The Single Life - Liz Wood

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love. When she had believed it was the magic cloak that would keep all evil, pain and heartache away.

      That had been a long time ago, a lifetime. Which was why it was hard to understand why her throat was constricted now, her chest tight, her eyes watery. Whatever would the office gossips say if they knew?

      Clare forced herself to swallow. She was overreacting to Lauren’s call. She was letting her friend’s situation get to her. She was trying to do the hand-holding and the Kleenex-wringing when she was better off leaving that to someone else. Someone like Alice. She would call Lauren’s oldest and closest friend and see what the two of them could do.

      Or rather what Alice could do because Clare could only continue doing what she had been doing for the last twenty years. What she was paid to do. What had got her here, in the corner office with a view of Lake Michigan, a personal assistant on call, a BMW in the garage, a wardrobe that would make an upcoming starlet envious, and more than her share of fun—nights of fun, weekends of fun, a lot of money’s worth of fun.

      But no one to go home to.

      It’s bad enough to arrive home one night to discover your housemate naked on the living room couch. It’s worse, when someone else is with her, as naked as she is. Worst of all is recognizing the naked guy is someone you introduced her to, someone who you thought might get naked with you.

      Not that Helen Matter really, truly wanted to get naked with Josh. He was just another techno-weenie who cared more about bytes and transfer protocols than romantic, candlelit dinners—a dandruff-coated techno-weenie in the familiar uniform of jeans, white socks and an oversized, long-sleeve shirt.

      On a scale of one to ten, he was probably a two, or a one and a half. But scales were for women who could choose between Matt Damon and Matt LeBlanc, Jude Law and Justin Timberlake. Not for a woman who had to choose between Josh and nothing. Until she had walked in the door the other night, she had thought at least that choice was hers.

      Helen had known Josh as a fellow graduate student for some time, but hadn’t thought twice about him. Which was surprising given how these days she thought a lot about guys and a lot more about why she didn’t have one in her life.

      So she had been happy when she and Josh had managed to find something to talk about other than techno-jargon. The lab computer had crashed one evening while they were testing a new program, and he had filled in the silence with an account of his bicycle trip in Germany, which had been more fun than the year before when he had interned at his step-father’s firm, and he especially enjoyed it because of the model of bike he was riding, which he preferred to the sixteen-speeder he’d had as an undergrad. She had tried to look interested, although she was really almost numb with boredom. Even so, when he had suggested they go to the movies afterward, she had agreed.

      This is it, she had thought. This is the start of something new, wild and passionate! He will be Paris to my Helen, Lord Devlin to my Althea, Rhett to my Scarlett.

      Now, she couldn’t even remember what movie they saw, only that it had something to do with robots taking over the world. Not exactly what she considered a great choice for a first date. Because even though they had bought their own tickets, hadn’t shared popcorn or even come close to holding hands, she considered the outing a date.

      When the film was over, they had gone to her house. He’d met Sharon then and all three of them had gone out again to the neighborhood bar. Helen hadn’t seen Josh much after that. Duh! He was at her place with Sharon while Helen was at the lab alone.

      Just as well. Josh was really not what she was looking for. If Sharon wanted him, she could have him. As long as it wasn’t on Helen’s couch and in her living room.

      And if Sharon got everything she wanted from Josh on the nights of his visits, she didn’t get an easy response from Helen.

      “What’s the big deal?” she had asked, when Helen broached the subject. “It’s not as if he is, like, your boyfriend.”

      “You were doing it on the couch, Sharon, in the living room.”

      “So?”

      “So? Something called privacy—your space, my space, our space.” Helen flapped her hands at the designated spaces, but the gesturing didn’t help. Sharon just stared back at her, uncomprehending. “Whatever!” She rolled her eyes and held both palms out to show that the discussion was over. “If you’re not happy, you can, like, find someplace else to go.”

      Which was what Helen was going to do, even though the lease was in her name. If anyone should leave, it should be Sharon, who was only supposed to be in Chrissie Wilt Gard’s room for a short while, anyway.

      “I’m not really moving out,” Chrissie had said more than a year ago, “so don’t look for another roomie. I love my mother, but I can’t live with her too long. She’d drive me crazy.”

      Helen didn’t know how mothers could do that because she had been only eight when hers had died. But Chrissie usually knew what she was talking about. Only it hadn’t been Chrissie who had been going crazy. It had been her mother. Not crazy, really. Just heartbroken.

      So, despite her reservations, Chrissie had moved to her mother’s Oak Park house, where she had remained for more than a year. Then, she had been offered her dream job in Austria as the legal advisor to an international trade organization. Even then, she hadn’t wanted to leave.

      “I can’t leave my mom. Not now. Not when she’s like this.”

      “She wants you to go, Chrissie,” Helen had reminded her. “And you can’t turn down something like this. You’ve wanted it, like, forever.”

      Chrissie had shrugged her shoulders, but in the end she had gone. Now Helen was also going to have to go. She didn’t want Sharon thinking she begrudged her Josh.

      Because she really didn’t care about him. In fact, the more she thought about it, the less she cared. Sure, it had surprised her to see them together. Maybe even shocked her that Josh, just another techno-weenie, could do it in the living room, with the door wide open. Maybe even amazed her that he could get her roommate to make such loud noises.

      But neither the sight nor the sounds really bothered her. What really bothered her was that she hadn’t even been good enough for a techno-weenie.

      Well, she was going to change all that. She would deal with her lack-of-man problem the way she had dealt with all her problems. The way she had managed to outsmart her brother David at chess and her other brother Christopher at the International Youth for Robotics Fair. The way she had managed to get top marks in graduate school. All she had to do was find the right books, take the right classes, read, study and then master the subject. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?

      But first, she was going to have to find another place to live.

      CHAPTER 2

      Lauren pushed the diced carrots around her plate. Alice Mirosek was saying something about her husband Frank and his camera. Or was it his carburetor? Did it really matter? Either way, Lauren had lost the point to the story, and no one seemed to notice. Why had she come? Why had she let Alice and Clare talk her into it?

      Not that there had been any discussion involved. They had pulled the good cop/bad cop routine. First, the good cop had called about the planned get-together.

      “I never get to see you anymore now that the kids are gone and you’ve stopped coming to the fitness classes,” Alice had said in that honeyed voice of hers. “It would be nice to catch up. Let’s try lunch at The Green Factory. Clare can make it, too. It’ll be fun, Lauren. Just like old times.”

      But it wouldn’t be like old times, not for her anyway. Those times were gone. Gone with the wind. Make that the hurricane.

      So Lauren hadn’t promised anything, and she certainly hadn’t bothered to get ready for lunch today. But she hadn’t figured on the bad cop arriving. Like a dark-haired Valkyrie in pursuit of revenge, Clare had pushed her straight into the shower, thrown some clothes

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