Totlandia: The Onesies, Book 1 (Fall) Read online

  Jillian nodded vigorously at the phone. “Yep, for sure.”

  “Is what they have infectious?”

  Bettina’s question caught her off-guard. “What? Oh, yes! But I’m sure they’ll be tip-top by Monday’s meet-up.”

  “Good. In the interim, scrub them vigorously.”

  With a click, Jillian was off the hook.

  11:06 a.m.

  “What is she doing here?” Jillian hissed at her attorney, then nodded toward Scott’s definitely pregnant assistant, Victoria.

  Lutz shrugged. “Moral support.”

  “Moral what?” Jillian’s voice was so loud, he had to shush her. “You mean ‘immoral support’, don’t you?”

  “Call it what you will. He’s trying to make a point.”

  “Yeah, I get it. The point is that he knocked her up, and he’d rather be with her.” Jillian shifted her head away from the twins, so they wouldn’t see her cry.

  Amelia and Addison had spotted Scott, too, because they squealed, “Da da! Dadadadadada!”

  Instinctively, he waved at them, but seeing Jillian’s glower, he turned his head in shame.

  Good, Jillian thought. Stay away from us. And keep her away, too…

  As if reading her mind, Scott smirked, stood up, and walked over.

  But when he tried to pick up Addison, Jillian slapped his hand away. “Don’t even think about it.” Her voice trembled, but he shrank away at the threat.

  “All rise,” the bailiff shouted.

  Jillian looked up to see the judge had witnessed it all.

  Including the girls crying for their father.

  She sank into her chair, praying.

  1:08 p.m.

  It’s over, Jillian thought. For good. Just like that.

  She’d been with Scott since their second year in college. She’d dropped out in her senior year in order to support him when his family had abandoned him.

  They’d been a team through thin and thin. Team Scott and Jillian.

  No, it now hit her: it had only been Team Scott.

  Throughout the proceedings, his eyes went from the judge, or to Victoria.

  Never to Jillian.

  At the best time possible—for him—he had glanced longingly at the children: that time being when his attorney had asked for joint custody.

  The twins hadn’t made it easy for Jillian to make her case for sole custody. Despite holding them both in her lap, they had squirmed and cried. At one point, Amelia had shouted, “Dada!” More of a command than a question.

  At Jillian’s behest, Lutz had pointed out, “Your honor, Mr. Frederick works long hours, and practically seven days a week. The point is not to leave the children with a nanny, but to ensure they have their mother.”

  “What will happen when their mother goes to work?” Scott’s lawyer countered.

  I wouldn’t have to, if Scott did the right thing, Jillian thought.

  I wouldn’t have to, if we weren’t going through this hell…

  The judge wavered—too long, in Jillian’s opinion—before shaking her head and mandating an every-other-weekend edict instead.

  Then, with a clack of a gavel, it was over:

  Life as Jillian knew it. The life she thought they both wanted.

  Now she knew better.

  ***

  Afterward, Lutz explained to her that Scott’s request for joint custody was a typical ploy. “He figures the more he sees of them, the less he’ll have to pay out.”

  Jillian shook her head in anger—at herself, mostly. “I guess it worked. The judge gave him every other weekend! Not only that, but she mandated he pay me only four thousand dollars a month—despite the fact he makes almost half a million dollars a year! That’s a pittance for him, but it’s only the equivalent of the mortgage note on the house. That means I’ll have to come up with the rest: for the utilities, food, clothing, and property taxes. Not to mention childcare, since it’s obvious I’ll have to start working again.”

  Lutz shrugged. “It’s a temporary mandate. And don’t forget, she ordered him to turn over half of everything that was in your checking and savings accounts.”

  “There wasn’t much there. Only a few hundred.”

  “I’m guessing he was planning this for a while and stashed the brunt of his savings in a few accounts you know nothing about.”

  As pragmatic as Scott was, she guessed Lutz was right.

  Still, there was a part of her that hoped he’d come to his senses. It had to be obvious to him how much the girls were missing him. Maybe he truly missed them, too.

  Maybe she’d been too hasty to slap his hand away.

  She had been stupid to let him walk away without a fight.

  This whole thing is one big misunderstanding that has snowballed out of control, Jillian reasoned. Perhaps if we met and talked things through—

  I can convince him to change his mind.

  And he’ll come home.

  Now that she’d calmed down, she could control her anger. She could openly discuss with him whatever it was that drove him away and into Victoria’s clinging arms.

  Even if it meant going to the whore’s apartment to do so.

  She found the address online: a Russian Hill high-rise co-op.

  7:22 p.m.

  Since she couldn’t afford a babysitter, she had begged Clarisse to take them that night. “This thing at Scott’s firm came up at the last minute, and I can’t find a babysitter to save my life. If you take them tonight, I’ll take Travis for you twice. Deal?”

  Clarisse gave her a funny look. “I heard you missed your Onesies meet-up because the girls are sick. If that’s the case, I don’t think I should expose Travis to whatever they have.”

  “No need to worry. In fact, the doctor gave them a clean bill of health just this morning.”

  Jillian held her breath as Clarisse processed her response.

  “Well...I guess it can’t hurt. Okay, I’ve got them covered. You two have fun.”

  Fun.

  Yessirree, ringing all the security buzzers in the whore’s building until one of her neighbors let her in was a blast.

  As was slipping into the elevator and up to the penthouse floor, where Victoria lived. With Scott.

  And knocking politely was certainly worth a chuckle.

  “What do you want?” Victoria’s wary voice carried through the door.

  That was expected, since Jillian was standing directly in front of the peephole. “I have to speak to my husband.”

  Silence. Forever, silence.

  “Scott, I know you’re in there!” Jillian hadn’t meant to raise her voice, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I saw your car parked down the street.”

  “Jillian, just…just go away.” Scott’s voice hit her like a wall of contempt.

  Go away? Just like that?

  She smacked the door with her fist. “Of course I’m not going away! We need to talk about what’s really going on here, Scott.”

  “Jillian, this is why we have attorneys, to take care of the tiny little details. Now, go home.”

  Go home?

  Fuck you.

  “I’m not just some detail you can pawn off on a lawyer! I’m your wife! I gave you thirteen years of my life! I bore your children! And you expect me to roll over and play dead just because you ran off with your pregnant whore?”

  Scott stuck his head out the door. “Don’t call her that!”

  Down the corridor, two other doors opened to see what the ruckus was about.

  Step right up, folks, for tickets to the show, Jillian thought.

  “I can call her anything I want, she’s sleeping with my husband, the father of my children—”

  “You see? That’s just my point, Jillian—”

  “What’s your point? That I made a beautiful home for you? That I gave you two beautiful daughters, who you don’t love anymore?”

  “Who says I don’t… No, listen! What I’m trying to tell you is that you care more about the house—and
all that crap in it—than you ever cared about us!”

  Jillian’s fist hit the door so hard it banged against Scott’s head.

  “Ouch! Fuck it, Jillian!”

  “No, fuck you, Scott. I cared enough to leave school and go to work, so you could get your MBA—which led to that cushy job you have. Not to mention that over-upholstered assistant you’re sleeping with—”

  He wrenched the door open again, but leaned into the doorjamb so she couldn’t push it against him again. “Leave Victoria out of this, Jill. If things had been right at home, I wouldn’t be here now, would I? And as for my job, I worked hard to get it and to keep it—” He was yelling so hard, she was sure he’d bust a vein. “—while you were…well, you know what you were doing!”

  “What? What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Cut the Mother Teresa crap. You don’t think I’m playing the hard-ass for nothing, do you? I know you were using me, too, all those years.”

  “Scott, seriously. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

  “Don’t worry, your lawyer will soon have ‘those details,’ too. He can fill you in on them. In the meantime, if you insist on holding on to the Munster Mansion, why don’t you get off your ass and get a job?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Hey, from what I remember, you were a good waitress once. I’m sure someone will hire you.” With that, he slammed the door.

  How dare he.

  No matter how hard she rapped on the door, he wouldn’t reopen it.

  A third neighbor stuck her head out of her apartment. “I’ve called the police. Fair warning.”

  Jillian nodded. Then she ran down the hall, toward the elevator.

  She didn’t stop running until she got to her SUV. To do so, she had to pass his car first.

  That’s when the fun really began.

  The first hit to his Porsche crushed the driver’s side door.

  Then, she rear-ended the car, but the damage was so negligible that she went back and tried it again.

  The third hit, also on the rear, was so fast and so loud that she was sure his engine hadn’t survived it. Hell, the collision had torn off her bumper and smashed a headlight, so she must have done some major damage to his car as well.

  She took the drive home at around ten miles an hour because she hadn’t counted on wrecking her SUV that night.

  Her car gave out two blocks from Clarisse’s house. When Clarisse answered the door, she grabbed her sleeping girls and said goodnight as quickly as she could, and prayed she didn’t give the appearance that anything was wrong. She waited until Clarisse closed the door before placing them in the ugly old used stroller she had found on Craigslist. The stroller was harder to push uphill than her last one, but too bad. For now it would have to do, since it was the only way to get back home.

  It was still their home.

  As long as she could find a way to pay for it.

  Come hell or high water, she would.

  Wednesday, 19 September

  So, this is how the one percent lives, Jade thought, as she eavesdropped on two Threesies mothers. They nod. They smile. They talk about the weather.

  On this balmy September in San Francisco, it was the safest subject possible, especially for the Onesies moms who were competing against each other.

  Thus far, what they had to do was simple: attend the meet-ups and make as many friends as possible. Within the group, the task of providing healthy snacks was being rotated. Jade’s turn was on Friday, and her stomach was already in knots over it.

  Brady had laughed when he saw her proposed list. “Fruit Roll-Ups? Are you serious?”

  “What’s wrong with that? It’s made from real fruit, right? I mean, how much shredded carrots and celery mush can those poor kids eat?”

  “Jade, doll, it’s loaded with sugar. Not to mention all those preservatives!”

  “I lived on this stuff growing up,” she said. “It didn’t hurt me any.”

  He shook his head as he left the room.

  She wondered if he’d heard her crying.

  Jade’s first meet-up had taken place last Wednesday. Already it seemed like a thousand years ago.

  She’d done exactly what Brady had directed her to do: she had smiled benignly, and only spoke if someone asked her a question. Unfortunately, most of the questions were about Oliver. They’d asked about the little things a mother should know about her child, but Jade hadn’t been around to observe Oliver herself. Each time she made up an answer, her cheeks got hot as she worried if they were on to the fact that she was a fraud.

  Worse, a deadbeat mom.

  Before her second meeting that Friday, Brady had given her a cheat sheet. She was proud of the fact that she hadn’t needed to rely on it, because she had spent Wednesday night and all day Thursday scrutinizing everything she could about her son—how well he walked, the words he could say, what he liked to eat, the sound of his laugh, the way he pursed his lips as he fell asleep.

  The way he bounced whenever Brady came into view.

  She knew the feeling.

  Today, even in Alta Plaza Park, the wind had taken the day off, allowing the sun to toast the air. She smiled and waved at Lorna, who was strolling Dante toward her and Oliver. Together the women made their way to the bench where the other Onesies had congregated. Jade truly liked Lorna, and not just because Brady insisted she be nice to the Connaughts. Lorna was nice to everyone, even the catty Onesies like Chakra and Kelly.

  She could tell Lorna liked to talk to her, too. Not that Kelly gave them much chance to do so. She seemed to want to snuggle up close to Lorna, to talk about Bettina. Some of the questions she asked were obnoxious: Were they close? Did they hang together a lot? Did Matt get along with Bettina’s husband, Art?

  What a nosy bee-hatch!

  Lorna certainly seemed to be on to her little game, because she was good at changing the subject.

  Another reason she liked Lorna was because she answered Jade’s timid questions about the club and its members honestly, without any bullshit.

  Like now. As the two women strolled past the picnic table where the Foursies moms had taken over, Jade overheard one mother say to another, “Anton started solids at six months, and was potty-trained at eight months. It’s a shame your little Seth was so much slower to develop. Maybe that’s why, now that he’s four, he’s not quite grasping the concept of Pottermore. Anton is a Ravenclaw. I am so proud of him.”

  Jade would have found the woman’s boast more believable if the supposedly smarter of the four-year-olds in question hadn’t been dipping his tongue into a handful of sand while his mother was bragging about him. Despite this, both boys seemed happy and healthy as they played.

  “My goodness, does it really matter if something happens for your kid a month or two earlier than the next kid?” Jade asked Lorna. “They all get around to the same milestones eventually, right?”

  For some strange reason, that question wiped the smile completely off Lorna’s face. “If you’re a mom, every milestone makes you feel as if you’ve done at least one thing right. And if you’re an insecure mom, there will always be something to boast about. So I’m guilty as charged.” She shrugged. “But you’re right. We all get to the same place eventually.”

  If only Lorna sounded as if she believed that herself.

  ***

  Ally and Jillian had already staked out a metal bench, which had been warmed by the sun. Not just warm, but hot. Jade found that out the hard way when she felt the burn on the back of her thighs. She regretted having worn her short shorts for just that reason.

  Well, that and because the women who made up the PHM&T applications committee were doing a piss poor job at pretending not to stare at her.

  When Bettina got up to walk over, Jade’s heart skipped a beat. Brady had warned her that the shorts made her look slutty. If she got kicked out after just three meetings—even before the vote-off—he’d be so angry with her.

  All eyes followed
Bettina as she walked over to their bench. The conversation between Ally and Jillian about the girls and their favorite dolls stopped mid-sentence.

  Bettina nodded to all of them, but she only had eyes for Jade. “Do you have a moment?” Bettina’s tone was very serious.

  Jade nodded warily and vowed to burn the shorts the very minute she got home. Worse yet, Bettina was going to ream her out in front of the others.

  “The admissions committee has noted that you have excellent taste! Would you like to accompany me in lining up the Halloween Contest prizes from some of our more generous local merchants?”

  “Me? Go…with you?” Jade couldn’t believe her ears. She couldn’t wait to tell Brady. He’d be ecstatic!

  “It shouldn’t be too obtrusive on your overall schedule. We only need eleven prizes: five boy prizes, one for each age group; and then five girl prizes, same criteria. Also, we’ll need a Grand Prize. We could cover Chestnut Street in an hour on one day and Union Street another. On a third day, we’ll hit the Fillmore district. Needless to say, your participation will count in your overall score. So, what do you say?”

  “Of course! Any day you want!”

  “Super. Why don’t we meet at the Grove Cafe at eleven tomorrow morning? Feel free to bring Oliver along. Having the little ones with us always makes a great impression on the merchants. And he is such a handsome little guy!”

  Jade nearly leaped off the bench to give Bettina a hug, then remembered her shorts and thought better of it.

  The other Onesie moms tried to hide their disappointment, but it was all too clear what they were thinking: Was Bettina already playing favorites?

  Jade certainly hoped so.

  She looked down at her little son. He had already wormed his way out of his sweater and was deeply involved in some sandbox antics, taking a cup filled with sand and tossing it over one of his toy cars until it was completely buried. This process had Addison and Amelia squealing. Even that constant whiner, Quest, and Kelly’s little bully, Wills, were both following him. By the time Ally’s little girl, Zoe, joined in, it looked like a miniature conga line.