News Blues (4 page)

To:
Jamie Hayes

From:
Jennifer Quigley

Subject:
FWD: LIPSTICK - Please Read

Lead is a chemical that causes cancer. The higher the lead content, the greater the chance of it causing cancer. Watch out
for those lipsticks, which are supposed to stay longer. If your lipstick stays longer, it is because of the higher content
of lead. This is how to test lipstick for lead.

1) Put some lipstick on your hand.

2) Use a 24k -14k gold ring to scratch on the lipstick.

3) If the lipstick color changes to black then you know
the lipstick contains lead.

NOTE:
Please pass this along to all your friends. In addition to saving their lives, you will also receive good luck in three days.
If you do not pass this along and simply delete it, something really bad will probably happen to you. There was this one guy
in Cuba who deleted it and he died in a fiery car crash five minutes later. Doctors said it was because he was checking his
e-mail and driving at the same time, but we know better! You have been warned!

“So, what do you think?” Jamie asked, turning around to look at me. Since I had been leaning over so close, the sudden movement
caused us to bump noses and an electric shock zapped through my entire body. It was like accidental Eskimo kissing!

“Sorry, ” I said, even though I wasn’t. I sat back down in my chair. “Can you forward me that e-mail? I’m pretty sure it’s
an urban myth, but it’s definitely worth checking out.”

“Sure, no prob.” After getting my e-mail address, Jamie forwarded the message. Then he turned back to face me.

“That’s a cute skirt, ” he remarked casually, his eyes roaming my brand-new black swishy skirt I’d run out and bought last
night before going to Tijuana. After learning I’d be working side by side with a sex god, I’d decided money needed to be spent
on clothes. And evidently, I thought with delight, the investment was paying off.

“This old thing?” I brushed off. “Thanks. I suppose it’s cute.”

“Um, I think you forgot to take off the price tag though, ” he added, gesturing to the hem.
Oh shit
. My face flamed as I looked down to see that he was right. There was definitely a price tag hanging from a plastic loop on
the right side of the skirt. I thought I’d removed them all. He must have thought I was the biggest geek loser in the known
universe. Who would put a tag there anyway? One so easy to miss. Was there some disgruntled Nordstrom’s employee out there
who thought it’d be amusing to embarrass poor innocent people who bought clothes from her?

Now, there was a story. “Clothes That Kill.” You
could
die from humiliation, right?

“Actually, it’s a new thing, ” I said, recovering just in time. “Keeping the price tags on is very hip these days.”

Please believe me
, I begged silently.
Or, if you don’t,
please don’t call me on it
.

“Oh. Sorry.” He smiled sheepishly. “My fiancée Jennifer always tells me I’m perpetually unhip.”

Ew, there he went, spouting the F-word like it was no big deal. I couldn’t stand it.

“Listen, ” he added, rising from his chair. “Why don’t you research the lipstick thing and in the meantime, I’ll go around
the station and get some people to let me videotape them putting on makeup. That way you’ll have some video for the piece
in case it pans out.”

I wanted to hug him. Or fall over in shock. I’d never, ever had a photographer volunteer to do something without me having
to beg and plead and listen to him whine. This guy was unbelievable.

And during the eight hours of the workday, he was all mine!

I arrived at my parents’ house at about quarter to seven. They lived in an adorable Craftsman-type house in Normal Heights,
one of the older neighborhoods in San Diego. The houses there were small and quaint. And now, with the backlash against the
extravagant monster houses with no yards being thrown up in urban sprawl subdivisions all over the county, the old-school
houses were extremely desirable and super pricey. My parents’ house had tripled in value since they bought it when I was a
kid.

The door opened at my knock and my little sister Lulu answered it with typical Lulu exuberance. At sixteen years old, she
was a bundle of unrepressed energy and while I loved her, sometimes she was a bit on the exhausting side. A total wild child,
every time I saw her she had different-colored hair. It was currently bleach blond and shorn to a boyish cut. She wore baggy
raver pants and a tiny, belly-baring pink tank top that declared one could evidently get “Lucky in Kentucky.”

“Hi, Maddy!” she cried, throwing her arms around me and almost knocking me over with a huge hug. “How are you? What are you
doing here?”

“Um, Dad instant messaged me. Said he needed to see me.”

“He did?” Lulu raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know he knew how to IM.”

“Yeah. Neither did I.” I shrugged.

“Well, come on in.” Lulu gestured widely. “We’ve just finished dinner.”

Uh, that was weird, since the whole reason I was supposed to be coming here was for dinner. What the hell was going on?

We walked into the foyer and then headed for the living room. My parents were seated in the same seats they always sat in
after dinner since I was a toddler. Dad in his ultracomfy, well-worn leather armchair and my mom knitting on the far end of
the couch.

Except, my mother wasn’t knitting. And as I sat down next to her, I realized she looked like she’d been crying. A swelling
of fear fluttered through my stomach. I thought this wasn’t supposed to be bad news.

“Hi, Maddy, ” my father said with a wide smile. He didn’t seem upset at all. “Thanks for coming over. How was work?”

“So, what’s your news?” I wanted to cut to the chase at this point; the suspense was killing me.

Please be that you won the lottery, I begged silently, suddenly realizing the chances of that being the news was slim to none.
I sat down on the sofa and held my breath, waiting for the inevitable bomb to drop.

“Lulu, sit down, ” my father reprimanded the bouncy sixteen-year-old. With a huff, Lulu complied, squashing herself between
Mom and me.

“Your mother and I have some news, ” my father said, leaning forward in his armchair. Even in his fifties, he was a good-looking
man with a sprinkling of distinguished salt-and-pepper hair and a trim waistline. “We’ve decided to live apart.”

“What? What?” Lulu screeched, jumping up from the couch, hands on her low-rise hips. “You can’t get a divorce! That’s, like,
so not fair!”

My heart fell into my stomach. For a moment I thought I would be physically ill. My parents were splitting up. It seemed so
wrong somehow. I mean, I knew almost everyone’s parents got divorced. But usually it was when they were kids. No one’s parents
lived happily ever after for thirty years and then decided one day it wasn’t working out and they were moving on. It just
didn’t happen like that. There was a point where you were safe. You could relax and know that your family was one of the rare
ones that beat the odds.

And now they were going along with the rest of the crazy world and getting divorced.

“Why are you getting a divorce? Who am I supposed to live with?” Lulu demanded. Poor girl. While it was devastating news for
me, at least I’d moved out of the house. This would impact my sister’s entire existence.

“You can stay with your father and his little whore, ” my mother said in an odd, cheery voice.

I whirled my head around, jaw hitting the floor. What? What did she just say? I’d never, ever heard my mother use bad language
in all my existence. She was the sunshine and oatmeal-raisin cookies stay-at-home mom who used to read us Bible stories. She
didn’t say things like “his little whore.”

Which brought me to my next question. I turned to look at my evidently philandering father. Had he really cheated on my poor,
sweet, innocent mother? How dare he? Anger replaced my sadness and I rose from my chair.

“Dad. What the hell is going on here?” I demanded, hoping he could hear me over Lulu’s wailing sobs.

My dad squirmed in his chair. For a chair he’d sat in for the last thirty years of his life, he suddenly seemed to find it
mighty uncomfortable.

“I’m seeing someone else, ” he said at last.

“Someone else?” My mother raised a carefully plucked eyebrow. Since when did she pluck her eyebrows? “Aren’t you going to
tell them who?”

He took a deep breath. “Someone from my office.”

“Who happens to be twenty-three years old and pregnant with your child!” my mother added helpfully, if not a bit bitterly.

Nausea overcame me at that point, and I ran to the bathroom to retch. This couldn’t be happening. This could NOT be happening.
It had to be some ridiculous dream. I’d wake up any minute now and realize the whole crazy scene was just a dream. My family
was still together. My dad didn’t have a pregnant girlfriend who was younger than me by four years.

I started to retch again and bowed to the porcelain god in front of me. As I puked my guts out, I felt someone come up behind
me and hold my hair back. After I was done sacrificing a good portion of my lunch, I turned around to see who it was.

My father.

I wanted to hit him. To strangle him. To kill him for his betrayal. How could he be so selfish? How could he put himself before
his family?

“Can we take a walk?” he asked with a sad smile.

I nodded wordlessly, hating him and loving him more than anything at that very moment. We walked out the door into our backyard.
The flowers my mother had planted, bright cheerful sunflowers, seemed mocking.

“I’m sorry if you feel I’ve let you down, Maddy, ” Dad said as he settled down onto the backyard swings. The same swings he
had pushed me on so many times growing up.

Higher!
I’d scream.
I want to touch the sky!

I joined him, scuffing the toe of my shoe against the dirt. Swaying back and forth, but not swinging.

I turned to face him. “Why?” I asked.

He reached over and brushed a tear from my cheek. “Every relationship is different, ” he said. “And no one who’s not in the
relationship can see what goes on behind closed doors. Your mother and I have been together in name only for years. We don’t
talk. We don’t make love. We simply cohabitate. We tried marriage counseling. It didn’t help.”

I could feel my heart slamming against my rib cage and had to struggle to catch my breath. I had no idea. I thought my parents
loved each other. But as memories of the last few years flooded my brain, I realized suddenly that I might have been looking
at their marriage through rose-colored kid glasses. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen them kiss. Hug. I couldn’t.
But I had simply chalked it up to it being an older, more mature marriage.

“But you didn’t have to cheat on Mom, ” I reminded him with a frown. Falling out of love was one thing. Cheating was another.

He sighed. “Your mother is a very special person, ” he said, swaying from side to side on his swing. “I tried to tell her
I was unhappy for years. She begged me to stay. Said I could go out and do what I had to do as long as I didn’t leave her.”

This was surely a shocking day to end all shocking days. My mother had told my father he could go out and have affairs? I
couldn’t even fathom the idea.

“So you’ve been fucking other women this whole time? While pretending to be a family man?” I demanded, not caring at my father’s
cringe at the F-word.

“That’s kind of a harsh way to put it, ” he said in a sad voice. “I simply opened myself up to new opportunities. I guess
you could call them affairs. But there was no deception involved.”

“Oh, right, ” I said sarcastically. “Because you had permission.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“I know. I soon realized the situation wasn’t fair to anyone—your mother or the woman I fell in love with.”

Oh, now he was in love, was he? Anger burned through my stomach, and I rose from the swing. “I don’t want to hear this!”

“I know, honey. I’m sorry. This is a lot to take in.”

“So who is she?” I may not have wanted to hear this, but at the same time I couldn’t stop my overwhelming masochistic curiosity.
“And is she really carrying your child?”

My dad looked old. Drained. “Her named is Cindi. With an ‘i’, ” he added, as if that made everything okay. Cindi with an “i”?
My whole world was turning into a bad made-for-TV movie. “And yes, she’s pregnant. You’re going to have a new brother or sister,
” he added, as if that were a good thing.

That was it.

“You know what? Fuck you! You’ve ruined my life. You’ve ruined Mom and Lulu’s lives. Now you’re going to go start a whole
new family and probably ruin their lives, too! You’re such a selfish asshole. I never want to see you again!” I stormed off
into the house, slamming the back screen door with as much force as I could muster.

I wanted to throw things. I wanted to beat someone senseless. I wanted to drink myself to oblivion.

I took a deep breath. I had to talk to my mother. My poor, long-suffering, abused mother. If only I had known what she was
going through all these years, I could have been there for her.

“Where’s Mom?” I asked Lulu as I entered the living room. No answer. My little sister was catatonic, crunched up on the floor,
hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. Shit. I’d need to comfort her, too. How did I get stuck in the sane-person-who-picks-up-the-pieces
role? I wanted to be the fall-apart-and-do-stupid-things one.

“Lulu, are you okay?” I knelt down and gave her a warm hug. Her body was cold. She looked like she’d gone into shock. But
then she reached out her arms and hugged me back.

“I don’t want them to get a divorce, ” she wailed, sobbing into my shoulder. I could feel nasty snot from her nose, dripping
onto my new shirt, but I didn’t care.

“I know. Neither do I.” I stroked her bleached-blond hair. “But it will be okay. Things will work out.”