Secrets of a Shoe Addict by Harbison Beth

Author:Harbison, Beth [Harbison, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312348267
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2008-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

14

It was shortly after noon, Loreen had shown two houses that morning, and her client had been seriously interested in one of them. Things were looking up.

So it was with great optimism that she logged on and decided to take a call or two before Jacob got home. She was going to turn this around and get good at it, like Tiffany and Abbey seemed to be.

It didn’t take long for the phone to ring.

“Hello?” That was a mistake. She modulated her voice and added, “This is Mimi. Who’s calling?”

“Hey, Mimi, this is Caveman, calling for some fire.”

“C-caveman?” No way, that was nuts. Two seconds in, and she’d already made another embarrassing mistake. “I’m sorry, I must have misheard you.”

“Caveman,” he repeated. “What is this, did I call my fifth-grade math teacher?”

“Were you . . . did you want to talk to your fifth-grade math teacher? Is that your fantasy?”

This wasn’t going well.

“You’re joking, right?”

Um. Sure. “Whatever you want. Caveman.”

“Aw, man. This blows.” He hung up the phone with a dramatic clatter.

She’d failed again.

And it should have been a no-brainer.

Loreen considered it with skepticism. What if it was Caveman again, calling to yell at her? Then again, if it was, he’d be paying handsomely for the privilege, and listening to that would probably be easier than listening to the sexual fantasies of someone who called himself Caveman.

The phone kept ringing.

Finally, she grabbed it. “This is Mimi. . . .” She took a chance. “Caveman?”

There was silence.

“Hello? Caveman? Are you there?”

“Mom?”

She dropped the phone and uttered a word she would have grounded Jacob for saying. “What are you doing here?” she asked, knowing her voice was too sharp and her face was as red as a Halloween mask.

“It’s a half day.” He put his Spider-Man backpack down. “Who are you calling Caveman?”

“It . . . ah . . .”She had no answer. She had not one damn answer that could make sense to anyone, much less a child. Except . . . wait a minute, this was a child she was talking to. “It was GEICO,” she said, referencing the car-insurance company that featured cavemen characters that never failed to crack Jacob up.

His face broke into a wide grin. “Cool!”

Loreen cleared her throat. “Get washed up and go downstairs. I’ll make you a snack.”

“Jack Bryson’s coming over,” Jacob said. “We’re gonna practice pitching.”

“Great!” She meant it. She was utterly unprepared to have Jacob home, and she needed some time to recover from the shock of him showing up, and the horror of what he could have overheard if she’d been any better at her job.

Her poor performance was almost equally disturbing. As she dialed the number to log off of Happy Housewives, it occurred to her that she really wasn’t pulling her considerable weight in this endeavor. Every call required instant sexual banter, and while obviously she should be ready to do that, she wasn’t. She needed something equivalent to a musician’s fake book, a list of lines she could use as springboards for conversation.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.