LITMIR.BIZ

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her teeth with frustration, Justine sagged onto the edge of the sofa and rammed her fingers through her hair. It was Seth; it had to be. He must’ve called her from a pay phone on the wharf.

      One minute away from her phone and she’d missed talking to her husband.

      “I’m home.” Zach Cox let himself in the back door off the garage and stepped into the kitchen. His jaw tightened at the mess that greeted him. The sink was piled high with breakfast dishes, and the milk from this morning’s cereal was still on the countertop.

      “Who left out the milk?” he demanded.

      His two children—conveniently—didn’t hear him. Fifteen-year-old Allison was sitting at the computer in their home office, cruising the Internet, and Eddie, who was nine, lay prone on the family-room carpet in front of some mindless television program.

      “Where’s Mom?” he asked next, standing directly over his son.

      Eddie lifted one arm and pointed wordlessly toward the sewing room.

      Zach ambled in that direction on his way to the bathroom. “Hi, Rosie, I’m home,” he told his wife of seventeen years. “What’s for dinner?”

      “Oh, hi, honey,” Rosie said, glancing up from the sewing machine. “What time is it, anyway?”

      “Six,” he muttered. He couldn’t remember when he’d last come home and found dinner in the oven. “The milk was left out again,” he said, thinking it would need to be dumped after sitting for ten hours at room temperature.

      “Eddie fixed himself a bowl of cereal after school.”

      Okay, he figured, the milk might be salvageable.

      She lined up the shiny black material and ran it rapidly through the machine, pulling out pins as she went.

      “What are you sewing?” he asked.

      “A Halloween costume,” she mumbled with four or five pins clenched between her lips. “By the way—” she paused and removed the pins “—Eddie’s school is having an open house tonight. Can you go?”

      “Open house?” he repeated. “You can’t be there?”

      “No,” she said emphatically. “I have choir practice.”

      “Oh.” He’d had a long, trying day at the office and had hoped to relax that evening. Instead, he was going to have to attend this event at his son’s school. “What’s for dinner?” he asked again.

      His wife shrugged. “Call for a pizza, okay?”

      It was the third time in the last two weeks that they’d had pizza for dinner. “I’m sick of pizza.”

      “Doesn’t that new Chinese place deliver?”

      “No.” He should know; he’d had Chinese just that afternoon. Janice Lamond, a recently hired employee, had picked up an order of sweet-and-sour shrimp for him. “Besides, that’s what I had for lunch.”

      “What do you want then?” Rosie asked, busying herself with the cape that was part of the Harry Potter costume Eddie had requested.

      “Meat loaf, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and a fresh salad.”

      Rosie frowned. “I think there’s a meat loaf entrée in the freezer.”

      “Homemade meat loaf,” Zach amended.

      “Sorry, not tonight.”

      “When?” he asked, cranky now. It wasn’t too much to ask that his wife have dinner ready when he came home from work—was it? As an accountant, Zach made enough money to ensure that Rosie could stay home with the kids. This arrangement was what they’d both wanted when they started their family.

      At one time, Zach had assumed that when Allison and Eddie were in school, Rosie would come and work in the office with him. The firm of Smith, Cox and Jefferson often required additional staff. Rosie had always intended to get a job outside the home, but it just never seemed to happen. The school needed volunteers. Then there was Brownies when Allison was eight or nine, and now Cub Scouts for Eddie. And sports, after-school clubs, dance lessons… It soon became obvious that the demands on Rosie’s time wouldn’t be alleviated as the kids grew older. Because they both believed their children’s needs should come first, they’d decided Rosie shouldn’t re-enter the workforce.

      “I’m tired,” Zach told his wife, “and I’m hungry. Is it unreasonable to expect dinner with my family?”

      Rosie took a deep breath, as though she was struggling to hold on to her patience. “Eddie’s got open house at school tonight, Allison’s coming with me to practice with the junior choir and I’ve got to finish this Halloween costume before Friday. Eddie needs it for his soccer team’s party. I can only do so much.”

      He could hear the annoyance in his wife’s voice and resisted asking her what she’d been doing all day while he was at work.

      Rosie glared at him. “If you want me to stop everything right now and fix you dinner I will, but I have to tell you, I think you are being unreasonable.”

      He considered her words, and then feeling defeated and a bit guilty said, “Fine. I’ll order pizza.”

      “Be sure and tell them no green peppers,” she said, refocusing her attention on the costume.

      “I like green peppers,” he muttered, not realizing Rosie could hear him.

      “Eddie and Allison hate them—they prefer black olives. You know that. Now stop being difficult.”

      “All right, I’ll order sausage with olives on one half and green peppers on the other.”

      His wife rolled her eyes expressively. “I’m not all that fond of green peppers myself, you know.”

      So, in addition to being unreasonable, he was selfish. Well, at least he was batting a thousand. “Sausage and black olives, then,” he said.

      “Great.” He walked over to the kitchen phone, having memorized the number for Pizza Pete’s. He placed the order and made his way to the master bedroom.

      “Where are you going now?” Rosie asked as he passed the sewing room.

      “To shower and change.”

      “Do you have to?” she muttered.

      “What’s wrong with that?” he demanded.

      She pushed away from the sewing machine and stood up. “I thought you might wear your suit to the open house.”

      “Why?” He’d been waiting all afternoon to remove his tie.

      “It’ll make a better impression if you meet Eddie’s teacher wearing a suit. Mrs. Vetter will know you’re a professional.” She coaxed him with a smile, then brushed a piece of lint off his shoulder and smoothed away a wrinkle. “You look so handsome in your suit,” she said, smiling. “Maybe you should shave, though.”

      Zach ran his hand down his face, feeling the bristle scratch against his palm. She was right. “If I shower and shave, then I’m changing out of this suit.”

      Rosie’s frown deepened. “I don’t know why you have to be so difficult.”

      “If I had a decent dinner every once in a while, maybe I’d be more inclined to do as you ask,” he snapped. He couldn’t help remembering how pleasant lunch with Janice had been. She’d joined the staff the first of the month and had already proved herself as far as Zach was concerned. She was a quick learner, competent, cooperative. Twice she’d gone out of her way to make sure he had what he wanted for lunch. Only that afternoon she’d insisted on driving over to Mr. Wok’s for the shrimp dish.

      Sitting on the end of the king-size bed, Zach yanked off his jacket and laid it beside him. Unfastening the buttons at his wrist, he rolled up his shirtsleeves

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