“I’ll pick you up at Ronnie’s place and we’ll have dinner at an intimate restaurant I know. They have a small dance combo. I hope you like to dance. Leave everything to me. Just be ready about seven. Okay?”
“Okay.” Her voice shook and Bryce was intrigued.
“You have no idea how I’m looking forward to meeting you, Carla.”
“Me too,” she said softly.
Bryce’s laugh was infectious. “ ’Til Friday,” he said, then he hung up.
“Until Friday,” she repeated into the silent phone.
For the next few days, Carla was a wreck. She drove her children to and from Cub Scouts and swimming lessons. She cooked dinner, watched TV, and visited with her parents, all the while quaking inside with a delicious excitement that she was amazed no one noticed.
Thursday, on a whim, she had her nails done. She’d passed Plaza Nails often and had occasionally thought about treating herself to a manicure. Always before, however, the cost had stopped her. If I want to stay home with the boys and not work full time, she had told herself as she walked passed the door toward the supermarket, I’ve got to be a little careful.
As she drove past the mall on the way to Little League Thursday afternoon she gave in to temptation. It’s an investment in my career, she told herself. Anyway, I have Rick’s three fifties in my wallet.
So while the boys were at practice, a manicurist named Micki, who didn’t stop talking for an hour, lengthened Carla’s nails with linen wraps and glue, then polished them in a soft lavender shade called “Lilacs in the Spring.” As Carla left, Micki told her to come back in a week for a glue manicure, whatever that was.
“Hey, Mom,” said Mike, her youngest son in the car going home. “You’ve got stuff on your nails.”
“I decided to have them polished,” she said, glancing at her nails for the dozenth time. “Looks snazzy, no?”
“I guess,” Tommy said, “but it’ll be hard to make pizza dough.” Practicality was Tommy’s hallmark. “They’ll get all ookey. We are having your pizza tonight, aren’t we? You promised.”
“Of course. I promised.”
Thursday evening after pizza, Carla spent several hours standing in front of her closet debating exactly what to wear. After her call to Bryce, she and Ronnie had rummaged through Ronnie’s closet in the brownstone, but nothing in Ronnie’s wardrobe made just the right statement. As the boys did their homework and watched TV, Carla put on, then took off at least a dozen combinations, selected then reselected like a schoolgirl preparing for her first date. “I’m an idiot,” she muttered, throwing a beige, summer knit dress on top of the growing pile on her bed. She picked up the phone and started to dial Bryce’s number to call the whole thing off. “God, this is really stupid.” Then she put the phone down. “I can always call it off during dinner.”
She hung everything back up, then closed her eyes and pulled a blouse from its hanger, coordinated it with a linen suit and stuffed all three garments in a tote bag to bring with her. Then she sat on the bed, pulled the items back out, folded them neatly, added a pair of low-heeled pumps and put everything back into the bag.
She gazed into the mirror, brushed her shoulder-length hair and shook her head slowly. Should I go down to the city early and have my hair done? she wondered. Somehow that didn’t feel right. She had no idea why her nails should look better than her hair but it seemed wrong to have some fancy hairstyle. “Shit,” she said aloud, “this is ridiculous. I’ll worry myself to death at this rate.” She stuffed a strand of hair behind one ear and went to tell the boys that it was bedtime.
The following afternoon Carla packed an overnight bag for each of her boys.
“Are we staying at Gramma’s?” her thirteen-year-old asked.
“Yes. For tonight.”
“Got a hot date, Mom?” BJ asked as she packed.
“Where did you get that idea?” she asked, taken aback.
BJ put his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes. “I see all and know all,” he chanted. When Carla raised an eyebrow he continued, “Well, Mom, new nails, an overnight visit with Gramma and Grampa. I’m not a kid, you know. I watch TV.” When she continued to stare at him he continued. “It’s okay with me. Mothers need some fun. Oprah and Dr. Phil say so. I’ll be nice to Gramma and watch Tommy and Mike.”
Her kid was watching talk shows and telling her that mothers needed fun. She playfully swatted his bottom, then stuffed Mike’s PJs into his bag.
On her way into the city, Carla stopped at a local mall on a whim and bought a pair of large pearl-drop earrings that matched her outfit perfectly but differed from anything she owned. With the new jewelry in her purse, she arrived at the brownstone at about five. Since Ronnie was in Dutchess County Carla had the place to herself.
She wandered upstairs, filled the oversized tub, poured in a large scoop of bath salts and, while the water ran, put a Sinatra cassette into the tape player. While the crooner’s familiar voice filled the room, Carla settled into the deep tub and leaned back, letting the light spicy scent relax her. She spent an hour in the water, adding hot whenever it became too cool. She fantasized about the evening and what Bryce would look like. She pictured him undressing her slowly, touching and stroking her. She could imagine him whispering in her ear, telling her how beautiful she was. She almost felt his hot body entering her and slowly loving her.
When she finally emerged from the tub her skin was soft and deep pink all over, and her nipples and pussy tingled. Part of her wanted to stimulate herself to orgasm, just to take the edge off, but she didn’t. The edge fit right in with the fantasy that she and Bryce were creating.
At six-thirty, she put on a white, lacy bra and matching panty, a stylish white garter belt and stockings and a white satin half-slip. Then she slipped into the full-sleeved gold silk blouse and mid-thigh, off-white linen skirt she had brought and slipped her feet into her pumps.
She snapped on the earrings she had bought and looked at herself in Ronnie’s mirror. As she had suspected, the earrings set off the blouse perfectly, but felt so alien to her that she pulled them off. After looking at her reflection for a moment she slowly put them back on. In for a penny, she thought, in for a pound.
She sat at Ronnie’s dressing table and applied makeup, wishing that she knew enough about cosmetics to be able to do something different with her face. She examined her new long fingernails, then drummed them on the dressing table just to hear them clack. She brushed her brown hair until it shone and pulled it back behind one ear with a gold comb. She stood and stepped back so she could see herself in the full-length mirror. Not bad, she thought, not bad.
Ronnie had told her that if and when Carla wanted, she could have a makeover session with an old friend but Ronnie had also assured her that Bryce would prefer the natural Carla. Ronnie had several spray bottles of scent on her dressing table and Carla selected Opium, dabbing it sparingly on her neck and in her cleavage.
Trying to shake off her nervousness, she looked at herself one last time, grabbed her jacket and carried it downstairs, arriving in the living room just as the doorbell rang.
She took a deep relaxing breath, dropped her jacket on the back of the sofa,
