Read Online A Summer in Sonoma by Robyn Carr - Free Book Online Page B

can answer that question. Is this all there is? Yeah—this is it, girlfriend. And I signed up.”
    â€œSee, there’s a reason some women decide to just have the family on their own,” Beth said, lifting a forkful of lettuce to her mouth.
    But Julie was more fascinated by Marty than Beth. “Marty, I’ve never heard you talk like this. I thought you were crazy about Joe.”
    â€œSure,” she said, chewing a mouthful of salad. “I am. Joe’s a great guy, a good father, a dependable man in his own way—and God knows the women he’s carried down the ladder out of a burning building are in love with him forever—but around home he’s a bum. He’s got sweats and gym shorts he hides so they won’t get washed until they’re so ripe they could walk to the laundry room. His whole closet stinks.” They have two closets, Julie thought jealously. “He spit shines the boat, but he can’t shave the bristle off his chin before he rolls over onto me. The yard has to be perfect, which by the way is sweaty, smelly work, and that vagrant-esque odor sticks to him—at the dinner table and when we go to bed at night. And believe me, he is limited to the yard, garage and the sporting equipment in his ability to clean things.”
    â€œI’ve never seen Joe looking like a vagrant,” Cassie said.
    â€œYou would if you were married to him. He cleans up for company,” Marty said. “Really, what he gives F.D. is perfect. If we’re having people over, he’s all spiffed up. But when it comes to his wife, his marriage—he takes it totally for granted. He doesn’t even try. ”
    â€œMarty, you should tell him,” Julie said.
    â€œYou think I haven’t told him? I’ve begged him!” Marty insisted. “He doesn’t care. He thinks it’s funny. He tells me to relax . Don’t you get sick of Billy sometimes?” Marty asked Julie.
    â€œUh, yeah. But not for the same reasons….”
    â€œWell, what reasons?”
    He’s too fertile. I’m too fertile with him. He’s too romantic, like we’re still in high school, doing it in the backseat of a car, like two kids who can’t help it, can’t stop it from happening. He’s disgustingly optimistic, like the world we live in doesn’t even exist—the world of too many bills, too little pay. She’d give anything if Billy worked only for F.D. and actually had days off to help around the house, help with the kids. But she said, “Well, some of the same reasons, but…”
    â€œBut?”
    She shrugged. “That stuff doesn’t get to me so much.” Because I have real problems, she thought, feeling angry and envious. A house that’s too small with a mortgage too big, cars that are too old, out of control bills…. “Okay, some of that stuff gets to me. But, Marty, it looks like you and Joe have a pretty good life.”
    â€œBecause we have a boat? ” she asked. “Jules, I didn’t want a boat . And I’d rather die than spend another week in that RV! I’d give anything for a vacation somewhere cool, just me and Joe. Like Hawaii or the Bahamas or something. I’d like to watch a movie that doesn’t involve fifty-seven people getting shot or out-of-control farts. I’d like to go out to dinner. Or to Las Vegas—to spend the night in a classy hotel, have a day at the spa, then lie by the pool—but Joe says, ‘Why go to Vegas to get a tan when we have a boat?’ Could it be because it’s up to me to shop, prepare food, fix everyone’s meals and then clean up everything when we bring the boat in? That’snot fun—it’s just more work!” Marty lifted some of her salad to her mouth, chewed and said, “You’re lucky. Billy still treats you as if he’d like you to marry him.”
    Hmm, Julie thought. Why don’t I feel so