Babes in Captivity

Chapter 1: The November Dinner "I hate my husband."Deirdre Wylie hurled her overstuffed red bag onto the table at which her three friends sat drinking wine. She was half an hour late for their monthly dinner, and it was all Paul's fault. She'd reminded him at least twelve times today that he had to be on time because it was moms' night out, and still he was late. And she was drenched, from the storm that had been raging all day and was still driving pellets of icy rain against the dark windows of Cleopatra, Homewood's new French-Egyptian place. And then, she'd been in such a rush to get here that she'd hit a squirrel, sending its small furry body flying right over somebody's white picket fence."I mean it," she said, shaking the rain from her auburn curls and collapsing onto a chair. "I really hate him."Lisa was the first one to start laughing. Then Anne, whose lusty chuckle was always such a surprise, erupting from her lean body in its conservative business clothes. Last Juliette, who was her best friend in the group and usually tried to be supportive, even when Deirdre herself suspected that whatever tantrum she was having wasn't worthy of anyone's support, including her own. "That Paul," Lisa said, obviously working to make her voice sound serious. "He's such a monster.""You ought to divorce him immediately," said Anne, leaning back in her chair and stretching so that Deirdre caught a flash, beneath Anne's starched white business shirt, of a lace bra in a fierce red that matched her lipstick."I'll take him," said Juliette. "I love Paul." Everyone loved Paul -- all her friends, all her family. Okay, even she loved Paul, the sweetest, gentlest man on earth, the very opposite of the bad boys who had trampled her life from her teens straight into her twenties. Unlike those other men, Paul was someone with whom she could plan a wedding, weather in vitro, raise twins, take out a mortgage, drive a minivan, program the TiVo, and clean out the refrigerator. Unfortunately, he just wasn't someone who turned her on.Not like Nick Ruby, her old boyfriend, player of the upright bass, comrade in her now-defunct singing career, still-ranking holder of the title of Best Lover of her life. Nick Ruby, whom she'd read in the Times this very morning was playing in New York, where he'd recently relocated, which just so happened to lie a mere fifteen miles due east of the chair in which she now sprawled.And that was the problem, wasn't it? It wasn't that Paul was late, or that she'd hit the squirrel, or that Zoe had thrown up in the car, or that the dentist had told her she needed three crowns and a root planing, or that the roof had sprung a leak. The problem was something that didn't, at first glance, seem like a problem at all: the idea that a more exciting life, a life she had once had and might still have again, was coming to town."Nick Ruby's moving to New York," she blurted out.The name meant something only to Juliette, who sucked in her breath. "The Berkeley guy. The musician.""Mr. Sex," said Deirdre, nodding while draining the bottle of wine into her glass."Oh, God," whispered Juliette. "I'm nervous already.""Why are you nervous?" said Deirdre. "You're not the one who's thinking about having an affair."Although she was focused on Juliette, out of the corner of her eye Deirdre saw Anne and Lisa exchange a quick glance."See, that's why I'm nervous," said Juliette, a tremor in her voice."Are you actually thinking about having an affair?" asked Anne.Was she thinking about it? Sure, she was thinking about it. Would she really do it? That was far more questionable. Affairs were so time-consuming. So messy -- all that showering, all those changes of underwear. All that lying.The itch she was feeling seemed at once vaguer and larger than simply a sexual one."Maybe what I want isn't him," she said. "Maybe what I want is to sing againSatran, Pamela Redmond is the author of 'Babes in Captivity', published 2004 under ISBN 9780743463553 and ISBN 0743463552.