Dinosaurs & Cherry Stems

By Susan Jean Ricci

Twice divorced, cynical Cindy Layton feels like a relic with prehistoric baggage, and doubts she can muster the courage to establish a new relationship, even if it's on her own terms.

Her journey out of the Stone Age hits freaky, hilarious turbulence when she joins an Internet dating service. The scammers and weirdoes she meets in cyberspace make Cindy want to crawl back into her cave, until she receives an accidental email from Jay DeMatteo.

Jay has the dating blues, too, but after meeting Cindy, reconsiders his options. Now it's up to him to convince her it's never too late to pursue a meaningful relationship, even when there's baggage.

Can Cindy and Jay navigate the maze of midlife adolescence to reach each other's hearts?

The answers are revealed in Dinosaurs and Cherry Stems...so fasten your seat belts, there's a bumpy ride ahead!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Jean Ricci
• Release date: Sep 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301105670

Susan Jean Ricci

Susan Jean Ricci and her husband Joe live in a lovely New Jersey town near the sea. Together they have seven children and nine grandchildren. An award-winning, internationally read, From Womens' Pens author and humorist, Susan is best known for her series of works titled Cindy's Crusades that includes two novels, Dinosaurs and Cherry Stems and The Sugar Ticket, the short chronicle Twilight and Chickadees, and a collection of short stories titled Heart Marks the Spot. She has also published what she refers to as her sometimes controversial rants in the Asbury Park Press. Her nonfiction articles have appeared in Parenting Teen Magazine, Aim Intercultural Magazine, and Good Dog Magazine. Susan has won several awards via the Writer's Digest 78th Annual Writer's Contest and the Philadelphia Writer's Conference. Her short stories A Super Sandy Christmas and The Christmas Cardinal will appear in Annie Acorn's 2014 Christmas Treasury. Susan blogs at susanjeanricci.com. You can friend her at facebook.com/DinosaursCherryStems., and you can follow her at @Susanjeanricci. Her books are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and iTunes.

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Copyright 2012 Susan J Ricci

Published at Smashwords

www.susanjeanricci.com

Contact Susan on

Twitter: @susanjeanricci | email: [e-mail]

Cover artwork copyright 2012 Dafeenah Jameel

Indie Designz www.indiedesignz.com

Book layout by Tim C. Taylor

www.timctaylor.com

Also available in paperback.

All rights reserved

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use, other than for fair use of brief quotations embodied in this volume, without prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Chapter One: Moral Ineptitude

Intense emotion, leading to prose or poetry, cannot be described in any other fashion...

I’ve been rendered a dinosaur, a relic…

I’m sitting in the theater where my grandson’s rehearsing his spring band concert and darling hubby just texted me, We should separate.

Oh, Glen, that’s so you, I whisper. In the twenty years I’ve known him, Glen always finds a way to sneak out the back door.

Bastard.

It’s not his motive that’s the shocker. I knew exactly how he operated. Marrying him was not my wisest move, and we’ve been communicating via sarcasm since our first wedding anniversary three years ago. Arguments evolved, too—how we spend our down time, his and my adult kids’ snafus, even our new bedspread, for Christ’s sake.

He had his picture taken without me the last time we traveled, six months ago (using the word vacationed implies an enjoyable event). I later found his photo posted on a social network he joined. In the relationship section, he’d written it’s complicated.

Uh huh.

I’ve even kept my mouth shut about the way we’ve been stagnant as a couple, thinking it would be better for both of us to let the situation ride for a while.

Wrong.

Several weeks ago, Ella Stuart, a woman I know socially, phoned and inadvertently cleared up those rumors I’d been hearing about hubby’s slick trespassing.

We thought you and Glen might like to join us for a house party we’re having next Friday night, she’d said. It’s been a long time since we’ve all gotten together.

I was confused. Ella’s husband, Bill, and Glen are tight, childhood friends and they’d gone to an attorney seminar together just the week before. I thought for sure, since they’re so close, Glen must’ve told him our marriage was in the morgue.

Didn’t Glen tell Bill at that seminar last week about our personal situation? That our marriage is not going so great? I ask.

Wow, I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know and I don’t think Bill knows either because he didn’t mention it. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t seen Glen since last winter. I had a hell of a time tracking your phone number and finally called information. The last number Glen gave Bill, well, something’s not right about it. I tried calling it several times, and some woman kept answering, but when I asked for you or Glen, she’d hang up.

What’s the number?

Ella gave me the number, and as I copy it I’m thinking, you bet your ass something’s not right, because I don’t recognize this.

Glen told me he went to a seminar last week with Bill, the one in New York when they stayed over, I said again. Are you saying Bill didn’t go?

Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Bill has been home after work every night the past month. He hasn’t gone to any overnight seminars in a long time.

Ding-ding-ding!

What about that baseball game they went to last month? I ask. It’s hard for me to believe Glen didn’t say anything to Bill about us. I’ve never seen a man love to gossip more than he does. I try to laugh, but the noise coming out of me sounds more like ARRGH.

Ella sighed. I’m sorry, but Bill hasn’t been to any ball games this season, either, Cindy. Bill hasn’t seen Glen since the winter.

Are you absolutely sure? The pleading in my voice makes me almost as sick as this conversation.

Yes, I’m really sure. Again, I’m sorry. Click.

I lean over my desk to put the phone back in the charger, but my hand trembles and it drops.

I bury my face in my hands. Yep, not only am I a dinosaur, I’m a throwaway…and so humiliated I have those cramps people get when they’re in urgent need of the bathroom, but there’s no time. Glen will be home soon and I want to call the woman who kept hanging up on Ella.

When she hangs up on me, I’m not a bit surprised.

What transpired afterward is muzzy, but what remains with me is the sudden crash at the window during Glen’s lively denials after I confront him.

Diverted from our shouting match, we’d hurried over and saw a bird, lying in the garden below. Even as we watched, it soon gathered its wits and flew away.

As we withdrew to our separate regions in the house, my self-esteem questioned: How many slams into the window of surprises do I need before I fly this marital coop?

I once heard about some celebrity who sent his wife a fax saying he wanted to divorce, but texting such a message is un-fucking-believable, even for Glen. My hands flex with the urge to choke him as I recall how he kept checking his cell during my mother’s wake last spring.

Take deep breaths, I tell myself. Focus on the stage and Jesse’s drum solo.

The pounding drums mimic my heartbeat, but I know until this rehearsal is over and Jesse’s safely home, I must stay calm. There’s forty miles of driving on a freeway loaded with wild weekenders to cope with, and it’s a definite my grandson’s going to want to stop and eat since it’s past lunchtime, and we always do that anyway.

I pinch my fingers on the bridge of my nose to keep the angry tears at bay. I want to text him back, continue the battle, but the situation will only escalate if I do, because Glen never loses his wars.

Instead of retreating, I text him anyway, and ask if we can talk about this when I get home.

He responds he’s busy for the rest of the weekend, and won’t be there.

Christ, today’s only Saturday. What’s supposed to happen on Monday, when we have to go to work in the same office?

Where he’s my boss…

~*~

So, what am I supposed to do, pretend everything’s normal at work tomorrow? I ask Glen Sunday night.

Be a professional, Cindy. You used to know how, very well I might add, and then things changed. Glen shakes his head regretfully, but I know this is just for special effects. Our problems stemmed from you bringing job related problems home then badgering me about them during down time, but that’s irrelevant now.

Oh, bullshit, I say. Our problems originated right in this house. You didn’t make time for us to be a couple, so don’t talk crap about down time and blaming the job. I asked you to go to counseling with me, too, but you wouldn’t consider it. Said it was a waste as I recall. I laugh but I’m not amused. If Ella hadn’t called and told me you weren’t with her husband when you said you were, I’d still be roaming the land of the lost. But that doesn’t answer my question. What happens tomorrow?

Glen frowns at me over his bifocals. Just don’t start a commotion with me at the office. Our marriage is nobody else’s business, and if you keep your cool, you can probably manage to keep your fucking job since you’re going to need it. You know the partners aren’t going to tolerate a bunch of chaos.

Glen’s a successful divorce attorney and I’m the company paralegal. His three partners are as ruthless as he in the courtroom, a trait I’ve always applauded until now…

Since I already suspected he’d rub my job in his shit, I stay pretty calm. Is that supposed to be some sort of threat, Glen? I’m damn good at my job and you know it.

He scratches his ass quite thoroughly. Nope, not a threat, just practical advice. Don’t do anything stupid. I got to go to sleep. See you at work, and shuts the guest room door in my face.

It isn’t until ten minutes pass and I’m outside in the yard having a smoke I realize Glen sidestepped my comment about the Ella call.

And I say towards the house, I already did something stupid: I married you.

~*~

At work the following day, the door to the break room is closed, but I step in without knocking since I always do. Maybe, though, that’s about to change.

Inside are Glen and his partner, Fritz Rooney; they’re snickering about something and Glen’s scarfing down his lunch. The laughter stops as soon as they see me, and Fritz makes a big deal out of inspecting his Rolex. Hey, I’m running late. Judge Harris hates to be kept waiting and far be it from me to put that onus on my hide. Later, you two, and he’s gone.

So much for keeping our private lives out of the office, I say. Fritz couldn’t get out of here fast enough. Why couldn’t you just keep your mouth shut, Glen?

Glen swallows some sandwich, but when he speaks, he spews food in my hair.

I had to tell the partners, Cindy. They’re your bosses, too, and they’ve got a right to know, especially since you and I will be in court one day finalizing. It’s better they know now instead of hearing this through court gossip channels. It wouldn’t be fair.

Your concept of fairness is amazing, I say, but I start those uncontrollable, blathering sobs and I’m mortified.

Ah, Cindy, don’t, Glen says, but I manage a quick about-face and head for the privacy of my office.

~*~

That night, I find Glen in the kitchen reading our pre-nuptial agreement.

I have a copy of it, too, and although I’d rather be reading mindless entertainment, I’ve researched mine until I know it verbatim.

Since Glen is an experienced attorney, I can only hope I get a fair shake out of this divorce. But I know marital law, too, so I’ve decided to play nice and negotiate my terms with him the best I can.

He’s not the only one who’s learned a few tricks over the years…

Chapter Two: Rogue Rodent and Company

Former Fiascos Make Fabulous Futures...

Life’s a balance of what’s best to eliminate or smart to embrace, and so it was for me, once I shook free of Glen.

Emotional escape was not exactly easy, but I suspected what the outcome of our marriage would be long before it died and viewed it from this perspective: When the marriage vault closes, it’s not like you’re immediately evicted or trapped. There are warnings…like when you fall behind on your mortgage and get those overdue notices.

Still, shaking off rats can be daunting.

Once our divorce was circulating the legal maelstrom called court, I’m hard on the hunt for somewhere to move. As I push the wireless mouse over the MLS listings my realtor recommended, my memory cemetery flares, and I recall another mouse I tangled with, simply because I’m an Audubon freak.

About six months prior, my bird feeders were standing empty, so I’m in the garage, digging around in the seed bin with a cool birdseed scoop I found at a wild bird supply store. I love the thing; it’s a funnel with a tiny trap door that opens and shuts, so when you’re holding the scoop over the birdfeeder, you just open the trap and presto, the seed pours out the bottom.

But, as I slide the trap door open this time, the seed refuses to leave the hatch. I give it a gentle shake but still no seed.

Something’s stuck inside the funnel so I stick my pinky finger up there, to dislodge the obstruction…

Oh,