Read Online Murdering Mr. Monti: A Merry Little Tale of Sex and Violence by Judith Viorst - Free Book Online Page A

isn’t my habit to commit . . . lunch. In fact—and you can believe this or not, as you choose; I won’t try to persuade you—I have never ever before committed lunch.”
    I could feel my face heating up (my God, was I blushing?) but I kept on talking, faster and faster and faster.
    “Not that I’m trying to turn this into somethingsignificant between us—certainly not. My eyes are wide open. I’m seeing it for exactly what it is. I am, for heaven’s sake, a consenting adult. But you need to know that having lunch is a very very big step for me and . . .”
    Philip hadn’t heard a word I said. He was too busy flipping through the pages of his pocket calendar, looking for an opening in his schedule. “Hmmm,” he said. “Zurich next week, London the week after, Paris after that, and then L.A. Looks like my next several shows are on location. But wait. Wait just a minute. Excellent. What about March eighteenth, twelve noon, the Hay-Adams?”
    Two months and seventeen days from now? I felt berth profoundly relieved (because I wouldn’t have to do it right away) and also profoundly offended (because he didn’t insist on doing it right away). My panic, however, was definitely gone. I recalled the words of the great William Shakespeare, who once observed, “The readiness is all.” With plenty of time to get used to the thought of adultery, I figured that, come March 18, I’d be ready.
    I searched through my purse, tracked down my little date book, and (in my first gesture of adulterous deception) entered my appointment with Philip in code: P.E.H.A.B.C.
    The P.E. was Philip Eastlake, formerly Epstein.
    The H.A. was our meeting place, the Hay-Adams.
    And because, as I tell my readers, the profoundly passionate need not preclude the practical, the B.C. was a reminder to Buy Condoms.
    •  •  •
    Months later, on a steamy August day, there I was at a far-from-my-neighborhood drugstore, purchasing a packof condoms again. Except this time they were not for Philip and me, or for Mr. Monti and me, or for Louis and me. This time they were for Josephine and Wally.
    One of these days I ought to do a column on purchasing condoms. I mean, there is so little guidance in this area. Do we want ribbed? Do we want lubricated? Do we want the old standbys—Ramses or Trojans—or is it better to opt for the newer brands? Do we want to flatter our partner by buying the extra-large or—if he’s not extra-large—will the damn thing fall off? Even my best Mend, Carolyn, who has had a quite remarkable number of lovers (considering that she has also been married four times), is not that informed about condoms, though she strongly recommends that you look the salesman straight in the eye when purchasing them.
    Anyway, it had been six days since Wally had taken off for Rehoboth Beach, where he’d been holing up, planning and tanning. Today, however, was the big day he was coming back to the city. Today was the day he intended, with a little help from me, to rescue (or maybe kidnap) Josephine. He would then, having won her trust again, take her back to the soothing shores of Rehoboth, where he had already (what can I tell you? he’s a remarkable young man) lined up a vacationing shrink to give the poor girl some decent psychotherapy.
    Actually, Josephine had started seeing a therapist early in June. She should have started early in second grade, which was when, she once told me, she began to hyperventilate and sleepwalk and vomit every morning before school. But it seems that Mr. Monti treated any hint that his youngest child had emotional difficulties as a vicious personal attack on his fathering. “She’s agrowing girl,” he’d say, whenever she started gasping, fox breath or throwing up. “She’ll grow out of it.”
    And so she did, replacing her childhood symptoms with several inconvenient obsessive rituals and an awesome collection of allergies. and phobias (including, along with the standard ones, a fear of