Mandy hated the irreverent, flirty, I-don’t-have-to-kiss-your-ass-because-I-know-you-have-a-crush-on-me way that Peaches always addressed Stu. It was so inappropriate. She was Ted’s school nurse. What was she trying to achieve anyway? It wasn’t passive aggressive, it was just aggressive. Peaches was a mind-fucker, but then again, so was she.

“What’s not a big deal?” Wendy Clarke trilled, picking up fallen paper napkins and discarded glasses as she moved toward them. She obviously got off on being a hostess. She was in high gear.

“Mandy doesn’t have MS,” Peaches explained flatly. “Sorry, Mandy, your husband told me a while ago. People come into the nurse’s office and they say things. It’s weird. It’s like I’m Lucy in the Peanuts cartoons, in my little shrink’s hut, waiting for people to unload their problems.” She tugged on the zipper of her leather jacket. “And their lice.”

Stuart ran his fingers through his hair. He felt ganged-up on. This was supposed to be a big confrontation with his wife. He wished the other women would just butt out.

“When I was in fifth grade, I told everyone I had a sister who was sick at home, just like in Little Women. I kept the lie up all the way through middle school,” Wendy said. She’d just remembered this.

“We’re lighting it, Wendy. Is that all right?” Roy shouted from the other side of the garden. Tupper held a Zippo lighter beneath Guy’s feet.

“I’ve never read any of my husband’s books. Not one. He has no idea,” Wendy blurted out. “Also, I got fired from my job and never told him.”

Mandy giggled. “Wendy!”

Wendy took Mandy’s beer and finished it. “That bonfire is never going to light. We need gasoline or something.”

“Vodka,” Peaches said, and snorted.

“Ted would love to light it,” Mandy said. It was such a relief having Wendy and Peaches there to diffuse the tension. Stuart was too distracted to be angry anymore.

“Where is Ted?” he said.

“You know, my husband, Greg, is dying to meet you,” Peaches told him disparagingly. “He’s a musician. He wants to make a kids’ album with you.”

“Oh yeah?” Stuart wasn’t sure if he was just pretending to be interested or if he was actually interested. How could he make a kids’ album when his mind was so fucking full of fucking pissed-off expletives, bitch?

“Here we go!”

With a fiery whoosh the Guy burst into flames, crackling and burning thrillingly fast. The orange features of his face disappeared first, then his heavy blond wig, his shiny gray suit. Soon he was just blackened twigs hanging from a smoldering rope, and the picnic table, door, and chairs were alight.