The Single Life

Love hates the game of words…

Lauren Wilt—Her star falling, this award-winning but aging novelist rejuvenates her career by writing a successful singles column. Too bad it couldn’t do the same for her figure. With her fortunes skyrocketing, she needed a pretty face to live up to public expectations.

Helen Matter—Young. Attractive. Blond. Blue-eyed. Extremely intelligent. Fashion disaster. Dating train wreck. Every man’s dream just wasn’t being advertised properly. Until she became the face of Chicago’s hottest news topic: “The Single Life.”

Enter: gentleman callers, inquisitive media and mutually assured disaster.

Is there a lesson to be learned in loving the single life?

Liz Wood

Liz Wood has lived on four different continents and in twice as many countries, but her favorite things remain quite domestic: books, chocolate and coffee, preferably all together. She reads everything from French comics to Italian scandal sheets, German philosophy to American romances (the latter late into the night). When she is not reading, she is trying to train her beagle to do some housekeeping, so she can have more time to, um, read.

The Single Life

Liz Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

From the Author

Dear Reader,

The idea for The Single Life came to me one afternoon when a friend and her seventy-something mother described the latter’s recent experiences with Internet dating. As we laughed about the complicated security measures they had adopted to protect her from senile Don Juans and toothless Lotharios, I began to wonder what insights she might bring to a singles column. Were her experiences all that different from younger women who keep looking for a crock of good men at the end of the rocky road to romance?

I’m still not entirely sure about the answer to that question, but I did realize something else that afternoon: it’s never too late to begin again. This realization guided me as I sketched out the story of the unlikely friendship between three women trying to turn their lives around. Though they face very different challenges in their single lives, fifty-something Lauren, forty-something Clare and twenty-something Helen come away with the same lesson: the immeasurable value of friendship.

I hope you will have as much pleasure reading about these singles as I had writing about them.

Liz

Many thanks to Tara Gavin, whose suggestions for

revision went right to the heart of the matter. Thanks

also to Lena Wood for being such a generous guinea pig.

I dedicate this book to my mother who, despite her many

experiences, has never really known the single life.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 1

Borrow my words, then!—

Your beautiful young manhood—lend me that!

And we two make one hero of romance!

Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

“You’re going to have to sell the house.”

Lauren shut her eyes tightly, hoping that she hadn’t heard correctly, that she was still asleep and would wake up to something other than the jarring sound of the telephone and Clare’s devastating proclamation. After all those hours spent exploring the varied shades of darkness, she wasn’t even sure she had actually slept. Not until she heard Clare Hanley’s voice at the other end of the line.

“What time is it anyway?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

“Way past the time for you to be still in bed. The last time I looked, it was going on eleven. What happened? Did you stay up to catch the late show?”

“Something like that.”

Lauren didn’t want to go into the details of her sleepless nights.

“Well, I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your beauty sleep, but I’m glad you finally answered. I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Don’t you ever listen to your messages?”

“I listen to them.” She just didn’t bother to answer them. These days she also didn’t bother to answer the phone. She wouldn’t have picked up this time, either, except that Chrissie had said she would call, and Lauren really wanted to speak to her, to hear her voice, to know she was all right.

E-mail could get the news through. It could transmit a quick greeting or forward a funny joke, but it couldn’t reassure Lauren about the subtleties, the unspoken nuances that Chrissie couldn’t hide from her mother.

They had been playing telephone tag for days now. Neither Lauren’s preference for the answering machine, nor the time difference between Illinois and Vienna helped much. So when the phone had rung at 11:00 a.m., Lauren had quickly calculated that it was late afternoon for Chrissie in Austria and a perfect time for a trans-Atlantic conversation. She had wiped her eyes and swallowed the big lump in her throat. By the time the phone had rung a third time, she was rolling across the king-size bed and reaching for the receiver. She didn’t stop to think it might be someone other than Chrissie.

Now here she was, stuck with the effects of another bad night’s sleep, a headache that was getting worse by the second and a conversation she really didn’t want to have.

“As you can probably tell, I just woke up, Clare, and this is really a bad time to talk. I’ll call you back. Bye—”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Lauren Wilt! I’ve waited long enough to speak to you, and I’m not going through this again.”

Lauren didn’t say anything, but she didn’t hang up either. Even outside the courtroom, Clare’s voice could put fear in humble citizens like herself.

Clare must have realized it because she switched to a softer tone.

“How’ve you been, Lauren?”

“Fine, Clare. Just fine. As long as people don’t try to get me out of bed before twelve.”

“Mmm-hmm. That’s why you haven’t been answering your phone lately? Or responding to your messages?”

“I’ve been, you know, busy.”

“Yeah, so have I. But I return my calls.”

“You pay other people to do it for you.”

“Same thing. Besides, I’m not just talking about business calls. Even your best friend Alice says you haven’t been returning her calls either.”

“I was going to today. I’ve been trying to finish a chapter.” Trying being the operative word, since Lauren hadn’t managed to finish it. She had spent another day looking at a blank screen—when she wasn’t contemplating her blank mind. She didn’t expect today would be much different. Which was why she hadn’t bothered to get out of bed, even when it was clear she wasn’t going to get back to sleep.

“Look, Lauren, I’m your lawyer, but I’m speaking here as your friend. It’s been more than a year since the divorce came through. You need to start living again.”

It was easy for Clare to talk. She’d never been divorced. Never been married, for that matter. Never had her heart broken. Never had to mend it. Not independent, hard-as-nails Clare Hanley.

“Is that why you called? To offer me some friendly advice? For free?”

“Actually, no. I just gave you the free advice, but I called about something else. And that, as you know, doesn’t come free. You pay for it. So, like it or not, I have to give it to you.”

Clare paused for a moment, as if she were weighing her words. When she spoke again, she sounded surprisingly unsure of herself. “Lauren, I think you should come in so we can talk about it.”

“If it’s so important, you should tell me over the phone.”

“Lauren, look, maybe we could meet for lunch or dinner—my treat, of course—and we can talk about this.”

“I already have plans for lunch.”

Not! As Chrissie might say. The old Lauren would have crossed her fingers because she was telling a lie. But the new Lauren—who was really a very old Lauren—a very, very old, tired, worn-out Lauren—didn’t bother with that. She just didn’t see the point anymore, no more than having lunch with Clare, or anyone else for that matter.

“With Alice?” Clare was asking. “That’s okay. She can come, too.”

“No, not with Alice.”

“Lauren—”

“Just tell me, Clare. I may not be a courtroom shark like you, but I’m no hothouse flower either.”

“I just think you’d be better off dealing with this face-to-face.”

“Just tell me.”

“Okay.” Clare sighed. “If that’s the way you want it.”

Lauren didn’t say anything, but her silence was eloquent. After a moment, Clare spoke.

“I’ve been looking into your accounts and, well, I don’t think you’re going to be able to keep up with all your payments. There’s no two ways about this—you’re going to have to sell the house.”

Lauren’s first reaction was to think she hadn’t heard correctly. Her second was much more passionate.

“Sell the house? Are you crazy? Never!”

“Lauren, listen to me. I know what it means to you. I know it was once your grandmother’s house. I know how important it is to you, how much you want to keep it. You made it very clear when we were working on the divorce settlement. You gave up a lot for it—against my better advice, I might add.”

“You’re off the hook.”

“Honestly, Lauren! That’s the least of my worries.”

“So what are your worries?” Other than trying to keep Lauren on the phone as long as possible when all she wanted to do was hang up and have another cry.

“Mostly that you’re not in the same position you were. You lost money on your investments, and now with the increases in property tax, well, I just don’t see how you can make your payments.”

Lauren pressed her fingers against her forehead in the hopes of quelling the ache that was increasing by the minute.

“I’ll cut down on the rest of my spending if I have to, but I can’t sell the house.”

“It’s going to take a lot more than better budgeting. You just don’t have the income anymore.”

“What about the money my mother left me?”

“We put it in trust for Chrissie and Jeff. Against my—”

“Better advice, I know. You’re beginning to repeat yourself. Couldn’t we get an extension on the taxes? Negotiate somehow?”

“With what? It’s not as if you have a new source of revenue. You’re already living on the advance for your next book—which you aren’t even close to delivering—not even now that the deadline has come and gone. And from what you’ve been telling me, there’s nothing else in the pipeline.”

“There must be something we can do! Help me out here, Clare. Please.” Lauren could hear her voice breaking, but she didn’t try to hold back. She couldn’t, even if she wanted to.

“I’m sorry, Lauren. Really, I am. I’ve looked at it from all angles and there’s nothing I can do. Unless you come up with more money soon, my only suggestion is to sell the house. Because even if you have your miracle, even if you get more money, you’re still not in the clear. An old house like yours, the repairs are endless. The bills won’t stop. They’ll just keep coming. They’ll soak up all your money and then some. Listen to me, Lauren. Sell the house.”

Clare slammed the phone down, more annoyed with herself than with Lauren. After more than twenty years in the business, she should be more tactful, more considerate, more kind when dealing with the financial and legal affairs of a woman whose heart had been ripped in two and whose life was broken—especially when the woman was also a friend.

But Clare had never been very good at holding hands and passing the Kleenex. Maybe because she’d had her own share of hard luck—and then some—when most kids were still wiping their eyes over Bambi’s mother and Simba’s father. Maybe because she’d learned early that no amount of hand-holding and Kleenex-wringing would pay the bills. Only hard cash would, aided by calculating law. That’s where she came in. The rest would take time—a lot of time.

But time was something Lauren didn’t have, at least not when it came to the house. Not that Clare thought Lauren should hang on to the house. Even with the crippling bills, Lauren was holding on to it harder than any life belt, as if it were the only thing keeping her alive now that her husband, her children and her creative inspiration were gone. Clare knew there were days, weeks even, when Lauren didn’t leave her cocoon. But that didn’t change the fact that no house—not even a gingerbread one with gaily painted walls, shining wooden floors, tower bedrooms and shingled turrets—could put Lauren’s life back together. Only Lauren could do that.

Still, Clare wished there were something she could do. There must be something she’d missed when she’d explored all the angles with her long-time colleague, the top-notch financial planner Lynne Pozzorni. Lynne had been disappointed with some of the choices Lauren had made and hadn’t hidden it from Clare.

“We women never learn, do we?” she had said, shaking her head in dismay and disapproval. “We want to be nice and kind and generous. We forget it’s a world of wolves out there—and our exes are the meanest and the cruelest. We must be genetically programmed for it. That’s the only way I can explain it.”

Clare wasn’t sure genetics had anything to do with it, but she knew what Lynne meant. She had seen it often enough with other cases. Divorcing mothers ready to forego everything but regular child support payments—only to learn that no provisions had been made for hefty college tuition fees down the line. Middle-aged women who gave up their life savings to pay off their new spouse’s debts—only to lose that investment and much more when the rosy first blush of the honeymoon disappeared into the darkness of a divorce settlement. Good-hearted women who trusted their husbands with managing their incomes—only to discover the man had been stashing cash and hiding assets.

Small wonder Clare had never bothered to tie a knot. When office gossips speculated about her, they agreed on one point: Clare was a cold-hearted cynic who would never give happily ever after and true love a chance. They were not wrong. It was hard not to be a cold-hearted cynic when you knew what cruelty, insincerity and selfishness lie in the hearts of men. And as attentive as she was to using gender-neutral terms, Clare really did have the male of the species in mind.

Office gossip didn’t know there was a time when Clare hadn’t thought that way. When she had been wrapped in the soft tissue of romantic love. When she had believed it was the magic cloak that would keep all evil, pain and heartache away.

That had been a long time ago, a lifetime. Which was why it was hard to understand why her throat was constricted now, her chest tight, her eyes watery. Whatever would the office gossips say if they knew?

Clare forced herself to swallow. She was overreacting to Lauren’s call. She was letting her friend’s situation get to her. She was trying to do the hand-holding and the Kleenex-wringing when she was better off leaving that to someone else. Someone like Alice. She would call Lauren’s oldest and closest friend and see what the two of them could do.

Or rather what Alice could do because Clare could only continue doing what she had been doing for the last twenty years. What she was paid to do. What had got her here, in the corner office with a view of Lake Michigan, a personal assistant on call, a BMW in the garage, a wardrobe that would make an upcoming starlet envious, and more than her share of fun—nights of fun, weekends of fun, a lot of money’s worth of fun.

But no one to go home to.

It’s bad enough to arrive home one night to discover your housemate naked on the living room couch. It’s worse, when someone else is with her, as naked as she is. Worst of all is recognizing the naked guy is someone you introduced her to, someone who you thought might get naked with you.

Not that Helen Matter really, truly wanted to get naked with Josh. He was just another techno-weenie who cared more about bytes and transfer protocols than romantic, candlelit dinners—a dandruff-coated techno-weenie in the familiar uniform of jeans, white socks and an oversized, long-sleeve shirt.

On a scale of one to ten, he was probably a two, or a one and a half. But scales were for women who could choose between Matt Damon and Matt LeBlanc, Jude Law and Justin Timberlake. Not for a woman who had to choose between Josh and nothing. Until she had walked in the door the other night, she had thought at least that choice was hers.

Helen had known Josh as a fellow graduate student for some time, but hadn’t thought twice about him. Which was surprising given how these days she thought a lot about guys and a lot more about why she didn’t have one in her life.

So she had been happy when she and Josh had managed to find something to talk about other than techno-jargon. The lab computer had crashed one evening while they were testing a new program, and he had filled in the silence with an account of his bicycle trip in Germany, which had been more fun than the year before when he had interned at his step-father’s firm, and he especially enjoyed it because of the model of bike he was riding, which he preferred to the sixteen-speeder he’d had as an undergrad. She had tried to look interested, although she was really almost numb with boredom. Even so, when he had suggested they go to the movies afterward, she had agreed.

This is it, she had thought. This is the start of something new, wild and passionate! He will be Paris to my Helen, Lord Devlin to my Althea, Rhett to my Scarlett.

Now, she couldn’t even remember what movie they saw, only that it had something to do with robots taking over the world. Not exactly what she considered a great choice for a first date. Because even though they had bought their own tickets, hadn’t shared popcorn or even come close to holding hands, she considered the outing a date.

When the film was over, they had gone to her house. He’d met Sharon then and all three of them had gone out again to the neighborhood bar. Helen hadn’t seen Josh much after that. Duh! He was at her place with Sharon while Helen was at the lab alone.

Just as well. Josh was really not what she was looking for. If Sharon wanted him, she could have him. As long as it wasn’t on Helen’s couch and in her living room.

And if Sharon got everything she wanted from Josh on the nights of his visits, she didn’t get an easy response from Helen.

“What’s the big deal?” she had asked, when Helen broached the subject. “It’s not as if he is, like, your boyfriend.”

“You were doing it on the couch, Sharon, in the living room.”

“So?”

“So? Something called privacy—your space, my space, our space.” Helen flapped her hands at the designated spaces, but the gesturing didn’t help. Sharon just stared back at her, uncomprehending. “Whatever!” She rolled her eyes and held both palms out to show that the discussion was over. “If you’re not happy, you can, like, find someplace else to go.”

Which was what Helen was going to do, even though the lease was in her name. If anyone should leave, it should be Sharon, who was only supposed to be in Chrissie Wilt Gard’s room for a short while, anyway.

“I’m not really moving out,” Chrissie had said more than a year ago, “so don’t look for another roomie. I love my mother, but I can’t live with her too long. She’d drive me crazy.”

Helen didn’t know how mothers could do that because she had been only eight when hers had died. But Chrissie usually knew what she was talking about. Only it hadn’t been Chrissie who had been going crazy. It had been her mother. Not crazy, really. Just heartbroken.

So, despite her reservations, Chrissie had moved to her mother’s Oak Park house, where she had remained for more than a year. Then, she had been offered her dream job in Austria as the legal advisor to an international trade organization. Even then, she hadn’t wanted to leave.

“I can’t leave my mom. Not now. Not when she’s like this.”

“She wants you to go, Chrissie,” Helen had reminded her. “And you can’t turn down something like this. You’ve wanted it, like, forever.”

Chrissie had shrugged her shoulders, but in the end she had gone. Now Helen was also going to have to go. She didn’t want Sharon thinking she begrudged her Josh.

Because she really didn’t care about him. In fact, the more she thought about it, the less she cared. Sure, it had surprised her to see them together. Maybe even shocked her that Josh, just another techno-weenie, could do it in the living room, with the door wide open. Maybe even amazed her that he could get her roommate to make such loud noises.

But neither the sight nor the sounds really bothered her. What really bothered her was that she hadn’t even been good enough for a techno-weenie.

Well, she was going to change all that. She would deal with her lack-of-man problem the way she had dealt with all her problems. The way she had managed to outsmart her brother David at chess and her other brother Christopher at the International Youth for Robotics Fair. The way she had managed to get top marks in graduate school. All she had to do was find the right books, take the right classes, read, study and then master the subject. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?

But first, she was going to have to find another place to live.

CHAPTER 2

Lauren pushed the diced carrots around her plate. Alice Mirosek was saying something about her husband Frank and his camera. Or was it his carburetor? Did it really matter? Either way, Lauren had lost the point to the story, and no one seemed to notice. Why had she come? Why had she let Alice and Clare talk her into it?

Not that there had been any discussion involved. They had pulled the good cop/bad cop routine. First, the good cop had called about the planned get-together.

“I never get to see you anymore now that the kids are gone and you’ve stopped coming to the fitness classes,” Alice had said in that honeyed voice of hers. “It would be nice to catch up. Let’s try lunch at The Green Factory. Clare can make it, too. It’ll be fun, Lauren. Just like old times.”

But it wouldn’t be like old times, not for her anyway. Those times were gone. Gone with the wind. Make that the hurricane.

So Lauren hadn’t promised anything, and she certainly hadn’t bothered to get ready for lunch today. But she hadn’t figured on the bad cop arriving. Like a dark-haired Valkyrie in pursuit of revenge, Clare had pushed her straight into the shower, thrown some clothes on her bed and practically forced her into the car. Nor did her relentless takeover stop when they arrived at The Green Factory. She wouldn’t even allow Lauren to give her order to the boyish-looking waiter. Not that it mattered. She didn’t care what it was anyway, even though she had had a mouthful or two.

Lauren glanced at her friends. At least, they weren’t having any trouble eating. No more than they were with life. No road blocks on their paths to happiness, not even a bump.

Clare said something indiscernible. Alice nodded and continued to talk about Frank. That marriage was obviously still going strong. Which was somewhat surprising, given all the odds against them.

Frank, the rebellious son of New Jersey factory workers, had traded in his youthful rock musician aspirations to work with emotionally disturbed children. Alice was born and bred in the affluent suburb of Oak Park, and it showed, right down to her woolen knit skirt, sensible but expensive leather shoes, and her senior management position at a Chicago bank. Yet Frank and Alice had found something together that Charles and Lauren, with their similar backgrounds, never had. Now that Frank and Alice’s youngest was almost out of college, it seemed to be honeymoon time all over again for them. No wonder Alice couldn’t understand what Lauren was going through. No more than Clare could.