Free Single in Suburbia by Wendy Wax Page A

two aspirin Brooke had forced her to swallow before she dropped her at home, she lay in bed reliving last night’s margarita-fueled evening.
    She, Amanda Sheridan, had not only flirted with an incredibly attractive man she’d never seen before, she’d tied three hundred plus condoms to the branches of Rob’s Bradford pear tree.
    She smiled as she remembered Candace and Brooke’s whispered words of encouragement and the muffled laughter that had accompanied them. It had, of course, been a totally stupid and futile gesture, but even now with her head throbbing and her financial future still bleak, she was glad that she’d made it.
    Pulling on a robe, she put on a pot of coffee and went outside to retrieve the morning paper. Around her, the neighborhood slept. Garage doors remained down. Houses were shuttered, drapes still drawn across windows. The sun was up, but not yet making much of a statement.
    Barefoot, Amanda walked gingerly down the driveway and out onto the dew-draped grass to pick up the paper. The only sounds cutting the silence were the occasional chirp of a bird and the honk of a duck from the nearby pond.
    The phone was ringing as she entered the kitchen and she didn’t need the caller ID to tell her who it was.
    “Whoever tied all those condoms on my tree needs to have their head examined. There must be two hundred of them.” Rob sounded a lot less mellow than usual.
    “Three hundred and twenty-five, actually,” she said. “And I think you’ve got bigger problems than a condom cleanup.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “That means your attorney will be hearing from mine on Monday. She found the trust account fraud, Rob. You’re in serious trouble.”
    “Shit.” He sounded as deflated as the condoms currently dangling from his tree.
    “Is that all you have to say?” she asked. “What happened, Rob? What’s going on? The man I married would never have treated his family or his clients this way.”
    Amanda stared out the kitchen window of the house they’d shared and which she now had to find a way to hold on to. “And what are we supposed to do now? Did you give any thought at all to us when you were stealing from your clients and throwing away everything we had together?”
    “It wasn’t like that, Amanda. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
    She waited in silence, her anger building.
    “I had an investment go south and I had to cover the debt. But I put the money back in the account and swore I’d never do it again. Then I was short again, I was always short somehow, and I just couldn’t see any other way out.”
    “Why didn’t you say something? I thought we were supposed to be in this together.” She could hear the hurt in her voice and hated it. She preferred the anger that accompanied it, so hot and fluid.
    “Jesus,” he said, and she could picture him raking his hand through his hair. “I’m so completely screwed.”
    Amanda couldn’t believe it. He’d trashed all of their lives and jeopardized his children’s futures and still he was thinking of himself. The only one who might walk away unscathed was Tiffany.
    “We’re all screwed, Rob,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even when all she wanted to do was shriek out her rage and fear. “And I’m just curious what you would suggest I do about this? How am I supposed to support Meghan and Wyatt when I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for fifteen years? What kind of job do you think I’m going to be able to get that doesn’t require me to say ‘do you want fries with that?’”
    There was no answer from Rob and she realized as she slammed down the phone, there wasn’t going to be. She was on her own whether she wanted to be or not. And she was going to have to find a way to accept that.
      
    Acceptance might have come more easily if the Sunday classifieds contained even a single salaried position for an exceptionally experienced multitasking carpool driver. Or if Meghan hadn’t presented herself