Chapter 1

It was a long and tiring drive to Philadelphia. Normally, I can drive straight through from Rochester to Philly in about six hours, if the roads are clear and the weather is good. The roads weren’t clear, and the weather wasn’t good, so it took us upwards of nine hours. Jackie and the baby slept almost the entire time, which was good in that Timmy wasn’t crying and fidgeting, and bad in that I didn’t have anybody to spell me. Timmy’s only seventeen months old but has the lungs of a teenager, so I figured it was a wash.

It was just after dinner when we pulled into the driveway at Jackie’s parent’s place in Chestnut Hill. Jackie grabbed Timmy and I grabbed the baby’s gear, and we were greeted at the door by Jackie’s mom and Jackie’s sister Suzanne, each of which was carrying a little one themselves. Mom was carrying Suze’s three-year-old Justin on her hip and Suze was burping her youngest, Samantha, over her shoulder. It was a pretty spirited greeting, especially once Timmy decided to get in on the act, so Suze’s husband Tony helped me bring in our luggage while the women went about swapping babies around and cooing over them.

It was the start of a big vacation for us four adults. Tony and Suzanne are teachers in Suffolk County on Long Island and had managed to arrange a timeshare condo in Aruba for a week. It was a two-bedroom condo, so we would each have a bedroom of our own. Suzanne’s and Jackie’s parents had agreed to baby-sit the kids for the week, and their dad was going to drive us to the airport in the morning. This was the first real vacation any of us had had in several years, certainly the first without any children along, and we were all starting to get a little stir crazy in anticipation.

I know it was Jackie’s and my first break in several years since our honeymoon. We had met when we were both in college in Philadelphia, me working on my MBA at Wharton and Jackie getting her nursing degree at Temple. We had met when I ended up in her emergency room after breaking my foot playing Frisbee. We had dated for the next couple of years until we both graduated, then got married and moved to Rochester. I had a pretty nice job with Xerox and Jackie worked at Strong Memorial in the pediatrics department. Timmy had come along about two years later, and now Jackie was pregnant again, although she was only about six weeks along. Now I was twenty-nine and she was twenty-five, and neither of us had had a real break in at least four years.

I’m an up-and-coming executive at Xerox, and look like, well, an up-and-coming executive. I’m a bit over six-foot-tall, slim but with broad shoulders, and dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. I suppose you could say I’m handsome, but since my tastes don’t run towards guys, I really don’t pay any attention to my looks. Jackie, on the other hand, is what I consider a stone fox! She’s five-foot-four and 115 pounds, all of which are wrapped around the nicest frame imaginable. Slim waist, wide hips, very nice legs, and the biggest damn set of jugs you can imagine. Top it off with wavy chestnut brown hair that goes several inches below her shoulders, hazel eyes, and a heart-shaped face, and you get a very nice package indeed.

I gathered it had been almost as long for Tony and Suze as well. They hadn’t had a vacation since their honeymoon either, which was the same summer Jackie and I had been married. They’re in between us in age, at twenty-seven and twenty-eight, respectively. Suzanne looks like Jackie, but taller and with a more muscular build and chestnut colored hair. Tony, on the other hand, is built like a fire plug. Only five-seven, he’s an inch shorter than his wife, but he’s got a barrel chest and arms that look like he could bench press a small Buick. Both he and Suzanne are gym teachers, and they look the part.

In some ways I was surprised that Jackie would consider taking a vacation without Timmy. She was a very worried and protective mother, so much so that I commented on it to a buddy of mine at the office. He had several children, and he had laughed at my worries. His comment was, “The first one, they can never leave alone for an instant. The second one, they relax a hell of a lot more. By the third one, it’s like ‘Let ‘em rot. They’ll be just fine!’” I wasn’t too sure about this, but I knew that Timmy didn’t need to be joined at Jackie’s hip for the rest of his life.

We were living in an apartment at the time, a nice two-bedroom unit, while we saved up our dough to buy a house. Jackie really loved it since she’s a real people person and quickly became one of the critical nodes in the Gossip Grapevine. We were on the second floor and down below us lived Maria Fuentes, a divorced woman about ten years older than Jackie, with twin boys. I came home one evening to find the two of them chatting away on our balcony, Timmy asleep in his little reclining seat, watching the two older boys play outside on the lawn. I greeted them and looked in on Timmy, then kissed my wife hello.

Maria surprised Jackie by saying that the two of us should take a night off and go out and leave Timmy with her as the babysitter. Jackie protested that she couldn’t do this, but Maria insisted, and I joined in, figuring that a night away from the baby would be good for her. Don’t get me wrong, I love my son with all my heart, but that doesn’t mean we have to be with him twenty-four hours a day! Jackie kept coming up with idiot excuses until I put my foot down. “Yes! Next Friday! We’re going out!” Timmy woke up at this and started crying, but I stood firm, and Jackie gave in to keep from making too big a scene.

Maria was very approving of this; I had noticed her leaving her boys with a sitter on occasion and going out on dates. That Friday I came home to find her and her sons in the living room, with Jackie trying in vain to produce a reason she couldn’t leave her baby. I simply waved and slipped into the bedroom, where I changed my shirt and put my tie and jacket back on. Returning to the living room, I grabbed Jackie by the shoulders and propelled her to the bedroom with the orders, “Get dressed, we’re going out!” Maria laughed, and I played with Timmy while Jackie showered and changed. I also told Maria my plans.

Motherhood had cast a decidedly conservative look on my young wife; she had dressed positively matronly. She was wearing a calf-length dress with a sweater, white stockings, and loafers. It was an outfit to visit your priest in, not to go out on a date, which is what I told her this was. I could tell that shock treatment was needed. She hovered over the baby for the longest time, telling Maria where every bloody thing he could need was, along with writing down phone numbers for his doctor, the hospitals, and my cell phone, all the while promising that she would check in every half an hour.

Finally, I had enough. I came up behind my wife and grabbed her shoulders, spinning her to face me. Before she could complain, I bent down and wrapped my arms around her waist, then stood up straight and threw her over my shoulder. Jackie was kicking and punching me in the back and screaming bloody murder, but I kept hold of her. I said good-bye to a laughing Maria (her boys thought this was absolutely hysterical and wanted me to carry them the same way) and carried Jackie out of the apartment. I didn’t put her down until we got to my car.

Jackie tried to punch me some more, but I simply opened her door and said, “Get in the car.”

“And if I don’t!” she asked in a threatening tone.

I shrugged. “Fine by me. I’ll simply strap you to the roof and tell people it’s hunting season. Come on, get in.”

She smiled at the thought that I might just do that and climbed into the front seat. I got in and we drove out of the parking lot. A few minutes later she reached for my cell phone, saying, “I’d better call Maria and see if Timmy’s all right.”

Taking the phone away from her, I tossed it in the back seat. “Timmy is just fine. You only left him five minutes ago. He’s probably sleeping already. Now just calm down and chill, honey. You’re only making yourself nervous.”

Jackie grumped a bit but looked at me curiously as I pulled into a nearby mall, Greece Ridge Center. There wasn’t a good restaurant there, just the usual Food Court. “Where are you going!” she asked

“Listen, babe, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a mother, not a grandmother. I want to go out on a date with my beautiful, sexy wife, not Mother Hubbard. We’re going to go buy you a sexy outfit first.” Since she had lost all the weight she had gained during her pregnancy, there was no reason she couldn’t go back to dressing like she had before the baby was born, at least if only for me. She had always worn revealing clothes before, knowing just how much they turned me on.