while curling his legs in and rolling over. Not letting up, I keep my hands moving as his brown hair flops about, the smile on his face grows bigger, and his laughs get louder.

  The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs announces Beth’s entrance. She’s dressed like the quintessential upper-class, suburban mom with her shoulder-length blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail and a lightweight turtleneck paired with beige pants. When she sees me sitting here, playing with my nephews, she makes a face like she’s been looking for me for hours.

  “There you are,” Beth says.

  “We were just playing some Mario Kart,” I answer innocently and release Aiden from his tickle torture.

  She points a finger at Dylan and gives her best mom glare. “You’re grounded from video games from that stunt you pulled at the mall.”

  “But, Mom—”

  “Dylan James Duvane, you know better. Now, you don’t get to play for a month,” she says.

  It’s almost shocking how the sassy girl I love to gossip with over trips to Bloomingdale’s can morph into a hard-ass mom in a nanosecond.

  “You’re so unfair!” he wails at his mother while simultaneously whipping his head back to get his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes.

  “It’s my fault,” I defend my nephew.

  I get up from the couch and stand behind him. I place my hands on his shoulders and give them a hard squeeze. The little liar didn’t tell me he was grounded.

  “I begged,” I explain to Beth. “He told me he was in no way allowed to play, even threw himself on the floor in protest, but I told him he had to.” I dig my fingers into his skin a little harder and feel his back arch. “We made a deal. He said he’d do all the dishes tonight after dinner.”

  “No, I didn’t—” he starts, but I walk to his side and give him a raised brow. He quickly catches on and bats his long lashes at his mother. “I … don’t want you to do all that work after you spent the day cooking and cleaning,” he says with the sweetest smile.

  Beth is tapping her Tory Burch–clad foot with a skeptical frown on her face. It’s obvious she doesn’t believe him, but as they say … choose your battles wisely. “All right, upstairs. Now. Your dad is looking for you.”

  The boys rush up the stairs as I turn off the television.

  “I love when you go all mom on them,” I say, impressed.

  She releases her arms that were crossed in front of her body and lets out a groan. “It makes me feel old. One minute, you’re twenty-five and bringing your newborn home from the hospital, and the next, you’re arguing with a preteen over the purchase of a T-shirt that says My Pen Is Huge.”

  It takes me a second to realize why the shirt would be inappropriate. I finally let out a giggle, and she fights to control her own. She loses her own will and laughs along with me.

  “Gotta give him credit for having a sense of humor.”

  “Like his aunt! Nice try, by the way. There’s no way that kid is washing my wineglasses without breaking them.”

  I smash my lips together to stifle a laugh. “We’ll get some pots and pans out of him.”

  She walks over to the couch and rearranges the pillows in the perfect way they were before Aiden stomped all over them. I assist on the other end of the sectional sofa.

  “While it’s clear you love spending time with your nephews, why do I suspect you’re escaping down here?” she asks.

  I feign being insulted. “Never. I love spending time with my family.”

  “Is that why, when your parents arrived an hour ago, you ran down here like there was a tornado warning?”

  “New Jersey doesn’t get tornados,” I deadpan.

  She raises her chin with an inquisitive smirk. “And what do you call your mother?”

  I throw an arm around Beth’s shoulders. “Would you like to stay down here in my bunker?”

  She looks around the media room that her and my brother, Brian, created for football Sundays and video games. The way the gray chenille sofa, pool table, bar, and three flat screen TVs line the room make it the optimal place for either activity.

  “Tempting, but I prefer to hide out in my closet.”

  I step back and palm my hands together in prayer. “Take me to your sanctuary.”

  She gives me her best serious-mother face and points toward the stairs. “Upstairs, young lady.”

  I drop my shoulders and stomp off with my head to my chest as if I were a scolded child. “Yes, Mom.”

  With a smile, she pushes me toward the steps.

  Brian and Beth’s house is a mini-mansion in Bergen County, New Jersey. It’s where the wealthy people of the tri-state area live. Think Oprah and Dr. Oz. Their home is on a street of other equally gorgeous houses, but the others don’t have Beth’s designer touches—weathered gray hardwood floors, cream-colored walls, and navy-blue accents. Even their family pictures were done to coordinate with their home with everyone dressed in shades of blue and cream.

  The perfect family for the world’s most perfect home.

  I’m halfway through the gourmet kitchen of high gray cabinets with gold hardware and Viking appliances when I see the back deck is full of more people than I was expecting. I turn around and walk into Beth, who is trailing behind me.

  She grabs me by the arms and spins me back around. “Oh no, you don’t.”

  I whisper-yell into her ear, “Where did all those people come from?”

  With an air of sarcasm, she answers, “Well, Meadow, when two people fall in love—”

  “Not in the biblical sense. I mean … they weren’t here an hour ago.”

  “That’s what happens when you throw a party. People arrive. And, when you hide out in the basement for an hour, you miss the people actually arriving.”

  I step to the side of the French doors and peek behind the silk drapes to peek outside again at the mostly familiar faces. My parents’ country club friends—the Romanos, Kents, and Vaduccis—are here.

  With a twirl of my hair, I push a tendril behind my ear and assess the situation. “So, when you said you were hosting my birthday dinner, you meant a party for Mom and Dad.”

  “Your mom asked if she could invite a few people.”

  “A few?” I bite.

  “It’s an intimate gathering of four of your parents’ closest couple friends.”

  With another inspection out the French doors, I notice another interesting tidbit. Or shall I say, three tidbits. Frank Romano, Garret Kent, and Aaron Vaducci are all here with their parents.

  “And their single sons.”

  Beth runs a finger along the neckline of her sweater as she looks out the glass in fake interest. “Are they? What a coincidence.”

  I narrow my eyes at her.

  She drops her hand—and the act. “Okay, fine. Your mother thought you needed a push.”

  “And you went along with it?” I’m back to the whisper-yelling.

  “Tornado, remember? It’s hard to stay out of its path.”

  “She’s alive!” Mom’s voice sounds behind me like a Broadway production.

  “Speak of the devil,” Beth squeaks through a smile and then spins on her heel to head into the kitchen.

  My mother walks through the doors that lead from the dining room, wearing her quilted Burberry raincoat over a gold Ann Taylor outfit I bought her over the holidays. When she reaches me, she gives a big hug with her chin tilted up so as not to rub her makeup on my sweater.

  “Here I thought, I came all this way to have my only daughter hide away instead of coming to sit and talk to her mother.”

  My mom, Gail Duvane, is the epitome of an overbearing mother. She’s a great mom; don’t get me wrong. Growing up, I never wanted for an
ything, and she always had my back if something wasn’t going right—like that time I didn’t get the lead in the school play.

  She marched herself right into the principal’s office, lauded my impeccable acting skills, and claimed the girl who had gotten the role of Annie Oakley only did because her father had made a sizable donation to the school—or as my mother put it, “Gave blood money to procure his tone-deaf daughter a place in the spotlight.”

  She threatened to run an opinion piece in the local paper and tell all of her friends—and she had many—about what was going on at the very expensive prep school when, suddenly, yours truly was cast as Annie Oakley.

  She’s like a high-society Beverly Goldberg from the ABC comedy The Goldbergs, only she uses John Frieda instead of Aqua Net.

  I give her a hug back and try to release myself of her embrace, but she’s holding on extra tight.

  “You don’t feel right. Let me look at you.” She holds me out at arm’s length, her hands running up and down my sweater-clad arms, and squeezes as she does so. “Are you eating right? You need to take your B12. It’s vital to your immune system.” Her hands travel to my cheeks to feel my skin. “You need to moisturize. Thirty-three is hard on a woman.”

  “I’m still thirty-two for another week.”

  Her lips pucker like she’s talking to a puppy. “But your crow’s-feet are starting to show. I have a serum for that.”

  I smile. “It’s so nice to see you, Mom.”

  Her fingers move back down my arms until they’re at my hands. She tightly holds them and continues to appraise me while grinning at me with admiration and love. It’s a peculiar thing about my mom. She can look at you with a tender smile, but her eyes are investigating your inner soul.

  “Tell me, have you been seeing anyone?” she asks with sincere interest.

  “Not since we spoke the other day.”

  She walks to her purse, which is sitting on the granite island in the center of the kitchen, pulls out a brochure, and hands it to me. A picture of a woman holding an egg timer on the front makes me want to laugh, but I get the feeling I’m not going to like where this is going.