Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks Page B

wildly ecstatic. “Ladies don’t give it all away in a rush, Wyn. Keep a little mystery about yourself. Play things down”—her favorite admonition when I was busy letting it all hang out.
“I see congratulations are in order. Who’s the lucky company?”
“Prentiss Culver Architectural Design. I start next Wednesday.” She takes off her jacket and hangs it in the hall closet instead of draping it over a chair, like I would have. She picks up the mail sitting on the hall table, flips through it, sorting it into piles. Catalogs, bills, trash.
“Let’s get takee-outee for dinner. To celebrate your job. Maybe you’ve even got a bottle of champagne lurking in the pantry.”
She looks up from the pile of bills, brows knit together. “Oh, honey, I wish I could. I’ve got the garden club board dinner tonight. I’m sorry, it’s too late to change the meeting; otherwise I—”
“No, it’s fine. Tomorrow night, then.”
She grimaces slightly. “Tomorrow night I have a date.”
“A date?”
“Yes.” She perks up. “In fact, you should have a drink with us before we go to dinner. I think you’d really like Ed, and I know he’d like you.”
“Mother, I could never go on a date with you. That would be too weird.”
“Having a drink before dinner doesn’t constitute going with me on a date.”
“Who’s Ed?”
“He’s a detective.”
“Like a private eye?”
She laughs merrily. “Don’t be silly. He’s a police detective. With the Encino PD.”
“Where on earth did you meet a cop?”
“He helped us set up our Neighborhood Watch program last year. He was so nice and so … thorough.” Obviously that was the deciding factor.
My eyes narrow. “Are you sure he’s single?”
“Of course. He’s a widower.”
“Did he show you the corpse?”
She ignores me and opens the Williams-Sonoma catalog.
She comes home from the garden club board dinner with the names of two therapists and one attorney.
“I guess you got tired of discussing perennials, so you just sat around dissecting my life?”
“Of course not. But all of those women have children and most of them have been through this at least once. By the way, Georgia and Tim Graebel are coming to dinner Monday night. Will you be home?”
“I might go to a movie.”
“It would do you good to be with friends. The Graebels know what’s happened. They don’t expect you to be vivacious and entertaining.”
“How do the Graebels know what’s happened when I’m not even sure myself?”
“I told Georgia, of course.”
The phone rings and I grab it.
“Mrs. Franklin, it’s Elizabeth Gooden. Sorry to call you so late. I was in court all day. The title to the house on Woodrow is listed in the name of David Franklin only.”
“Oh” is all that comes out.
“Have you had a chance to make a list of community property?”
“Um … no. Not yet.”
“Then there’s really nothing else to be done at this point. I hope you’ll consider what we talked about yesterday. I’ll wait to hear from you.”
I replace the receiver. My mother’s looking at me, waiting for me totell her something, but I head for the stairs. “I’m going to lie down for a while.”
I open the window a crack, stretch out on top of the bedcovers. Without thinking, I reach for the remote, turn on the TV. An old black-and-white movie flickers soundlessly. Love in the Afternoon. Audrey Hepburn and Gary Cooper cavorting through Paris. I’ve seen it so many times I know it by heart. I love the ending, where he’s going away and she’s walking along beside the train, giving him this line of bullshit about all the lovers she’s going to have when he’s gone. The train picks up speed and she’s talking faster, and then she’s running alongside until suddenly Coop realizes that he can’t live without her and he reaches out and sweeps her off the platform onto the train, beside him. Kiss and fade to black.
Pretty soon she’ll be coming home to their gorgeous apartment in New York to find the