Chapter One
Paige rolled down her window and propped her free arm on the door, letting her hand float on the wind as she drove down the highway at seventy-five miles an hour. Her cell phone was ringing again. She reached down and picked it up. Glancing at it over the steering wheel, she saw it was her mother calling again. She didn’t want to talk to her mother. Not yet.
She pressed the button on the side of the phone and the display changed to fifteen missed calls. A moment later, it chimed that she had a new voicemail message.
Paige could guess what it said. It probably said the same thing that the first one had said; that she was making a big mistake and she needed to go back to Steve and her girls.
She wanted so much to just chuck the small, silver colored flip phone out of the window and keep driving. Instead, she tossed it onto the seat next to her and turned up the volume on the radio.
It was a long stretch of road ahead of her, and Paige’s memory unwillingly flashed back to three weeks ago.
She and Steve were sitting in the living room of their townhouse watching television and it suddenly hit her that she wasn’t living the life she always envisioned for herself. She wanted out and, more importantly, she wanted to live. She had no idea what inspired this thought, only that there it was and she couldn’t ignore it.
As luck would have it, the very next Monday at work, Keith Ortega, her boss, came to her and told her that the restaurant she worked, Pandora’s Box, at was opening a chain in England and that she had been chosen to lead up the kitchens in them. A dream come true job.
She raced home to tell Steve over email. When she saw his car in the driveway, she thought even better, I can tell him person! She raced up the stairs and began looking for him in all of his usual spots: the study, the living room, the game room and the backyard.
It was while she was looking in the backyard thinking that if Steve’s car was home he had to be home as well, that she heard what she thought was a playstation game coming from their bedroom.
I’m going to get him! She thought I told him he was not to bring that game system into our bedroom. That’s why we have a game room.
Paige ran up the stairs and flung the bedroom door open only to find Steve and his boss rolling around in the sheets of her and Steve’s bed, having sex.
The door hadn’t hit the wall and the floor was carpeted so neither Steve nor his boss knew Paige was standing in the doorway. The woman got on top of Steve and they continued. It was like a triple x horror film to Paige. They were so absorbed in their act, that neither of them yet noticed her. Suddenly, as the woman came, she tilted her head back to enjoy the sensation and that’s when she saw Paige. Paige upside-down, but still, Paige. She screamed loudly.
“Oh yeah, baby! Scream for me!” Steve said.
“Oh I’ll scream for you. In fact, I did. Last night.” Paige said.
Steve pushed the woman from on top of him and sat up in bed.
“What are you doing here?” he accused “You aren’t supposed to be off work until five. It’s only noon.”
“Forgive me for coming home early to tell you a bit of news. I can see that you’re busy, I’ll come back later.” Paige said.
She turned and walked out of the bedroom. Then she stopped and thought about it. She was about to leave her house while that woman stayed. Then again, what did it matter? She was going to England. All the same, a little fun wouldn’t hurt. At least, it wouldn’t hurt her. She walked back into the bedroom and grabbed the woman by her long brown and red hair. She hadn’t had a chance to put any clothes on yet so she was still naked. Paige practically drug the woman out of the bedroom and down the stairs then took her to the front door and opened it.
“Oh please, let me get my clothes and I’ll leave quietly…,” the woman begged.
Paige smiled. She lived on a heavily populated street that had traffic going to at least ten other streets coming up and down it regularly. She tossed the woman out of the door and shut it with a bang. On her way back up to the bedroom, she turned the sprinklers on. Waste of water, she knew, but still fun all the same…
Next, she went to the kitchen and got a kitchen knife. She marched back up the bedroom and confronted her husband.
“What are you doing with that knife, Paige honey?” Steve asked.
“You move one muscle off of that bed and you’ll be wearing your balls as earrings. You got me?” Paige said
Steve nodded.
Paige began packing bags and gathering her jewelry. When she had finished, she glanced around the room. Seeing nothing else that belonged to her, she left to go downstairs.
In the study, Paige calmly sat at the computer and logged onto the banking site she and Steve used. She transferred every penny in their joint account and his personal account into her personal account and signed off.
In the living room, she took two pictures of each of her girls and tossed them into her bags. She wrote a note to her oldest daughter, Juliet, giving a brief explanation about why she had left, that she would be in touch soon, and to tell her sister to do their best and run Daddy ragged. She had taught her children French a long time ago and this was what she now wrote the note in since Steve could neither read nor speak it. She placed the note in a Juliet’s journal, which she kept in the bookcase.
Finally content that she had taken everything she wanted out of the house, she went out and put her bags in her car. When it was packed, she went back to the front door and opened it. The woman, who was now cowering behind a bush to avoid the crowd that had gathered, looked up at her pleadingly. Paige stood aside and nodded for the woman to come inside. She was a mere blur as she ran in the house. Steve had dared to don pants and come downstairs.
“Here’s the deal,” Paige said. “I don’t want any of this anymore. I have a job opportunity overseas and I am taking it. You are going to be single dad unless Mrs. Silicone and Liposuction here wants to marry you. You get the house, you keep your car, and I get my freedom. Plain and simple. You will hear from my lawyer in about a week to a month.”
Steve just looked at her with a stupid expression on his face. Paige shook her head and turned to leave.
“It’s been fun.” She said. “I would wish you nothing but happiness in your new life, Steve but instead I’ll offer my sympathies to the new little woman.”
“Don’t walk out on me Paige, you’ll regret it.” Steve said in a warning tone.
“You are daring to threaten me?” Paige asked.
“It’s not a threat. You leave and you don’t come back.” Steve said.
“My my, but the yellowtail has a backbone now.” Paige said. “I had no plans on coming back. At least not to you.” She turned and walked out of the house closing the door behind her.
And that put her where she was now: driving down the highway headed toward the East coast to sign the papers saying she was to be the head chef in the new chain Pandora’s Box and then catch a flight out of the states to England.
Her cell phone rang again. She glanced at the caller ID. This time it was Steve. He was probably calling because by now, he realized how stupid it was to give her his net banking password and that she had all the money and had already withdrawn it. This time, she really did throw the phone out of the window.
That one probably didn’t get service in London anyway.
