A Girl Like Her: How To Get Your Man\Diary of a Domestic Goddess by Elizabeth Harbison

Author:Elizabeth Harbison
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460383612
Publisher: MIRA

“Mommy!”

“Just a minute.”

For the pirate costume, gather a red bandanna, black sweatpants, long white sweat socks, aluminum foil, a woman’s long-sleeved blouse, some gold craft paint and a plastic shower curtain ring for the pirate’s earring—

“Mommy!”

Kit Macy stopped typing and pushed her laptop back on the ancient Formica kitchen table with exaggerated patience. Then she turned to the four-year-old who was still tugging on her sleeve. “Are you on fire?”

“No—”

“Are you bleeding?”

“No, but—”

She lowered her chin. “Are you supposed to interrupt me when I’m working?”

Johnny pressed his lips together and glanced at the kitchen doorway behind him before saying, “No.”

Big, guilty kid eyes. They got to her every time. Kit smiled and ruffled his hair. “Look, I know you’re hot and bored. Just let me finish and we can go to the pool, okay? Maybe Mr. Finnegan can fix the air conditioner while we’re gone.” It was July, and the mugginess of the New Jersey summer had already hit them full force. The fan Kit had propped in the corner of the small apartment kitchen sputtered ominously, and she glanced at it. “Before that thing dies, too, and we melt.” One more month and she would be closing on her own house. A house with central air-conditioning and a community pool.

Sometimes it was the only thought that kept her going.

Johnny gave a distracted nod. “Okay, but Mommy?”

She sighed. “Yes?”

“Um, Mommy?

“Johnny, what?”

“Steve has something stuck on his nose.”

It took a moment for her to rewind and replay the mental tape. “What is it?”

He squirmed visibly around the question. “He wouldn’t come with me to show you.”

Two nights ago Johnny had smeared peanut butter on Steve’s nose because it was “so funny to watch him try and lick it off.” A quick calculation told Kit that if Steve wasn’t in the kitchen—and he wasn’t— it was likely that he was in the TV room with her new sofa. Her new twelve-hundred-dollar Open Space sofa with the custom vine-patterned upholstery. That and peanut butter would make for an ugly combination. Actually anything and peanut butter made for an ugly combination.

She jumped up. “Where is he?”

“In my room,” Johnny admitted, his voice small behind her as she dashed out of the kitchen.

She rounded the corner to the small, dark hallway and heard repeated sneezes behind Johnny’s closed bedroom door. “You’re not supposed to lock him in there, baby, you know that.”

“I know,” Johnny answered, drawing each syllable out guiltily.

Kit pushed the door open and saw Steve, the black Labrador mutt, lying on the floor, sneezing and growling and trying to wrestle something off his nose.

“Damn.” She dropped to the floor and tried to calm the squirming dog down enough to remove the shower curtain ring she’d gotten out of the bathroom to make an earring for the stupid pirate costume. “Damn, damn, damn.”

“You said a bad thing!”

“You’re right.” She pried the ring open and pulled it off the dog’s nose, trying to resist saying another stream of “bad things.” “You know you’re not supposed to put people things on Steve.

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