Where the F is Freddie
Synopsis
Married couples often keep secrets from each other. But what happens when they’re keeping the same secret?
For years, Paula fantasized her daughter, Freddie, would unseal her birth records and show up at the door like in a weepy TikTok reel. Hi Mom. Yet in spite her hopes, Paula has never told anyone she gave her baby up for adoption. So, how angry can she get when evidence mounts that her husband, Marty, may also have a secret daughter. But in this case the girl’s whereabouts are not a mystery because she grew up in Paula and Marty’s home and was treated, well, like family. And why wouldn’t she be when her mother and Paula are best friends? Oy is right. Trouble is if Paula demands the truth about who they really are as a family (their photo albums are a lie!), her carefully constructed lies will also unravel.
Then an unexpected tip leads Paula to Freddie’s door, and she must either accept her biggest failings or face her biggest fears. What if Freddie rejects her for abandonment or makes impossible demands to meet? What if she is… Republican? In this tender, relatable story, a woman who never expected to bomb at marriage or motherhood must reckon from failing at both. She must also resolve the question if she is looking for her daughter or looking for herself.
WHERE THE F IS FREDDIE (91,000 words) is contemporary women’s fiction with a mystery thread mashing a dicey SANDWICH with the dark humor of LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE. The novel continues my themes of family drama, friendship and awful decision making, following A LITTLE HELP FROM ABOVE, CLARE VOYANT, FATE AND MS. FORTUNE and DEAR NEIGHBOR, DROP DEAD, published by Avon/HarperCollins
Excerpt
Post-menopausal Paula stared at the Instagram ad on her phone and was annoyed by the nerve of strangers to ask which childhood traumas gave her anxiety. Was it rejection, betrayal or neglect? Perhaps humiliation? Try “D” for all of the above, she thought. Still, she was weary of the carnival barkers with fake names that promised miracle cures for anything that ailed her. How lucky to have discovered trusted methods like holistic therapy (Breathe!). Cognitive Behavioral therapy (Journal!). And her favorite, watermelon weed gummies (ZZZZ!).
Yet after holding for twenty-six minutes to speak to a human at her insurance company, not even gummies could regulate her overstimulated vagus nerves. She needed to know why they denied her husband’s medical claims, not listen to menu options that recently changed.
After pouring her second cup of the morning, or was it her third, she sat at the maple dinette she inherited after her mother retired to Florida. The nerve of Goodwill to reject the generous donation due to a slight wobble yet Paula was not deterred. She squeezed the large table into her cozy kitchen, stuck matchbooks under the legs and claimed the chair with the view of her prize-winning vegetable garden. Then she peered out the sliders and flinched at the wilted mess — a victim of poor hydration and neglect.
Much like herself.
Gone were the days she had energy for a twenty-mile bike ride. Hello to zipping her jeans and hoping the Pillsbury Dough Boy didn’t ooze out. But if she dwelled on her year from hell, in which her mother-in-law, Evelyn, died tragically and her husband, Marty, suffered multiple injuries in a cycling crash, her ADHD brain would hyper focus on her crappy luck.
Paula groaned from the repetitious on-hold music. A disturbing cacophony of piano and violins that would make it hard for a representative in India to subdue a wild woman’s rant.
Your call is very important to us.
“Then pick up the damn phone.”
Did you know you can find the status of your claim by visiting our website?
“Did you know you can go fuck yourself?”
We are experiencing higher than normal call volume.
“I am experiencing higher than normal rage. Live agent. Human being. SPEAK TO A REPRESENTATIVE!!!!”
The sound of talking heads on the Today show tempered her wrath as she looked up at the TV. “Dr. Golden, tell us how hypnotherapy helps people suffering from anxiety. And is it true it also examines past lives?” Great news, Paula! We discovered why you have panic attacks.
With the world at her fingertips, she Googled Reyna Golden and hoped virtual visits were an option. Then her office address flashed on the screen and Paula thought she might be hallucinating. Did it say the woman’s office was located in White Plains? She could leave her home in Scarsdale and arrive in fifteen minutes. Twelve if she ran the yellows.
Paula jotted the address on the back of an envelope and did a hallelujah. She was unfamiliar with hypnotherapy, but in her wildest fantasy it was akin to playing the home game of general anesthesia. A way to put herself into a trance never snap out of it.
And how serendipitous to catch the interview when her insecurities were constant companions. Once upon a time she was fearless in pursuit of her pilot’s license. Now she couldn’t force open a bottle of liquid soap without jabbing a knife through the center. If only she’d known this was the decade her hormones and inertia would vanish like a missing plane.
As she stood to stretch, her lanky eagle-spanned arms nearly knocked over the pile of supplements on the table. A probiotic for gut health. Collagen and peptides to stop her hair from falling out. Magnesium Oxide so she pooped every day. Glucosimane and Chondroitin for aching joints. Fish Oil for she couldn’t remember why. And two recent additions, Black Seed oil and Shilajit, which claimed to be the secret longevity weapons of Himalayan monks.
Between the annoying on-hold music and the neighbor’s leaf blower raging, she nearly missed the text alert.
JUDITH: Starbucks at 2? The new one next to BJ’s???
Paula couldn’t text fast enough. Yes and Yes.
JUDITH: Bring my sweater if you don’t want it.
PAULA: Didn’t fit right
JUDITH: Thought it looked nice but happy to donate
Oy. Where did she stash the bag with the hot pink sweater she wouldn’t wear if she was cast in a Barbie sequel? And though Paula knew it was generous of her best friend to give away designer hand-me-downs sizing was a concept her petite friend failed to grasp.
As she hunted for Judith’s bag, she realized her phone went silent. What happened to the music? The suggestions to listen to their privacy policy? “No!” She wailed. “Nooo!!!” The call got dropped! They’re lucky she couldn’t answer their stupid satisfaction survey.
Paula didn’t mean to slam her phone or genuflect like a Himalayan monk, but clearly, she should pray the glass hadn’t cracked. Thankfully whichever Gods the monks believed in were compassionate enough to answer her plea. Unlike the insurance company that couldn’t even answer a fucking phone.
Marty limped into the kitchen. Several surgeries and months of rehab improved his gait, but this once rugged, competitive athlete had a long way to go before fully recovering from a cycling crash. “What’s going on?”
“The damn insurance company left me on hold forever and then dropped the call.”
Marty opened the pantry. “Try again later… Damn! We’re out of Peanut Butter Puffins.”
Paula squeezed her eyes. No matter how hard she tried to navigate their daily challenges, he always found a way to demean her. “Cereal got so expensive.”
“Yet we never run out of coffee.”
Decisions, decisions. Escalate the tension or sympathize with his daily challenges. His difficulty managing the stairs in their home. His cognitive impairment from a brain injury. His dependence on their twenty-year-old twins, Eli and Noah, to run their athletic shoe shop until they returned to school in August. She held her fire because it was more important to ask why he was still lounging in boxers and a t-shirt at eleven AM. He should be up and out.
“I’m meeting Judith at Starbucks soon. Want to come?” Please, please, please say no.
“You saw her yesterday. What’s left to talk about?”
“The high cost of cereal and the plight of the Sudanese people.”
Marty lowered his readers. “The only way Judith is familiar with Sudan is if it has a Bloomingdales. What do you actually talk about?”
How much you’ve been an asshole. “Lady parts and menopause.”
“Pass,” Marty said.
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