On the Rocks (32 page)

“Well, yeah. It’s just an easier way to talk to people, plus you can tell from the kind of pictures girls post what their personalities are like. You can see if you have mutual friends, stuff like that.”

“Oh, you can? So if I had posted pictures of myself half-naked, you’d have assumed I was a slut, or if there were pictures of me with a dozen cats crawling all over me, you’d have assumed I was crazy. Is that right?” I didn’t let him answer. “So what did my not having any pictures at all tell you? That I’m afraid of flash photography? What?”

“No, I assumed that you were super-shy or something.”

“Yeah, well, you read that wrong,” I scoffed. Maybe I used to be, to be fair, but not anymore. Shy Abby was so June.

“You’ve made that clear. I’d have thought you were less crazy if you had the cat pictures up there to be honest. Are we done here?”

“Yeah, we’re done. I’m sorry if I took up too much of your time. I’m sure you have a very hot date with a bottle of peroxide or a girl to investigate on Facebook and I wouldn’t want to keep you from that.”

“I’m sorry if my not calling you made you . . . I don’t know, nuts.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, it didn’t. You don’t have to run home and check your stove to make sure that your bunny’s not boiling. See, since we’re being so honest with each other here, I should let you know that I don’t give a shit about you [true], and I never gave a shit about you [partially true]. I was just wondering if there was a reason why you never called when you said you would. And now that I know for certain that Facebook is out to get me, I’ll sleep much better tonight, so thank you.”

“You’re not normal, you know that?” he said, dismissing me.

“Yeah, I’ve known that for a long time, but thanks for weighing in.”

I grabbed the food off the bar and all but skipped out of there.

T
HE WORLD IS COMING TO
an end, Bobby was right,” I said as I placed the plastic bags on the floor in the kitchen.

“Please don’t tell me that,” Grace said from her perch on the end of the armchair. “He’s been weighing in on my life too, and if it turns out that he actually knows what he’s talking about, I’m going to have to kill myself.”

“Why?” Lara asked as she flipped through the channel guide on the TV.

“Grace has some problems with her boyfriend. The timing is off,” I said diplomatically. It wasn’t my place to tell Lara anything about Grace’s situation. One thing I had learned over the last few months was the importance of privacy and the knowledge that your friends will keep their mouths shut when they’re supposed to.

“I’m sorry,” Lara said, finally finding something on the cooking channel and tossing the remote back on the table. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. But Abby is being polite. To say it’s bad timing to fall in love with a married man is kind of a huge understatement. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Lara asked, understandably confused and, well, appalled.

Grace sighed and dropped the newspaper she was reading on the floor. “Long story short, Lara, my boyfriend was married, now he’s separated, she didn’t take it well, and she called me at the office and ripped me to pieces. Not one of my finer moments, but I’ve made my peace with it. The things we do for love, huh?” Grace had gone from being horridly depressed after that phone call to just numb. I understood that it was her way of handling the reality that her actions had deeply hurt another woman, but to someone who hadn’t been along for the entire roller-coaster ride of her relationship, I guess she sounded a little nonchalant about the whole thing. I knew that wasn’t the case, but everyone has their defense mechanisms.

“Your boyfriend is married?” Lara asked, shocked. I suddenly felt the mood in the room change, and not for the better. This was not how I wanted this girl bonding session to start. I needed a lovefest. I needed to reenact the part where I told him never to contact me again, and add in all the other things I could have said if I had thought of them.

“Yup. Lucky me, huh?” Grace sighed.

“How could you be okay with that?”

“He made a mistake that he’s most likely going to be paying for one way or another for the rest of his life, and so will I. Believe me, I’m not okay with it in the slightest, but when you love someone, you forgive just about anything.”

“It’s disgusting. It’s wrong. It’s immoral,” Lara said. I looked up and half-expected her to be dousing Grace with Holy Water or hanging cloves of garlic around her neck. This was not good.

“The guy knows he fucked up, believe me,” Grace said.

“My problem isn’t with him. It’s with you,” Lara said, pointing her finger dangerously close to Grace’s face.

Didn’t see that one coming. I stopped unloading the ribs and stood frozen in the kitchen.

Uh-oh.

“Me?” Grace asked.

“Do you have so little respect for the institution of marriage that you have no problem coming between a man and his wife?” Lara’s voice had elevated, and now she was actually screaming.

Uh-oh.

“She knew the marriage was over long before I entered the picture. Now that he’s told her it’s really over, she’s not taking it well. Not that I blame her, but at this point their marriage is just a piece of paper. Wait, why am I even answering this question?” Grace asked, switching from defense to offense.

Uh-oh.

“It’s not just a piece of paper.” Lara stood and stared Grace down. I guess I should’ve realized that, as a married woman, she’d have some pretty strong opinions on the subject, but I underestimated her passion, her vehemence, and, well, her balls to weigh in so heavily on someone else’s personal life. Especially someone she barely knew. It was clear that this was very, very bad. Like
Exxon Valdez
bad. Like Chernobyl bad. Like
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
bad.

“I really don’t think this is any of your business, Lara. I don’t even know your last name, so who are you to preach to me about my morals? The only reason you’re here is because Abby invited you over to hang out, not to give me an ethics lesson.”

So much for my quiet afternoon with fattening food. This was quickly going the way of
Jerry Springer,
and I really didn’t want them to start cracking chairs over each other’s heads. I was counting on getting our security deposit back.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe that woman has feelings? That she’s sitting at home trying to make a nice life for him and raise his children, and you have the gall to bitch about the fact that the timing’s been bad for
you?
”

“Yes, I’ve thought about it. It’s all I’ve been thinking about lately.” Grace’s voice rose as she tried to defend herself. “You don’t even know me. Why the hell do you care?”

“You guys, let’s not get into this now. We’ve all done things in life we regret.” It was my best attempt to restore order from the kitchen. Pathetic, I know.

“I care on behalf of married women everywhere,” Lara yelled, putting her bony hands on her even bonier hips.

“So you’re the spokeswoman for married people now?” Grace asked.

“Yes, for women who have had their marriages ruined by women like you. My personal life is a mess . . . and it’s your fault!”

Uh-oh. I didn’t see that coming either. Or have the slightest idea of what she was talking about.

“I’m sorry, what?” Grace asked, understandably wondering if Lara was having some kind of out-of-body experience or seeing things. Or more accurately, people.

“I’d like to go on the record here as saying that I’m only aware of Grace having one affair, and it’s not with your husband,” I said.

God that sounded stupid.

“I can’t believe you knew about this, Abby. How could you possibly support this? This whole time you’ve been telling me how hurt you were in your breakup and you’re still friends with someone who is putting someone else through hell?”

“Grace is my best friend. Of course I knew about it. And what does this have to do with me? I’m alone, remember?” For once that was actually going to come in handy.

“She’s my best friend, she’s supposed to be supportive, yes,” Grace snapped.

“There’s a name for girls like you, you know,” Lara said.

I really didn’t like where this was going.

“Oh, is there? Girls like me, huh? Okay, I didn’t realize you were the fucking Virgin Mary over there,” Grace said as she stood to face her.

“Does anyone want nachos?” I asked, holding up a container of salsa. I hoped fattening food would comfort them, the way it had me for most of the last year. I found there were few things that empty calories couldn’t fix.

“No, I’m not pretending to be the Virgin Mary, but I do understand the scorned wife pretty well. My husband left me for his secretary. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t feel sorry that you don’t get to see him on Friday nights.”

Okay, I might have just found one. Nachos weren’t going to cut it. All of a sudden I had a flashback to Lara’s comment about how she used to joke that her husband was all work and no play. She must have wanted to die when she realized that he had found a way to combine the two and that it wasn’t his paperwork keeping him late at the office.

“Guacamole? Anyone?” I asked.

“Enough, Abby!” Grace yelled.

“Lara, I’m so sorry. I had no idea things were that bad.” I sighed. “I can’t believe I’ve been bothering you with my pointless problems when you’ve been dealing with the end of your marriage. You must have wanted to smack me. I feel so stupid,” I admitted as I gave up hope that nachos would be the answer to all of our oh so serious problems. I had so wanted us all to be friends, and now I was pretty sure they were going to kill each other.

“Well, now that you do, what does that do to your view of what she’s doing?”

“I don’t really want to get involved in this,” I said.

“It’s too late for that, Abby. You’re already involved in this,” Lara said.

“Huh? How’d that happen? All I did was pick up the ribs.” Which were getting cold, but I didn’t think it was appropriate to start eating lunch when a catfight was about to bust out in the living room. I was not good at mediation, and I knew it. Where was Bobby when you needed him?

I couldn’t believe I just thought that.

“Abby, you’re friends with the other woman!” Lara squawked, like being Grace’s friend was some kind of crime.

“I usually refer to her as Grace,” I joked. No one laughed.

“That makes you almost as bad. You’re the . . . other woman’s other woman.”

“I’m no one’s woman!” I yelled in exasperation. Again, odd that that’d be a bonus point.

“Leave her out of this,” Grace snapped. “You think you’re going to turn her against me? Do you have any idea how good a friend I’ve been to her? Do you think other people would have listened to her bitch and moan and cry for the better part of the year the way I did? I should get a medal for being the best friend on earth, which you would know if you actually bothered to get to know someone before you passed judgment on them.”

“That’s true,” I admitted, hoping Lara would realize that Grace’s one bad decision didn’t define her. “Without Grace, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten over everything that happened. I was getting dangerously close to outgrowing my fat pants.”

“I just can’t believe that you’ve had the nerve to complain about your situation, like you’re the victim in this whole thing! How could you actually expect us to have sympathy for you?” Lara screamed.

“I made a mistake. I don’t think that means I should be dragged out back and flogged.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” I whispered, staring at the wilting nachos, trying to figure out how to rescue them from their now-soggy state and how to restore peace between my friends.

But mostly I wanted to fix the nachos. I didn’t want anything to do with this argument.

“That’s what you have to say? ‘Everyone makes mistakes’? We women are supposed to stick together. I thought you appreciated that more than anyone, Abby. I can’t believe either of you. I’m sorry, I have to go.” Lara jammed her feet into her flip-flops and headed for the door.

“Lara, wait. I know this is awkward, and I don’t blame you for being upset, but Grace isn’t your husband’s secretary.”

“I’m no one’s secretary, I’m a lawyer,” Grace said smugly. It was bad enough Lara was attacking her character, she wasn’t about to let her disbar her as well.

“Not now, Grace,” I hissed.

“You don’t get it. You haven’t been married, so you can’t understand,” Lara snapped. Here we go again, playing the married card. I was waiting for the day when it was “you haven’t been married, so you don’t know how to clean out closets,” or, “you haven’t been married, you don’t know how to cook a chicken.” The fact that I actually don’t know how to cook a chicken is completely irrelevant.

“I’m so sorry for what happened to you,” I said, hoping that my understanding (even though I’d never been married) would somehow keep Lara from having the nervous breakdown she was clearly heading toward. “I think it’s amazing that you had the strength to walk away and start over and rebuild your life. You’ve done everything I’ve had such a hard time doing.”

“Too bad Johnny’s wife isn’t more like you,” Grace added. “My life would be a hell of a lot easier.”

“Not now, Grace!” I snapped.

“And I’m sure that’s what his wife is worried about. How to make your life easier.”

Lara blew through the front door with such force I was afraid she’d ripped a hole in the screen. Grace and I stared at each other in shock. I felt awful for Lara and understood her rage, but Grace was my friend, and I wasn’t going to abandon her for being stupid. If she’d done that to me, I’d have lost her long ago. Before either of us said a word, Wolf and Bobby walked into the living room, holding a large plastic bag of freshly filleted striped bass. “Hey, girls,” Wolf said as he threw the bag in the fridge. “We had an amazing time on the water. I caught spotted bass!”

“Striped bass,” Bobby said. “If you’d caught spotted bass, we’d have to call the FDA.”

“Oh, sorry, right,” Wolf said. “Anyway, they’re going to be yummy.”