Relative Happiness Read Online Free Page A

marry him. He’s a boarder.”
    â€œI want you to get one of those emergency button dohickeys. You know the type. You press the thing if he gets fresh.” She sprayed mist in Lexie’s face.
    â€œFirst of all, Mother, no one gets fresh these days and secondly, no one would want to if I wore a huge alarm buzzer around my neck.”
    She took the pillows and left. Lexie knew her mom would tell her dad the minute he got home. He wouldn’t say anything because he trusted her. Her mother forgot she wasn’t a teenager anymore. But her sisters weren’t enthusiastic either.
    â€œOh my God, Lex,” Kate worried over the phone from Halifax. “Do you know what you’re doing? You don’t know him very well. Is it possible to do a background check on him?”
    â€œWhat is it with you university professors?” Lexie laughed. “Every-thing’s an essay.”
    Kate and Lexie talked every week. She didn’t mind Kate’s comments. Her youngest sister was a worrywart, but she was kind about it.
    Beth, on the other hand, had her own take on things.
    â€œAre you fucking nuts?”
    Lexie bumped into her in the small appliance aisle at Wal-Mart the day after she’d told Mom.
    The Ivy family had a system for familial dirt and gossip. Lexie called it the underground thumping. Someone heard something juicy and, like a throbbing beat, other members of the tribe picked up the signal and weighed in with their two cents.
    Beth had a tendency to curse when she was at the end of her rope or when she got excited. So did Lexie, but never in front of children. She felt morally superior about this position.
    She covered her nieces’ ears with her gloved hands. This delighted Maddie. “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that in front of Madison.”
    Beth blew air up into her bangs. “Oh for the love of Pete, she’s only nine months old.”
    â€œDo you really want her first word to be f-u-c-k?”
    â€œLexie, have your own baby and then tell me what to do. Until then, keep it zipped.”
    That hurt. Lexie had always wanted children. Beth had four girls, all a year apart. That’s why she was a grouch so much of the time—exhaustion. The fact that Beth had four daughters was a source of great delight to their parents. Imagine having four girls and one of your four girls having four girls. Ha Ha. Worse, her blonde perky sister looked about eighteen years old, with a teensy body to match. And her stomach was still as flat as a board.
    Lexie stuck up for herself. “Unlike you, I live by myself and I get lonely if you must know. He’s a great guy and I like him. Not to mention, it’ll help financially since I make peanuts. We’re not all married to a big shot accountant.”
    Beth had the good grace to look chastened.
    â€œSorry. You’re a big girl. You can take care of yourself.”
    There it was again. That word. Big.
    Did she do it on purpose?
    Lexie felt like a rebel for keeping Adrian as a house guest. After only days, they were like an old married couple, settled into a comfortable routine. She’d go to work and he’d have supper on when she got home. They shared the household duties; in fact, the house never looked better, now that Adrian was around.
    The first time she took him back to the theatre, everyone was glad to see him, especially Donalda.
    â€œDid you find a place to kip, Adrian?” Donalda always tried to impress people with her Coronation Street dialect.
    â€œYes, I’m staying with Lexie.”
    Oh, the look she gave. Lexie loved it—nothing made her day more than irritating Donalda. And Donalda was determined to get her back, she could tell. Sometimes Lexie wanted to shake her, because she was talented and fun, when she wanted to be, but she sabotaged everyone who came near her. It wore Lexie out.
    Donalda had obviously decided to make Lexie’s day as miserable as possible. As they sat