Searching For Moore by Julie A. Richman
Chapter Two
SCHOONER POLITELY MADEsmall talk, a plate of expensive, fondant-wrapped cake in hand. He could not remember if the woman he was talking to was on The Real Housewives of Orange County or wanted to be on it, or if she was from Beverly Hills. Maybe she was one of those Housewives. He couldn’t remember her story and didn’t care enough to ask. They all seemed to run together.
As he surveyed the crowd, he made an observation. All these women wanted to look exactly like CJ and had spent a lot of money to try and achieve her look. He wondered why they didn’t realize that what their doctors were doing to them stopped way short of the natural beauty his wife possessed. What was being done to them didn’t look natural. Not the long blonde hair, not the full lips, nor the perfect profiles. They all wanted to look like CJ, but they didn’t. No one wanted to look different. No one wanted to be different. Typical Orange County, he thought.
The Real Housewife was touching him. Gently stroking his arm and standing too close as she spoke. Someone tried to push past in the crowd behind her and she had to step closer to Schooner. Dropping her hand, she let her fingers graze his crotch, her long manicured nails searching out his cock, which thankfully was uncharacteristically non-responsive. Schooner choked on the piece of cake he had just put in his mouth and politely excused himself, in search of a much-needed single malt scotch. If I’m paying for it, he mused, I might as well drink what I like. And he needed a drink. Badly.
As he approached the bar, he spied Holly standing alone, surveying the crowd as if they were one big sociology experiment. Coming up behind her, he casually, and gently, slung an arm over his daughter’s shoulder and kissed her temple as he pulled her close. Having her home from school for this abbreviated trip made enduring being the guest of honor slightly more palatable.
“How’s my gorgeous girl?” Schooner asked his flaxen-haired beauty.
“Better now that I’ve got the most handsome man in the room all to myself.”
He smiled at their banter. “Can we leave now?”
She laughed, “And endure the wrath of Mom? I think not.”
Holly was so unlike her mother. She had CJ’s cheerleader good looks, but they sat differently on Holly. A sophomore at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, Holly was not going to be a trophy, she was going to collect them. He missed her terribly and wished she’d stayed closer to home, wished she’d chosen a school in Southern California. But Holly wanted to go east and she wanted to go Ivy. A Biological Sciences major, his daughter was the antithesis of Orange County and he was secretly thrilled that she’d escaped. He was also thrilled that she had flown in for the weekend for his party. Schooner missed his son Zac too, but Zac’s prep school semester abroad landed him in Zaragoza, Spain—too far to journey home for a forty-third birthday party.
Holly’s phone buzzed and she looked at the screen, laughed and started typing rapidly with both thumbs.
Schooner looked at her quizzically and she shrugged and offered “Facebook,” as her explanation.
As if that explains it, he thought and tried to look over her shoulder at what she was typing.
“Dad!”
“Okay, okay.” Schooner held up his hands in surrender, smiled and continued on his journey for that single malt scotch.
Leaning up against the bar, he let the burn slide down his throat. Damn, that’s better than sex, he thought.
As he let the amber liquid warm his insides and calm his rapidly fraying nerves, Schooner thought to himself, I really need to join Facebook.