Read Online Chore Whore by Heather H. Howard - Free Book Online Page A

watch reads 4:41 P.M.
    Lucy comes back to our table and scoots her chair over until it touches mine. She lets out a huge sigh, as if all this networking exhausted her.
    â€œSo, Corki, first off, I want to tell you how much everyone enjoyed your dinner last night. Rave reviews from all.”
    â€œThank you,” I say, embarrassed but pleased.
    â€œBut that’s not why I wanted to meet you here now. Let me get straight to the point. Cork, after my marriage to Roger broke up . . .”
    She’s not going to get straight to the point, that I can already see.
    â€œ. . . well, I went out with a couple of fellas.”
    Fellas?
    â€œI mean, you know, none of them were really for me. A woman knows these things. If I meet a new man, I just know whether it is meant to be or not. For instance, I knew Roger was meant to be.”
    Roger, whose last name I could never pronounce because it’s French and complicated and laden with so many vowels that I can’t wrap my tongue around it. Roger, who I truly liked in the beginning because he remembered me on his trips to Paris and always brought me back chocolate-covered truffles even though Lucy told him she didn’t want him contributing to my gaining an ounce . . .
    â€œCorki, what’s that look on your face?”
    â€œI’m sorry. I’m here.”
    â€œYou weren’t thinking Roger wasn’t meant to be, were you?”
    â€œOh no, he was certainly meant to be with you. I was just remembering the truffles.”
    The waiter brings tea with a silver three-tiered tray full of small, crustless sandwiches, crumpets, lemon curd, jam, a small scoop of Devonshire cream and teacakes. I serve us both. Lucy stares longingly out the window. It has begun to rain, hard. The windows are becoming streaked with sheets of water.
    â€œHe was meant to be with me. He had his demons, and even though it ended like it did, we had a marriage made in heaven.”
    The “heaven” only lasted six weeks. When Roger lost it one night after drinking an entire bottle of Lafite Rothschild ’82, he pushed Lucy so hard that her head snapped back and caused her to be bound in a neck brace for a month with acute muscle spasms. Roger refilled the wine bottle with his own urine that he said was “almost as good as the original contents” and proceeded to drink some and pour the rest on Lucy as she huddled in the corner holding her neck, crying hysterically. It wasn’t heavenly when I was jarred from a deep sleep at three o’clock in the morning by Lucy, who called and begged me to come help her. I carried my crying child out into the cold night, packed him into Betty’s backseat and drove to Beverly Hills to rescue her. I calmed Roger, calmed Blaise and simultaneously washed the urine out of Lucy’s hair. Their relationship ended after I caught Lucy writing in bloodred lipstick on Roger’s garage door, “Make Love, Not War.” Roger’s gardeners tried scrubbing it off, but the waxy, oily lipstick had already sunken into the paint job. When I drive by his house today, I still see the faded note that no one bothered to paint over.
    â€œSo, Lucy, who’s the new honey?”
    She leans closer. “How could you tell there’s a new man?”
    I scrunch my nose and giggle. “Oh, an assistant just knows these things!”
    â€œCorki, I’m going to tell you, but you need to take this to the grave,” she says, suddenly serious.
    â€œLucy, unless I’m hit by a car as I leave here, the news is going to leak out way before I make it to the grave.”
    â€œGranted, but I want to keep it private and special as long as I can. I don’t want the rags getting hold of it and making it out to be just a fling for front-page fodder. I’m convinced he’s my soul mate. You know how long I’ve been waiting for him. He’s arrived.”
    I look around the room pretending he’s walked in.