Love in a Carry-On Bag Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sometimes, she’d tuck greeting cards, spatulas and hair magazines between the pages of the supermarket circular. When she had the nerve to lift from department stores, it was earrings, pantyhose and sunglasses wrapped in her neck scarf and then pressed into the folds of her rubbery arms. Erica had warned her mother that these sins would catch up with her and now jail was her penance. Molten lava had spread through Erica’s stomach and was bubbling up flesh.
    Just a year ago, she had played the concerned daughter when her mother and Bonnie ventured on a casino bus trip to Atlantic City. The two of them had consumed too much of everything and like most drunks started fighting. Fed up, Bonnie took the bus home and Erica’s mother staggered around the boardwalk looking for her, stoned and confused. The police finally picked her up, and dropped her off at the psychiatric ward of the General Hospital.
    Erica received the humiliating call then and although she hadn’t known Warren long, he rented a car and insisted on driving her to Atlantic City. When they got there, Erica had to sit next to her new boyfriend in a conference room filled with white-lab coats telling her that her mother had a substance and alcohol problem. She thought that Warren would bolt after that, but somehow the situation brought them closer.
    She dialed Warren’s number, but when his voicemail picked up, she remembered that he was in meetings. She called the bondsman.
    “Bail bonds.”
    “I need to get someone out of jail,” her voice thinned as she recounted the arrest story. The bondsman asked for her mother’s date of birth, location and charges, and put Erica on hold.
    “Her bail is set at ten grand,” he came back to the line, “I’ll need one thousand to get her out tonight, plus a thirty dollar filing fee.”
    As much as she loved her job, publishing wasn’t Wall Street and she didn’t sit on savings. Most of her expendable cash was spent on rent and general living. A small portion went into her 401k and an even tinier portion was stashed in an IRA that she wasn’t risking for her mother.
    “Thanks, I’ll have to check my funds and give you a call back.”
    Erica moved robotically down the hall towards the ladies’ room, her mind too warped to speak to the few early birds in their cubicles. But as soon as she rounded the bend, she ran into Edie Butnick, her very pregnant Director, wearing a screaming pink paisley headband. The morning couldn’t get any better.
    “Erica, just the girl I wanted to see.”
    “’Morning, Edie,” she forced a smile.
    “How did it go with Brandon this weekend? I’m not feeling plugged in.”
    “There were a few hiccups, but I took notes and we should be able to iron them out before he starts the tour.”
    “Can you email me his schedule, budget, and a quick recap before the eleven a.m.?” Edie’s hand drifted over her protruding belly.
    Erica said that she would, and then continued quickly to the ladies’ room before her boss could add to the list. She rushed past the double vanity and into the last stall, where in a matter of seconds her entire morning came loose.

Chapter Four
    Daddy’s Girl
    I t was always her stomach that shut down first.
    After her father moved out, Erica’s mother changed her name. Not legally, but men started calling the house asking to speak to Jackie. In the beginning, Erica was confused, insisting that they had the wrong number. But they would keep calling until her mother picked up the telephone. Shortly after each call, her mother would burst into her bedroom tucking herself into her Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and smoothing her soft hair into an up do twist.
    “Watch ya sista while I run to the store,” she’d say, brushing a tube of dollar-store lipstick across her mouth, and then using it for blush on her cheeks. She was a pretty woman with a firm body and pleasing features, but it was her eyes that gave away her pain.
    “When’re you coming back?” Erica