His Other Woman: A Renny and Rachel Christmas Romance (4 page)

6.

By the time I wandered back to our room, naked and pruney from the water, Renny was in bed feigning sleep. I took a quick shower to get rid of the salt in my hair and everywhere else, threw on a T-shirt of Renny’s I liked sleeping in and slipped into the massive bed next to him.

Just as I started to drift off he pounced!

“Now, to continue where we left off. I believe you were like this,” he said, pulling my legs apart and wrapping one around his waist, “and I was about right … here.” He thrust into me with a grunt. I wasn’t entirely ready for this and it hurt a little. I let out a small squeal and Renny quickly pulled out and pulled back.

“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“I think the salt sucked up all my moisture.” I said.

“Salt, eh? I think I can fix that,” he said, slipping below the covers.  “My very own salt lick,” he mumbled.

“You go little hamster,” I patted his head before settling back to enjoy one of Renny Taylor’s major talents.

A mere 30 minutes later we were both deeply satisfied and ready for sleep. Nothing like a vigorous, sexy, younger man to calm the nerves. I recommend it highly!

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Renny was up before me, showered, shaved and ready to rumble while I was still trying to talk my eyelids into staying open.

He came over to the bed and kissed me on the head like I was a child. “You stay in bed as long as you want, baby girl, I gotta go do the manor proud.”

“I’m up, I’m up,” I murmured, eyes at half-mast, as I struggled to rise from the most comfortable bed in the world.

“No you’re not,” Ren said, pushing me back down. “Get your beauty rest.” Then he left, closing the door quietly.

All he forgot to mention was,
you’re going to need it.

As much as I wanted to go back to sleep it was impossible. Not because it was too loud, the place was as soundproofed as Kinsey’s lab, it was the adrenalin of intense anticipation that forced me to roll out of bed. I plunged into the shower, more to wake up than anything, though I did think it might be a good idea to scrub the Renny off me before all the relatives came to judge me. I could try not to be such an easy target. On the other hand I loved running around with Renny’s smell all around me. All his smells. He was smelltastic to me. I have turned into the kind of woman I most despise, sappy and love-struck – and I couldn’t be happier about it.

By the time I dressed and made my way to the kitchen the place was in full storm. There were people everywhere, running around cooking, baking, chopping, dicing, mincing and other culinary things I know nothing about.

At the sink, washing a giant pile of potatoes was a blond, slim, pretty woman I recognized from Reade’s photos.

“You must be Claire?”

“Yup, Rachel?”

“Yup.”

We were off to a scintillating beginning. I could tell we were going to be great friends. Not. She never left off from her potato scrubbing or offered another word. I had a chance to study her a bit. If I thought Renny and I looked awkward as a couple I could never imagine becoming a peer of this very young woman.
How old was she
, I wondered. Reade was the same age as Renny, 38, but Claire couldn’t be older than 25. I’m sure she gets regularly carded at every venue they play.

I don’t know why this hadn’t occurred to me. I did see her pictures. She looked young, yes, but everyone looks older holding a baby. Here, in person, I got to see just how young she was. I was going to have nothing in common with her. Less even than the bimbos Garrett hung out with.

Men routinely marry much younger than themselves and no one thinks much of it. Their age difference, though not as wide as ours, rivaled Renny and me. He had to be 13, 14 years older. Of course he was a man, and a musician, so he couldn’t be accused of being much more mature than her, I thought. Men don’t mature as fast as women so marrying a younger woman made more sense than … more sense than Renny and me.

I sat down on a stool at the kitchen counter. There were moments like these, moments when the sheer unlikeliness of our relationship hit me like a ton of bricks. Reade and Renny were identical twins, yet they had picked such disparate partners. How could that be? And if I thought Reade was immature what was I saying about Renny? Was it all about sex? Even for me? Was Renny just my boy toy?

I jolted myself up from sitting. I had to stop thinking about all this and get through the week. One day at a time. Wise words.

“Can I help you?”

“Do you know how to tournee potatoes?”

“Tournee? Potatoes? I know what a potato is. That’s one in your hand, right?”

She smiled but looked a little disappointed. “Never mind.”

“I’m so sorry to be so useless. You need anything written?”

“Ask me in an hour or so, I may need an opening argument for my upcoming murder trial.”

I laughed. She had a quick wit. Maybe we could find common ground.

“Which one? Reade? Renny? Ruth?”

“Jonathan. At least today.”

“Uh-oh, where is he, maybe I can help out there.”

“Follow the smell of alpaca poop.”

“Oh shit!”

“Exactly.”

Now that she mentioned it there was a nasty odor flirting with the other, more pleasant ones. A little Eau d’apalca poop. Great. I bet Ruth had gone ballistic.

I followed my nose and it led me to a small room I hadn’t had a chance to explore the day before. It was my kind of room; comfy, worn couches, a small fire crackling in the fireplace, large windows that looked out on trees. Perfect! It was almost like home, except for the man sprawled on the sofa whose boot bottoms had a strange, brownish tint to them. Oh, and the foul odor. I could do without that on Christmas Eve.

I didn’t want to startle him or cause him to spread any more of his pet waste about the place so I took off my shoes and tip-toed over to him. I gingerly untied first one boot, then the other but I couldn’t seem to get them off him without a real struggle.

The first one stuck until it didn’t and I went flying across the room, sprawling on the floor. At that moment Ruth entered with a puzzled expression as she saw me unceremoniously splayed across the floor.. I held up the boot in my hand and she smiled. At me! Finally! I had done something right!

She helped me remove the other boot and as we settled Jonathan more comfortably on the couch a trio of women came in with enough cleaning products to stock a warehouse. One woman took the boots from me while the other two fell to the carpet and began spraying, scrubbing and making things all sparkly again.

Ruth took an afghan from the closest chair and spread it over Jonathan. She then pointed to the door and I followed her out into the hallway.

“Let him sleep. He’s less trouble that way.”

I noticed, or rather, didn’t notice, her walker anywhere. She was walking on her own and I wondered if she would regret it later. It wasn’t my place to say anything so I didn’t. See? I can be taken to nice places sometimes.

“I was looking for you Rachel. You did say you would look after Claudine, didn’t you?”

“Well, actually ...”

“That is great. Follow me.”

Walker or no walker, that woman could book it. I was hard-pressed to keep up with her as she twisted and turned into the part of the house I hadn’t seen. I soon realized we were parallel to the pool and just how close to these windows Renny and I –and Garrett –had been last night. I felt a rash spreading across my face. What must this woman think of me? That I seduced her little boy and made him pleasure me morning, noon and night? Then I had suggested a threesome with two of her sons. Jezebel was not a strong enough word. I was surprised she wanted me anywhere near her precious granddaughter.

We ended in a small sitting room so completely removed from the main hall I wished I had dropped bread crumbs so I could find my way back. In the corner was a small crib and in it was a screaming baby. A terrified looking Reade was doing his best –which wasn’t very good it appeared –to calm the baby down but the baby was clearly winning this battle.

Ruth went right to him, sniffed around the pink, squealing baby butt. “For goodness sakes, did you check her diaper? She smells like those damn alpalcas.”

Great.

Reade turned to his mother and then me with big, sorrowful, completely useless man eyes.

Ruth made a disparaging noise at Reade before grabbing the baby from him and shoving her into my arms.“You are useless. How did I ever raise such a useless child? I blame your father.”

“Dad didn’t change diapers either Mom. It’s just not in our DNA.”
Not in mine either
, I wanted to shout!.

“Um….” I started to object but Ruth just showed me where the diaper bag was and whisked Reade out with her. He, at least, had the decency to look back and say thanks. His relief was palpable.

I must confess something. I have never changed a diaper before. Never. At one time in my life I had considered it as sort of a sideline career but since I had so much trouble conceiving I thought God was likely telling me something. Who am I to question the wisdom of the Almighty?

I must also confess that I don’t like children. I know I said it before but it is worth repeating. Also that the only thing worse than a child is a baby child. I do not find them worthwhile. They contribute nothing to the conversation and a baby has never made considerable inroads to curing anything.

But here I was, face to face with a very, very unhappy little girl. Wow. I had no idea of the decibel level a baby can aspire to. To say my sense of smell and hearing were the only senses affected would belittle the bile rising from my foodless stomach and the slipperiness in my shaking hands. Also, I had a feeling my sight was soon to be assaulted as well.

Buck up Drake! How hard can it be? I was sure Reade was feigning incompetence to get out of a dirty chore. It’s an old man trick and I had seen it before, and not just in old men. It reminded me of a college boyfriend who had shrunk my gorgeous silk sweater (that he had given me for Christmas, no less) to the size of a Barbie doll sweater the one and only time I insisted he do the laundry. I never asked him again and I am convinced he knew exactly what he was doing. When I asked him to replace the sweater he told me it was my fault for making him do laundry in the first place. I guess men have not changed all that much in the ensuing 30 years. Someone had even invented a name for this behavior; learned helplessness. Helpless my ass. Crafty, sneaky and lazy is more like it.

I looked for a place to lay the slithering heap of hiccups down so I could commence the grossness of changing her diaper, but everything in the room was too nice. I finally just laid her on the floor on a towel I grabbed from the en suite bathroom. I wondered why she hadn’t worn herself out by this time but I realized that if she had a true Taylor lung capacity this could be a long day for me.

I opened the soggy onesie and the smell hit me like a ton of … manure. Alpaca manure. Had they been feeding her the alpaca food? It was… beyond belief. She was so little, how could she make such a powerful odor.

In the diaper bag I found some wipes, creams, a whole bunch of crap.
Okay Drake
, I girded my loins and removed the diaper. The baby was covered in poop. She had clearly been sitting in it and squishing it all over her chubby little body while she screamed. Didn’t this give kids anal fixation or something? I started to get really angry with Reade. This was close to abuse if you ask me. Poor little thing. Having pity for her helped me complete the task at hand as competently as I could.

Suffice it to say it took me a while, a long while to complete the transformation from poop-carrier to human child but I did do it. I scraped, I wiped, I anointed, I powdered, I pinned, I swaddled and I needed a drink.

I finished picking up the mess that was strewn all over the room just in time for the little darling to make a mighty farting noise and poop all over again.

You have got to be kidding? This is what I signed up for? All frickin’ day? Nothing was worth this, not Renny, not acceptance, not being ‘nice’, not the most fantastic sex on the planet. Okay, maybe that last one.

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The good news? I got pretty good at the diaper thing. The bad news? That baby is nothing but a pooping machine.

Nobody had mentioned relieving me of duty so I had no idea what time it was before Claire actually made an appearance. She seemed so happy with her little squirmy Winston Churchill look alike. There must be something that happens to women when they give birth. They either gain the patience of saints or lose the last of their minds. Hard to tell which with Claire since she acted like I didn’t exist. No thanks for watching her baby or thanks for cleaning up so much shit, nothing. Fine, I thought, if I’m invisible I’ll be just that, and I slipped out the door just as she was allowing her child to attach itself to her body and suck the life out of her.

I closed the door quickly but silently and had a case of the shudders. For the first time in my life I actually thanked God for what I had once thought was a tragedy. Sometimes I think there is a greater intelligence who has my back. I might have thought I wanted children but I was told
No, not for you little lady, you do not have the proper disposition for raising children. Why don’t you go to the blazing hot desert and write about death and destruction, you’ll find it easier to do.