The Husband Diet (A Romantic Comedy) (13 page)

I heard my sister take a drag from a cigarette and puff out. “When did you start smoking again?” I asked in surprise, happy to get my mind off that afternoon that had started like hell but ended very nicely. Too nicely.

She inhaled again and muttered, “You see? You’re the world’s biggest prude. I wonder why Ira hasn’t left you yet.”

I bared my teeth even if she wasn’t there to see it. “So no sex?” she asked, then exhaled after my long, long pause.

Paul and I always talked about the sex I was missing out on, but strangely I wasn’t prepared to discuss this with my sister.

“Judy…”

“See? Prude.”

Indeed I was. But I still wasn’t ready to tell the world my problems. Nor could I understand her. If she didn’t love her husband anymore, why didn’t she just leave him instead of screwing someone else? Why hadn’t Ira had the same courtesy for me instead of screwing around behind my back? I wondered who it was, what she looked like, if she was as thin as a rake and younger than me. Who was I kidding? Of course she must have been all of the above.

“He is
sooo
ripped, Erica! Like nothing you’ve ever seen!”

It was true I’d never
seen
. My own husband never had been ripped and wasn’t going to suddenly start developing an eight-pack, just like I wasn’t going to become Angelina Jolie overnight. Or ever. Not even after ten stomach bypasses.

“I mean, even the size of his—”

“Got it!” I said before Judy could continue.

She laughed. “I was going to say ‘his hands’ but while you’re on the subject, yes—he’s very well endowed.”

Good for them.

“And he takes me places and we do it wherever and whenever we want. This morning we did it—”

“In his car, I know.”

“Silly,” she said warmly, and I realized she’d never spoken to me warmly. Had sex with a guy finally mellowed her? “He’s... wonderful. He makes me feel like a princess, you know?”

No, I didn’t know. I had absolutely no idea what it felt like to be treated like a princess. I was lucky if my cheating ex-husband put the toilet seat back down. That alone would make my day. But other women around me, starting with my sister, were getting it all. The security from a loving (although unwittingly cuckolded) husband, the luxury of waking up in an amazing house and not having to go to work, a housekeeper to take care of them and the kids, a cook to prepare meals.

Yes, Judy had it all—and now she even had the extras on top of the extras. But she hadn’t called just to boast. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to sell her off to the highest bidder. “Your secret’s safe with me, don’t worry,” I assured her.

“Good. Gotta go now; I’m seeing him again in half an hour. Bye!”

And she hung up before I could even answer. On one hand I hoped it wasn’t going to end in tears for her as well. On the other I envied her ability to have fun.

* * *

During my lunch break I wolfed down a sandwich over my keyboard (whoops, a bit of crust stuck between the N and the M) and looked up some more Tuscan properties in my budget, as I’d been doing for the past few months. It was the only way out of all this madness and unhappiness. A brand new start. We had to somehow get out of the shitty life we were living. Although I knew it would be very hard to find something in my budget.

I wanted a farmhouse, so I typed in “
casolare
” and “
Val d’Orcia”
because that was my favorite area in Tuscany. If you google images of the
Val d’Orcia
you’ll see loads of amazing pictures of green valleys and yellow hills and majestic twenty-meter-high cypress trees coasting winding roads. The ultimate dream.

I needed a house that was at least three hundred square meters—one hundred and fifty for us and the rest for paying guests. I had two options. Either I bought a cheap ruin and restored it, putting in a pool and everything else, or I could buy a renovated one with all the mod cons at double my budget. So I did an advanced search.

One in particular caught my eye. Quite old, with a sturdy-looking wide staircase going up one side (separate entrances; that’s great) and an annex (to be restored as well), just the right price. I scrolled down to the floor area—seventy-five square meters—just about enough for the kids’ toys and nothing else.

My eye swung to another property.
Beautiful stone farmhouse with swimming pool and completely restored.
Yes!
Floor area three hundred and fifty square meters.
Yes, yes!

Price—triple my budget.
Crap
.

And then another one, to be restored, and enormous. Which would cost me its price again in renovation. Even with the sale of the house, I’d be short. I’d have to apply for a mortgage that I would pay with the rental income, sure, although it would take me forever. But how the hell was I going to get all the restoration work done? By using the kids’ college funds? I sighed. There had to be a way.

Chapter 15:

Spider Man Meets Family

T
he next morning I got a call on my cell phone. Now, I normally don’t answer private calls when I’m at work, unless it’s someone important, like my family or Paul. But today I had a gut feeling I should. My heart skipped a couple of beats when I recognized Mr. Foxham’s—I mean Julian’s—voice, but the other half of me was experiencing the naked terror that something was terribly wrong.

“Is everything all right?” I whispered.

He chuckled—that same warm, deep chuckle that made my skin tingle—and I relaxed. “Of course everything’s all right. But you owe me a coffee, remember?”

I did? Then I remembered my invitation, or more like my challenge, to drop by any time after school. Shit. I hoped I’d have a few days to clean up first.

“Of course,” I said, cool and composed by now. “Any time.”

“How about today? Say four o’clock?”

Damn.
“You bet,” I confirmed with utter confidence. As I hung up, I gulped. He sure wanted to catch me with my pants down. A few days’ notice would’ve allowed me to at least wash the windows.

But what worried me more was the kids’ reaction to having the principal around our house twice in a week. I didn’t want to scare them. They were so protective of me, they’d think we were in some kind of trouble. Of course Julian gave me no way out. I couldn’t say no, could I?

I needed a remedy, something to boost my confidence. So I went into the hotel kitchen and snatched the simplest-looking cake I could pass off as my own and they put it in a fancy box (which I would have to get rid of if I wanted to get away with this).

I parked at the school gates and looked up as the car door opened and my gang tumbled into our courtesy car.

“Hey, guys,” I said cheerfully. I couldn’t wait to get the news off my chest. “Guess who’s coming after school for a slice of cake?”

“Mr. Foxham,” Maddy chimed. How did she know?

“The Red Sox champ,” Warren said, his eyes bright. “He promised that he’d show me his best catch. I can swing like a mother—”

“Hey! Where’d you learn that language?” I demanded. The schools were breeding grounds for every human vice, always had been, especially Tony Esposito’s time, when sex was already everywhere. I sighed. Just how old
was
I?

“Sorry,” he said meekly. “I got carried away.”

* * *

Mr. Foxham—Julian, as I had finally managed to call him without faltering, was just on time. He had a baker’s apple pie with him, which I accepted gracefully, putting my hair (which I always let down when I was at home) behind my ear like a shy schoolgirl. I had to put a stop to the butterflies in my stomach.

“Mr. Fox, will you show me how to do a catch? That’s still sort of like my weak side.”

“Of course, lad. Let me just have a quick chat with your mother and I’ll meet you outside. You practice in the meantime, okay?”

Warren smiled, nodded and disappeared into the backyard as if he’d been put in charge of choosing his own team among pros.

“So—how are you doing?” he asked me.

“Great! Still high about Warren’s performance. My son’s an ace! And so is his coach.” I had to stick my finger in it again, didn’t I?

Julian smiled. “He takes after you. By the way, you have a lovely house—very warm and comfortable.”

“It’s a mess. There are toys everywhere. It seems for every doll or ball that I pick up, ten more materialize.”

“I find it perfect the way it is. And it’s enormous.”

I blushed at the compliment while I loaded the coffee-maker.

No point in telling him about the divorce. “Together we earn enough, Ira and I. But sometimes I wonder if my job is worth it.”

“You manage to get home in time to pick up the kids. I see you every day. You never turn to say hello, though.”

I pushed a hand through my hair again and smiled, embarrassed. “You got me there,” I admitted.

“Erica, please let me get one thing straight. I don’t have any doubts about your parenting skills. I think you’re a wonderful mother.”

I had to ask. “Then why are you here?”

He went bright red. “Because I wanted to see if your coffee’s as good as your cakes.”

“Well, in that case, I have a confession to make. I bought this one. Well, no, that’s a lie. I didn’t pay for it.”

“You mean you forgot to pay for it?” he concluded gently, his expression not wavering.

“No!” I said with a giggle, and his face relaxed. “I’m the manager of a hotel—The Farthington?”

“Wow, that posh place? I’m even more impressed.”

“And I didn’t have any time to run home and bake a cake like I normally do at this hour on Fridays so I took one off Jeremy, the in-house baker.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You
bake
every Friday?”

“Uh-huh. My Grandma taught me. I bake a cake, a pizza and a meat and vegetable dish or lasagne so I don’t have to cook too much on the weekends and I can spend more time with the kids.”

He beamed at me. “You know, Erica, you are the only working mother I know who does that.”

“Really? I’ve always envied the non-working mothers. You know, the posh ones with the pastel-colored twinset tops and tennis bracelets and the perfect manners.”

He chuckled, shaking his beautiful, beautiful head. Somebody
please
stop me before I reach out and caress his face...

“No, really. I mean, they’re so together and elegant and…”

“You think too much, Erica. You look just fine—great, actually, and your kids adore you. You are the woman every man would want to marry. Just enjoy your family time together. And now if you’ll excuse me, I promised Warren I’d dedicate some time to him today.”

Which was just as well, so that he didn’t see me fall back onto my chair with a thud.
You are the woman every man would want to marry.
If that was his idea of encouraging parents to do a good job, he had to watch it because he’d soon have dozens of swooning women in his wake just like the Pied Piper, if he already didn’t. Because women, no matter what we say, always fall for compliments in a foreign accent. What a charmer.

I craned my neck to see Warren and Julian playing on the front lawn, and let me tell you, my kid was all googly-eyed for having his very own baseball champion live in his own yard.

And that was exactly how my soon-to-be ex-husband came home to find a six-foot-two Calvin Klein model lookalike in jeans and a sweatshirt playing the sport he loved more than anything else in the world with his only son.

Ira gaped at me and I said, “This is the school principal, Mr. Julian Foxham. The other day Warren hit his team a home run.”

Ira strode over to Julian and grasped his hand. “Mr. Foxham! I’m a
huge
fan!”

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Lowenstein.”

“Call me Ira,” he beamed. “You must be super-famous at school!”

Ira was so enthusiastic I hardly recognized him. So
that
was what it took to excite him. Maybe I should have had Paul sew me a little baseball skirt number I could wear to bed. Too late for that now.

As it turned out, Ira was so happy to have met his hero that he invited him and us all out to
Le Tre Donne
for dinner. Which was a shock per se. Didn’t he have a lover to tend to?

“I’m not going out to dinner with you,” I hissed to Ira as Julian played with Warren.

“Come on, Erica. We agreed to keep up the charade until the New Year. Plus, it’s a great opportunity for the kids to build a rapport with their principal.”

I crossed my arms. “You mean
you
want to build a rapport with him.”

“What if?”

Great. Absolutely, friggin’ great.

* * *

Zia
Martina and
Zia
Monica were serving our table (being family, we normally got our own bread and drinks, etc., but tonight my aunts were bent on making a big impression on Julian) and simultaneously gave me a
yum-yum
look.

“
Bellissimo!”
Zia
Monica hissed in Italian as she spooned
caponata
onto my plate. “Where’d you
find
him?”

“In the ladies’ room,” I hissed back, enjoying her blank face. Yeah, even I couldn’t understand how he’d come into my life after I’d begged him to take my pants off and security bursting in, only to apologize. Did
everyone
but me know who he was?

“More
vino
, Mr. Foxham?” purred my Aunt Monica and I rolled my eyes. She
never
purred for a guy.

“Thank you. And please—call me Julian,” said Julian.

“Monica,” purred Monica.

As Ira kept Julian and Warren busy with baseball memories, even
Zia
Maria came out of her temple, the kitchen, to take a look at him. A long, hard look. Then she looked at me and jerked her head toward the kitchen.

I sighed and excused myself from the table to follow her back to her frying aubergines. “What?” I hissed.

Zia
Martina, who was emptying the dishwasher, raised her eyebrows in another yum-yum expression.

“How old is he?”
Zia
Maria wanted to know.

I shrugged. “I don’t know.” Of course I knew, but I wanted to evaluate my sources.

“Thirty-seven,”
Zia
Martina said. “Monica googled him, and Paul told us about how he ripped your pants off because of the spider. He’s
perfect
for you.”

Perfect for me because he’d ripped my pants off? They had a point.

“What?” I hissed again. Paul, that little runt! “Are you out of your
minds
? I’m a married woman, and if you don’t remember, go back out there and take a look—my husband’s sitting right opposite him!”

Zia
Maria waved her spatula at me. “Cut the crap. Paul told us you’re getting divorced.”

I looked at all three of them in pretend shock.

“Not because of Julian! And stop listening to Paul; his love-life sucks more than mine!” There. I’d said it out loud. After years and years of grinning and bearing for the benefit of the family. My love life sucked. Fuming, I turned to go.

“Paul only wants what’s best for you—just like we do, sweetheart…”
Zia
Martina assured me.

Even if men like Julian existed out there, it didn’t mean they (or he, in this case) were destined to be with a woman like me. I had never been the happy-ever-after girl with the soppy love story. Men like Julian didn’t even know I existed, much less were they interested in getting to know my kind better. Men like Julian were only meant for women like me to ogle at and dream about. And dreaming about him, I had to admit, was becoming the norm. All I had to do was close my eyes and imagine his strong arms around me, his mouth on mine, whispering in-between kisses hot, naughty things I hadn’t done in years. By the time I sat down again opposite Julian I could hardly look at him.

The meal with Julian and my entire family had been an exception to my constant hunger, although I hadn’t managed to swallow much, with Julian’s eyes on me most of the time. When he sipped his coffee, his eyes would search for mine over the rim and I would blush and wipe Maddy’s face or remind Warren not to chew with his mouth open.

If emotionally I was torn to pieces and haunted by images of Julian naked next to me, every night and all night, physically I felt great. The pounds were finally dropping off me and I knew I looked better already. Ira’s betrayal had been, looking back, what had finally snapped me out of my hibernation. If it hadn’t been for his betrayal I’d have never looked at another man. But now I was looking forward to my spring and the rest of the seasons of my life. If only Julian could be part of it all.

Maybe, if I lost all the weight I needed to and managed to look good, could Julian find me attractive? And if so, would I make the jump?

Not with your kids’ principal, you can’t, you idiot,
my meddling conscience informed me.
You don’t want your kids to get too attached. Find someone else.

Trouble was, I didn’t want somebody else. There had never been anyone that had made my head turn like Julian. Oh, why couldn’t I have met some toy boy who just wanted to have fun, and not my children’s chief educator?