The Secret Lives of Housewives Read Online Free PDF Page A

problems where you don’t have to. “Whatever. Say hello to Jordanna for me,” she said. And feed her a cyanide cocktail for me, too.
    She heard the front door close behind her husband and chastised herself for her negative thinking. She wandered into the kitchen, spread a thick layer of peanut butter on a slice of bread, and folded it over. Chewing, she poured baby cereal into a bowl and pulled a jar of strained apricots out of the closet. Empty baby bottles covered the back of the kitchen counter and she scooped powdered formula into two of them. Brandon gets the lap this time, she remembered, and MaryLee gets the high chair. At least they weren’t breast-feeding any more. What a relief it would be when they held their own bottles. She’d read that ten-month-olds should be doing that, but hers seemed to be conspiring to give her extra work.
    Stuffing the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth, Angie heard the first slight rustle through the baby monitor. If the twins woke slowly, as they usually did, she’d have about ten minutes to change out of her sweaty clothes and then it would be “Twins Time!”

Chapter
4
    W ith a small prayer, Eve started her 1996 Toyota and heaved a deep sigh when the engine caught. She really had to get it over to the mechanic today but she didn’t want to take the time. She needed to get home, just in case.
    She drove through the center of town, down Main Street with its collection of stores, gas stations, and restaurants. Villa Moretti’s. Yeah. She hadn’t been there in quite a while and a plate of linguini with meat sauce would taste really good. She had long since stopped minding sitting by herself, reading a good romance novel, and filling her stomach. She’d go there later—if she felt like going out.
    For now she turned onto Pinetree. East Hudson was such a nice, ordinary little town, she thought. Ordinary streets with ordinary people doing ordinary things. A ball field and kiddy park. An elementary school on the next block. That was fine with her. She was basically an ordinary person with ordinary needs.
    This particular section of town was filled with apartments and inexpensive condos, near enough to the railroad tracks for some commuters to make the long walk to the station and for her to hear the train whistles. Others thought the sound of the long, low wails was lonely, but to her it was a dreamy sound, particularly on a hot summer evening when all her windows were open.
    It made her think of the movie Picnic . She loved old films and that was one of her favorites. William Holden and Kim Novak making love beside the railroad tracks. You never saw anything that wasn’t G-rated, but it was obvious that they did it that night.
    She must have seen that film at least two dozen times, and each time she played it she worried that eventually her videotape might just wear through. If it did, she’d buy another. William Holden would be much too old now for her thirty-one years but in that film he was everything she wanted.
    She considered what she wanted and realized that Mike might be calling right now. She resisted the temptation to speed but she had to get home. She knew he wouldn’t leave a message, no tangible evidence. Maybe his wife would go out for lunch or take the kids somewhere and he’d be able to call and talk for a few minutes. It seemed like forever since she’d seen him. Of course, it had been only yesterday at the office but that wasn’t the same as really seeing him. She pushed her glasses further up on the bridge of her nose and deliberately slowed down to twenty.
    They’d been able to get a funch, as he called it—fuck for lunch—the previous Tuesday. God, those were good. Grab a hot dog, separately, of course, from the vendor on the corner or bring in sandwiches from the deli on the next block, then hurry to a small nearby hotel where no one asked any questions. Okay, when she really