February Flash #2 - "Booster" (Patreon)

Gramercy Tavern, Flatiron District, New York City

Valentine’s Day

Joanna’s dress is light blue with flowers on the top. It’s not the dress she was wearing when she arrived.

“Take a bite,” says Harry. “Come on, now. You were so hungry a few minutes ago.”

True. But Joanna was a lot of things a few minutes ago. Twenty six years older, for one thing. Sitting across from a different man, for another.

Joanna had been waiting for this day for weeks; a Valentine’s lunch at the Gramercy, followed by an afternoon of extra-marital fun at The Langham.

But none of that happened. Thanks to Harry’s private detective, tracking her every move. Joanna’s screws up her face, aghast at how easily she was found out.

Where did Chris go? Joanna considers the question as her husband feeds her a sliver of ham.

Oh yes. That’s right. Chris ran.

“No good?” Harry asks. He means the ham.

Spicy, she wants to say, even though she knows it isn’t. Her toddler tongue, betraying her finer sensibilities.

Chris ran as soon as Harry appeared, his wife’s lover dashed without dining. Joanna watched as Harry took his seat, looked down at the pink gin Martini and said, the barest trace of anger in his voice, “How romantic.”

Joanna’s own cocktail glass was empty. When she pled innocence with Harry, she could smell the gin and Cointreau on her breath.

“Why bother?” asked Harry calmly. “You did it. You promised you wouldn’t, and then you went and did it anyway.” His tone hardened. “With my best man.”

So Joanna didn’t bother. She stopped begging. She sighed, examined her polished and buffed fingernails and wondered if her lawyer could win her a no-fault divorce settlement. Something to keep their names out of the gossip columns. God knows, Harry wouldn’t want a fuss.

But Harry had other ideas, found at the bottom of the pink Martini. Abruptly hot-faced and queasy, Joanna rushed to the bathroom, and instead of puking, she shrank down until she was barely more than two years old.

Harry found her in a puddle of her opaque and sheer bodycon dress.

Bodycon? Body conscious. The type of dress that lets the wearer show off her fantastic body. Of course, Joanna doesn’t have a fantastic body anymore. She’s cute, but she’s toddler-cute. And so her husband won’t be spending $990 on Joanna’s next outfit. He’ll find more flowery dresses at H&M, Old Navy, and Target. It’ll be Cat and Jack, not Hervé Léger.

And, of course, the diapers to go with it. 

Harry looks at his wife, his toddler-sized wife, with paternal concern. “You’ve not touched your food.” He raises his eyebrows. “And I thought this place was your favorite!”

It was. Not anymore. Joanna has no appetite for the food she ordered just a few minutes earlier. The Green Market Stir-Fry was taken away, the monkfish with cauliflower sits neglected in front of her. Which is hardly surprising. Hardly bite-size, hardly toddler-friendly.

Joanna looks at her husband. “What are you going to do?” Meaning, What are you going to do with me?

Harry smiles. He’s friendly enough, now that he’s in control of the situation. Now that he has all the pieces.

“This,” he replies gently. “I’m the daddy, you’re the baby.”

“I’m not, though,” replies Joanna, blushing at the pitch of her voice. She may has well have inhaled from a helium balloon.

“You’ll forget,” says Harry. He opens his hand, shows the wedding ring that had fallen from Joanna’s shrinking fingers. “You’ll forget all of it. And we’ll be okay.”

He waves at their server. “Perhaps something more age appropriate?”

The woman nods. “Of course.”

No problem. Upscale restaurants don’t typically cater for toddlers, but the owner of the Gramercy Tavern has four kids of his own, which is why Joanna’s favorite romantic spot (well, formerly romantic) has a stroller check-in.

It’s also why the server is back in moments with milk and cookies for Harry’s little girl.

Joanna tries one of the cookies. It is warm and moist, and the chocolate chips are impossible not to enjoy as they melt on her tongue.

“Better?” Harry asks.

Joanna nods. She sits back in her booster.

She’ll eat cookies from now on. She’ll get fat, and like all toddlers, she’ll be forgiven for it.

She shrugs. And she reaches for another cookie.

THE END

A woman cheats on her husband and gets caught red handed on the date - Joseph