Playdate: A Novel

By Thelma Adams

"Adams is that rare writer who sends out every laugh with a sting in its tail. Most novels fade from the memory. This one sticks."—Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Inside their picture-perfect homes, the residents of this quiet California suburb are not at all what they seem.

Lance is a former weatherman, now a buff yogi, stay-athome dad, and manager of his daughter's Girl Scout troop's cookie distribution. Belle is his precocious and quick-witted daughter. Darlene is a classic Type A work-a-holic, she has little time or patience for the needs of her husband and daughter

And just down the street are Alec and Wren. Alec, a womanizing businessman, is also the financial backer—and sometimes more—behind Darlene's burgeoning empire. Meanwhile, Wren is a doting mother and talented yogi, ready to lay down the mat for a quick session with Lance.

As looming Santa Ana winds threaten to turn brushfires into catastrophe; Playdate proves that relationships are complicated and the bonds between families, spouses and children are never quite what they seem. What happens next door, beyond the hedges, in the romper room and executive office—it's all as combustible as a quick brushfire on a windy day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Mar 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781429990868

Thelma Adams

Thelma Adams is the author of the bestselling historical novel The Last Woman Standing and the O, The Oprah Magazine pick Playdate. She coproduced the Emmy-winning Feud: Bette and Joan. Additionally, Adams is a prominent American film critic and an outspoken voice in the Hollywood community. She has been the in-house film critic for Us Weekly and the New York Post and has written essays, celebrity profiles, and reviews for Yahoo! Movies, the New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, Parade, Marie Claire, and the Huffington Post. Adams studied history at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was valedictorian, and received her MFA from Columbia University. She lives in Upstate New York with her family.

Book preview

Part I

Tuesday

Chapter 1

Vermonters ignore nor’easters. Tornadoes in Tulsa are local news. Santa Ana conditions come with Southern California real estate. So, that first October morning when hot winds swooped in from the high deserts across the drought-stricken county, most San Diegans didn’t cancel plans or playdates. And then the chaparral began to burn like flammable pajamas.

At dawn, an eighty-five-mile-per-hour gust snapped a power line east of rural Ramona. Sparks ignited the eucalyptus below. Fragrant flaming leaves littered the patched roof of a Witch Creek Canyon ranch house, which appeared deserted even in use—as a meth lab. The ensuing chemical explosion dispatched an armada of flames that, once airborne, replicated the process. The Witch Creek Fire was born.

High winds carried bright-eyed embers west, burning buildings and brush in Rancho Bernardo and Poway. The walls of fire would later accelerate with a rapidity that stunned the laid-back locals. Still, that first morning, it had yet to jump Interstate 15 to threaten the coast. There, fifty miles to the west, it was a chill fifty-five degrees at six-thirty A.M. Free of cinders and ash, the sky hung banner-blue above the quaint ENCINITAS sign that arched over the main drag in the sleepy seaside San Diego suburb (population 59,620, median household income $76,500).

A few blocks uphill, morning dew soaked the lawn surrounding Rancho Amigo Elementary School. A half mile farther, the school day yawned open at 1212 Pacific Breeze, where stalks of orange-streaked birds-of-paradise and fuchsia bougainvillea fringed the relatively modest two-story stucco Spanish Revival. Inside, morning light eased rather than burned through the French doors in the downstairs bedroom, adjacent to the empty nursery. It stretched across the carpet and onto the icing-pink floor of a pristine Barbie Dream House. Inside, ten-year-old Belle’s box turtle thrust his bucket-shaped head against the faux-kitchen window, orange eyes aglow.

Above Boxy’s head, in the dollhouse’s lilac and lavender second-floor bedroom, Prince Charming Ken reclined on the white canopy bed stripped naked, crown intact. Little Red Riding Hood Kelly lay on her side facing him; she was fully dressed, yes, but the wolf, inevitably, was poised at their feet. Nearby, Businesswoman Barbie’s legs protruded from a plastic crib like the stiff limbs of a corpse in a Dumpster.

Upstairs, in the big house, the king-sized bed shuddered from the quiet ministrations of Darlene, thirty-four, who had given her husband, Lance, a quick blow and then mounted him. She was working slowly and quietly back and forth, trying to find the right spot, the right speed. She had promised Lance that they would try to make another baby, and though she hated approaching sex like just another box on her checklist, here she was, at six-thirty A.M., with her hands planted on Lance’s shoulders as her back arched and then flexed.

Lance’s eyes remained closed. The thirty-five-year-old had been dreaming of awakening in his mother’s cottage with the smell of fish cooking and the sounds of a distant struggle, and he couldn’t quite climb back there to determine what was coming next, so he submitted to his supple wife in a not-unpleasant dreamy way.

Darlene had her hand cupped over his mouth so he stayed silent and was building up speed, panting quietly, when the bedroom door opened. Belle stood inside the doorway. Their only child wore faded, green-striped Ariel the Mermaid pajamas and clutched a droopy Mrs. Bunny by the waist. She dropped the weary, wash-worn stuffed animal she had had since birth (and which had recently reappeared nightly in her bed, after being relegated to a distant shelf for nearly three years). Belle stood rooted to the carpet and stared uncomprehendingly, until her mother sensed her presence.

Darlene gazed abstractedly over her shoulder, her blond stringy hair matted to her flushed forehead, rubbery in her tan nakedness. For a beat, she stared at Belle, not seeming to recognize her. Then Darlene’s eyes cleared. Belle, she called, reaching an arm back toward her daughter, Belle. That was when the girl found her slipper-clad feet and flew out the bedroom door.

We’re only making love, Darlene called after Belle.

Only? Lance said, opening his dark eyes for the first time, and rising out of himself like a diver surfacing.

I was talking to Belle, Darlene said, prematurely pulling off Lance. His dick thwacked his own belly as it landed. Didn’t you see her?

See her? She was in here? Shit, Darlene, didn’t you lock the door?

We never lock the door, Darlene said.

I do.

Well, you didn’t this time.

You jumped me, Lance said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and pulling the clock closer to see the time. That was a sleep fuck.

Sometimes a girl has to take fate into her own hands.

Or mouth.

Is that a complaint?

No, Darlene. Lance swung his legs out of the bed and grabbed two baby wipes from the bedside table, swabbing his penis with one, then his armpits and chest with the other. If Belle hears us arguing, she’ll think she’s done something wrong.

"Well, we weren’t doing anything wrong," Darlene said. She grabbed a blue chenille bathrobe and shrugged it on.

I know, baby, I know, Lance said, approaching Darlene and tying the self-belt around her waist. He kissed her gently on the center part of her hair. I salute your initiative.

You certainly did, Darlene said, laughing.

I’ll start the coffee and talk to Belle while you take your shower and get ready for work. Do you want Cracklin’ Oat Bran for breakfast?

Can you manage eggs?

Sure, said Lance.

Pepper jack omelet? she asked.

Deal, he said while rummaging in the hamper for yesterday’s board shorts and the T-shirt that had become his uniform. When they left Barstow (the isolated desert city 160 miles northeast that ranked as one of California’s ten poorest), Lance went from professional weatherman at a local news station to stay-at-home parent. He missed the external reinforcement of regular employment, but he embraced the satisfactions of full-time parenting in a way that Darlene didn’t. He had become Rancho Amigo Elementary School’s most active male volunteer and the sole father to have appeared regularly at the weekly Girl Scout meetings. He put on the dirty clothes, then stuffed the rest of the laundry in a pillowcase and tossed it over his shoulder. Hi ho, hi ho, he muttered, as he headed out the bedroom door and down the stairs to find his daughter.

Belle was hiding out in the laundry room beyond the kitchen and adjacent to the doors to the garage and the backyard. She would have gone outside if she could have figured out the locks and the security code. Perched on the dryer, pointy chin on knees, she stared out the window at the gently steaming swimming pool, her face taut. Rashy patches were rising on her cheeks. Belle mostly resembled her father, olive-skinned, long-legged, and dark-eyed. Her high arched brows were her best feature, opening up her face with an intelligence she hadn’t yet grown into. She was handsome rather than pretty, her features softened by the feminine mouth she’d inherited from Darlene along with her mother’s appeasing smile, nowhere in evidence at that moment.

Since the Ramsays left their Barstow backwater on Route 66 in January, Belle had become graver, and the adjustment period showed no signs of lifting. Her face had grown thinner and longer, losing the rounded girlish cheeks; it was finding its way toward the woman she would ultimately become, the face she would shape through her own experience.

And this morning had only complicated the situation. It was as if her mother had become a total stranger, to be avoided like an unfamiliar person in a car offering candy; this frightened Belle, almost more than the fact that the naked woman she’d walked in on only moments earlier had shown no glimmer of recognition, no acknowledgment of a connection between the two of them. That woman glaring at her upstairs hadn’t been Belle’s mom but some vampire sucking the lifeblood out of her father.

At the time, Belle’s first instinct had been to rescue her father, but she had feared getting in trouble; yet for what? What had she seen: her mother atop her apparently dozing (if not dead) father? Oh, tartar sauce, Belle thought, what crime had she committed? What rule had she broken? So she had crossed the threshold into her parents’ room. Since when had that been forbidden? The door wasn’t locked. But there was her mother, or an unreasonable facsimile, shooting daggers.

Belle feared her parents’ anger, not because it occurred frequently, but because she was a good girl. Her self-esteem hinged on this, as it did on an A average in school (not counting gym and music), and the atypical ability to speak only when spoken to in the company of most adults. It certainly didn’t hang on her dramatic ability or natural beauty. Belle’s exaggerated fear of parental reprisal was just on the cusp of adolescent revolt.

On that early October morning when the haze still clumped like dust bunnies to the western horizon, Belle was desperate not to slip from her parents’ good graces. Like most middle-class, college-educated parents of their generation, Lance and Darlene had never hit her, although the occasional quick shake, hard squeeze of an arm, or twist of a collar was allowed. The primary disciplinary threat was exile, being sent outside the circle of their love.

Belle had stumbled into a clearing in her own house where she was unwelcome. She didn’t like this new house anyway, with her parents’ bedroom upstairs and hers down below and miles away. Darlene had tricked her into moving with promises of goodies and a private swimming pool. Darlene had assured Belle she would make new friends in Encinitas—things parents said to get their way. Belle had traded the friends who understood her jokes for a canopy bed, a Barbie Dream House, and a turtle. She hadn’t even held out for a puppy.

Hey, doll face, Lance said softly as he entered the laundry room, as if trying not to frighten away a dove.

Are you okay? she sputtered from her dryer perch.

Of course I’m okay, baby, he said reassuringly.

I saw Mommy sitting on top of you, choking you, Belle whispered, and when she turned around, she had her demon face on.

Mommy’s sorry, Lance said. She didn’t mean to scare you. She was surprised to see you. You scared her as much as she scared you.

I don’t think so, Dad, Belle said, wiping her drippy nose with the back of her hand.

I think so. She was right: we were just— He stopped, thinking of tantric terms, and then used the limp, making love.

If that’s making love, I’m going to be a nun.

You can’t, Lance said. We’re not Catholic.

We could convert, Belle said. Or maybe I’ll just try screwing.

Where did you learn that word?

Mom, she said.

Great child-rearing technique, he said to himself.

You married her.

Her who?

Mom, Belle said. Do you like her?

Of course I do. I love her, Lance said quickly. But realistically he knew it was the reflexive love of married couples treading choppy water.

I don’t like her, Belle said defiantly. She looked into Lance’s eyes to register his reaction, and saw the pinprick of hurt; she’d scored a direct hit.

Sure you do, Lance said. You just may not like her today.

Why do parents want to know what you feel, and then tell you that you don’t feel it? Belle asked. Right then, Belle really did dislike Darlene. But this was the first time she’d said it aloud. Even Belle knew that pushing her father away wouldn’t work. She understood that while parents agonized over preferring one child over the other, kids didn’t. If they preferred one parent over the other, so be it. Belle favored Lance; she always had. She looked up to him literally and figuratively. He was the Zeus of her world, loved and feared. She wanted to tell him everything. And he wanted to hear it—but that didn’t mean she’d make it easy on him. Especially after whatever weird thing he was doing with Mom.

I do want to know what you feel, Belle.

I don’t belong here, Belle said. I want to go back to Barstow.

We can’t, Lance said. Mom’s got a job here.

You don’t, Dad. Why not leave her here?

We’re a family.

She could visit us on weekends, Belle said. She resented that her mother kept saying the move to Encinitas was good for all of them, but it had mainly been good for her. She was so consumed with being busy and driving a new car and buying shoes at Nordstrom’s that she didn’t seem to realize that she had dragged them all out of Barstow and away from their friends and stranded Belle in the dreaded Rancho Amigo Elementary School. And Mom expected her thanks, as if it were an improvement to fall to the dregs of the school food chain. Or we could come here on weekends. I could handle this place on weekends.

Is school that bad? Lance asked, as he reached into the full laundry basket beside the dryer where Belle was sitting and pulled out a fitted sheet.

Worse. Belle’s mouth was squeezed into a knot.

Here, Lance said, help me fold the sheets. I never get the fitted ones right by myself.

Belle slipped off the dryer. She faced her father with her palms up. He flicked the far end at her and she caught a length of elastic. They were silent as they sorted out the corners, retreated a few steps away from each other to stretch the sheet straight, and gave it a shake to flatten it between them.

I miss my friends, Belle said.

You have friends here, Lance said, tucking one corner into its mate. What about Sam?

He’s a boy.

I’m a boy.

You’re a dad, Belle said dismissively, walking toward Lance to relinquish her corners and taking up the fold they’d made below. I miss my real friends. I miss me with my friends. No one gets me here. They’re too stupid.

No, they’re not, Lance said.

See? I tell you how I feel, and then you tell me I’m wrong.

You can make friends here. It just takes time, Lance said, and then he turned his attention to finishing the sheet to stem the flow of stock parent statements from flying out of his mouth.

Sensing she’d pushed too far, Belle said, You’re my best friend.

Me, too, he said, carefully placing the folded sheet in an empty basket beside the full one. C’mon. Help me crack eggs.

Hug first?

Big hug.

You smell funny.

Funny how?

Like baby powder, Belle said.

Lance led Belle into the adjacent kitchen; she choo-chooed behind, her hands on his hips. He opened the stainless steel refrigerator and gathered the eggs, milk, and grated cheese, then transferred the armful to the granite kitchen isle. He reached for a Pyrex bowl from a cupboard, bent for a whisk from a drawer, and placed both on the counter. Then he began to crack eggs with Belle beside him. He handed her the whisk so she could scramble, then asked, Eggs for you, too?

No, Belle said. I want Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Deal, he said. But you have to have O.J.

Gag me. It tastes yucky with cereal.

Apple juice?

Belle shrugged and said, Let me see your neck.

Why?

To check for strangle marks.

Why would Mom strangle me?

I don’t know, Belle said. You tell me.

You missed that yolk, Lance said, ashamed. As they stood side by side in the kitchen, with Belle’s wild head of black curls at Lance’s hip, he experienced such a feeling of oneness that it scared him. How would he pull himself back together if something happened to her? He relished these moments of gooey eggs on their hands; the brush of his arm hair against Belle’s; and the simple knowledge that Cinnamon Toast Crunch was his daughter’s favorite cereal, having vanquished Lucky Charms and an austere period of plain organic yogurt.

This quiet harmony Lance and Belle shared was what he had imagined he would experience with Darlene as their marriage ripened. Instead, as the newness of their passion waned, a gulf had appeared between them, competitiveness entered the void, and, it seemed to him, a desire on Darlene’s part to assign blame. He still wanted to bridge that gulf, but wasn’t sure how.

Lance was a go-with-the-flow guy in the choppy waters of a marriage in flux; his instincts were to dive under the wave and catch the next one. He fought that gut feeling, and tried to hang on to how it used to be. In the beginning, he had welcomed Darlene’s vitality: she glowed in a way he didn’t. It was as if the sun were a desk lamp aimed at her. Sure, she had a vulnerable side that he connected to, a flurry of self-doubts that she wasn’t afraid to share with Lance. In the early days, he had been her father confessor. But it was her passion that attracted him; other women had seemed as dull as faded denim in comparison. She dreamed big and included him in those dreams. And yet Lance hadn’t anticipated Darlene’s restlessness, how she courted drama and then retreated to Lance to smooth her ruffled feathers. Lance gazed down at Belle and the bowl’s frothy eggs: was he selfish for still wanting someone who laughed at all of his jokes? Shit, yes, but that didn’t change a thing.

Lance and Belle looked up as Darlene click-clacked down the tile stairs from the bedroom to the great room, which was open to the kitchen where they stood scrambling. Darlene clattered across the Spanish tile floor in a khaki suit with a pencil-shaped skirt slit high on one thigh; her orange silk blouse was open deep at the neck, and long orange cuffs drifted out in casual irregularity from her blazer’s tailored sleeves. She wore high orange Coach sling-backs and gold chandelier earrings to sex up the suit even more than her body naturally did.

Lance didn’t let himself acknowledge that Darlene was dressing for someone else. He preferred his wife in floating India cotton dresses that were sheer when she stood against the sun, revealing legs that might have been shaved a few days before, or not. He missed the days when her toenails were half-ass painted, done while they sat together on the couch and watched sitcoms, laughing more at them than with them, their ratty sofa bed mirrored in the TV set. Often she would straddle his lap during the commercials and they would have mad make-out sessions. (Giddy-up, horsey, she would joke.) The next day he might find small patches of hot orange or inky blue-black on his knees or thighs, smudged toe-prints. He never scrubbed them

Reviews for Playdate

[mhanover10 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I listened to this book. When listening to an audio book, the reader is a huge part of the enjoyment. I know the reader of this book has won some awards for her work. But I think she is too mellow. I almost fell asleep driving to work on day. This book is about two families and the relationship between the married couples and between the couples. Wren is married to Alec and Darlene is married to Lance. Alec and Darlene are opening a restaurant together and Lance and Wren are having an affair. Their kids are also friends. This book is a chick-lit book but also covers how different personalities can get along and not match each other. Do you have a job or a career. How do you categorize someone. It's not too deep of a thinking book but it's not bad. Good for the beach.

[suefernandez · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I tried to like this book, but the characters were just so brash and sometimes just over the top I couldn't like it. I felt like it was cliche, and as another review said, "DesperateHousewives," like....

[janehuber · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found it hard to enjoy this novel; all the adults are nasty, unlikable people and the author isn't as funny as she thinks she is. All in all it reminded me of Little Children crossed with one of T.C. Boyle's California novels, and then diluted with a shot of Jennifer Crusie-ish "romance"/sex.

[livelylady · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Playdate" has many definitions in this light, humorous story. Stay at home dad, Lance, faces the same problems of any stay at home mom...how to answer "what did you do today?" Part of the answer is "with playdates." But besides the triangulated relationships in this book, there is a basic message...."the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." In this case, the grass burns!I give the writing a 5 start and story line a 2.5 star.

[nyiper · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Although there were some redeeming features in this book having to do with ideas about the meaning of parenthood, they were buried in a soap opera like story of mixed up sexual attractions. I kept reading but never really liked any of the characters. The conclusion seemed contrived from the beginning. This was a very lightweight story and a quick read-----but not quite worth reading.

[revzonian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Thank you, Thomas Dunne Books, for this reviewer's copy. I enjoyed this quick read about a stay-at-home-dad and workaholic mom with a soon-to-be eleven year-old. They all struggled with their own problems and adjustments in these roles as they moved from Barstow to a SoCal community of Encinitas. There's also the womanizing business partner and the mostly obeisant wife, who also have issues. By the end of the novel, they all realize something from within and redirect their paths.I give it 2-1/2 stars because I wanted to know more about what happened to Dave, the reporter at the dinner party, and Julia, the babysitter.

[citygirl_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book isn't very good; but it's not really bad, either. The main problem was its superficial treatment of the people living in the kind of neighborhood.a Desperate Housewives viewer might recognize, without the murders, etc. I kept wanting the author to go deeper into characters, make them less identifiable as types. I mean types, not so much archetypes: a career woman who doesn't feel maternal enough; her husband, a stay-at-home who wonders if he should feel more emasculated, etc. Also, there was one character who was pretty vile, and probably the most interesting of the bunch and she just gets dropped out of the story, never to be heard of again. A secondary problem is the writing, which can be trite at times and mechanical at others. I wished she'd done more show, less tell. The attempt to link the Santa Ana winds with the upheaval in the characters' lives was heavy-handed. And the ending was absolutely, utterly implausible.But.I liked the way she smoothly segued from one character's view to another in the same scene. And, I kept flipping pages, so there was something that had me interested in how all of this would turn out. And occasionally, a really good insight would show itself. This book is not for sophisticated readers, but there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

[momofzandc2003 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was just so-so. I enjoyed the message which basically is it doesn't matter who raises the kids, all the jobs are important but they go hand in hand. It isn't just the moms who are important it is the dads too. However the affairs and the way the kids were just pushed through the book kinda irritated me. Also there seemed like parts that just went on and one with no real meaning. No one really had any depth to them, because if they did, they wouldn't be in those situations! All the guys except for Lance were painted as jerks, which today's society says they are if they go out and work for a living they are not "good fathers". This book is worth a read, but not much more

[efoltz_5 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I found the main topic in the book was the affair between Lance and Wren, the spouses of the business partners. Normally, what I enjoy about chick-lit is the humor and the bonding of the characters; but these characters felt very isolated from one another and the book just wasn't funny. I would have never bought this book and would have been disappointed if I had to wait for it at the library.

[bookchickdi · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Playdate by Thelma Adams, who lives in upstate New York and is the film critic for US Weekly magazine, tells the story of Lance, Darlene and their ten-year-old daughter Belle. They have just moved to Encinitas from Barstow because Darlene is opening a restaurant with a new partner, Alex, who lives in their new neighborhood.Lance gave up his job as a TV weatherman in Barstow, and now he takes care of Belle and runs their new household. Darlene is spending a great deal of time with the demanding Alex, who has a plan to turn Darlene's Diner into a chain of restaurants like Marie Callender.Belle is not happy with the move. In Barstow she had friends and spent time out in the great outdoors. Encinitas is the "land of playdates, where every encounter is staged and scheduled". There are mean girls, led by Jade, who make her life very difficult. Jade and her friends even make fun of Lance because he is a stay-at-home dad and he runs the Girl Scout cookie drive.Lance is happy spending more time with Belle; they have a very close relationship that feels authentic. But his marriage to Darlene is suffering. She is all about work, and while Lance is home all day, he has strayed into a series of "playdates" with Wren, his neighbor and Alex's wife.The best part of the book is Lance and Belle's relationship. They are a loving father and daughter, and these two characters are the most well drawn of all. I can't say the same of Darlene; I felt like I didn't know her as well, maybe because the story centers more on Lance and Belle. I didn't really understand her very well at all.The only secondary character that had much dimension to her was Wren's nanny Julia, who has the hots for Lance. Julia has a hard edge to her, but at least she was interesting. You could really feel Lance's discomfort at Julia's aggressive attempts at seduction.I wouldn't give Playdates my highest recommendation, but it was worth reading for the warm, loving father-daughter relationship between Lance and Belle. It's not one you see very often.

[whitreidtan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Stay at home parents are very frequently undervalued in today's society. I know that when I chose to stay at home with my first child (and the subsequent two) I had to defend my choice. And a neighbor actually told his wife, in my hearing, that she was too smart to waste her brain and stay at home with their baby. Either I've chosen better friends or the stigma of staying home to raise children has eased some, at least for mothers, as I don't seem to hear this sort of thing much anymore. It does seem to be in full force still for stay at home dads though and it must be even harder for those men who have had the position thrust upon them instead of choosing it, regardless of how much they might actually enjoy full time at home. Men have long been identified by their job. Cooking meals, keeping house, raising children, doing laundry, and the like do not carry much prestige despite their importance, leading to the marginalization of those who do these tasks. Such is the fate of Lance, one of the main characters in Thelma Adams' new novel Playdate.Having moved to fulfill his wife Darlene's dream of opening a bigger and better version of her restaurant with an eye to franchising it out in the coming years, Lance cannot find another job as a meteorologist. Instead he throws himself into raising his and Darlene's daughter, being cookie dad for the local Girl Scout troop, and trying to convince his wife that the time is right for them to have another baby. Darlene is ambivalent about the baby idea, swallowed nearly whole by the upcoming launch of the restaurant and her rapacious, womanizing partner Alec. Of course, Lance is not exactly the model husband either, indulging in a tantric sex affair with Wren, coincidentally the wife of Darlene's partner, and protecting his secrets from the forward and conniving babysitter who thinks she can blackmail her own way into Lance's bed.The backdrop to this circular and scathing look at suburbia is the approaching Santa Ana winds, which are fanning the flames of an out of control fire even as the volatile situation between Lance, Wren, Alec, Darlene, and the babysitter takes unexpected turns, becoming as combustible and dangerous as the fire itself. Not only do marriages hang in the balance but so does the future happiness of the adults and children. Lance has spent a lifetime understanding a father's betrayal since his own father walked out on his family when he was just a child but he still cannot help cheating himself. In the role reversal of traditional expectations that the mother stay home and the father earn the living, Lance is minimized, marginalized, and emasculated. And yet his childhood baggage and adult situation do not make him a particularly sympathetic character. All of the other characters are as short-sighted and selfish as Lance is, leaving the reader to pity only daughter Belle, trapped in a situation not of her own making.The story itself chronicles a mere three days in the lives of these characters but they turn out to be pivotal days indeed. While the characters aren't necessarily likable, they are sly, entertaining, and often times quite humorous. The tension built slowly and dramatically as the pages passed and the Santa Ana winds blew their fire closer to the hearts of these characters' lives. An incisive look at modern morality, marriage, and job identification making the man (or woman), this novel has the same guilty pleasure feel to it that watching those train wreck reality shows does but it should spawn conversation on deeper issues than they do.

[miamismartgirl09 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book but I also liked Desperate Housewives. I agree with others saying that it is Desperate Housewives ish. It kept my interest and I enjoyed reading it and turning my mind off. It isn't thought provoking but not every book needs to be. Definitely chick-lit.

[cats57_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Playdate by Thelma AdamsMeet Lance and Darlene Ramsay and . A middle class, suburban California couple with a ten year old (going on 40) daughter. The Ramsay family has recently moved from the desert town of Barstow to a lovely middle class neighborhood. Lance has left the business of being a weatherman to become a house husband and Darlene is on the verge of opening her first restaurant in what she hope becomes a chain that will give Ihop a run for it’s money. Lance is, although he will not admit it; dissatisfied with his life and has become the stud of their community. Tantric sex and a lot of Zen abound in a book that is about absolutely nothing other than the fact that it shows just how selfish and fool hardy these families are. I can see that the author is trying to make fun of the modern family, but this book doesn’t come off as funny. It just comes off as being pathetic. None of the characters are ones that I can have any feelings for. I just could not work up anything for this book. I do have one question…do ten year old girls really talk as if they are a bored with life forty year old? If you are still curious after all the reviews here about this book, take it out from the library as you will be sure to find that it will not be a “keeper” to be read over and over. Save a tree and your cash and stay away from “Playdate”.

[burnit99 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lance Ramsey is a stay-at-home dad of soon-to-be-11-year-old Belle, and husband to Darlene, who is opening the first in a planned series of Darlene's Diners, a sort of meet-all-needs hangout and refuge for kids and grownups alike. Lance is struggling with his ambivalent feelings of contentment in his role as primary caregiver to Belle, frustration at his (un)employment status and how that affects the way others (and himself) view him, and his unplanned but nurturing affair with the wife of Darlene's business partner. All this takes place over the course of a few days, in the shadow of impending wildfires spread by the San Diego Santa Anna winds. This all sounds a bit tawdry in a Lifetime channel sense, but this is actually a surprisingly smart, perceptive and satisfying novel that sheds a light on how the traditional roles of caregiver and breadwinner in marriage do not need to be so constricting.