The Adulterer's Unofficial Guide to Family Vacations, A Novel Read Free

asleep.A-Ha, you say!So there is time for a little banging of the headboard.And you’d be wrong.Instead, I get a little apology, and even littler peck on the cheek, and ten minutes about how Phil in accounting or Ken in marketing screwed everything up.
    So there you have it.The daily schedule of a totally meaningless marriage.Woo hoo.Alert the media.
     

 
    Chapter 2
     
    The tracks were rumbling, announcing the train before it arrived. She had no fear, no doubts, just a desperate need to end the pain. Black smoke filled the air as the giant beast approached. She didn’t hesitate for a second, throwing herself onto the tracks as the wheels crushed her soft body, grinding her bones against the steel rails, sending blood and entrails flying across the virgin snow.
    Okay, so I’m a little dramatic.I’m not Anna Karenina, making a suicide pact with a Russian locomotive.Just stranded in Florida, on vacation with five-year old twins and no husband.The bottle of beer felt heavy and cold in my right hand and I took another gulp.The kids were asleep and the flight went fine.
    There was a problem with our reservation.Apparently, we were booked clear out in no-man’s land.There would have been a twenty minute hike just to get to the bus each day.So, I spent about that much time arguing with the staff, who smiled the whole time.That is the one weird thing about this place – the constant, creepy smiling.Anyway, I managed to upgrade to a much closer room.It would cost a lot more (value resort, my ass) but at that point, I didn’t really give a damn.
    It would have been easier if that bastard husband of mine hadn’t backed out of the trip at the last minute for work, but I was on my own . . . and it sucked.
    As for the earlier suicide reference, no, I don’t really want to kill myself.That would imply self-pity and I’m in complete denial about that.After all, I wasn’t having an affair with a young, arrogant Count who would, in the end, ditch me after I’d left my husband and children for him.I merely wondered why I was here alone.I had no right to compare myself with Tolstoy’s heroine.
    Instead, for the past year, I’ve been watching my marriage slowly dissolve.Mike was quickly turning into a lousy husband and father.It all started when he took this job a couple of years back.That’s right.Mike’s having an affair with his work.You might think there’s no sex involved but I swear he has an orgasm every time he closes the deal.
    Of course, then there was the actual sex.One secretary and a copywriter.But they meant nothing to him and I believed that.The affairs ended a year ago.We had some counseling – like you’re supposed to.And I decided to stick with it.My parents almost went through a divorce when I was the twins’ age.It devastated me, even though they resolved their issues and stayed together.I still have nightmares about them screaming at each other at three in the morning nearly every day.I could never put Jenny and Ben through that.
    But I’m not being totally honest about my reasons.I don’t make enough as a part-time professor to support me and the kids.Pathetic as that sounds, I don’t want to move back in with my folks and have the kids hate me for it.
    Slowly I stretched the muscles that ached from sitting too long on the plane.The hotel chair I dragged outside seemed to have been designed by the Marquis de Sade.But the overpriced beer I bought in the gift shop helped.So, here I was, feeling sorry for myself and denying that I feel sorry for myself, while my kids dreamed of princesses and pirates behind the green door.
    I took another swig of beer as remembered how I thought this trip would turn our lives around.The kids would have fun, and Mike and I would reconnect.And under the fireworks I thought we might rekindle our romance.There was even the possibility of sex (probably in the bathroom when the kids were asleep – but sex nonetheless).
    For crying out loud, Laura!  You need to quit thinking