The Penny Pinchers Club (20 page)

“I miss the orgies.”

“Mrs. Griffiths! What are you suggesting?”

Snuggling into his shoulder, I inhaled the smell of his wool sweater that always reminded me of Barb Gladstone’s library, the books and fireplace, even if Griff had stunk like a farmhand. “I keep feeling as though I ought to be doing more since it’s Laura’s last Christmas.”

“As a high school senior. She’ll be back for years. I’m afraid she’s going to be one of those slackers we’re going to have to kick out of the house, if we’re ever going to embark on the next adventure of our lives.”

Hmm,
I thought.
What does that mean?
It sounded inclusive. And yet . . .

I kissed his neck, slightly salty and warm, wishing our problems could be resolved. I was so tired of being conflicted, of spending every waking minute wondering if he was or if he wasn’t having an affair. I regularly wavered between moments when I dismissed my fears of divorce as wifely hysteria and other moments of pure green jealousy when Bree called or he went downstairs to his computer for hours at a stretch.

Which might explain why, instead of kissing more than his neck, I said, “Hey. You haven’t seen my new car.”

“Would that be the luxury Corolla? What are we waiting for?”

He bounded off the couch and I led him to the garage. “Notice,” I said, “the fine detailing in the molded-plastic dashboard and the sensuous velour seats.”

“Yes. I understand 1999 was an exceptional year for the economy car.” He opened the door and feigned amazement. “Are those armrests I see?”

“Two!” LikeVanna White I spread myself against the hood. “That’s 120 horsepower under me, baby.”

“And five speeds?” He raised his brows. “Grrr.” He circled the car and wrapped his arms around me. “Why is it that there’s nothing more alluring than a beautiful woman on the hood of a car?” He kissed me gently on the lips. “Especially on a hot rod like this.”

“Speaking of hot rod.” Seemingly on its own volition, my hand slid down the front of his jeans to find he was already getting hard. “You weren’t joking about the woman on the hood of the car phenomenon.”

He swallowed. “No, ma’am.”

“If I’d only known sooner I’d have totally redesigned our bedroom.”

“You might get a bit more purchase if I do this.” He unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans. “Not that I’m issuing requests.”

It felt so good to be like this with him, so easy, as if there’d never been worries about money or Bree or Belladonna’s or disconcerting emails. Griff slid his hand under my sweater and cupped my breasts, nudging my turtleneck down until, in mock frustration, he said, “Does this thing come off? Or do I have to rip it off with my teeth?”

It came off. And it was freezing.

“Ohmigod, this garage is cold.”

“Yeah?” He grasped me by the waist and hoisted me up. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”

His hands ran up my thighs, under my skirt, and, for the first time, I felt the thrill of bare skin on chrome. So that’s what all the fuss was about with those
Car and Driver
centerfolds.

Griff covered me with his body, sending rays of warmth as his bare thighs pressed against mine.

“I love you, Kat,” he murmured, breathing heavily, excitedly, as he entered gently and then, after a few purposeful thrusts, more forcefully. “God, do I love you.”

It was what I wanted to hear, what I
needed
to hear as I wrapped my legs around him and met him stroke for stroke, finally reaching the kind of explosion that can never be predicted or planned.

Griff buried his head in my neck and kissed me under the ear. “You are one hot babe on a hot rod.”

“Ditto.”

He frowned.

“I mean reverse ditto.”

“Better.” He kissed my cleavage and said, “Tell me honestly. Do you think we really can move this car upstairs?”

I reached for my bra and hooked it on. “Like I said, this afternoon’s given me a whole new perspective on boudoir design.”

“Now aren’t you glad you weren’t out Christmas shopping?” He languidly stepped into his jeans.

“Or that we own a Toyota? ’Cause I’m pretty sure the front end of the Lexus is too high for . . .”

“Mom?” Laura’s voice echoed through the kitchen. “Dad? Where are you?”

More panicked than busted teenagers, Griff and I hurriedly scrambled into the rest of our clothes. I ducked into the car and tried to smooth my hair in the rearview mirror while Griff ingeniously grabbed a tire gauge and bent down to the rear left tire, as if all he’d been up to was looking after my safety.

“There you are! Didn’t you hear me calling you?” She was at the door from the kitchen, holding a small box wrapped in brown paper with a red envelope attached. “What’s this?”

I thought she was referring to the box, which I’d never seen before. Then I saw she was referring to the Toyota. “It’s my new car.” I checked the hood to make sure we hadn’t left any dents or other incriminating evidence.

“It’s not too bad. Connor Richardson has one just like it. Maybe a few years newer.”

Connor Richardson was seventeen. Seventeen-year-olds now owned fancier cars than I did.

She held up the package. “This was sticking out of the mailbox when I came home. What’s PharMax?”

Griff lifted his head from the tire. “That’s the place where your mother used to work before we met.”

Somehow I knew it was from Liam, though why he would have sent me a present was more than slightly intriguing.

“It must be from my old roommate, Suzanne,” I lied, practically snatching it from her. “She said she was putting something in the mail for me. How nice.”

The name NOVAK was handwritten above the PharMax stamp in cryptic block handwriting—distinctive to me, unintelligible to most. Including, thankfully, my daughter.

“Open it!”

“I can’t! It’s a Christmas present.”

“Then at least take off the brown wrapper so we can put it under the tree. That would give us a grand total of seven whopping presents.”

Tapping her on the nose, I said, “Now who’s acting like a seven-year-old instead of a seventeen-year-old? Wanna go test-drive my new wheels? Dad will give you another lesson on driving stick, and I promise he won’t yell or grip the dash.” I slid the package under a box of garbage bags by the door while Laura got the keys on the counter and Griff finished with his duty of checking the tire pressure.

He lay the gauge on his workbench, thought for a bit, and said,“I didn’t know Suzanne still worked at PharMax.”

“Oh, sure. She’s got so much seniority there, she’ll never leave.” I was dying for those two to skedaddle so I could see what was in the box. The curiosity was killing me.

Laura came back and jangled the keys. “Ready?”

Griff made a point of taking the long way around the car to the passenger seat, stopping to brush his lips against my cheek. “That was really great what we just did. Try to keep that in mind when Laura and I pull out of the driveway and you rip into that box.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I
n the safety of my office the next day, I reopened the red envelope for the umpteenth time to reveal a snowy scene of a white country church on a starry night, your standard Christmas card. Inside, in Liam’s cramped block script, it said:

Two pearl earrings with tiny diamonds lay on blue satin in the tiny jewel box, a sixteenth birthday present from my mother’s mother and one I could have sworn was stolen by several questionable movers when I was leaving the apartment I shared with Suzanne.

He’d saved them all these years
.

The front door opened and I quickly shut the box, stuffing it into my desk drawer, the one place I was confident his note and my earrings would not be discovered by Griff.

Much to my relief, it was only Elaine arriving with lattes for both of us, her treat. Of all the sacrifices I was making in the name of saving, for some reason Elaine was most saddened by my refusal to spend $5 on a cup of coffee and foam. Once a week she brought me a triple venti, which she produced with the kind of earnestness most do-gooders display when handing out winter coats to the poor.

“You gave me a heart attack,” I said after thanking her profusely.

She pulled up a seat and took a sip. “What does that say about your relationship with your boss that whenever she opens the door, you have to reach for the defibrillator?”

“This time I have good reason.” I opened the drawer and showed her the card. “Read this.”

Elaine flipped it open. “Who’s Liam?”

“Liam Novak. He’s the new CEO of PharMax. We were dating when I met Griff in the dark ages.”

“You mean the guy you almost married, the one who bought the Macalester House?”

I nodded. The latte was delicious, so much better once a week rather than (I’m embarrassed to admit) twice a day.

“Art handled the Macalester House deal.”Art was Arthur B. Winchester, owner of Arthur B. Winchester Properties, where Elaine was a Realtor. He was the guy who insisted she wear the ugly navy pantsuit. “I was there when he told Chloe that Liam had bought it, and you should have seen her reaction as she put two and two together. She bragged right off that with your connection, she’d be sure to get the interior design contract.”

“Except . . .” I pointed to the paragraph about him having no worries about crushing Chloe’s hopes.

“Oooh. She’s not going to like that.” Elaine added evilly, “Do it!”

“You mean call and tell him I want the job? Chloe will fire me on the spot.”

“So? If you get him as a client, you can quit first. Hell, you can type up your resignation letter on gold leaf. Look at this.”

Nudging me aside, she went on my computer and found a newspaper article that had appeared two months before in the
Trentonian
. “This is why Art decided to hunt down your old boyfriend and insist he look at the Macalester House. Also, why Chloe went berserk when she realized you and he had a connection.”

It was a boring business story about the changing of the guard at PharMax. There was a picture of the outgoing CEO who was retiring and Liam looking very professional in glasses (since when?) and a nice Brooks Brothers tie.

“Not bad.” Elaine framed the photo with her two hands. “And you’re telling me you two were once engaged?”

“Not actually. I . . . turned him down.”

She regarded me with disbelief. “Because you were temporarily mentally ill, right?”

“Because I was in love with Griff.”

“Love. Hah! You know what I love? This.”

She scrolled to a breakout box summarizing Liam’s new compensation package at PharMax.

The figures made no sense. A salary that required a decimal point? “What’s ‘other’ mean?”

“It means he can pay an old girlfriend so well to redo all five of his bedrooms, she never has to work another day for the Mistress of Manville.”

“Good.” Hastily, I clicked out of the story in case Chloe burst in, as she tended to do. “Because I already called him. We’re meeting today at noon at his house.”

“Why, you minx.” Elaine collapsed in her chair and laughed. “When did our mere Kat grow a backbone all of a sudden? Don’t tell me this comes from joining the Penny Panthers, or whatever it is you call yourselves.”

“Penny
Pinchers
.” I hadn’t thought of it before, but maybe my new courage was an unexpected benefit of learning how to say no to the influences of a world saturated with advertising. Then again, more likely it came from being broke.

As I’d predicted, Chloe threw her door open with a violent crash. Except it wasn’t the front door—it was her office. Unbeknownst to me, she’d been holed up there all morning, probably listening to our every word.

She bustled across the office, her portfolio in tow, a gorgeous Escada white ostrich shoulder bag setting off the DianeVon Furstenberg zebra wrap under her camel coat.

Man. I missed a disposable income. Not that I’d ever been able to afford Escada. Not that not being able to afford something had ever stopped me before.

“I’m off!” she announced, checking herself in the mirror by the door. “Brand-new client.
Huugely
important. Mustn’t be late.”

Glancing out the window, she caught sight of my new Corolla and blanched. “Call the landlord, Kat. Someone’s parked in our space who’s not a client. I don’t pay $150 a month so freeloaders can dump their heaps outside my business.”