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After the game, he spent the rest of the evening educating his shy and unusually nervous friend into the art of bringing a woman to orgasm using visual aids on the internet’s most popular adult sites. Then he reluctantly had to leave. It was almost ten, and Rennie’s mom had returned from work; he couldn’t stay any longer. He jumped into his custom Jeep Wrangler and drove home, his mood sinking with every mile.
When he arrived, he could hear his parents from the driveway, even before he cut the engine. They were going at it again.
His mother, wearing a loosely tied blue silk bathrobe and looking disheveled, was screaming at his father. Still wearing his thousand-dollar charcoal suit, he was taking it cowardly, staring at the floor, not saying much. Richard watched them from the driveway through the large curtainless windows, tempted to turn the Jeep around and leave. But where would he go? And why risk having the banshee scream at him tomorrow for breaking curfew?
Resigned, he entered the house, careful to close the door quietly behind him and planning to seek immediate refuge in his bedroom wearing his Bose headphones to mute the sounds of the fight. But something stopped him in his tracks. This argument wasn’t like any other he’d witnessed.
“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” his mother was saying. With every angry gesture of her hand, she took one step forward, getting closer to her husband, Ed. “You pretended to care about Richard’s well-being, when in fact you wanted me gone from San Francisco so you could screw—what’s her name, again? Bambi?” Her white-knuckled fist punched the air near Ed’s face. He withdrew. “Oh, it’s Heidi, yes… how could I forget. Is she legal, at least?”
Slack-jawed, Richard froze in the living room arch, staring at his father in disbelief. How could he take that kind of abuse and say nothing? His cowardice made him sick to the stomach. Edward Gaskell, one of the most respected criminal defenders in California, had been rendered speechless by a crazed bitch with a venomous tongue and baseless accusations. She’d turned his father into a pussy, and Richard into a pawn she sacrificed as she saw fit, a pinball bounced back and forth in an argument to score points.
Noticing his arrival, both parents acknowledged his presence with a quick glance, but the fight didn’t skip a beat because his shrew of a mother wouldn’t let it happen.
“I want you to start working from home. From here,” she added, pointing a furious finger at the floor. “Go to the city if and when you have court dates. And fire that Heidi girl before I come down there and drag her out of your office by her phony hair extensions.”
His father ran his hands through his thinning hair as if he wanted to pull it out of his head. “Geez, Natalie, you’re absurd. Heidi has a law degree. She’s a professional.”
“A professional what?” she replied with a crooked grin. “Where did she use to work before she landed in your lap, the Tenderloin? Corner of O’Farrell and Hyde?” she asked, referencing a popular pickup spot for the city’s hookers.
Seeming at the end of his wits, Ed slapped his hands against his thighs. “What do you want from me, Natalie?” he asked, after emptying his lungs of air with a frustrated sigh. “I can’t work from here more than a day a week, at the most. I have an office, client meetings, depositions. I need to be there.”
“Then drive home every night,” she said, hands propped firmly on her thighs.
“Here?” Ed took his hand to his forehead, rubbing furiously. “It’s a two-hour drive, one way, with speeding! You’re being ridiculous. Absurd.” He looked at the room, at its walls as if they were a prison cell holding him confined. “Why don’t you move back to the city with me? We have the condo. Richard would love it.”
Richard’s heart skipped a beat.Yes!
“And have him chasing women and smoking pot every day, just like his dad?” She didn’t even look at Richard when she spoke of him; just flicked her hand in his direction in a gesture of contempt.
“He’s just being young, Natalie. It’s what boys do. You’re reading too much into this. Just let it go, baby—”
“I’m not your fucking baby, all right?” She stomped her foot down angrily against the hardwood with a loud thump. “Heidi or Bambi or whoever is next after them is your baby.” She smiled wickedly. “Isn’t it,sweetheart?” Her voice was dipped in poison as she spat the word.
Ed straightened his back, and a line of stern tension appeared in his jaw. “What do you want, Natalie?”
“I want Bambi gone—”
“You mean Heidi.”
She gritted her teeth. “Whatever. I want her gone. Hire male lawyers and paralegals from now on.”
“What else?” He was inexplicably calm.
“No client dinners anymore; only lunches.”
A hint of sarcasm colored Ed’s stunned gaze. “For real? Can you imagine how that would go with my clientele?”
“Don’t care. And stop cheating on me!” she yelled, seemingly more irritated by his serenity than she’d been by his anger.
“Why are you saying I’m cheating on you? I swear I haven’t—”
“Don’t!” She raised her hands to stop him. “Just don’t cross that line.” She paused for a moment, out of breath. With shaky fingers, she gathered the loose robe around her body and tightened the sash, then collected a strand of hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear. “I know you’re cheating, Ed. I found the condoms.”
“What?” Ed asked quietly, his eyes round in disbelief. “You’re going through my pockets now?”
She nodded. “The pack in your pocket is missing four condoms. The one in your briefcase, two.”
“There’s no limit with you, is there?” Ed said, his voice barely a whisper.
