Best Staged Plans by Claire Cook

Author:Claire Cook
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Hyperion

CHAPTER 21

“YOU SHOULD SEE the other woman,” Shannon said to her pedicurist over the sound of the waves crashing in the foot soak spa.

I leaned back in my massage chair. “It was so embarrassing,” I said to mine. “I can’t believe they had to call an ambulance.”

“She was only bruised,” Shannon said. “The gym just didn’t want to take a chance on getting sued.”

I checked the lump on my forehead, then adjusted the instant ice pack they’d given me at the gym. “She was definitely at fault, so liability shouldn’t be an issue.”

Shannon laughed. “I’m pretty sure Zumba collisions are no-fault in this state.”

Our pedicurists ignored us, completely and unapologetically, and yet my daughter and I continued to act as if this were a four-way conversation. I would also overtip for both of us, even if the pedicures were only so-so. There was something about the inequity of letting another person scrub my feet that really bothered me. And yet I had to admit a pedicure was a lot like having a salad served to you. It was simply better when you didn’t have to do it yourself.

“You are so not going to make me feel guilty,” Shannon said. “It’s a great opportunity for you and Chance to get to know each other.”

“Oh, puh-lease,” I said. “It’s going to be ridiculously awkward for both of us.” I looked at my pedicurist for backup, but she was busy scrubbing the calluses on my right foot with a pumice stone.

Shannon rolled her eyes at the top of her pedicurist’s head. “His mother treats me like a daughter.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said. You don’t like him. Not that I care what you think, but you should at least come out and admit it.”

“It’s not that I don’t like him. It’s just that I don’t know him very well yet.”

“Mom, he’s my husband.”

“How did you get to be so grown up?” I said.

We watched our pedicurists in silence. Mine went to work on the calluses on my left foot.

“I think you’re right about that balcony,” Shannon said.

“Of course I am,” I said. “Your kids won’t be able to resist throwing things from it, or following each other off the edge, like lemmings.”

“Thanks for the image, Mom.”

Shannon pushed a button on the arm of her massage chair and leaned back. My chair had been pounding me in the same place since I’d pushed the big green On button, and it was starting to feel like a knife being stabbed repeatedly into my back. I squinted and tried to read the massage cycle options. It was all a big blur, so I closed one eye and then the other, which made no appreciable difference. I leaned sideways and tried to reach my reading glasses in my shoulder bag, but my arm wasn’t quite long enough.

Being totally dependent on reading glasses to function in the world was the only thing that really drove me crazy about getting older. It was probably just a tiny

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