looked down at her soiled T-shirt and rumpled jeans. She hadn’t had time to do laundry for a few days. No surprise there! She was not domestic goddess material.
“Hell, no! That woman’s healthier than the proverbial horse. On second thought, it’s sort of about my mother, but it has nothing to do with her health. Josephine’s skill is in making others sick.”
Leo, who knew Lisa and Francie’s mother quite well—he’d been maid of honor at Francie’s wedding—nodded absently in agreement. “I heard you got married. Where’s your new husband? I’ve been dying to meet him. Francie tells me he’s quite the hunk.”
Lisa sighed, feeling tired and alone.
Damn you, Alex! Why didn’t you love me enough?
“It’s a long story, Leo.”
“I’ve got the time, and…” He pulled a bottle of wine from his grocery sack and grinned enticingly.
She finally smiled back. “Why not? I can use some good vino.” Maybe it would drown the pain she was feeling. And Leo always had the best vintages to choose from. He was a collector of fine wines and had a pretty impressive cellar, though it wasn’t really a cellar in the traditional sense, but a closet that had been converted into one, with temperature control and pretty redwood racks. “Got any of those sugared nuts I’m wild about?”
The blond man grinned. “Of course. I just stocked up.” He nodded at the brown bag he was holding. “Three cans.”
“Why aren’t you and Francie working today? I thought you were trying to get that new business of yours off the ground.” Leo had recently started his own interior design firm and had hired her sister to assist him, after she’d been fired from her previous job as a publicist.
Francie had a knack for landing on her feet, and Lisa envied her sister that. She usually landed on her rear, stuck like a too big butt in a too small toilet seat.
Following Leo to his apartment door, she waited while he unlocked it. “Designing Women is doing great. Francie’s been a huge help. I’m so fortunate to have her working with me. But today’s Saturday, in case you haven’t noticed, and the store’s not open on Saturday. Francie thought we should be, but I had to draw the line at that. Weekends are for partying.”
How could she have forgotten it was Saturday? Like her marriage, her mind must be going down the shitter, as well.
“You’re my kind of man, Leo. Always have been.”
“Well, sweetie, if I ever decide to go straight you’ll be the first woman I call now that Francie’s married. Oh wait, you’re married, too. Damn!”
“Not for long.”
His eyes widened. “Oh?”
They entered the living room of the apartment, where Leo filled two wineglasses with a full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon and handed Lisa one, then they both plopped down on opposite ends of the red leather sofa.
“Do tell? And don’t leave out any of the gory stuff. It’s been boring since Francie left. I’ve had absolutely no one to gossip with at night.”
Lisa sipped her wine thoughtfully. “I guess I shouldn’t have rushed into marriage, Leo. I was stupid, didn’t really think about what it might entail, like having to put up with Alex’s family, who are a total nightmare.”
A major understatement, if ever there was one.
“So the problem isn’t with Alex, but with his family?”
“He’s to blame, too. Alex didn’t stand up for me, or take my side in anything. He just let that old bitch walk all over me and insult me.”
And she would never forgive him for that. If there was one thing Lisa was, it was loyal, and she expected the same degree of loyalty in return.
“Miriam hated me on sight. I thought in time I could win her over. Ha! That was a good one. The woman makes Leona Helmsley look like a saint.” The Queen of Meaner, Lisa thought.
“Miriam objected to everything about me. She particularly didn’t like the way I dressed and was always calling me a hippie, which I think was a euphemistic way to say hooker. She insisted on taking me shopping, tried to make me buy clothes that not even my mother would be caught dead in. I’m not kidding, Leo. All her friends dressed so ultraconservatively, they looked like the Stepford wives come to life—monogrammed blouses with matching monogrammed purses, wraparound skirts, that sort of thing.” She shuddered at the thought.
“Sort of a Night of the Living Dead look, huh?”
“Exactly. When I refused to go along, she told me I was being selfish, that I was an embarrassment to Alex.”
“That was cruel.”
“Yeah, but not as cruel as her wanting me to chop off my hair and dye it blond, so I’d fit in better.”
Leo’s eyes widened. “That gorgeous dark hair? You’re kidding.”
“Afraid not.”
“What about Alex’s father? Was he awful, too?”
“Rupert, the magnificent?” Lisa shook her head and heaved a sigh, remembering all the glares and the disappointed looks the older man had cast her way. “The same, though not quite as vocal.
“The Mackenzies are very wealthy. They had a different image of what Alex’s wife should be—white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, to be exact. And being a Southerner wouldn’t have hurt.
“The fact that I was Italian and Catholic went against me from the beginning. They hated the way I dressed, talked, breathed. They hated pretty much everything about me. Guess I didn’t meet their exacting standards. I doubt anyone could.”
Miriam had actually expected Lisa to wear white gloves to one of the tea parties she held for her lady friends. And Lisa had complied. Sort of. She’d worn elbow-length white gloves, accompanied by a sequined crop top. Lisa had known it would piss off her mother-in-law, but by that point she hadn’t really given a damn.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. That must have been tough. I know what it’s like not to meet expectations. People can be quite cruel. What are you going to do now?”
“Get a divorce, as soon as I can afford a lawyer.” Which, admittedly, could take a while, finances being what they were—nonexistent.
“Are you working?”
Lisa shook her head. “I tried to get my old job back at the bookstore, but they’d already hired someone else.” Actually, the manager of Carlton Books had looked horrified at the prospect of hiring Lisa back.
Dick Lester, or Dick Less, as she liked to call him, sure as hell hadn’t minded pinching her butt whenever he got the chance. One day when she’d finally had enough of his sexist treatment, she’d punched the disgusting pig in the balls, thus ending her lackluster career as a bookseller and his as Philadelphia’s oldest living stud muffin.
“I’m afraid I’m not qualified to do much, Leo, which is my biggest problem.”
