BooksBarbecue
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Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Cast of Characters
  7. Part One
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Part Two
  28. Twenty
  29. Twenty-one
  30. Twenty-two
  31. Twenty-three
  32. Twenty-four
  33. Twenty-five
  34. Twenty-six
  35. Twenty-seven
  36. Twenty-eight
  37. Twenty-nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-one
  40. Thirty-two
  41. Thirty-three
  42. Thirty-four
  43. Thirty-five
  44. Thirty-six
  45. Thirty-seven
  46. Thirty-eight
  47. Thirty-nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-one
  50. Forty-two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-four
  53. Forty-five
  54. Forty-six
  55. A note on the Author

I asked her to stay the next night and she did. It turned into a week. She was in my house right through the holidays. We didn’t go out on New Year’s Eve. We went out the day after Christmas to buy food and toilet paper. I bought her some clothes and a toothbrush because her credit card was maxed out. She made a big deal about swearing on her life to pay me back. I don’t really care. It’s all Scott’s money. I don’t feel guilty about spending his money. It’s like war reparations. He owes me serious cash for the shit he put me through.

I gave her a bunch of my own underwear. That was funny. I mean, it really was funny: this cuckold, this sex bomb, my husband’s mistress borrowing my panties. I gave her the nicest ones, too. Beautiful silks and laces that Scott had bought me in France. Now why did I do that? I was being nice and I wasn’t being nice. I was so relieved to be free of him and free of the struggle to be sexual and she was the one who took all that worry away for me. I wanted to be sure that when she finally walked out my front door, the lace and silk, the chore of sexual allure went with her.

I liked her right away, I really did. I liked her crazy, newborn-chicken haircut. I liked her half-moon eyebrows, stupid laugh, bitten fingernails. I liked the timbre of her voice and the way that she smelled. As screwed up as she was on all those awful pills and also, I’d guess, a good amount of alcohol, she still smelled of figs. Who smells of figs? I thought that was great! So undeserved, too! As if she’d worked out with free weights, showered, loofa’d, and scrubbed before meeting me in Prada, prearranged and in perfect time. Instead of turning up unexpected, dragging snow through the store, a wild-eyed loon with claret-stained lips.

Liking her so much, I remembered what Scott and I had in common. I remembered that we shared the same tastes. It reminded me of the times he’d bring home a couple of head shots and ask me to pick which girl would be most believable for the role of a spirited lion tamer and who would make a good suburban cheerleader with a dark secret. I knew he was fucking all of them. I knew it.