BooksBarbecue
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Chapters (45)
  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. CHAPTER ONE
  6. CHAPTER TWO
  7. CHAPTER THREE
  8. CHAPTER FOUR
  9. CHAPTER FIVE
  10. CHAPTER SIX
  11. CHAPTER SEVEN
  12. CHAPTER EIGHT
  13. CHAPTER NINE
  14. CHAPTER TEN
  15. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  16. CHAPTER TWELVE
  17. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  19. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  22. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  23. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. Permissions Acknowledgments
  44. Also by Wendy Wasserstein
  45. Copyright Page

Barry’s phone rang as he was about to leave. He looked at the number this time and didn’t recognize it. Fuckin’ asshole doctor. He was going to tell him to only call the office or he’d sue him for malpractice. But then Barry felt a shooting pain down his leg.

“Yep,” he answered.

“Barry, it’s me, Samantha, I was just checking that you’re all right.” Her voice was breathless.

“I’m going to Aspen in half an hour,” he answered bluntly without any sense of surprise.

“Aspen?” She didn’t quite know what else to say.

“I won’t let those motherfuckers ruin my holiday. Are you coming?”

“Barry, we haven’t spoken in almost a year. Would you like to know how I am?”

“Goddammit, Samantha!” he shouted. “Are you coming or are you going to wait for some other motherfucking lunatic to blow us up.”

“I can be there in an hour,” she heard herself say before she had even thought about it.

“Ten minutes. Julian will pick you up.” Then Barry hung up on her.

He felt another shooting pain, this time near his rib. Goddamn doctors. They have no real power, so they hold on to every sadistic morsel they can get their hands on. It’s like that pathetic wimp who was married to Samantha. He spent his life flattering ridiculous rich women like Judy Tremont and poking botulism in their faces. It’s just like blowing up innocent people at Starbucks. No balls.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

·CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE·

Samantha

Samantha threw three sweaters and two pairs of jeans into her overnight bag. She grabbed her Susan Ciminelli moisturizer and Hermès pill bag—she had been having trouble sleeping recently and just in case kept a supply of Ambien and Sonata, plus the Wellbutrin her therapist had recently recommended.

Although Samantha grew up loving to ski at places like Saint-Moritz and Gstaad, she never really liked American ski resorts. And it didn’t matter to her if it was Aspen, Telluride, Jackson Hole, or Sun Valley. In every one of them she thought there were too many New York money managers and Hollywood producers wearing Indian belts and cowboy boots. She personally had never developed a taste for turquoise jewelry and associated it with divorced women from Scarsdale who moved to Santa Fe to follow their muse.

Samantha’s father had been on the ski team at Williams, and since childhood she always had a graceful ease on the slopes. But Charlie worked so hard at skiing that Samantha started resenting the sport altogether. For years Samantha lied to Charlie, saying she had never liked skiing and had done it only for her father. But the truth was skiing made Charlie seem pathetic in her eyes. With Barry, however, Samantha believed it would be completely different. He wouldn’t even attempt to ski. He had a house in Aspen because everyone else had a house in Aspen.