Balancing Act by Fern Michaels Read Free Book Online

yet?
    Rita turned the heat up and then made coffee. While it perked she showered and dressed. Another casual outfit of jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt. She stood in front of the mirror and then turned sideways. She sucked in her stomach and then released it. She winced. It had been a long time since she stared at herself so clinically. She had put on weight. Her new jeans with lycra were deceiving. As long as the zipper went up, she had ignored the pounds. She wondered how far the zipper would go if they were one hundred percent cotton. She made an ugly face at herself in the mirror. Then she laughed. “Who are you fooling, Rita Bellamy?” she asked her reflection.
    “No one, not even myself,” came the reply. “I’m almost to the top of the mountain now, and I don’t intend to slide back. I worked too hard.” Satisfied with her comment, she tugged the sweatshirt into place around her less-than-firm derrière and headed for the kitchen. She was who she was; it was as simple as that.
    Two scrambled eggs, three strips of bacon, two slices of toast, three cups of coffee, and several cigarettes later, Rita felt ready to start her day at the computer. It was six fifteen. She could work till the furniture people arrived and then she would take a break. Once everything was settled in, she would start dinner simmering on the stove and work for the rest of the afternoon. She allowed no time for visitors, for phone calls or meandering thoughts. She had to work, wanted to work. And there was the letter to write to Charles and the phone call she intended for Rachel. She could do both things while the delivery men carried in the furniture. Rachel was always on the run.
    Before she sat down to start the day’s work she walked to the door and flung it open. She made a pretense of staring down at the lake and the surrounding grove of pines. The sandy beach and pier were deserted as they should be at this hour of the morning. She let her eyes go to the bend in the lake and on to the Johnson cottage. There was no telltale stream of smoke wafting upward. He was probably sleeping or working. She wondered if he had anything in the house for breakfast. She stood a moment longer, delaying the time she had to start to work. She didn’t realize how intense her gaze was till her eyes started to water. She was forty-three years old and would be forty-four in another month.
    Rita wrote industriously, lost in her work for the next four hours. The knock, when it came, startled her. “Come,” she called as she finished typing a sentence.
    “Your furniture, ma’am,” a man called through the door.
    An hour later all the furniture was in place. For an extra twenty dollars the men assembled the bed and hung the ready-made drapes on the windows. Rita offered coffee and beer. The men accepted and they talked about the weather for a few minutes. When they left, Rita hastily made up the bed with the new sheets and bedspread. She stood back to admire her handiwork. Very colorful. She had chosen a king-size bed; she didn’t know why. The old bed had been a double four-poster. The sheets she had picked from the linen department had brown and orange butterflies flitting here and there. Very fitting, just like me—free, free, free. The bedspread picked up the deep autumn colors and lent character to the knotty pine walls. The thirsty, designer sheet towels were hung in the bathroom adding still more of her own personal tastes, her preferences, her own identity.
    The giddiness stayed with Rita till she sat down to write to her son. First she filled out a check for two hundred dollars. She knew it was too much, knew that Charles would view it as a buy-off and smirk to himself. One of these days she would grab him by the scruff of the neck and slap him silly, regardless of the fact that he was almost nineteen years old. She stared at the check for a long time. Finally, she drew a big X over it and wrote another one, this one for twenty-five dollars. He