“You sounded awfully familiar with her, Kennedy.” Lara continued to stand like an anxious soldier waiting for her orders. Kill. Those are my orders. Hell hath no fury…
“Why shouldn’t I have been familiar with her? She’s been working for us for months now.” Finally, Kennedy frowned. “What is this about? I’m telling you the truth, Bunny.”
Lara lowered her arms, nearly letting her purse fall off her shoulder. I want to believe her. Why wouldn’t she? She just came out of therapy, declaring how much she loved her spouse and how much she wanted to believe that everything she’d been imagining was a lie. “Kenny…”
“Come here.” Kennedy patted her lap.
She wanted to go. She wanted to flee – to go back to her therapist’s office with this brand-new information. But I wanther. Lara took one tentative step forward, afraid that she would fall for her partner’s demeanor once again.
This woman wouldn’t really cheat on her, right? It was all in her head, right? What was Lara to do? Did she trust her gut, which sent up a million red flags? Or did she trust her heart, which didn’t care what her spouse did as long as she treated her as she always did?
Your gut, stupid. What did her heart know? It made her go and sit in Kennedy’s lap, laughing away her worries because how dare she? Her heart was stupid. Couldn’t she see that her wife going behind her back and romancing some young, insignificant woman was treating her like shit? Even if inadvertently?
It was days like those that not only caused a war within her body, but also proved how sad, stupid, and careless this drama queen really could be.
Chapter 8
“Does Lara Know About It?”
Christmas at the Losers Estate really was just that.
“Low-siers,” Inid said to her youngest daughter. “It’s not pronounced likethatword!”
No matter how much she tried, Inid would never escape her maiden name. Like Lara, she had changed it the moment she married years ago. Inid Rothberg, however, never anticipated having to explain such a maiden name to her small children years after the fact.
“Still sounds like Loser to me…” said Collette, the youngest Rothberg child. “Why would someone call themselves that so long ago?”
“Times change. It didn’t used to mean that. I think.” Inid patted her daughter’s head and herded her toward the dining room. “We’ve got dinner, Collie. Be nice to your grandmother.”
“I don’t wanna. She smells like gross.”
Lara tuned them out after that. She didn’t need to agree with her niece any more than she did. Mother does smell like “gross.” Which happened to be how Lara felt most of the time now.
At first, she blamed her period, which was unusually rough – probably compounded by stress, not that she could do anything about that at this time of year. Except then she worried there was something terribly wrong with her, so she went straight to her doctor two days before they left for the Christmas holidays. When he gave her the okay to travel, insisting that she was only “fretting,” Lara nearly threw the biggest fit she ever threw in the doctor’s office.
Kennedy was an utter doll through the whole ordeal. Including now, as she stood behind Lara at the dining room table, massaging her shoulders while talking to her older brother. At night, she would massage Lara’s back, taking extra care of her abdomen until the terrible cramps finally abated long enough for Lara to sleep. Kennedy snuggled her. She kissed her. She never asked for the sexual things she sometimes did when they went without for a few days. She was a model partner, and that worried Lara.
Is she being nice because she’s nice? Or is she being nice because she knows she’s doing something bad? How deep did Kennedy’s morality go? Would she feel bad about cheating on her wife? Shit, if she felt bad, she wouldn’t be cheating on her! Right?
Or maybe the woman misunderstood the boundaries of their relationship. Maybe she thought it was okay to fuck the maid because of the way their marriage was set up.Except she would’ve mentioned something by now.Said something stupid, like,“Maid’s got nice tits!”
I could also still be making it up. There was a reason Lara hadn’t confronted her… yet. She didn’t have the concrete evidence. Everything was conjecture. Damn good conjecture,but a pleasant conversation on the phone and hearsay from the chef didn’t make a confrontation.
So Lara chose to plow through life as it came. Right now, it meant tending to her family’s Christmas celebrations.
Even though Lara and Kennedy were by far the richest and most successful members of the family by every definition – meaning it was their families forced together – Lara’s parents had the most bedrooms to house everyone. So, once a year, they packed their bags and headed upstate for a few days, relegated to the nicest guest room, even above Kennedy’s parents, because they were the golden children.
Everyone was there. Lara’s parents and her sister. Inid brought her children and husband, all a very picturesque family, whom everyone agreed took the best holiday photos. Then there was Kennedy’s family. Her parents were there, and her three brothers were happily as well.One older, two younger.All but the youngest had a wife and children. Altogether, nine children of varying ages had the run of the place. Lara was the only “wife” at these functions who had no children, and her mother never let her forget.
Except for tonight, because Juliet Losers was too fucked up on benzos and cider to remember to give her daughter grief for not following her biological destiny. Last time she told Lara it was her duty to breed because of how rich she was. Who was that money going to go to? Hilarious, because Kennedy’s brothers sucked up to her for the sole purpose of sending their youngest kids to apprentice under her one day. There were plenty of nieces and nephews to pick from. Or maybe they would pick a kid off the street and change their life.
Lara thought these amusing things while she received her ongoing massage and fielded inane questions from her sister’s husband. When Juliet made her appearance and sat at the head of the table next to her illustrious daughter, Lara decidedthat her niece was the smartest person in the family. Grandma definitely smelled like gross.
By the time dinner began, Kennedy had sat next to her wife and began telling tales from the crazy world of real estate. About half of them included her wife blowing up at some poor, hapless soul and busting his balls until he conceded to her demands.
Kennedy had an amazing way of making her wife sound like a total harpy, all while keeping a friendly smile on her face. Normally, it didn’t bother Lara – especially if it meant her reputation preceded her – but tonight it only served as a reminder that even her spouse saw her this way at times. Who wouldn’t cheat on that?
She used to think that Kennedy wasn’t that kind of person. Who knew…
