Best Laid Plans

“What kind of wine would you say goes well with a memoir? Something really hard-hitting and designed to rip my heart out?”

The question comes from a bespectacled woman who’s pawing through my display of non-fiction bestsellers.

“Like Educated by Tara Westover?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

I tap my chin. This is my forte. “You definitely want a merlot. It’s bold and powerful, but the best ones with the most fantastic grapes are so good, they make you want to cry.”

“Like Educated.” Her lips curve into a grin, her laugh lines a happy pair of parentheses.

“Exactly. Want me to set everything up for your book club?”

“Yes. It’s going to be a raucous night of…”

“Drinking wine and only very occasionally discussing books?”

“That’s exactly what a good book club should be.” The woman extends a hand. “I’m Miriam.”

“Arden East.”

“Someone likes you very much to give you that name.”

“My mom is pretty rad,” I say, thinking of my parents, who are happily traveling the world in their much-deserved retirement. This month they’re in Australia and sent me an email about their visit to the Sydney Opera House. “It’s better than all the travel books say,” my mom told me.

Miriam points to the nook in the back of the store, reserved for book clubs. “Is tomorrow night available? We plan on being loud and a little obnoxious.”

“As if I would want you to be anything else,” I tell her with a smile. “The store closes at eight on book club nights with my rowdiest gals. Would that work for a starting time?”

Miriam’s blue eyes sparkle with a yes.

The next evening, she parades in a troop of women about twice my age and introduces me to CarolAnn, who wears her jet-black hair in a sexy, messy bun; to Sara, sporting cat-eye glasses and skinny jeans; and to hobo-chic-styled Allison, who tells me I’m beautiful.

Possibly, I fall in love with all of them on first sight.

I busy myself with placing orders on the store computer at the front while the ladies discuss Educated and drink a rich merlot from Oak Hollows Vineyard, a few miles south of us. But soon enough, the wine loosens lips, and the conversation shifts.

They’re no longer discussing a young girl raised in a survivalist family. They’ve sidestepped from the author’s first boyfriend to their own first loves. They then jump seamlessly to current lovers, husbands, and beaus.

As I let my distributor know I need twenty more of the new Nora Roberts romance, I hear that black-haired CarolAnn still likes it doggie-style at age sixty.

While checking on my shipment of quirky travel guides, I learn that hobo-chic Allison wants to explore clamps.

As I hit the order button on a new clean recipe book, I discover that skinny-jean-wearing Sara and her younger boyfriend like to park at the end of a deserted road so she can give him a blow job in the car. Sometimes, if Sara’s really frisky, her boyfriend will pull her hair and spank her.

During the blow job.

An unexpected pang of envy stabs me right in the solar plexus.

I want to know what that’s like. All of it—the blow job in the car, the spankings, the ease with which she talks about it. Most of all, I want to know how the hell studious-looking Sara has navigated the path to car spankings.

I step away from the desk and straighten some shelves, doing my best to pretend I’m not eavesdropping as I pick up a “You Can Have It All” style of self-help guide that I’m positive Clare knocked over earlier.

“Look, I know these aren’t crazy kinky things, but I feel like I’ve been liberated since Chuck left me and I met my new boyfriend,” Sara says, in a husky, Kathleen Turner-esque tone. “Chuck was the same old, same old. But Javier? No way. He’s a different creature entirely, and it’s freeing. Do you know what I mean?”

“Absolutely. You’re sexy and single and you have a hot man who wants you. There’s no reason you shouldn’t do exactly what you want to do,” CarolAnn adds, almost like she’s giving a you go, girl speech. Which she kind of is.

“How did you get Javier to pull your hair? Was it his idea or yours?” Allison asks, and I don’t want to tune out a second of this conversation even though it’s making me keenly aware of my lack of an interesting sex life.

I’ve never been spanked.

I’ve never bitten.

I have never given a blow job in a vehicle.

I used to think I was simply a good girl. I boxed myself into a category—I’m the safe one, I’m the one who likes beds.

And I do like beds.

But what if I like cars more?

With a deep, needy ache, I desperately want to know what I’m missing.

“Easy,” Sara declares, then details precisely how she accomplished the hair-pulling and spanking. I take furious mental notes, adding the ideas to my burgeoning plan.

If the sixty-something ladies in this book club are sowing their wild oats, it’s time for me to damn well do it.

I resolve to make a change.

Tomorrow night I’ll see Gabe at the bowling alley for the party. I intend to walk out of there with a solid plan to figure out what’s been missing all these years.

When the ladies leave, I say good night, lock the door, and grab a stack of how-to books. After a few hours of study, I make a list. Books rule. Research rocks.

By the time the clock chimes midnight, I have one hell of a plan.

I am woman. Hear me roar.





11





Gabe





“And I believe we set a record today.” Shaw stretches his neck, cracking it loudly as he slams his locker shut next to the baby-faced Charlie, one of the paramedics who works frequently with us.

“For the number of non-fatal medical emergencies?” I put the rest of my gear away at the end of our twenty-four-hour shift, which is thankfully, finally fucking over. Felt like a forty-eight-hour one. But with only minor injuries and no deaths or losses of limb, I’ll chalk it up to a damn good shift.

Shaw shakes his head. “No. For no phone numbers given out.”

Charlie drags a hand through his dark hair. “It’s a record shift of epic failures in that department.”