Social Climber

By Andrea Bartman

Welcome to the neighborhood. Collin Entman has been found in a pool of his own blood on the kitchen floor of his home in Green Springs, Missouri. Was it a crime of passion, revenge, or simply a tragic accident for which no one is to blame but Collin himself?

Audrey and Jim Bowman are the latest to move into the neighborhood and, since then, Audrey has felt as though she’s entered a sort of secret club; of which sometimes she’s treated like a thrilling new member and sometimes an outsider to be regarded, but not included. Her worries have grown over what has been going on under the surface in this seemingly benign suburban setting.
She is now alone in her suspicions of nearly every neighbor on her block in Northwood Estates. Her quest to join, and ultimately rule, the inner circle in her new neighborhood had just begun when she started to witness strange events. Jim has been too busy with his career, and his own secrets, to join his wife in her fears.
No way around it - Audrey is a social climber. Motivated by her own inner desire for belonging and perfectionism, Audrey wants to leave her past behind and mold Northwood Estates into the place she dreamed it would be: The place where she and Jim would finally begin the life they were meant to lead together; he as a successful businessman and dedicated father; she as the perfect homemaker, mother and citizen of the community.
Audrey, the very definition of a control freak, is suddenly on a path to discover more than just the answer to the mystery at hand: what happened to Collin? She’s uncovering the truth about herself; her insecurities about her marriage and her station in life, but will she ever be truly satisfied? Can a seasoned “climber” separate fact from her own fiction and learn to be happy in a life that isn’t exactly as she’d planned?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrea Bartman
• Release date: Nov 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311738295

Andrea Bartman

Andrea's past writing pursuits include her first novel, "Social Climber" and her food blog, "Let's Do Dinner Club". She resides in Gretna, Nebraska, where she reads, writes and entertains. She is currently working on her second novel, "The Man Upstairs".

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Social Climber

By Andrea Bartman

Copyright 2015 Andrea Bartman

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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For John, Morgan and Marin

Welcome to the neighborhood.

The scream rises from deep within her; emanating from her belly and rattling to the surface like a freight train barreling up from within. Audrey stumbles backwards, slipping and teetering on her heels before clutching the cool, Formica countertop with one hand to steady herself. She pauses, motionless for just a moment - like a leaf suspended in the breeze; her hand clamped tightly over her open mouth, before losing the strength in her legs and crumbling down to the kitchen floor. - A flash of blinding light strikes her. - A slice of cold darkness slashes that lightning bolt in half. Another searing fire of light before the spreading, tingling sensation completely engulfs her. As she loses consciousness, Audrey’s mind scrambles to a memory of that first day; the day she met him; the day that first brought her to the neighborhood.

Chapter 1

Every house looks the same, hounds Jim as they turn into the tidy subdivision, a sentinel rising above the ocean of surrounding soybean field.

Well, its home now. I know you’ll really love it, pleads Audrey. Just give it a chance, OK? It’s not like you care so much about where we live anyway. Then she pouts steamily to herself - As long as you’ve got a sofa and television you could live in a mud hut in the desert! They’re not really arguing, of course, just chiding one another after another long day of making appointments and signing papers. Audrey couldn’t be in a cheerier mood. This is what she has been pining for as long as she could remember and she isn’t about to let Jim spoil her thrill.

As they turn the corner onto Selina Drive she catches the first glimpse of it; standing there at the end of the street, so much like every other house, but quite special to her none the less. They’ve just left the title office, a mountain of paperwork in hand, and she’s a dam about to spill over with anticipation of turning her key in the brass lock for the first time; for setting foot on the sparkling new entry-way tile without that pesky builder, Bob, at her side. She’d make it hers tonight! No time like the present! With cream – colored vinyl siding, pine green shutters and freshly mortared brick trim that abruptly dead-ends into the newly installed squares of sod yard, yet un-landscaped, the house does seem a pale photocopy of the one right next door. But, that won’t last. This one is hers; hers to decorate, to landscape according to her own tastes – not Bob’s - and to command however she sees fit. Yes, it’s hers to manage and it’s never belonged to anyone else. - Just our dirt. She thinks. No one else has lived here.

Although Jim and Audrey have owned two homes previously, this is the first they’ve built from scratch for their family. The choices for their new home were limited, but they were her choices at least. Only the truly wealthy know what it’s like to pick out gilt faucets, imported tile, granite countertops.... she imagined. Their homebuilder, Bob, had smiled broadly when he presented a legal-sized sheet on a clipboard with pre-determined options for her to choose from. This builder specialized in the type of construction that provides a new, customized building experience, but for those on more of a budget. Yes, the choice was hers whether she went with the off-linen colored carpet or the ‘cornhusk’ color that would hide stains better, but she couldn’t go to the local building supply store and peruse the endless options of new and fashionable options available. She couldn’t have granite countertops – a few more promotions, Jim – she thought, but she could have Formica in her choice of thirty or so shades! Her options were those pre-selected by the builder through partner companies.

The day she had to make her selections, she and Jim had sat in the bland, oatmeal colored office for over two hours while Audrey pondered and studied her choices. She marked boxes and then erased again only to re-mark the same squares firmly in number two pencil. I should always go with my gut, she determined. I have great taste. I should trust it. Jim had sat quietly during Audrey’s silent back and forth, staring at the mass marketed prints on the walls, occasionally shifting in his seat and glancing at her. He picked mindlessly at the corner of a loose, green felt pad on the bottom of ‘Bob the Builder’s’ trophy from a golf tournament three years ago. Bob had come and gone periodically while she worked, glancing occasionally from his office door with a jovial offer of coffee or water for either of them. His smiling face was meant to say, take your time, but Audrey knew it was really saying, Hurry up, I’ve got other people to worry about too!

It’ll be perfect! Audrey exclaimed when she was finally satisfied with her decisions. Bob popped up from his vinyl office chair with glee and Jim stood and stretched his back, happy to be released from this torture chamber and allowed to return to the peace of his own bland office no matter what it was costing him. As they shook hands with Bob and meandered out into the steely grey parking lot, Audrey’s thoughts ventured that this house would be the one. The one to tie their life into the tidy knot she had envisioned that day in January, fifteen years ago, when she and Jim had married. Standing at the altar in her off-the-rack, but meticulously altered dress, she had closed her eyes and seen her life with Jim. There would be jam packed parties and Christmas trees sparkling with just the right touches. There would be glowing, scrubbed children at the kitchen table, sitting down to their homework with both beaming parents at their side. There would be flower gardens in front and back, brimming with succulent smells and dazzling color. Audrey had pictured all of this and more. She’d never seen it in any story book, hadn’t seen it in her own lackluster, yet happy and functional childhood, but it was a picture-perfect life just the same. The problem is that she was still waiting, fifteen years down the road, for it to all come together just as she’d imagined. She and Jim are happy, if not glamorous as she had envisioned. They function well together, make a good team and enjoy one another’s company, but that carefree ‘on top of the world’ feeling has yet to hit Audrey. Lately Jim’s job has been the top item on their focus list. They had both fought tooth and nail for this chance to prove that he’s the right guy for the move, THE promotion that might be the final springboard to office superstardom. Well, here they are and it’s going to be the amazing next step on their journey to the top of the food chain!

Their home in Oakville, a suburb of St. Louis, had been sturdy and attractive, but they – she - had just never settled in. There was always something on the list, wasn’t there? Something that she knew would make it feel like each day flowed flawlessly and beautifully into the next just like Martha always said it should be. I guess it doesn’t hurt that Martha is filthy- rich, she thought at the time, but she did it all herself – a self made woman with her own vision and no help from a man (except a monthly alimony check from her rich, cheating husband, of course) - and so can I! Other than Jim’s paycheck financing the dream, the end result will be all my own! A dream life born of my hard work and determination!

The paint colors Audrey had chosen were warm and welcoming. The furniture was cozy and smelled of lemon-oil mixed with that lovely, lived-in dusty scent. Still, something wasn’t quite right. Maybe she was missing the life and vibrancy of some houseplants? She’d gone and bought thirteen of them - Martha always recommends odd numbers of objects for the look of casual, unplanned beauty - the next day and placed them methodically around the entire house; one next to the cherub bookends on the coffee table and one on the shining ledge of the biscuit colored rim of the drop-in acrylic bathtub. When she’d planted coral-colored azalea bushes in the front yard, she’d slaved away for hours plotting just how they’d be arranged and toiling for weeks in the humid, sticky, itchy heat, covered head to toe in cypress mulch. When finished, she stepped back in a grand gesture and realized - disappointment flooding over her like water over the deck of a doomed ship - that it was thin and weak looking... too sparse! There were large gaps in between the bushes. They’ll grow and fill in she reassured herself, hunching over with her hands on her knees and squinting into the bright sun. They’ll fill in and be just perfect when they grow more. Or maybe I’m still missing something? She’d showered and run right out to the nursery to ask them what they had in the way of groundcover plants for in-between to make her planting look elegant, effortless and picture-perfect.

Isn’t that what she’s really been looking for to happen all of these years? - For her life to fill in? For it to seem like everything’s settled, completed and full-grown? That it’s become graceful and carefree and requires no work to maintain? For her and Jim to be romantically, financially, parentally connected in a way that sets them apart in the world? Audrey had been striving for this satisfaction all along and now she was sure she’d finally found it here on Selina Drive.

She is, after all, worlds ahead of how her parents have spent most of her upbringing and their older-adult lives. Mother and Daddy are great people, but they just don’t seize the day; or the century for that matter! They’re perfectly satisfied to live in their same yellow-trimmed, brick house near Des Moines to this day; mother as a retired elementary school secretary and Daddy as a retired, but still horribly busy-bodied printing plant supervisor. She and Jim are worlds ahead of what she grew up with for an example. Jim’s success in St. Louis had paved the way to his new position here in Green Springs. Nearby Kansas City, where Jim’s office is located, provides the kind of glamorous, metropolitan opportunities that Audrey would like to become more involved in – charity balls, company events and dinners out with clients – but she doesn’t have to give up the feel of the suburbs. In a smaller community there’s much more opportunity to be involved and much less pressure to work a full time job. In the suburbs a woman can be proud to call her home, her family and her volunteer commitments her job.

How Daddy could stand for thirty years overlooking the printing of magazines like Classic Home and Elegant Living and never picture himself in those elegant settings occasionally was – is - beyond Audrey. Daddy still drives uptown, in their own small suburb, for coffee and an omelet – always a Denver with cheddar, not Swiss - at Moe’s grocery every day in his ten-year-old Buick Le Sabre to meet with other local, retired guys and discuss their pressing business of the day. Gardening, fix-it projects and the evening news seem to be enough for him. Mother too. She’s settled into a life of bridge games with Sue and Delilah and lunch in Des Moines with her old retiree group.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Daddy responds when Audrey questions their simplistic choice of lifestyle. They have the money to do some traveling, go into the city more, have some people over, eat out somewhere besides Moe’s! She’d only like to see them beaming from just one trip overseas; maybe a Mediterranean cruise or a few weeks touring ruins in Athens or Rome. Don’t they care how much they’re missing out on the beauty in life? There are endless opportunities to toast friends, to get on a plane and see some of the world. Mom and I are happy right where we are, Daddy comments, never seeming irritated or inconvenienced, and then he’s back out to his garage workshop to fiddle for another two hours on the latest birdhouse he’s painstakingly constructing to go with the other fifteen or so he has staked around the backyard or screwed securely to the fence.

Well, I can’t dwell on Mother and Daddy’s basic existence, Audrey snaps back to the present. All I can do is have everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Starting today!

Chapter 2

Pulling into the chalky-fresh white driveway now, Audrey knew this would finally be their time. Jim’s new position will be just the ticket for their future. It’s definitely his turn - his time to shine, like the star on the top of that as-yet unattainable Christmas tree in the home of her dreams. With his new Vice President title they can conquer the office and this neighborhood together.

This is it kids!, she yelps to the occupied, but non-responsive back seat, as eager to convince herself as the rest of her family, Home sweet home!.

Jessica and Timothy – not Tim – as she’d insisted when Jim had tried to go down that road when Timothy was just a few weeks old; too common, too undistinguished - had hardly spoken most of the drive from the title company’s offices. Timothy, now twelve years old, has been going through some sort of magical transformation in the last six months; a transformation that Audrey was expecting, but not really for another few years. Every parenting book she’s devoured describes a natural tendency for kids to slip away into their own world of music and personal thoughts upon the arrival of the pre-teenage years. The problem is that Timothy, with his new shiny silver ipod touch from Christmas last year – which he’s informed her is already old news – has excused himself from family interaction for the most part. He acts as though his sister doesn’t even exist. He drifts in and out of the house with the headphones always securely in place. Audrey has no idea whether the music is even on all of the time, or whether this is a defense against being forced to talk to his mother. She tries to interact with him after school each day; to ask him how his day was and what is new, but the truth is that Audrey has no idea how he spends his time, home or not. She doesn’t know who his friends are and he hasn’t expressed any sadness about the move or leaving anyone behind that he might miss. He speaks to his father some, but not like he used to, and he seems to have nothing to say to Audrey at all anymore.

Jessica still wants to talk with mom; Audrey has reassured herself since Timothy’s disappearing act began. And she does. It’s just that Audrey has been so consumed with the house project of late that she can’t remember the last time she and Jessica - eight, and now a third grader - just sat and watched something on Disney channel together or had a cookie and a chat at the kitchen table. Audrey’s delectable homemade cookies are ever-present, and Jessica’s expanding waistline proves that fact, but they just haven’t found the mother, daughter time together of late to enjoy anything else together. That will all change now that the construction is complete, Audrey tells herself, opening the backseat passenger door and prodding Jessica with the corner of her knock-off Prada handbag. Now that the house is done and the move is complete I’m going to renew my efforts to reach out to the kids, she thinks. Both of them could use some work right now. After all, it’s important to Audrey that they strive to be the very best they can be; to make the world a better place because they’re in it. She’d like to see them both in Ivy League schools some day, but right now Timothy needs to re-enter as a member of this family and Jessica will never make any friends when she’s uninvolved and overweight. Yes, she reminds herself again, now that we’re settled we’re all going to work on self-improvement. I can do it. We can have the American dream as a family and I’ll just have to see that it happens.

At Audrey’s nudge, Jessica removes her headphones and cocks her head up to squint with both milk-chocolate brown eyes at Audrey; she’s been watching ‘High School Musical 2’ on the portable DVD player for about the eightieth time after floating, unnoticed by anyone, like the ghost of a family member in tow, accompanying them between their hotel room suite and the title company and now on to their new home.

Are we finally here? I’m hungry! Jessica wails. Not whining so much as pleading to be done with the upheaval in her life and the endless trips between gleaming office buildings where her parents have seemingly signed a thousand pieces of paper or more.

Yes, we’re here, Audrey reassures her with a squeeze on one plump shoulder, Do you remember where your room is? But before she can finish, her daughter is up and running – surprising quickly for Jessica, who doesn’t typically show much interest in physical exertion unless it’s to the kitchen counter for an after school snack or to the dinner table – toward the front door where Jim has already arrived with the shining, new key. He’s looking up toward the roof and smiling a broad smile.

He’s ready to settle in too, she imagines. His first day at the new job is Monday and the kids start school as well. A couple of nights in our own bed again will be just the ticket for everyone. The hotel was sufficient, but by no means elegant, and as much as Audrey normally loves staying in hotels, this was different from a relaxing vacation. Jim had insisted that the house and the move were costing them plenty as it is and there was no need for opulence for a couple of nights of transition time while their household goods were on the truck and they were closing on the house. Holiday Inn is fine for most people, but Audrey prefers a well-appointed, and usually independently owned, establishment where you get some one-on-one attention. This wasn’t exactly her dream; two queen size beds and the four of them sharing a room left a lot to be desired. Timothy managed to speak to them only when spoken to and Jessica’s midnight munchies and whining were about enough to send her over the edge. But, she lightens up, here we are now, and next time I stay in a hotel it’s going to be in St. Thomas or Barbados or somewhere where they don’t have a Holiday Inn!

She looks up again to the front door to find that Jessica and Jim have already disappeared inside. I wanted to be the first in, Audrey pouts to herself, as she rounds the back of their leased, black – one of only two acceptable colors of cars in Audrey’s mind – C Class Mercedes to see