September 5

“Okay, everybody’s done.” Delaney is sitting cross-legged, rocking from side to side to scoot herself farther back against the couch. “Read the answers, Kel.” We’re playing Loaded Questions. It’s not even the adult version, but we’re making it inappropriate whenever we can, because that’s what we do. Be crude, eat, and drink.

Kelly peers at us sternly from behind her sexy librarian glasses. “I will, but guys, we have to watch the noise level. It’s a bitch trying to get Maura back to sleep when she wakes up.”

“We’ll be good,” Amanda assures her, holding up two fingers in the sign for peace. “Lesbian’s honor.”

“Did you seriously just make a vag symbol? Like V for vagina?” Laney is incredulous.

“I totally did.” Amanda flashes us a triumphant grin, and we all burst out in the kind of snickery giggles that even the threat of waking up toddlers can’t suppress. Kelly tries to glare at us, but even she can’t keep from laughing.

It hits me that this is the first time I’ve laughed, really laughed, since Jack. I’ve been in survival mode these past few weeks. It’s like I’m in a time warp—not moving forward, stuck in what feels like a big pile of sludge, my senses dulled so that food is tasteless, music doesn’t move me...I’ve been going through the motions with no real sense of what day it is, hoping my mechanical smile at work will be convincing. I’m quite confident Angie and Jordan are on to me.

Kelly leans over in her chair to the end table so she can see the video baby monitor and then clasps her hands in mock prayer. “Thank God. They’re both still sleeping. I know this is a sucky place to do a girls’ night, but with Scott on his business trip and me not being able to find a sitter...”

Delaney shushes her. “No need to explain. I think it’s great that we’re all here, except for Jordan, who ditched us for her title attorney. Again.”

“Ah, she’s in love,” smiles Kelly. “You’d do the same thing.”

“Well, we’ll never know, seeing as that’s never going to happen.”

“Never say never, Laney,” Kelly winks. “Someone might come along and sweep you off your feet.”

“Nope. I like my feet on solid ground, thanks. Can we get back to the game?”

“Sorry, yes.”

“Maddie’s guessing who said what. Here’s the question again: what’s your favorite kind of candy?” Delaney picks up the slips of paper with our answers and begins to read each one. “Suckers...anything chocolate...cream-filled...and eye.”

We start giggling again, I match all of the answers correctly, the girls give me high-fives, and we take a snack and beer break in the kitchen.

“I am so glad I took the night off,” Amanda sighs, sliding onto a stool at the high-top table and reaching for the peanut dish. “I’ve been working way too much. My new assistant manager is young and eager—it’s so sweet, really—and you woulda thought I was signing over the restaurant when I asked her to cover for me.”

“Aw, that’s cute,” says Kelly. “Take full advantage before she becomes jaded like you.”

“Oh, don’t worry—I plan to. And speaking of the restaurant business...Mads, I know I’ve said this before, but you’d kick some major ass as a chef. You’re fucking slaying this party with the apps you brought. Butternut squash apple bruschetta...mmm, I wish you were mine,” she says, waggling her thick eyebrows.

“Don’t forget her pumpkin pie dippers.” Kelly takes one off the plate. “When I said bring a snack to share, Maddie, I meant one. Uno. Singular.”

“You know how I like to cook. No big deal,” I tell her. “Plus, I need the focus.”

“I’m still mad at that handyman, but the silver lining is more food for us.” Kelly is smiling until she realizes I’m not. “Oh, fuck, Madeline—that was mean, wasn’t it? I’m sorry.”

“Get me another Pumpkinhead and I’ll forgive you. No rum this time, though.”

Kelly blows me a kiss as she takes my glass, rubs an orange slice around the rim and then turns it over in the plate of cinnamon sugar. She hands it back to me, refilled, her eyes soft with sympathy that I really don’t want. I can feel the others looking at me, unspoken questions and comments glittering in the air like dust in sunlight.

Oh, what the hell. I’ll go there. It’ll be less painful if I initiate it.

“So first of all, I’m okay, I’m functioning. People have been through a lot worse. And it wasn’t even like I was with him for six months or anything. I mean, technically, I wasn’t even with him, right?”

They are nodding hesitantly, not sure if I want them to agree or disagree with me. I don’t know, either.

“Right,” Kelly says slowly, as if she’s measuring her words, “but it was intense, and there was a lot packed into that time. So it isn’t surprising that you’d be really affected by breaking up. And you said the sex was amazing.”

“Yes. But it was more than sex.”

They slide knowing glances toward each other. I probably shouldn’t have said that. “The whole thing, though—it wasn’t rational. Relationships should unfold more gradually, shouldn’t they?”

“I don’t think that’s necessarily true, sweetness,” Amanda says, her round brown eyes warm and kind. “There are all kinds of relationships—whirlwind, slow burn, friends to lovers...who’s to say if one is better than the other?”

“’Manda’s right,” Laney nods. “My grandparents have been together almost sixty years, and my grandfather proposed three weeks after they met. So it can happen.”

“When you know, you know,” Kelly adds, giving me a gentle, anxious smile.

“I thought I knew with Paul, and look how that turned out.”

Laney holds up her hand. “As your BFF from college, I have to disagree. You were on the fence even a few days before your wedding, remember? Your cold feet must have been trying to tell you something.”

“You’re saying that I should have listened to my feet?”

“Yup.”

“I think she’s saying that if you had really loved him, you would have felt it everywhere.” Kelly’s eyes mist over. “That happened when I fell in love with Scott. I loved him with every part of me.”

Delaney grins, her blue eyes lightening with mischief. “Does that include your shinbones? Ear lobes? Armpits?”

The rest of us are snickering, but Kelly is undaunted. “Yes, beeyotch. Every molecule of my being fell totally in love with him. And he can still make me weak in the knees, when he winks at me or puts his hand on the back of my neck or whispers dirty things to me, and believe me, when you’re knee-deep in potty-training and Play-Doh...”

Play-Doh. Jack.

“...you need to be totally in love, so it can pull you out of the day-to-day stuff and remind you of the nights.” She sighs. “Fuck that he’s on the business trip, because I’d be going upstairs right now and riding him like he was a stallion.”

“Bottom line, you got rid of Paul who turned out to be a prick, and you enjoyed getting hot and heavy with your handyman.” Delaney smiles at me encouragingly. “You’ll always have those memories.”

“Yes on the memories, but sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of Paul.”

“Wha-a-t? Don’t tell me he’s still contacting you.” Kelly looks indignant. “He’s got some nerve, seeing as it was him who wanted to end the marriage in the first place!”

“My God, he’s like a shit that won’t flush,” Laney exclaims.

Amanda flexes her left arm and smacks her bicep. “Just say the word, Maddie. I’ll pound the crap out of him.”

“That’s tempting, but it’s not like he’s stalking me or anything—just texting and calling me every so often and saying he wants to talk. He doesn’t seem to get that I don’t care what he has to say, that I’m over him. I think it’s partly due to the fact he’s no longer with his mistress, and he doesn’t do the alone thing very well. Hopefully he’ll stop soon, or find someone else. It’s not going to be me.”

“You may have to really confront him, Mads—like a come to Jesus meeting.” Laney sighs as she takes a sip of beer. “I hope it doesn’t get to that point, but he’s being pretty persistent.”

“I’ve thought of that. I’ll cross that bridge when—if—I come to it.”

“With the exception of Kelly’s husband...” Laney winks at her. “...men are ignorant. I’m surrounded by pigs at work, Maddie’s ex can’t take a hint, and her contractor needs someone to pick up a 2 x 4 and knock some sense into him. I seriously feel lucky to be single.”

I feel like I want to defend Jack. “I agree with you about Paul. But Jack made it clear from the beginning how it had to be. I went into it with my eyes wide open.”

“I know. I just can’t stand that you’re hurting. Makes me hate everyone with a penis.”

“I could never hate Jack.” I don’t know if it’s the three beers I’ve had, or PMS, or the warm sympathy I feel from my friends enveloping me like a soft blanket, but before I can stop it, tears spring to my eyes. I blink them back viciously.

“I don’t know if anyone told you, pumpkin,” Amanda says, leaning over the table to squeeze my hand, “but there’s no crying at girls’ night.”

I sniff and laugh and sniff again, and thankfully the talk shifts to safe things like binge-watching One Tree Hill, Kelly’s mother-in-law, if we should go to a paint-and-sip. For now, I tuck away thoughts of Jack like I’m packing a prom corsage in a memorabilia box, knowing that whenever I want, I can take out a memory and hold it, faded but still beautiful.