Read Online Shop and Let Die by Kelly McClymer - Free Book Online

annoyed as I get at him, I usually tell him
everything anyway. I’d rather he think I was a flake than a liar
any day.
    So far I’ve managed to
ignore my husband’s subtle hints that other wives work
(translation: serve eight hours for a boss who doesn’t want to hear
the phrase “doctor’s appointment” more than once a year—try that
with a toddler who picked up an earache as easily as he stuffed
peas up his nose).
    I have politely ignored my
friend’s worried queries about the state of my brain decay (who
says SpongeBob Squarepants is not a scintillating subject for
conversation?) and I have juggled the budget well enough that all
the bills get paid without aid of a steady paycheck made out to me.
Although that’s changing.
    Now that the kids are both
in school and sick days are rare—although holidays and teacher
in-service days happen with schedule-twisting regularity—I have
become an odd-job-working-mom. Not a full-fledged, society-defined,
working mom. Bullpatooties…excuse my French.
    Within a second I got a
beep to signal new messages. Five—two of them responses to my post
and three offers to enlarge my penis, which I dumped as junk
email.
    Snowbelle, a frequent
drive-by poster had snippily replied, “I would never consider a
dating shop. I am a faithful married woman.”
    I stuck my tongue out at
the screen as I deleted her email. Snowbelle was always online.
Always. Two o’clock in the morning. Three in the afternoon. Eight
in the evening. If she was faithful to her husband it was only
because she was so busy on the keyboard she didn’t have time for
extracurricular activities.
    MysteryK79 was much
kinder. “You have to get to the date part before it is officially
categorized as cheating, honey. I’ve done a couple of those online
date shops—and a few of the five minute dating things which are big
here in San Francisco.”
    I was a bit shocked to
read that because MysteryK79 talked about her husband every chance
she got. But the rest of her post explained that.
    “ Bruce and I do them
together, and we find it quite…exhilarating, if you know what I
mean .”
    Wow. I tried to picture
Seth helping me fill out the profile. We’d probably have ended up
in a bickerfest over whether her hair should be blonde or red and
if it was an unfair disadvantage to give her a bust size of 32
AA—even if it was accurate enough if I was used as a
model.
    I shut off the computer
and went to bed, hoping I wouldn’t dream about going on a date with
Seth, and James Connery, the FBI guy with really, really green
eyes.
    The next morning, I still
felt a little like a zombie, going through the motions. I avoided
the computer for dishes and laundry until I had to log in to
download my assignment instructions for the day. I saw that my
question had generated at least a dozen replies. I started to read
them, my stomach twisting a little.
    Just then the buzzer on
the dryer went off and I jumped up and left the messages for later.
This wasn’t my normal routine—I usually let the dryer buzz like an
annoying mosquito when I was on email.
    Even odder, I folded the
clothes while they were still warm, put them away and made
meatloaf, a family favorite—although I wasn’t sure my low-carb
version would get raves. No breadcrumbs, lean sirloin and worst of
all, mustard instead of ketchup to bind it together.
    Oh well. We all had to
make sacrifices. And I’d clearly made mine today—avoiding any urge
to check my email to see if the tide had turned and I was now
viewed as a cheating harlot on the Secret Shopper Sisters list. I
suppose there was still a little vestigial guilt going on, despite
the fact I clearly had nothing to feel guilty about.
    So I had thought about who
my perfect date might be. I hadn’t gone on a date. No. I had come
home and made dinner for my family.
    So I noticed the real spy
had green eyes. So what. Anyone would have stared at him. Even
Seth. It wasn’t like I’d actually applied for a job