Diary of a bad housewife

Diary of a bad housewife chapter 5

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Chapter 5

For months, my friend Elvira pushed me to have an affair. "Nuh-teeng tacky, nuh-teeng sordid," she said in her Puerto Rican accent. "You choose only the very best lover, a man weeth good breeding and a moostache, refinement, maybe distinguished weeth a continental accent."

"No," I replied. "I'm not like that. I may be furious with him, but I won't cheat on Colin. When I walk, I'll walk away with intact dignity. Your situation's different; you're single."

"You sure, no? Why don' you take Alonzo? I grow weary of him. He's so not assertive and he let me push heem around. What girl wan' that? Time to bye-bye him and shop for another. The poor boy will be so devastated. You want him or no? Think about it, dahleen'; ta-ta."

I declined. Alonzo typified a glorified and aging pool boy, no matter how much she talked about a lover with a pedigree and sophistication. No thanks, nothing like that appealed to me.

Besides, other concerns topped my list. From my parents, I learned finances define who rises to the top and who's on the bottom. The fool who said money doesn't buy happiness missed the point poverty buys a world of despair.

I never, ever worked, not even baby-sat. The closest I came to a job occurred when I was fifteen. I modeled for a teen magazine for a measly hundred and fifty dollars. The money wasn't anything, but seeing my face in the mag thrilled me. All my friends envied me.

Thinking about glamour careers, I checked web site ads for modeling schools. While I followed up on the internet, an eMail dropped into my in-box that changed everything.

The note was a formal query from a Cecil Haroldson Archibald Rhodes III, OBE, Her Majesty's Solicitor for the law firm of Atwater, Rhodes, and Kent attached to the foreign office in Singapore. In strictest confidentiality, he wrote that an American philanthropist, Edward St. James, disappeared during his recent missionary trip to China, Myanmar, and Thailand, and his solicitors regretted to inform family members he was feared dead during the recent natural disaster. As the legal representative of Edward St. James, Rhodes was trying to locate a legal heir to keep his estate from being seized by the government. Thus, he enquired if my family might be related. The letter went on to say this was a serious matter since approximately fifty-four point two million pounds sterling was tied up in foreign banks in China, North Africa, and the UK.

I didn't know the James family tree well, but £54.2 million was substantial, even for them. For the purpose of narrowing their search, I felt obligated to at least enquire. Although I went out of my way to avoid my mother-in-law, I gave her a call, remaining vague about my reasons for asking.

"No, my dear, we don't have an Edward, I'm afraid. Where did you come across the name? Let's see, Edmund James was my second cousin, and a rascal the boy was, too, was Eddie. Definitely the black sheep of the family after washing out of the army- drugs, I believe. I heard he joined a hippie commune in Iowa. Or Idaho, I'm not sure, one of those states that starts with an 'I'. Do you want me to look into it, dear?"

The next day, I wrote Sir Cecil Haroldson Archibald Rhodes the Third, relating what my mother-in-law said. I told him I had no news of an Edward St. James and most of the family dropped the 'Saint' prefix. I told him the only 'Ed' of sufficient age was Edmund, not Edward, and he was a reprobate, not a philanthropist or missionary. Thinking that was the end of it, I hit Send and gave it no more thought.