Goode Girls Gone Bad

By Diana L. Rowe
Copyright 2000 by Diana Rowe Martinez
100,000 WORD

Chapter One

Cry.  I, Sarah Eloise Goode, divorce attorney, strong and unbending, stoic even, wanted to cry!  Yet I could not acknowledge the tears burning the back of my throat. What I could acknowledge was the evidence.  Or rather the lack of evidence.  My furniture, my everything--all gone.  Zippa.  Nada.  Gone.

Was it only a few moments ago that I’d walked into my downtown Denver loft, after putting in another long day preparing one more deposition?  Arriving home, all I thought of was avoiding an argument (yet again) with my long-time live-in boyfriend. Yet a quick toss in the dark of my briefcase and handbag and the thud on the floor revealed the first clue.  One of many missing items, my entry bench--and changed the entire tempo of my evening.

“Mark!”

Logical, I supposed, to call his name as I skimmed my hand along the textured wall to locate the light switch.  He did live here, after all, if that’s what you called that taking up of space.  

Lived here, spent my money, spent his money.  

If I’d been robbed, I should get the hell out, but my seventh sense--that nagging lawyerly one--pushed me to investigate.  My deeper sixth sense (that inner chick sense) knew I hadn’t been robbed. And the illumination revealed pretty damn quickly that I should listen to my sixth sense more often.

My once fashionably furnished living room had transformed into an exclusive high-rise ghost town.  The glass coffee table and Ralph Lauren camel-colored leather sofa and matching chair were also gone, replaced with a lone sock and a handful of change in a deserted mound of dust bunnies.

“Mark?!”  I called for him again, even when that chick sense told me not to waste my time.

Maybe he’d been injured during the robbery and lay in a pool of blood in our room.  I shouldn’t have felt relieved, but I did...briefly.  The last couple of years, we had mostly spent arguing over petty things like money or sex, or the lack of either one.  Yes, for a nanosecond I’d felt relieved not to have to face another argument, but within seconds I felt guilty that the thought had even crossed my mind.

I hesitated another second before stepping further into the living room.  And then I saw it.  A lone sheet of paper taped to the mirror that hung above the now-missing liquor cabinet.  A breeze from the air conditioning twisted the paper to spin and fall to the floor.

The coldness descended into my heart, and I knew what the note said.  Even before reading the words.

A total stranger hadn’t robbed me blind.

Mark had.

A part of me wasn’t surprised.  A bigger part of me was hurt and wanted to cry.

Instead, I told myself, Self, you are an attorney.  You are trained to handle opposition.  Nearly every day you stand before an overworked judge, your peers, who knows how many curious bystanders and blow litigious smoke out your ass.  All in the name of love and war, a.ka. divorce.  

But when it came to Mark, I was a total wimp. Blame it on what was left of my sentimentality.  When things turned bad between us, I remembered events of ten years ago. When we both attended law school, he’d had me at hello, swept me off my feet with his sweet talk and romantic ways.  I hadn’t been interested in dating back then, but somehow I found myself dating him. He’d bring take-out and a bottle of wine while we snuggled together on the old couch and studied for the bar exams.  Next thing I knew we were living together, sans take-out, wine and snuggling.

Mental note.  Living room furniture missing. Super-wired, super-techno, Mark-created T.V. and stereo system gone, and in its place a stark and lonely wall socket. Missing Sound Track entertainment system.  

Lists were my sanity.  Keeping a list helped me maintain composure, kept me from screaming as my Johnny Choo sandals (shoes and work were my only admitted addictions) thumped a hollow click across the oak floors.  

I focused on the piece of paper nestling in the empty corner.  I ignored the slight shaking of my hands as I retrieved the handwritten note and read the words:

See you in court.

His bold signature filled more of the page than the four contemptuous words.  

How could he leave like this?  How could he take our possessions?  My private stuff?  After ten years, this was what I get?  Was this the goodbye I deserve?

    Mark had taken everything I’ve scraped for all my life.  Everything I happily shared with him.  Okay, maybe not happily lately, but--  

My glance swept the empty rooms again.  I clenched my fists and bite my lip. Thank God, I hadn’t married the jerk!

    Was this how those wives feel when I defended their slimy husbands in divorce court?  I pushed that errant thought to the back of my mind to deal with later.

The phone rang shrill and abrupt, startling me.   And it kept ringing since Mark had also taken the damn answering machine.  It was probably one of my sisters, or another family member’s crisis.  Not tonight. I had my own mess to deal with.

And then thank god, the ringing stopped.

Back and forth, I paced, forth and back.  Added more items to the missing list, while my heels clicked across the floor.  Pacing always helped me think.  When I paced in front of the judge or the jury, it cleared the cobwebs from my head, freed my mind to think.  To come up with a plan of action.  

Knowing Mark, a cutthroat attorney in his own right who (finally) recently became re-employed, he wrote those words as a challenge.  

I stopped short.  The echo of my steps faded against the bare walls.  Oh my god, he wouldn’t dare take the record collection my father had left me!  Would he?  He knew how much those records had meant to my father.  Meant to me.  

If he’d touched them.  If he moved them one inch from the shelf closet.  I clenched my fists tighter at my side, the nails biting into my palms, and I felt the burn of tears at the back of my throat.   

God help him if he’d taken the only thing that mattered to me.  

No, God help me.

I needed to run into my room, rip open the closet and dig to the back.  Needed to know I’d find the well-worn album covers.  Breathe a sigh of relief.  Play the old Sinatra, Diana Ross, Patsy Cline.  Allow the escape of another era to wash over me.

Another time when I was truly happy.  Innocent.

But my legs refused to move.  Instead I closed my eyes and remembered holding Daddy’s hand.  Dancing with him when the top of my head barely reached his belt buckle.  Well not really dancing, but standing on his black, scruffy work boots while he shuffled me across the yellowed kitchen linoleum.  When we were a real family, laughing and loving each other without prejudice.  

Slowly, reluctantly, I refrained from sprinting and walked into the bedroom.  No running.  No spilling of emotions.  Swallow the burning back down my throat.  Remembered to breathe.  

Of course, our room was cleared out too.  Wouldn’t do to leave Sarah a bed or a dresser.  At least he hadn’t taken my underwear.  Victoria Secret matching bras and panties (another addiction) tumbled in piles on the floor.

Sliding the mirrored doors open, I avoided meeting my own reflection because if I looked, really looked at myself, I knew I’d lose it.  Instead I stared at the half-empty closet.  Mark’s side was the left; mine the right.  His side was glaringly exposed except for an errant clothes hanger.  

And it hit me, in the gut like a judge’s verdict gone bad.  All his clothes were gone.  Not one shirt left.  He.  Was. Gone.  Mark.  Left.  Me.

My hands trembled, and my legs begged to buckle.  Don’t lose it now, Sarah.  A practiced deep breath pushed the weakness aside.  

In his haste to take his stuff, a good portion of my garments had slipped off their hangers. I stepped over the piles of clothes to the rear of the closet to search for the mementos that I’d saved for over twenty years.  

The back shelves were cleared too.

The son of a bitch.

For a few seconds, I felt misplaced.  Spiraling out of control.  No hope of recovery, like spinning on a merry-go-round, faster and faster.  My stomach whirled and dipped, while the world passed by too fast to stop and get off.

I closed my eyes and fell weak-kneed to the floor until the nausea passed.

Arrgh!  I pounded my palms to the floor, more frustrated than I’d been in years.

He couldn’t have simply taken everything we’d lovingly accumulated together.  Mark knew what he was doing.  He wanted me to bleed.  Hurt twisted into righteous anger, and a Goode sister knew how to work anger.

He wanted to really hit me below the belt.  

To get my attention.  

So he took my father’s record collection.

The son of a bitch.

    And not once in the past ten years had he given me anything, not even an orgasm worth faking.

###

    That same evening, Elizabeth Goode Banks bit her lip, tears burning like wildfire out of control.  She watched her husband Paul stooped over the bed they’d shared for five years.  

    “I’ve got to leave, Lizzie,” he told her while he earnestly stuffed his clothes in a suitcase.  “There’s no passion in our relationship.  And I can’t live without passion.”  

She stared at him blankly, numbly watching him toss his tube socks into the bag.  Passion?  They had passion.  They made love at least twice a week, and she was most often the initiator.  

But what should she say now?  Should she do something?  She felt out of place, floundering.  Paul wanted to quarrel, she could tell.  Or worse, he’d leave her without any discussion at all.  She hated confrontations, but she also didn’t want him to leave.  They may not have a perfect relationship but who really had a perfect relationship anyway?  Certainly not her sister Sarah!  And Hannah changed relationships as often as she changed her underwear.

“Why haven’t you said something before now, Paul?”  Good, she sounded calm and in control, non-whiny.

“I-I don’t know.  All I know is that it’s missing.”

“It? Missing? If you mean passion, I can do passion.” She ignored the wobbly high-pitched sound to her voice.  “I’ll read a book.  I’ll go to a counselor.  We can go to a counselor.  Hell, we can go away for the weekend.  I’ll give you passion until your boxers burst into flames.  But you can’t leave.  Not like this.  Not without talking.  We’ve been married for five years.  FIVE YEARS!  I love you.  You love me.”  

“Lizzie.  Lizzie.  I’m sorry.”

    When he wouldn’t meet her eyes, she knew.  She knew as sure as she knew Paul preferred his eggs over easy and his boxers folded in thirds.  As sure as she knew he really hadn’t wanted to make love with her for months.  Maybe even years.  Because there was someone else.  

She wanted to rant and scream, but she did what she always did.  She spoke calmly, matter-of-factly succinctly so as not to encourage an argument.  

And she begged.  

“Doesn’t five years mean something to you?  We’ve built a life together.  Please, you owe me!  No, you owe us another chance, Paul.”  

But she didn’t bring up the other woman.  She couldn’t.  If she acknowledged her, it would be out in the open, bare and raw.

He closed the suitcase and zipped it shut, and still he did not look at her.

Chicken shit.  Look at me, she screamed inside because she too was a chicken shit.

When he picked up his overstuffed suitcase, he turned to her and finally looked her in the eye.  “I’m sorry, Lizzie.  Truly I am, but without passion, we don’t have a relationship.”

She knew then without a doubt there was someone else.  It was written in his shit-brown guilty eyes.  He knew passion all right--with someone else.  That’s how he knew it was missing in their relationship.  She should confront him with her knowledge, but instead she silently watched Paul roll the large suitcase out of the bedroom, through the living room and out the front door.

Once at the door, he didn’t even have the decency to face her again and simply said,  “I’ll call you when I get settled into a new place and make arrangements to pick up the rest of my stuff.”  

She threw the first thing she could get her hands on.  Their glass-framed wedding picture shattered against the wall.

Paul glanced at her then with a look of surprise, but the bastard still walked out the door.

Damn him.

She needed a good divorce attorney.  Lucky for her she had one in the family, her older sister Sarah.  She’d call Sarah as soon as she cleaned up the broken glass.

###

A few miles away, Hannah Grace Goode shamelessly admired Justin’s naked and tightly toned butt stumble across the room in search of his clothes.  If he moved ever so slightly to the left, she might even get another glimpse of his magnificent profile.  

She hadn’t been laid this good since they’d first met (if ever).  The man had gone all out in this go-round.

Justin slipped on his boxers, his muscled back toward her.  

Oh well.  Naked, she snuggled deeper into the cool satin sheets.  Maybe if she talked dirty to him he’d be up for one more time before he left.

“Hey sexy,” she called from her lounging position on the bed.  “How about giving me another few minutes to tell you how much I’m going to miss you?  And I’ll do all the work this time.”

“I’m going to be late.”  Justin slid his lean legs into his Levis.

Wow, what a surprise.  A guy that said no.  She glanced at the clock’s neon numbers, almost nine, and she frowned.  “I thought you didn’t have to work until tomorrow.”  

“Well, um, they called.  I’m going in tonight to cover.”

“Who you covering for?”  She stretched, content as a cat in the afternoon sun, so content she almost purred.

Hannah and Justin worked at the same downtown Denver sports bar.  He’d been bartending there for six months.  She’d waitressed for nearly a year (quite a long-term job for her), but she enjoyed her customers, mostly men, mostly good tippers.

“Hell I don’t know.  I didn’t ask.”  He slipped his T-shirt on, leaving it untucked obstructing her view of his great bum.  “Why the third degree?”

She sighed.  Ah well.  She’d get another look at what he offered at the end of her shift.  “No reason.  Just making conversation.”

She and Jason had dated secretly for almost three months.  They dated on the sly because she normally didn’t date fellow employees.  She’d done that once and had her heart broken--and lost a job.  Justin hadn’t minded keeping quiet about seeing her.  Plus there was this company rule about employees dating each other.  So keeping quiet kept everybody happy.  

Three months was a long relationship for her.  Actually a record, if she thought about it.  Usually she couldn’t stand anyone after a few weeks.  Or they couldn’t stand her.  Whatever.

Either way, her relationships didn’t last long.  Probably because there was nothing to talk about after sex.  

No big deal.  She was only twenty-seven, plenty of time for commitment when she was in her thirties.

Besides, her sisters had committed relationships, and those boneheads were certainly nothing to brag about.   

“Okay.”  She watched as Justin finger-combed his thick blonde hair and visualized his fine matte of matching fuzz on his chest.  And she wanted him again.  “You sure you can’t spare a minute or two?  I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Ah, shit.  Why you always talking like that?”  He rubbed his hair messing it up again.  A step to the door, then back to her, he paced like a caged tiger.  

Hannah’s brow puckered.  Weird.  Not like the confident and horny Justin she lusted after.

“Listen.”  He’d moved to the foot of the bed and looked down at her.  “I just don’t think we’re working out.  I’m thinking maybe we should end it.”

“We?  End it?”  She blinked, hard and fast.  Wait a minute.  Not again.  Why did the guy end it before she had the chance to dump him?  Why now--a guy that she actually liked for a change?  “But we have such good sex.”  

Oh God, she hated it when she whined.  And that was a definite whine.  She sounded so. . .so. . .well, needy, like her sister Lizzie.  Not good.

She did an about-face. “No, you’re right, Justin.  You just took me by surprise.”  Hannah put on her offensive, smart-ass attitude, courtesy of sister Sarah.  “I’d actually hoped for one more good romp, but hey, today is as good as any day.  At least I got mine this time.  God knows you always get yours.”

“Really.  You’re okay with this?”  Justin sat on the edge of the bed.

God, he actually patted her foot!  Ewww!  “Why not?  Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”  Even though his was certainly above average, she didn’t have to let him know that.

Ah well, hasta la vista, baby.  Another one bites the dust.  And all that.

But a niggling doubt crowded her mind with questions.  Why did she allow this to happen?  Why couldn’t she find one good man--just one?

A tear seared the corner of her left eye.  Sure, the sex was good, but this time she’d actually really, really liked him.  

“Go on.  Get out of here.”  She shooed Justin off the bed, smudging the tear with her shoulder.  “I need some sleep.”

Relieved, the little shithead actually looked relieved when he stood up! “Well, it’s been fun.”  He waved, gave her a small smile and sauntered out the front door.  A final click and another relationship was over.

Fun?  Yeah, right.  One more tear oozed from her eyelash.  Hannah transformed from detached nonchalance to convoluted pissy.  

“It’s been fun?”  She shouted to the walls.  “Well, shit.”

The room felt lonely and smelled of their lovemaking.  She slid out of bed to light a candle or two to exterminate the scent from the air, stumbled and fell.  Great, Justin had forgotten his backpack.

She picked up the receiver and called his cell phone.  It rang directly into the backpack.  She called the bar.

Her boss answered.  “Hey, could you leave Justin a message?”

“Sure will, but he’ll be out for a week.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he’s getting married tomorrow.”

“Married?  Justin Rivers is getting married?”  How could she not know this?  

“Yeah, his high school sweetheart.  They’ve dated for years, I guess.  She’s a cute little thing.”

Cute little thing?  Hannah suddenly felt like a giant, gangly and gullible Amazon woman.  

How could she?  No, how could he?   

Frustrated and mad as hell, she was.  And damn it, she was hurt.

She picked up his backpack and hurled it across her one-room apartment.  The contents spilled, a change of clothes, folder, leather case, keys, and other miscellaneous items.

Let him hunt her down and get his stuff back.  She certainly had better things to do.

This certainly warranted an emergency meeting of the Goode sisters (a.k.a. GEM), complete with a bottle of wine and a shoulder to cry on.  She’d even take Sarah’s lecture on when she might decide to plan her future and Lizzie’s lectures on her choices in men in exchange for much needed hugs followed by even more necessary shots of tequila.

Then she’d get even with Justin Rivers.

Synopsis:

Three sisters Sarah, Elizabeth and Hannah Goode have always done the right thing.  But when their significant others break up with them on the same night, they realize that being good may get them to heaven, but being bad is much more fun.  

Sarah, 39, prefers to be in control of her orderly life especially after her chaotic childhood.  She became an attorney so she could manage her destiny.  When her live-in boyfriend of 10 years leaves her and takes their furniture with him, she finds her life in total chaos.  When her album collection, left to her by her father, is also missing, she’ll find a way to get even, whatever it takes.  A handyman enters her life and teaches her that life is full of surprises and the best way to enjoy life is to fall out of control and into love.

An elementary schoolteacher, Elizabeth, 35, is the middle daughter, a peacemaker and avoider of all conflict.  When her husband informs her there is no passion in their marriage and passion is not optional--but she is, she decides to exhume her passion.  She’ll show him there’s more to her than he’s bothered to find.  Elizabeth rediscovers passion in the love of a child and her best “guy” friend, who has always walked on the wild side.  

When yet another guy dumps fun-loving, live-for-the-moment, waitress Hannah, the youngest sister at 28, she begins to re-evaluate what’s important to her.  But when she learns that this guy has plans to marry the day after their break-up, she will get even.  A conventional man opens her mind to the magic of giving, and she realizes what she’s had in the past wasn’t really her heart’s desire.

The sisters plot against their exes over wine and multiple GEMs (Goode Emergency Meetings).  From canceling credit cards to changing locks to cutting crotches out of their exes’ underwear to breaking and entering, revenge is bittersweet.  But half the fun is the time they spend together plotting the demise of their exes’ egos.  The other half is finding ways to stretch their good girl way of thinking into naughty.  

Three sisters enter an emotional journey together searching for love--and revenge--in decidedly nontraditional methods.  During this passage, they rediscover a bond of sisterhood previously lost.  They each discover that they can be both good and bad, but more important they must be true to themselves.