Grand Avenue Read Online Free Page B

your rooms, kids. Mommy’ll be there real soon.”
    “Now!” Montana insisted.
    “Tony, please,” Chris said. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to relax.”
    “This won’t take long.” Tony pushed his jeans down his thighs, drew her head toward him. “Come on, Chris. You can’t just leave me like this.”
    “Mommy! Let me in.”
    “Please, Chris.”
    “Mommmmmy!”
    “Why don’t you sing Mommy a song?” Tony suggested, guiding Chris’s mouth around him, his hand moving her head slowly back and forth.
    “What’ll I sing?”
    “Whatever your little heart desires,” Tony said, his fingers digging into Chris’s scalp.
    “It’s a heartache!”
Montana began singing at the top of her lungs.
“Nothing but a heartache!”
    Dear God, Chris thought. Was this really happening?
    “Gets you if you’re too late. Feels just like a clown.”
    Was she really going down on her husband while her six-year-old child sang about heartache outside their bedroom door? No, she couldn’t do this. It was too ludicrous, too bizarre.
    As if sensing her growing discomfort, Tony picked up his pace. Chris grabbed the side of the bed to keep from losing her balance.
    “Oh, it’s a heartache …”
    “God, Chris, that’s so good. I love you so much.”
    “Nothing but a heartache …”
    “Tony …”
    “Now, Chris. Now!”
    Chris felt Tony’s body shudder around her, his hand in her hair relaxing as he withdrew. He quickly pulled his jeans back up over his hips. Chris swallowed, wiped her mouth, massaged her jaw as Tony went to the bedroom door and opened it. Immediately, Montana and Wyatt flew inside, jumped on the bed and into Chris’s lap, jockeying for position.
    “You smell funny,” Montana said.
    “Morning breath,” Tony said with a wink, lifting Wyatt into the air, holding him high above his head as the boy shrieked his approval.
    “Yuck,” Montana said, sliding out of her mother’s arms and throwing herself against Tony’s legs.
    Tony effortlessly scooped her up with his free hand, dangled her at his side. “Who’s going to win the Super Bowl?” he challenged.
    “Bengals!” Wyatt shouted.
    “That’s my boy.”
    “Bengals, Bengals!” Montana screamed even louder, not to be outdone.
    Good God, the Super Bowl, Chris thought, self-consciously covering her mouth with her hand. She’d forgotten all about it. She had so much to do, and she hadn’t even thought about what to serve for dinner.
    “Chris,” Tony was saying as he ushered Montana and Wyatt out of the room. “Look, if you wouldn’t mind not saying anything to anyone about my losing my job …”
    “Of course not.”
    “At least not today.”
    “Sure.”
    “No point spoiling the party.”
    “I understand.” Chris smiled.
    Now I have two secrets, she thought.

Two
    T he women were grouped around the circular pine table that occupied much of Chris’s small kitchen. Several bottles of wine—one white, one red—stood open in the middle of the table, surrounded by at least a half dozen glasses in various stages of use. Between casual gossip and sips of chardonnay, Chris absently scraped the skin off a bunch of large carrots, Vicki played with the ends of a recent, ill-advised perm, and Susan and Barbara laughed over the contents of the most recent issue of
Cosmopolitan
. They were dressed casually in warm sweaters and jeans, except that Vicki’s jeans were leather. Only Barbara wore a skirt. It was royal blue velvet and reached the floor. “This is a Super Bowl party,” Vicki quipped when she saw her, “not a wedding.”
    “I know,” came Barbara’s easy response, accompanied by fluttering fingers. “I know. I know.”
    “She can’t help herself,” said Susan.
    In the rec room immediately below, their husbandswere drinking beer and alternately screaming their encouragement or bellowing their displeasure at an indifferent TV screen. In the living room, their assorted children—seven in all, five girls, two