Goodbye To All That Read Online Free PDF Page B

squeeze in a little sex. Without a husband, you’d have to go out and find a guy, and who’d have the time or the energy for that? Or else use a vibrator, which seemed kind of desperate to Melissa and also potentially hazardous with a child in the house.
    She glanced over at Luc and tried to assess his husband potential. She’d known him only a few weeks, so it was hard to say. He did have a lot going for him. He was an amazing hair stylist, a creative cook, a good dancer. He dressed well. Football bored him. He was practically gay, except in bed, which made him damned near perfect.
    Plus, he’d gotten access to this car, which meant she could travel to Jill’s house in style. Well, not exactly in style ; the car, which belonged to his roommate, resembled a chop shop reject. The CD player wasn’t working. The vinyl upholstery was faded and cracked, and a patch of duct tape bandaged one part of the back seat. The ceiling fabric was held up by thumb tacks, the floor mats had gone so long without a cleaning that Melissa couldn’t guess their original color, something rattled in the trunk every time they hit a pothole, and a set of red plastic rosary beads swayed from the rear-view mirror, as if a few prayers were all that kept the car from stalling right in middle of the Cross-Bronx Expressway.
    But even a crappy car was better than the bus, so Melissa wasn’t complaining. She usually took Greyhound instead of Amtrak when she visited her family, because the bus terminal was closer than the train station to where everyone lived. She hated that on the bus, you couldn’t stand and stretch your legs during the trip, and the little lavatory across from the back seat emitted putrid odors, and you usually wound up sitting next to someone who snored or had dirty fingernails, or who was so fat his blubber oozed under the armrest and into your territory.
    Of course, you could get stuck sitting next to a fat, dirty snorer on the train, too.
    She’d been willing to tolerate the bus trip this weekend because Jill had insisted that her attendance at this all-of-a-sudden family shindig was essential. “I know it’s a schlep for you,” she’d said, “but Mom and Dad really need you here on Saturday. We all do.”
    Melissa and Luc had already made a plan for the weekend. She’d intended to spend the morning checking out a few apartments for sale, and then in the afternoon she and Luc had figured on taking in a movie—another terrific thing about him was that he didn’t mind chick flicks—and dinner, and maybe some club-hopping followed by a night in bed. He often worked on Saturdays, either seeing clients in the salon or doing hair for a bridal party at this or that hotel. Lots of women got married in New York every weekend. Maybe someday Melissa would be one of them, and she’d get a stylist from a salon like Nouvelle to come to the hotel and do everyone’s hair. Expensive, but given the total cost of a Manhattan wedding, who’d even notice? Hair was at least as important as the flowers. Maybe even as important as the dress.
    But Luc happened to be free this weekend, and she’d been looking forward to their first Saturday afternoon together until Jill had phoned and summoned her home. Melissa had whined and fumed, to no avail. She’d attempted to find out what was so freaking essential that it required her to drop everything and come running, also to no avail.
    Jill could be outrageously bossy.
    Wallowing in disappointment, Melissa had phoned Luc to break the bad news to him about their thwarted weekend plans, and he’d told her to hang on a minute, and when he’d come back to the phone he’d announced that his roommate didn’t need his car that weekend. Luc would have to do all the driving—Alan didn’t trust just anyone with the keys to his precious wreck of a car—but driving to Massachusetts with Luc would sure beat spending four hours each way on the bus seated next to a filthy, obese snorer and inhaling