Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 3
Mandy
“Was that not the strangest conversation you’ve ever had?” I asked Rick once we had gotten back to our lovely room—not the honeymoon suite, but quite spacious and even grand-seeming to a girl who had grown up in the ever more feebly struggling middle class.
“Well…” Rick said.
Something in that monosyllable made my jaw go slack. I turned to face him as we stood in the little sitting area that almost made the room a suite—I told myself it was almost a suite in my head, anyway. Not that I’d ever stayed in an actual suite, obviously, but I’d grown up like everyone else I knew, Rick included, watching shows about the kind of people who didn’t go anywhere without booking the presidential suite or something like that.
Why are you thinking about the fucking suite thing? some regulatory part of my brain demanded. Your husband’s tone just told you that he thinks Scott and April aren’t fucking lunatics.
“Seriously? What part of You know what you’ve got coming and Yes, sir seemed normal to you?”
To my dismay, the blush that mounted to my forehead as I confronted my handsome bridegroom paled in comparison to the ones I had experienced on the porch as we talked to Scott and April. I also realized that I had just spoken very sharply to Rick—possibly more sharply than I had ever done before.
I had no idea why—or why Scott and April’s words had imprinted themselves on my consciousness so deeply that I had just quoted them verbatim without even thinking about it.
Rick shrugged, frowning in evident confusion at the energy and the annoyance in my reaction.
“Well,” he repeated, “different strokes?”
I could have let it drop. Who knows what would have happened?
At the same time, though, I could have let it drop doesn’t really describe what had started to happen inside me, because in another, more accurate sense, no, I couldn’t let it drop. Not on my life. The whole thing—Scott and April’s words, their manner, the parts of their marriage they had given us a glimpse into… the irrepressible, unwelcome thoughts they had evoked in me about what might be happening right now in their room, somewhere in this beautiful mountain lodge to which Rick had taken me for our honeymoon… Rick’s apparent support for their insane ‘traditional’ lifestyle in their New Modesty town—the whole thing had somehow taken over not just my mind but, it seemed, my body too. I felt as jumpy as a cat, and my limbs tensed in what seemed a nearly feline way as Rick took a step forward, alarm starting to show in his slightly widened eyes.
“Hey, Dee, what—” he began, putting a hand up and reaching it toward my face.
“What’s going on?” I demanded sarcastically, suddenly feeling like some important part of me had spun outward from my mind to observe at a distance as the rest set off down a very dangerous, very dark path. “How can you possibly not know what’s going on? That… that…”
I meant to say asshole, but although I usually swore without a second thought—despite the slightly naughty feeling it always gave me—the word seemed to stick in my throat as I looked at the serious expression on Rick’s face. He didn’t swear in my presence, ever. I felt certain that he must use foul language at work, because of course every landscaper did, and Rick was nothing if not a guy’s guy at least everywhere but when he and I were alone.
He had grown up in a very proper household, though—his mother had definitely never said asshole in her life. Indeed I’d actually noticed that sometimes when I swore Rick’s expression would register a moment’s disapproval—which of course made me feel a little naughtier, which frankly represented an emotion I didn’t much mind.
Until now, a voice said inside me. I shook my head angrily, as much to clear that unwelcome voice as to express my disapproval of Rick’s giving his tacit endorsement to Scott’s crazy notions about marriage, whatever those notions might actually be. I definitely still liked feeling naughty; no weird ‘old-fashioned’ couple could change that.
No look from my new husband could either—especially if it reminded me of the stomach-churning warning look I had seen in Scott’s eyes when he had told April she had spoken unkindly toward me.
“That asshole,” I finished, feeling my eyes narrow as I gauged Rick’s reaction to the swear word. “He’s going to…”
I realized that my breathing had sped up quite a bit. Also that I had no idea how I intended to finish my sentence.
“To… to…” I could feel myself starting to flail mentally. My whole body seemed to have filled with tension, and as Rick took a step forward, toward me, his hand coming within a few inches of my face and his expression turning to confused sympathy, I took a step back, away from him.