Monica had no qualms about trading her body for whatever she needed at work. She’d had brief affairs with several of the senior partners. Everyone understood that they were just short, feel-good fucks but they accomplished what she wanted. She got noticed. She knew no one would really do anything extra for her and she never even hinted at a quid pro quo, but she got considered for new accounts and found out about opportunities before most others.
What was the problem with that? She wasn’t hurting anyone. She enjoyed sex in all forms, and with a few exceptions, had as good a time as her partner.
For a moment the image of the guy from the yoga class flashed through her mind and she wondered what he was like in bed. Nah. Too complicated. It was so much simpler when everyone knew what was what.
As she undressed after her call from Trent, she looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Not bad, she thought, sucking in her stomach, lifting her ribs, and arching her back slightly. Not bad at all. So I’m not a kid anymore, she thought, lifting her breasts with her hands. I’m experienced and damn good in bed. Every man I’m with gets the best I can give.
She sometimes wondered whether she should be ashamed of her behavior, but she wasn’t and had never been. She quickly removed her lightly applied makeup and smoothed moisturizer into her face and neck. Then, feeling unusually good and even a bit relaxed, she slipped beneath the covers and listened to Sam shuffle up the stairs and settle comfortably beside the bed.
Reaching down to scratch Sam’s head, she picked up an old issue of Advertising Age. She didn’t read enough, keep up with who’s who and what’s what. Okay, it wasn’t pleasure reading but it wasn’t exactly work either. She was amazed at how good she felt, just reading. She had a pile of work for the next day but for tonight she’d just chill.
Chapter
6
On the eastern bank of the Hudson River, across from the Palisades, the town of East Hudson, New York, is a thriving bedroom community about thirty-five miles north of New York City. Like most Hudson River towns it sprang up soon after the pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, when Otto Jenks built a small ferry to transport men, horses, and supplies across a slightly narrower section of the river. Otto called the area East Bank of the Hudson, quickly shortening it to East Hudson, abandoning the Native American name, which has been lost to history.
Mostly ignored by both sides during the revolution, East Hudson settled into a farming lifestyle, growing fruits and vegetables on small family farms, and raising thousands of cows, transporting their produce and livestock down the Hudson River by barge to the constantly hungry city at its mouth. Grapes became a substantial cash crop once a serious vintner named Elias Peters arrived and started the East Hudson Winery in the middle of the nineteenth century. Grand homes flourished, some for summer getaways, others for year-round flight from the heat and cold of New York City. Not as grand as the cottages of Rhode Island, they were still large and opulent.
When the railroad overspread the area, factories took advantage of inexpensive power from Niagara Falls and cheap transportation to sprout like mushrooms up and down the Hudson, making everything from hats to shoes, from stoves to elevators. A mixture of German, Italian, and Irish immigrants slowly moved north to provide cheap labor and many of the large East Hudson farms and estates were broken into smaller homes and apartments for the newcomers.
Early in the twentieth century, manufacturing slowly moved south and west, leaving deserted buildings and run-down railroad sidings all along the river to decay and rust. When the area railroads electrified, making short haul commuting practical, East Hudson found its true calling as a refuge for tired New York City workers. With stations in Tarrytown and Mount Kisco to the west, Croton to the south, and Peekskill to the north, the commuter railroads created a firm foundation for the entire county of Westchester, and the river towns gentrified.
Now a mixture of income levels and ethnicities, the town of twenty-five thousand boasted several main shopping areas, three large strip malls, and an easy commute to White Plains to visit Lord & Taylor’s, Saks, and the hundreds of up- and down-scale stores located there. While cookie-cutter middle-income housing developments grew all around, the older section remained the center of town, with two good Chinese restaurants, three newer Oriental take-out places, Carvel, McDonalds, and two Italian restaurants with countywide reputations. The veal parmesan–eating public was strictly divided—those who frequented Antonio’s and those who flocked to Villa Moretti. Fierce arguments arose, each group extolling the virtues of their favorite antipasto or chicken specialty.
The center of town life, however, was the Hudsonview Diner. It had gone through several owners before Nick and Maria Micklos took it over several years earlier, and for the last two years the Greek specialties had steadily improved until the pasticcio and lamb kabobs could be praised in the same breath as Antonio’s chicken marsala and Villa Moretti’s veal saltimbocca.
Now, late Saturday morning, one week after the sudden rainstorm, the four women sat in a booth by the large windows. They’d declined menus and just ordered coffee as they exhausted several subjects: how wonderful the yoga class was, the heat wave, now in its sixth day, and the latest episode of a Monday evening reality show that it turned out all of them watched, at least occasionally. The waiter arrived and put a heavy white mug in front of each woman. Eve carefully put her cell phone beside it.
“I’m delighted your husband agreed to watch the babies for you this morning,” Monica said, adding a packet of Sweet ’N Low to her cup.
“As he should,” Cait said, sipping her black coffee and wincing.
“He didn’t bat an eyelash,” Angie said, looking a bit surprised, “but I don’t want to be gone too long.”
“Hey, they’re his kids, too,” Monica said, “and you’re entitled to a small amount of time off.”
“I know,” Angie said, reaching into her gym bag, “but he works so hard all week that he’s also entitled to his down time.” She pulled out her wallet. “I’ve got new pictures.” She opened to several photos of the twins, dressed in matching navy and white outfits. For the next several minutes the women oohed and aahed over the adorable babies.
“What does your husband do?” Eve asked when Angie had put the photos away.
“He teaches English in the South Bronx. It’s a really tough high school—you know, lots of drugs and gangs. But he loves the teaching and he tries to steer clear of the other stuff. It scares me a little.”
“Has there been lots of violence in his school?”
“From time to time there’s a fight or one of the guys brings a knife or gun to school. I think Tony’s stopped telling me about that part of it.”
“So why does he stay in the city?” Eve asked. “There must be jobs up here somewhere.”
“It’s not that easy,” Angie answered. “He submits applications all the time, but there are so many good teachers looking to get out of the city that there are hundreds of résumés for every job. He just hasn’t gotten lucky yet.”
“That’s tough,” Cait said, reflexively smoothing the polish on her index fingernail with her thumb.
No wonder she’s so frazzled, Monica thought. Schoolteachers don’t make nearly as much money as they should. As Cait said, it was probably really tough for them to make ends meet. “How about you, Eve? You said you work, what do you do?”
“I work down in the