LITMIR.BIZ

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I borrowed a car from my neighbor and I have to get it back to her by six.” Rick was six years younger than Kit, and once upon a time she had been enamored by his long-haired starving-artist persona. Now she was just weary of it.

      “What happened to your company car?” she asked, dreading the answer even before the words were out of her mouth. He didn’t lose his job. Please, God, don’t let him say he lost his job.

      Rick clicked his tongue against his teeth and let out a long aah breath. “I’m just not a corporate drone.” He set Johnny down. “I gave it a try—and I really appreciate your helping me get me the job and all—but it just wasn’t me.” He was unfazed by the withering look she was giving him. “The good news is, I got a gig painting a mural on the side of that old brick building on Maryland Avenue and Dobrey Street.”

      “Does it pay?”

      He tipped a flattened hand from side to side. “But the exposure is great. The theme is Indonesian history.” He nodded, as if that would make Kit feel all better about her son’s father’s complete lack of financial prospects.

      Kit just looked at him. “Indonesian history.”

      “What’s that?” Johnny asked.

      “Excellent question, my friend.” Rick ruffled Johnny’s hair. “We’ll look it up this weekend.”

      “You have to look it up?” Kit repeated incredulously. “You got this job without even knowing anything about it?”

      Rick just smiled and said to Johnny, “Change your clothes—we have to go.”

      “Okay. I’ll be right back!”

      When Johnny was gone, Rick looked at Kit with pity. “Rough week?”

      “What?”

      “You look like hell. And you’ve got that past-deadline-temper thing going. You work too much.”

      She frowned. “I have to. I’m trying to buy a house for our son. And it will be a lot easier if you keep up your support payments, such as they are.”

      He waved her concerns away. “Don’t worry about it.”

      It was good advice, because worrying about Rick’s lack of prospects had never made one whit of difference anyway. “So. Got big plans for the weekend? Besides studying Indonesian history, I mean.”

      “Thought I might take him into the city to see the Modigliani exhibit at MOMA.”

      “That would be good.” Better Rick than Kit, she figured. It wouldn’t hurt Johnny to be exposed to modern art, and God knew Kit didn’t want to do it. Modigliani gave her a headache. She didn’t like taking liberties with proportion. She was more of a Vermeer girl herself.

      It wasn’t a bad metaphor for her life with Rick.

      “Then again, we might stay in and watch Time Bandits.”

      “Again?”

      “Hey, it’s a classic.”

      She couldn’t help but laugh. She’d known what she was getting into when she’d married him, and now, when he was consistently what she expected, she could hardly call foul on him for it. At least he loved his son and took good care of him when it was his weekend.

      Johnny pounded back in the room. The dress was gone and he was in a Batman shirt—inside out—and shorts. He hauled his overstuffed Buzz Lightyear suitcase across the floor noisily. Buzz himself, the beat-up three-pound toy that could double as a weapon in the event of a burglary, was sticking out of the top.

      “Ready to go, Buzz?” Rick asked, reminding Kit why she had loved him once. He was really good with Johnny, there was no denying it.

      “Yup, he’s ready.” Johnny pointed to the obvious projection from his bag.

      Kit knelt by the boy and gave him a tight hug. “You have a good time with Daddy, okay?”

      “Okay, Mommy.”

      She drew back and touched his nose. “I’ll miss you.”

      “I’ll miss you too. ’Bye!”

      “’Bye, baby.” She stood up.

      “Relax a little,” Rick said to her. “These sixty-hour weeks are too much. You need to just be sometimes, you know?”

      And that, she realized all at once, was why she’d married him. That mellowness, that hippie-without-the-drugs peacefulness. That was why she’d married him.

      And why the marriage had failed.

      Because no matter how much she wanted to be that easygoing, mellow, pass-the-nachos person, she was always going to be the uh-oh woman.

      Thank God Johnny had Rick around to balance that out.

      “Yes,” she agreed. “I need to be employed.” She smiled. “But don’t worry about me—I’ve got the whole weekend to eat bonbons and listen to Frank Sinatra on the CD player.”

      “Give it a try,” Rick said with a smile. “Couldn’t hurt.” He looked down at Johnny. “Let’s go. The car’s about to turn into a pumpkin.” He put his hand lightly on the back of Johnny’s blond head and guided him into the hallway.

      For a moment she watched Johnny’s slight body walking away, his pipe-cleaner arm raised to hold his father’s hand, then stepped back into her apartment. The door closed with a light click behind her. She still heard their footsteps—Rick’s heavy plodding and the tap of Johnny’s run—disappear like music at the end of a song. When they were gone and she knew she was safely alone, she smiled. The weekend was hers. She didn’t have to make a single vegetable if she didn’t want to. In fact, she could eat Cap’n Crunch over the sink for two nights in a row if that’s what she wanted.

      She had forty-eight hours to unwind the stress that had wound her up all week and she had to start right away.

      She got the Cap’n Crunch out.

      Chapter Two

      “The thing is, I don’t think doctors actually give babies opium for teething anymore.” Kit leaned her elbows on her desk and listened to the old medical columnist’s patronizing response over the telephone line before responding, “I know it’s called paregoric, but it’s opium.” And four years ago she would have given her right arm to have some for her screaming baby, but still. Come on. It was a narcotic. “How about you just try describing more homemade remedies, like teething rings, freezing a sock, that kind of thing….” She listened on the line again. “A sock. Like, for your feet. You soak it in water, then freeze it and…” She sighed. “Never mind. Just go ahead and finish your column.”

      She would edit it later.

      Home Life magazine had been around for a hundred and twenty-five years, and Kit was willing to bet Orville Pippin had been writing his “Ask the Doctor” column for at least half that time. She would also bet his exploration of modern medicine stopped with whatever the Stenberg School of Medicine class of ’38 had taken away under their graduation caps.

      Kit had only been the managing editor of the magazine for five years, but in that time she’d researched and written more of his columns than he himself had, thanks to all of the outdated advice he had a tendency to dole out. She had a hotline to her own pediatrician’s office to double-check just this kind of thing.

      Opium.

      Jeez.

      “Hey, Kit!” Lucy, a young editorial assistant, barked from the hallway. “Phone, line two. Johnny’s babysitter again.”

      Kit glanced at the clock. Two fifty-five. Damn. Five minutes ago it had been noon and even then she hadn’t had enough time to finish everything she had to do today. She closed her eyes and counted to five. If she didn’t pick up the phone, they couldn’t tell her to come pick him up early again. It wasn’t

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