Balancing Act by Fern Michaels Read Free Book Online Page A

was Brett’s son too; let him share the expenses.
    She could have written an entire chapter in the time it took her to compose a carefully written letter to her only son. Charles picked everything apart. Once he saw the check he would pour over the letter looking for ways to “zap” her. Certainly, he would expect mention of the football game the day after Thanksgiving. How she dreaded it. Brett would be there with his new wife. It would be her first meeting with the new and second Mrs. Bellamy. Charles expected her to be there and she had promised. Still, she dreaded it. Charles would smirk; Brett would be oblivious to everything and anything except his new wife. Melissa would preen beneath his adoring gaze while she tried to look away to hide her anger and hostility.
    It took seven sheets of paper before Rita was satisfied with her draft. She copied over the one-paragraph letter and signed it “Love, Mom.”
    Instead of feeling strange and unfamiliar among the new furnishings for the cottage, she was exhilarated. Here was the proof of her first decision in too long a time. The contemporary style had been bought on impulse, on the opposite end of the pendulum from the cozy colonial she and Brett had chosen. Or had it been Brett?
    Her computer now sat on a burled oak desk, and she sat on a chrome and beige director’s-style chair that rolled easily on shiny ball casters. Tabletops were bronze tinted glass, and the upholstered pieces were modular, accommodating themselves to different arrangements in the rectangular room. Beiges, browns, startling touches of turquoise and cream. The roll-up blinds were perfect, mobile contraptions to control the light and her need for privacy without yards and yards of dust-collecting fabric. Geometric area rugs brought the pieces together in groupings, and she took delight in the oak-veneered three-piece étagère for holding her books and knickknacks. Rita decided she had done the wise thing in purchasing entire rooms right off the display floor. She had no time for selective buying, and she knew that it was more than possible that faced with hundreds of little choices for the cottage she might have made none.
    The second bedroom for Rachel was completed, even to the pressed silk flowers framed in brass and hanging over the low double bed. Splashes of orange and deep brown for the spread, rust and beige for the rug near the bed. She realized now that she much preferred it this way: clean, almost stark, color substituting for bulky furniture. Even the small dining table just off the kitchen, with its cane and chrome chairs, was perfect, utilitarian, and yet giving the illusion of space and sleekness because of its glass tabletop. Arc lamps and two or three startling oriental-flavored pieces, such as the vase holding tall pussy willow branches and the mural-sized picture to hang over the hearth, complemented the decor. Satisfied, more than satisfied, Rita took a tour of the cottage, appreciating everything she had bought and applauding her decision to at last make the cottage her own. Already her head was buzzing with items she would purchase when she next went to town. There were those long-stemmed glasses she had admired in Rose’s, and the florist in town would create something wonderful for the dining table. Perhaps next spring she would look into getting new porch furniture. Something really colorful . . . that was next spring. Before long, winter would set in up here at the lake and snow would cover the ground.
    Reluctantly, her mind went back to those times when she and Brett had escaped for those long, intimate weekends to the lake, leaving the children in her mother’s care. Those had been wonderful times, much needed times to reacquaint them with each other. Too often the pressures of Brett’s job in advertising would be overwhelming, and the routine chores of children and home would put a distance between them. Those long, lovely weekends. Brett would sleep late, and she