Chapter 10
Carmela Needs A Time-Out
Thanks to some late evening haggling over a suite, Carmela had gotten off work much later than usual. The Latin looker was on the drive back home, sorry that it was so late, but glad that she'd missed all the afternoon traffic. As she cruised down the road, her phone went off. Soon enough, she had the device propped up against her ear. Carmela's husband was on the other end, and he didn't sound very happy. As Frankie spoke to her, his voice sounded strained and bitter.
"Some asshole named Gerald called a little while ago. He said the two of you have been sleeping together, off and on, for some four months now. He said he thought I should know about it."
Shit, Carmela thought to herself, gently swerving her SUV over from the slow lane to the shoulder, where she stopped and turned on her interior lights. In truth, Gerald had been fuming ever since she'd stopped messing around with him. Her undercover lover had finally done what he'd always threatened he would; Gerald had called her husband and told him all about their short-lived affair. Fortunately, Carmela had a plan, because she always had a plan. "I don't know anybody named Gerald."
"It's funny you should say that, because I wrote down his number from the caller ID," Frankie calmly continued. "And then I went through some of your stuff until I found the bill for your mobile phone. Guess how many times Gerald's number showed up on your bill?"
"You were digging around in my stuff?" Carmela tried to sound incredulous. "You have no right to be..."
"Don't change the subject. We're talking about why this jerk's phone number is on your bill like fifteen times."
Carmela thought fast. "Okay, the truth is that there is this guy, Gerald, who's been hitting on me for a while now. Of course, I wouldn't give him the time of day, so he probably got my number from the secretary at my office. He's just making all this stuff up because I turned him down. I would have told you about him before, but I thought I could handle it on my own and..."
Frankie cut her off. "I may not be a rocket scientist, but I can read a phone bill. You were the one calling him."
"I can explain how it would look that way, if you didn't know how he'd been leaving me messages and..."
"I've got three words for you: Sexy Little Things." Frankie stated. "This Gerald guy knew your favorite brand of underwear. He also knew that you like to shop at Victoria's Secret. Care to explain that one?"
"Anybody might be able to guess that just by looking at me..."
"Carmela, he knew your panty size. This dick even told me the designs on the panties that he claims he purchased for you." Frankie revealed. "I don't know what's worse; that you cheated on me, or that all these people around me kept telling me you were cheating, over and over. I was too hard-headed and too stupid to believe them."
"Frankie, I'm coming straight home right now, and..."
"Don't bother, I won't be here. I think I'm going out to find somebody else to screw, just like you've been doing all this time. You've probably been cheating on me ever since we got married..."
"Oh, don't you try to pin all of this shit on me!" Carmela erupted. "If you'd been half the man you're supposed to be, none of this would have... Frankie? Frankie!" She heard the phone click off on the other end, and a second later, nothing at all.
"You asshole!" She screamed at the phone. For a second, she almost slid her car window down and hurled the expensive device into traffic. Instead, she shoved her hand into her purse and buried the offending item as far down as she could.
For the next few minutes, Carmela simply sat there and fumed. She observed the flashing lights of the cars speeding by, feeling her car tremble due to the occasional gust of wind from an oversized hauler. Fucking dangerous place she decided to pull over, Carmela realized, setting her big car into drive. Impatiently, she gauged the number of vehicles rumbling along in the slow lane.
Taking a deep breath, Carmela joined the traffic flow. There was no way she'd be going straight home either, not after that argument. Mentally, the sexy Latina went through her options. She'd had a quick salad right before she left work, so going to a restaurant was out of the question, and for that matter, so was going to a bar. If Carmela wanted men ogling her, she'd have gone to the gym. She definitely would not have gone to some loser-infested dive, where drunken louts would inevitably start giving her the lamest come-on lines on the planet.
Still, Carmela needed somewhere to relax for a couple of hours.
As she drove, she happened to glance off the highway and caught a glimpse of a nearby shopping mall. It was one of the few she hadn't been to before, about equidistant between her apartment and her long commute to work, but too far from either place to have warranted an earlier visit. She'd go shopping, Carmela decided, taking the off-ramp as soon as it presented itself. A few minutes later, the hot Latina was pulling into a parking space close to one of those monolithic department stores. That was the moment when she realized she'd left most of her credit cards at home.
Damn her husband! Carmela cursed Frankie in her thoughts. He'd forced her to give up all her credit cards the previous week, as she was prone to shopping in binges, and she did have the bad habit of maxing out her cards. That was her money she was spending, wasn't it? What right did Frankie have to tell her how she should be spending the money she made? Why in hell had Carmela agreed to hand over the credit cards in the first place? It was as if she'd cut off her arm or something! She needed her plastic to survive!
