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

On the third ring of my cell phone call to Doug, one ofthe back doors to Tim’s limousine opens, and Doug steps out. He holds his cellphone up. “You rang?”

I click the “end call” button and walk toward him, mystomach roiling nervously. Has Doug been sitting in the backseat of a stretchlimo with MC Lenny this whole time?

And if so, why? What in fuck’s sake have they got to talkabout besides…me?

It doesn’t help my intestines to see that he’s smirking,like he’s got a secret. Or like he’s very pleased with himself. Or both, likehe’s got a secret that pleases him very much.

Oh no, he’s murdered Lenny.

He’s murdered Lenny in the back of Tim Cubix’s fancy ride,and now we’ll all be going to jail together to live forever in one large penlike at the end of Seinfeld.

“…and so, while I was talking to my bookkeeper on thephone about this problem we’re having making payroll this month, I looked outthe window and saw…” Doug stops to look at me. “Lauren, are you evenlistening?”

“Nah…not really,” I admit. “I’m a little freaked out rightnow, creating Armageddon scenarios.”

“Lauren,” he says, extending his hands toward mine. Heclasps our hands together as we stand face-to-face, as if we are saying ourwedding vows. “I have a few things to tell you. I haven’t been…well, it’scomplicated really, but…what it comes down to is that”—and here he inhales andexhales deeply before continuing—“I have not been completely honest with you.”

My first thought, bizarre as it seems, is one ofsatisfaction, in an I knew it kind of way. It’s like all of my worstfears and darkest daydreams of where Doug has been these past few months havebeen confirmed. So, as much as I want to get angry at him for lying to me, myprimary emotion is actually self-congratulatory for sensing that something wasway off with us.

Then I mimic his deep inhale-exhale and ask. “Who is she?”

“My bookkeeper.”

Doug’s bookkeeper is a seventy-eight-year-old, white-hairedlibrarian type who wears orthopedic shoes and smells of talcum powder and clovecigarettes. She’s like Betty White’s younger, less funny sister.

“You’re sleeping with Dorothy?”

“Sleeping with…?” Then his face explodes into laughter ashe grabs onto a mental image probably similar to the one I’ve just created. “MyGod! No! Lauren, what kind of person do you think I am?”

“A gerophiliac?”

“You just made that term up.”

“Yes, I did. Right here on the spot.”

“Lauren, your imagination needs a vacation. The rest ofyou does not. Now listen,” he says, placing his hands firmly on my shoulders asif to keep me from running away again. “I’ve been having some…financial troublewith the company, and the bank refused to give me another loan until I’d paidback the first.”

“I thought you paid back the first one in September,” Isay.

“I tried to.” He pauses, and I watch his face as hesearches for the next words. “But it turned out that I needed the money to paythe rent on the office space, and then payroll was due, and then quarterlytaxes were due and, still, my clients were paying me in bits and pieces, withno one project coming in at a big enough profit margin to ever get ahead and…thingsjust snowballed. So, no, I haven’t been able to pay the bank back yet.”

“Oh, Doug.” I mentally begin adding up the money I spentfrivolously in the past few days and estimating it at about $5,000. My stomachdrops into my bowels.

“Since Dorothy is in charge of the company’s books, shesaw where things were headed, which was basically into bankruptcy, and she cameto me one night after work with a proposition.” He pauses and raises an eyebrowat me mockingly. “Not of the sexual nature.”

“Ha,” I say, meaning, get on with your story and let’snot pause for comic relief.

“So, long story short, Dorothy has been a private investorfor me since September, loaning me a good deal of her own inheritance andretirement money to help me get out from under, thus avoiding having creditorscome after us and take away our house as collateral for unpaid bills.”

Our house?

“Can you really be that bad at business?” I ask, ratherunkindly. “And that careless? To put our home at risk?”

Doug looks contrite, but speaks defensively. “That’s whatyou have to do when you start your own business, Lauren! Put up something ofvalue as collateral.”

“Don’t snap at me!” I snap at Doug. I take a moment to composemyself, then continue at a lower volume. “You never even discussed that partwith me. I had no idea.”

“I know, I know.” He scratches his head with his righthand. “I had it in my head that I wasn’t lying to you if you hadn’t asked meabout something directly. I thought it was okay to gloss over the everydayaccounting problems because…well, I guess I thought I could handle it myself,and that it would straighten itself out, and that I didn’t want you to worry.As you well know, there’s a fine line between withholding information andlying.”

“Don’t twist this around and make it about me!” I say.“That’s not a fair comparison.”

He raises his eyebrows at me questioningly.

“Okay, fine. It’s a perfect comparison,” I say. I look upthe hill to where Kat, Jodi and Leslie are still talking with Tim.

That particular group assembled on the hill is like astudy in the art of withholding information. Tim pulled a disappearing act fromthe set of Croc of Lies and didn’t tell Ruby where he was. Jodiconsistently skims off the fat of Lee’s profitable business and uses it as herown “salary,” and Leslie does everything within her power to make sure that herhusband never discovers that she has more facial hair than he does. And Kat?She lied to herself, which is maybe the worst of all, by pretending thatteaching kindergarten and being married to Peter would lead her to the life shethought she wanted.

Every one of us has found ways to skew the truth to fitour purposes. It’s not always the moral choice, or the most mature, butperhaps, in the moment of decision-making, it seems completely necessary.

I look at Doug and try to see this mess from his point ofview. “I think you