Lauren Takes Leave by Gerstenblatt, Julie (ebooks children's books free txt) 📕

lied! So, I need you to tell me you’ll dance with me! Right now!”I realize how that sounds and try to explain. “I mean, not that you’ll comedance with me right now—oh—this isn’t coming out right…but anyway, it’s ofutmost importance!” I guess I’m pretty buzzed, because a swarm of bees havetaken up residence in my head.

“Where are you?” This is Doug’s response.

“In a hotel. Sequestered. I told you before.”

“Uh-huh.” He sighs. “With all that noise in thebackground. Dancing.”

“No!” I backtrack. “I’m not dancing now. You’reconfused.”

“I’m confused.” He laughs, unmistakable ironylacing his tone.

“Well, maybe I’m tipsy.” I have to shout a littleto be heard over the crowd as it cheers for something that I can’t see. I tryto get a grip, recall the lie. “Yes, Doug. You see, I’m sitting here with myfellow jurors in Alden, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Of course! Weraided the minibar and now we’re playing some music because we aren’t allowedto put on the television.” I pause and try to hide a burp. “We happen to be avery lively jury.”

“I see,” he says. “A very lively jury. Indeed.” He eithercoughs or laughs, I can’t tell.

“Yes. And this…jury. They’ve got me really thinking. Thiscase, it’s about…infidelity…a wrong turn…I can’t say more. And I’m deliberatingright now, I mean, we’re in the midst of these very emotional deliberations,and I can’t help but think of us.”

“Cunts!” some guy yells at a group of women who have justwalked away from him at the bar.

“What was that?” Doug asks.

“Bailiff asked us if we wanted pints. Of beer.” Imove away from the center of the courtyard and try to find a quiet corner.

“How does this court case involving infidelity remind youof us?” Doug asks softly.

“I wonder…if the woman in this case had no choice. For thepast twelve years, her husband left her alone a lot of the time, you know, withwork demands, lots of travel. She raised these kids all by herself, when shewasn’t working, and she had this horrible babysitter who often used her ceramicstraightening iron!” I explain. “And then the husband didn’t even make aneffort to romance her! No dancing, he said, no time or money for vacations.He would criticize her and the children and all that they were doing wrong, butnever compliment her as a mom or wife for all that she was getting right. Iwould imagine she was really bummed out, living with a man like that, a man whosucked the joy out of her life. Maybe this woman had no choice but to commitadultery with”—I fish for a descriptor that is not “YouTube rappingsensation”—“the tennis instructor. Maybe she was forced into fantasizing abouta guy who was much more fun than her husband. Dreaming of a different life, ayounger life. Maybe she had to stray, to save that little piece of herself thatwas dying more and more each day.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my freehand.

I scan the crowd for Lenny and find that he’s not with theblonde anymore. He’s talking to a perky redhead who I immediately decide is aho. What the fuck? Is Lenny just a crazy flirt, throwing all the spaghettiagainst the wall to see what sticks? Or did he really come here for me?

Choice A: Cheat and go back home. Choice B: Give up on mymarriage. Neither one seems all that great. I conjure a third option. Choice C:Give away the man I love to flirt with and try to make it work with the man Istill probably love. Let Lenny find someone really available.

Which he’s kind of doing anyway.

“Asshole!” I say, partially into the phone, watching Lennydo the cabbage patch dance with the redhead. Then I remember Doug. “I mean, thetennis instructor. The wife ultimately killed him. He really had to go.”

“Lauren, are you there?” Doug shouts. “I can’t tell ifyou’ve been listening to me.”

“I’m here,” I sigh, turning my back on the crowd andsitting down on the edge of the pool. “But I haven’t been listening.”

“I love you and I will dance with you from now on.I just…suck at it; it’s embarrassing. A forty-year-old guy doing the Macarena.But I will try, for you. Not, like, all the time, but occasionally…I’ll dance.I won’t ever sing karaoke, though. But I promise to go easy on the kids,especially Ben. I just need you back. From…jury duty. So we can talk, for real,face-to-face. Please,” he begs.

“Face-to-face,” I repeat. I remember my forehead and wonderif Doug will notice.

“Saturday night. I don’t want to end up like that husbandin the court case. Or the tennis instructor.” I can hear him smile.

“Saturday night. At Jodi’s dancing event at her temple?It’s a date.”

“Lauren, I love you,” he says. “I want our life back.” Hesighs. “Good luck deliberating.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I’ve made up my mind now,” I say,wondering whether Doug knows we are speaking in code.

“That’s good. That’s great!” Doug declares. “And Lauren?”

“Yeah?” I giggle, high on a newfound interest in my ownhusband.

“Send my love to Jodi and Kat, would you?”

Chapter 20

Sobustedsobustedsobustedsobustedsobusted!

How does he know?

What does he know?

I am trying to find my partners in crime to tell them thatwe’ve been found out—somehow, to what extent I’m not sure—but the crowd hasgrown so thick with bodies that it’s hard to see past the person in front ofme, much less around the whole space.

So instead I grab some strapping young college boy and askhim to dance. Maybe I can have a good time in Miami without damaging mymarriage any more than I already have.

The funny thing is, I think, shaking my hips and trying toget into the music, is that Doug didn’t sound mad. Not at all.

Maybe I misunderstood him. Maybe what he really said was, Let’sbuy a cat.

It is certainly possible, with all that noise and all thatalcohol coursing through my bloodstream, that I misheard him. Right?

The guy I’m dancing with is twenty-one, tops. He’syouthfully skinny, with long arms and a pronounced Adam’s apple. He’s lookingat me really strangely. “Where you from?” he asks, trying to make politeconversation.

“New York!” I shout.