Free The Escape Diaries by Juliet Rosetti Page A

the
queen.
                “Nothing,”
he whispered, reaching for my bra hooks. “I’ll phone her and say we’re going to
be late—something has come up.” He pressed himself against my back,
demonstrating exactly what it was that had come up.
                Which
explained why we were an hour late when we arrived at Kip’s mother’s place.
Vanessa Vonnerjohn extended her hand and greeted me politely, but her cold pale
eyes skimmed over me like a strip search, taking in the J. C. Penney skirt, the
Younkers shoes, the Target belt. She didn’t miss the bagged-around-the-ankles
pantyhose, the hastily brushed hair, the post-sex eyes.
    Vanessa’s mouth
clamped in a rictus of a smile, but there was no mistaking her silent message: slut ! The whole thing sailed right over
Kip’s clueless male senses; this was a woman-to-woman thing, as primitive as
two female wolves bristling their ruffs, sniffing each other’s butts, and baring
their teeth.
    Kip’s mother had
never held a job. This was a waste of talent because—aside from the fact
that she was totally fucked-up-bonkers-fruit-loops—she had a shrewd
instinct for money management and formidable executive abilities. If she’d aimed
her cutthroat capabilities at bond trading or negotiating hostile takeovers,
she would probably have ended up as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board
instead of a cookie-baking nut job.
                As
soon as Kip was old enough to date she’d begun tossing eligible females at
him—girls from good families, who’d gone to the right schools, who knew
how to dress, who had their own trust funds. Kip had escorted eleven different
debutantes to their coming-out cotillions one year, a duty he’d agreed to only
because Vanessa threatened to cut up his credit cards.
                In
college Kip threw off his mother’s yoke and went wild. He drank, he partied, he
was the life of his fraternity. Handsome and well-connected, he exuded the air
of glamour that clings to college guys who have an unending supply of booze,
dope, and dough for spring breaks to the Keys.
                Kip’s
bacchanal continued even after he graduated and started working for his
mother’s family, the Brenners, who owned one of the largest breweries in the
Midwest. He moved back to Milwaukee, bought a share in a downtown condo, and
began a life devoted to good times, his job a minor inconvenience that rarely
interfered with his sports or skirt-chasing. This continued for about ten
years, Kip happily mired in perpetual adolescence, his indulgent mother picking
up his credit card bills when he overspent. A couple of times Kip got so close
to the altar he almost felt the brush of bridal tulle around his neck, but he
managed to weasel out in time.
                Then
he met me—naïve, wet-behind-the-ears Mazie Maguire—so starry-eyed I
foolishly believed that forsaking all others meant that Kip and I would
be faithful to each other until death did us part. Whereas Kip’s take on the
concept was more like: I won’t have sex with another woman in your actual presence. But that was the future, still unbaked, and during our engagement period, which
lasted a mere two months, there’s at least a one-in-ten chance that Kip was
monogamous.
                Vanessa’s
plans for her son had not included his wedding a nobody, a girl who didn’t even
have the decency to bring a stock portfolio to the marriage. But she was
outwardly cordial that first day we met. We sat around her sunroom, sipping tea
and nibbling at a plate of thin, buttery wafers Vanessa told me she’d baked
herself. Kip snagged all the cookies—sex always made him
ravenous—and slumped down in his chair, looking completely bored, but I
kept alert, on my guard.  
                “So,
Millie,” Vanessa said.
                “Mazie.”
I resisted the urge to fidget.
                “Mazie.” She practically