I snorted. What a thinly veiled excuse. Ben didn’t care about passing the bill—he clearly only wanted the opportunity to embarrassmefor a change. And maybe there was some parallel universe in which I’d let him have this win—a universe where I had less pride, less ambition and a longer fuse. But that was not this universe. In this universe, there was no way I was letting Ben have it, no matter what I’d done to him five years ago.
“Fine.” I spun toward the door. “I take my coffee fair-trade, two sugars and piping hot. Might want to memorize it.”
“Piping hot?” Ben called. I could hear the smirk in his voice. “How does your ice-cold heart handle it?”
I slammed the door behind me like the seasoned diplomat I was.
4
Self-Care
There was nowhere in the world more soothing than the center table at Olive & Izzie’s on a Friday night, the string lights glowing in the palm trees, crowd thick and buzzing in the background, friends talking close around the table. One dirty martini down, the second sweating sexily in my hands, and the promise of more to come. It was enough to make you forget all your problems.
Well, it was enough to makemeforget all my problems.
“They’resharks,” Claire declared, banging her hands on the table and jostling our drinks. “Circling around, all cold-blooded. No, scratch that. They’re meerkats, popping up out of their holes to look at other moms, but never invite them in for a drink. They’re a cross between sharks and meerkats.”
“Shark-kats,” Zoey said, then stopped and smiled to herself. “That would be adorable.”
Claire was in high dramatics. “I’m practically throwing myself at them, and nothing. No invitations to their dumb parents’ association meetings and not a single mention that I volunteered to chair the pre-K variety show. I’m a busy, successful lawyer, for God’s sake. You’d think they’d want me in their mom crew. Are lawyers not cool anymore?”
“I’m sure they’re simply busy with their own lives and aren’t aware you want to be friends,” said Annie reasonably, stirring the straw of her spiked lemonade. “It’s been a while since you’ve had to put yourself out there. Maybe you’re a little rusty when it comes to making your intentions known.”
Claire frowned. “It has to be the lawyer thing. They all have these trendy, weird jobs. One of them is a child yoga instructor. Another’s a cartoonist and calligrapher—you should see the birthday invitations Mikey gets, like he’s the queen of England. Does calligrapher trump lawyer in Austin? I never should’ve moved back to this godforsaken hippie cesspool.”
“You’re just annoyed you finally found people who didn’t cave immediately to your usual tactics—shock, awe and bulldozing,” Mac said.
“I could read through contracts for them,” Claire grumbled, downing the rest of her old-fashioned. “You’d think that’d be a selling point.”
Mac eyed the guy sitting at the next table. “I’ll see your cool-girl moms and raise you my single-lady problems. I’ve officially run out of guys on Tinder, which means I’m actually going to have to meet someone by introducing myself in person. Which I don’t remember how to do. Either that, or I die alone. And poor Stoner here’s battling her jilted ex.”
I’d called this Friday-night Olive & Izzie’s quorum to fill them in on the latest Ben Laderman developments. As I’d hoped, I had their full sympathies for Ben’s assholery and their ardent assurances that I would, without a doubt, come out on top in our political death match. That, plus the martinis, was making me feel much more at ease with my predicament.
“There’s no use creating a problem hierarchy,” Annie said. “Everyone’s problems are relative. No one’s are more important than anyone else’s.”
I took Annie’s face in my hands and kissed her smack in the forehead. If therewasa problem hierarchy, Annie’s would sit on top, lording over us all. When I’d met her in grad school, Annie was engaged to Rick Song, a student at Dell Medical School she’d been dating for a solid decade. Her parents and Rick’s parents wereentwined.
Rick was nice and all, don’t get me wrong, but he was flat. And I always thought he left Annie flat, too—nothing too bad or too good ever happened between them. Annie was never angry at him, but she was also never particularly happy. I’d learned not to bring up my observations, because every time I did, Annie would wave me off, saying I just didn’t understand what a long-term relationship looked like. (Classic avoidance and denial, I see now.)
But internally it must have been a different story, because two years ago, right before they were supposed to be married, Annie shocked the world—but most of all the Park and Song families—by dumping Rick and running off with a woman named Beatrice, who was a barista at our favorite coffee shop. It was a particularly cool exit because Beatrice rode a sick motorcycle.
To say that Annie’s parents were furious was an understatement. For nearly a year they’d barely acknowledged her at family dinners and holidays, which must have been awkward as hell, even for the world’s most kind and diplomatic person, a title Annie held without competition. Lately, the frost had been slowly melting—which was a godsend, because Annie loved her family.
And she super-loved Zoey. After Beatrice, Annie had dated a few other people, until she met Zoey at the farmers’ market one Sunday morning and it was lights out, everyone else.
It was almost enough to make you believe in love. But then again, most love stories were adorable and romantic—until they weren’t. Someone had to be a pragmatist about it. And with the way Annie and Zoey were looking at each other over their empty cocktails, better me than them.
“All right,” I said, hopping to my feet. “If we’re going to wing-woman Mac tonight, everyone needs another drink.”
Mac pointed at me. “No made-up names, andnofake accents. It’s not as funny as you think it is.” She switched her finger to Claire. “And no making guys cry. I mean it this time.”
I smiled and ducked away, calling back over my shoulder, “Das is a hard promise to make,Fräulein!”
Mac’s loud groan—audible even over the crowd—was the perfect soundtrack to my entrance to the bar.
I sidled up to the counter, shivering in the late-September Austin air-conditioning, and nodded at Izzie, who was finishing someone’s drinks.
“Let me guess,” Izzie said, running a tattooed hand through her buzz cut. “Rye old-fashioned, dirty vodka martini, two spiked lemonades and a PBR.”
