Rocky Mountain Mayhem (3 page)

“I never should have doubted you.”

A look of satisfaction crossed Lucy’s face.
“No, you shouldn’t have.” She then added, “Bottle of water for me,
please!”

“You got it,” Wendy replied as she got
herself a beer. “And Kate, what are you having?”

“I’ll stick with water for now, too.”

“What?” Vivian said. “You pregnant?”

“I don’t know, I could be,” Kate replied.
“We’ve been working on it. Hard.”

This brought on laughter and woo-hoos.

Vivian offered a toast. “Here’s to working it
hard!”

More woo-hoos as they squished their koozied
beer and water bottles together.

“So how’s the separation… reversal?” Vivian
asked Lucy. “It’s been, what, a month now since you moved back
in?”

“Viv!” Wendy laughed. “You make it sound like
a vasectomy reversal.”

“I didn’t know what to call it.”

“Well, I moved back in. We got back
together.”

“And?”

Lucy sighed. “No sex.”

Groans all around.

“I’m working up the courage to, um…”

“To what, Lucy?” Vivian asked. “Why go back
if there’s no intimacy? Isn’t that one of the main reasons why
y’all separated in the first place?”

“Yeah, but there are good things in our
relationship, and I just want to get settled back in before I push
the issue.”

“Well I think I’d push that. Hard.” Vivian
giggled. The girls in the back uh-hummed.

Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It” sprung into Vivian’s
head, and she sang a few lines.

Changing the subject, Vivian turned to Kate.
“So y’all are working hard on a baby. How’s everything else
going?”

“We’ve settled into a good rhythm, ha ha, and
everything else is good. Work is fine, busy, building a children’s
museum in San Antonio. Y’all should come down for the opening in a
couple of months.”

“How’s your brother, Horny Huey?”

“Hugh’s fine. Still single.” Kate nudged
Vivian’s arm.

“Oh, no. Negatory. It’d be like having sex
with you, and although I love you, I don’t ‘love’ you.”

“Just thought I’d mention it. He’s
successful, single and lives 25 miles from you. And he loves
children.”

“Thanks for that, but no.”

They’d made it out of the city and were
headed into the mountains. Kate pulled out her camera and snapped a
few pictures, then said, “Wendy, catch us up,” Kate said. “How’s
your niece doing with her cancer treatment?”

“Lizzy is just over 2 years old now and doing
remarkably well,” Wendy said. “Better than I had thought possible.
Dr. Burzynski is a miracle worker as far as I’m concerned. The
tumors on her liver are gone, and there’s only one left in her
lungs and it’s shrinking. She’s going to make it.”

Vivian offered another toast. “To Lizzy!”

“So how are you and Jake?” Lucy asked.
“What’s the latest?”

“It might be over,” Wendy sighed. “He moved
back to North Carolina a few months ago.”

“You didn’t tell us he moved,” Kate said.
“Did y’all break up?”

“No, we’ve been doing the long distance
thing. He comes back to Houston at least twice a month and I went
up there once, and although we’ve talked about me moving, it’s a
big commitment without a commitment.”

“Don’t forget Lucy’s words of wisdom when she
had on her beachin’ bucket,” Vivian reminded.

“What?” Lucy asked. “What advice did I
have?”

“You said, ‘Girl, don’t move until there’s a
ring on your finger.’ Those were your exact words,” Wendy said.

“I said that?”

“Yes, ma’am, you did, wearing an ice bucket
on your head and after several tequila shots, I might add,” Vivian
said. “We were shocked by your inebriated clarity.”

“I do love Jake, but I can’t wait forever.
I’m getting old!” Wendy said.

“Tick tock, tick tock,” Vivian said, tapping
her wrist.

“Well, heck, Vivian, not everyone pops out
two at a time,” Kate said.

“What can I say? My ovaries are on overdrive.
I would be a surrogate for any of you, by the way. But I’m not
having sex with your boyfriends or husbands. They’ll have to turkey
baste me!”

They all agreed and clinked to that.

“So what are you going to do, Wendy?” Kate
asked. “Move? Break-up?”

“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out on this
trip.”

“You gotta know when to—,” Vivian said.

“Ya, ya… Hold ’em.” Wendy said. “I got
it.”

Everyone had a good laugh at Kenny Rogers’
“The Gambler.”

“Look!” Kate pointed out the window to the
left. “I can’t believe people are still skiing.”

“Loveland stays open later than most
mountains,” Lucy told them.

“The aspen trees are beautiful,” Vivian
said.

“Each grove shares a root system,” Kate
informed them.

“You should see them in the fall when their
leaves turn bright yellow. That’s one of the reasons I love living
here,” Lucy said as she drove past the Continental Divide in the
Eisenhower Tunnel.

“So, Viv, tell us. What’s the latest with
Craig?” Wendy asked. “I haven’t seen any
screw-you-Rick-look-at-the-hot-younger-guy-I’m-dating pictures
lately on your Facebook page.”

“Well, lemme tell ya what happened with that.
It’s quite the story.”

Kate rubbed her hands together in
anticipation. “This sounds juicy.”

“Oh, it’s juicy, but not in a
filet-mignon-wrapped-in-bacon kind of way.”

AS Lucy turned off I-70 onto Highway 91
toward the town of Climax, snowflakes began drifting over the SUV.
Vivian felt her ears pop as she began to tell the girls about
Craig.

“Y’all know I didn’t date during the whole
divorce, wouldn’t even sleep with Jon, so I was ready to rumble
after the papers were signed. My friend Monica introduced me to a
coworker, Brandon, who is a perpetual bachelor but a great rebound,
get-your-feet-wet kinda guy. He and I became friends, then friends
with benefits. He’d fix my deck, I’d fix his—”

“Vivian!” Kate said.

“What! I’m recovering. I deserve to do
whatever the hell I want. At least for a little while.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Anyway, he and I are friends first, and the
rest is gravy. We’d text a lot, he’d come over when I didn’t have
the kids, etc. It was a good, no-commitment, get back on the horse
kinda thing.”

Snickers.

“About three months ago, I was pumpin’ gas
and the guy on the pump across from me struck up a conversation.
Oh, and he was cute. Beautiful green eyes, dark hair, nice
shoulders.”

“How come I never meet a guy when I’m pumping
gas?” Lucy said.

“He seemed normal enough, so we went out. It
went well, and I started to see him just about any night I didn’t
have the kids. The sex was the best I’d had since you-know-who in
college.”

“Oh, I know who,” Lucy said. “Mr. Ride His
Bike Over, Greek Godlike Guy.”

“Yep. Him.”

The snow had turned to sleet, pinging off the
windshield. The temperature gauge on the console read 31
degrees.

“What about Brandon?” Wendy asked.

“Oh, he rocked in the sack, too,” Vivian
laughed.

“No, what
happened
to him?”

“We had decided early on that we’d be
supportive of one another’s relationships, should we have one. No
interference.”

“That never works,” Kate tisk-tisked.

“It did for us. He was fine with me dating
Craig. He pretty much just stayed out of the picture.”

“I’m surprised, but okay.”

The road became slushy, and Lucy backed off
the accelerator.

“Things were good for almost three months. I
was even considering letting Craig meet the kids. Then two weeks
ago I was sitting at work and my phone rang. It was Brandon, and he
had never called at work before. He apologized but then told me
that he was on Facebook and instant messaging me at that very
moment.”

“What do you mean?” Wendy asked.

“I mean, according to his computer he and I
were having an instant message conversation, but he knew it wasn’t
me. He kept apologizing, saying he felt like he had to call and
tell me.”

“Someone had hacked into your Facebook page?”
Lucy asked.

“Wow, I’m impressed Brandon could tell it
wasn’t you,” Kate said.

“He said he knew it wasn’t me because of the
spelling errors, lack of capitalization, short answers, etc. I’m a
very proper instant messenger. We joke about it.”

“Oh no, was it Craig?” Kate asked.

“I thought it might be, so I fed Brandon a
few questions. I told him to ask what I was doing that night, to
which the fake me answered that I was going to a play. Which the
real me was. With Craig.”

Groans.

“Oh, it gets better. The fake me told Brandon
that Craig and I were in love. That when you know, you know, and
that I was hoping for a proposal.”

“What a jackass,” Wendy said.

Lucy changed lanes to skirt an 18-wheeler
that had pulled over to the side of the road.

Vivian watched the trucker yank chains over a
tire as she continued the story. “I fed Brandon a few more
questions, then he emailed me the entire conversation, which I
printed out and took home.” She then recounted the entire kitchen
table scene.

“What happened next?” Kate asked.

“Craig went completely berserk. He ripped my
phone out of the wall, smashed a picture, threw a lamp across the
room. It was very Jerry Springer, but it wasn’t me being the super
freak this time!”

“What’d you do?”

“Locked myself into my bedroom and used my
cell to call the cops. I jumped out the window and Cooper held him
back so I had time to run and hide in my neighbor’s bushes.”

“Yea, Cooper!” Wendy said.

“Did Craig get arrested?” Kate asked.

“No, he got away. He left before they got
there.”

Wendy glanced out the window, then reached
for her seatbelt, which wasn’t buckled. Click. “I can’t believe it.
You’re first semi-boyfriend since Rick and he’s a total
whackjob.”

“Yep, I know how to pick ’em. But there’s
more.”

They rounded a corner and Lucy cut the wheel
too sharply. The SUV went into a skid and fishtailed as it slid
toward the guardrail.

“Ahhhhh!” they all screamed.

“I’ve got it. We’re okay,” Lucy said. “Sorry,
that curve snuck up on me.”

“Holy crap!” Vivian yelled. “Just concentrate
on driving. I’ll finish the story later.”

Lucy hunched over the wheel and focused on
the road. The other girls were quiet. Eventually the sleet turned
back to snow and lightened up.

“Pull over, Lucy!” Kate yelled.

“What? Jesus!” she said and hit the
brakes.

“We’ve got to take a picture with the town
sign.”

Vivian read the name, Climax.
“Absolutely!”

“Dammit, don’t scare the crap out of me like
that again!”

They piled out of the car and Kate balanced
her camera on the hood, set the timer and ran into place.

“Smile,” she said, jumping into the shot with
her arms stretched out above her head. “The Getaway Girlz have
Climaxed!”

COMING off their Climax photo and down the
mountain, Wendy picked back up on the Craig conversation. “Thank
god you hadn’t introduced him to the kids. How are they?”

Vivian adjusted her air vent. “The kids are
doing okay. Audrey’s had some counseling and seems to be opening
up. The others are just too young to know what happened and why
Daddy isn’t home. Hell, the twins’ll never know the
difference.”

“It might be better that they don’t, Viv,”
Lucy said, making the turn, slowly this time, onto Highway 24
heading west.

“How has the step-monster been treating the
kiddos?” Kate asked.

Wendy opened the cooler and got another beer.
“I still can’t believe he married her.”

“I know, me, neither,” Vivian said. “Y’all
will never believe what his lame excuse for getting married
was.”

“Oh god, she’s pregnant,” Lucy said.

“No, but that was the first thing I thought,
too.”

“You should prepare yourself, because you
know that’ll be next.”

“He had a vasectomy after I got pregnant with
the twins, remember?”

“Still, just wait. It’ll happen.”

Kate leaned forward from the back seat. “So,
if that wasn’t the reason, what is it, Viv?”

“He said they were getting married because
‘the kids needed a backyard.’”

“What kind of bullshit is that?” Wendy
asked.

“Those are the words that came out of his
mouth. Fuck him. The kids
have
a backyard. At my house. I
told him, ‘Tell me she’s your soul mate, tell me she’s the love of
your life, but don’t give me excuses about the kids needing a
backyard.’ He had no response. And now that they’ve bought a house
you should see their backyard. I caught a glimpse of it the other
day when I dropped the kids off. It’s completely overgrown. The
kids can’t even walk back there, much less play.”

“‘The kids need a backyard.’ Never heard that
one before,” Kate said.

Lucy pounded on the wheel. “He’s a complete
and utter asshole.”

“And an idiot,” Kate said.

“What a whirlwind, Viv,” Wendy said. “You
almost go down for murder in Mexico, get divorced, he gets married,
you get a hookup, and you drop the hookup for a jackass.”

“That’s my life.”

“Yet you’re still smiling. Amazing,” Kate
said, patting Vivian’s shoulder.

“That’s just me.”

It started snowing again as they passed a 6
percent grade sign and then one indicating a runaway truck ramp
ahead.

“Oh-oh, maybe we’ll see a ramp in use!” Lucy
said.

“What are you talking about?” Kate asked.

“You’ll see one in a few miles. They’re only
on the downhill and are for 18-wheelers that have burned up their
brakes. I’ve always wanted to see a truck plow into one. I’ll stay
behind trucks when I smell their brakes burning.”