the girl who’s managed to turn Mikey’s head. I mean, there are a whole lot of women who’ve been trying to do that, but you’re the lucky one who finally made it happen.”
I have no idea what to say to that, and before I can think something up, she makes a quick left turn followed by a quick right. Seconds later, we pull into a driveway behind a dark-green minivan that looks an awful lot like the one I’m currently riding in.
“We’re here!” Angela announces triumphantly, and then she reaches over and adjusts my bow. “Ready to get your wine on?”
My stomach does the Cha Cha Slide for a million and one reasons—none of them good.
Chapter Fifteen
Angela practically frog marches me up the driveway to her friend’s house. “Don’t be nervous,” she says as we climb a porch that looks very much like mine is supposed to. “They’ll love you. Especially Christee—”
“Who’s Christee?” I ask.
Angela laughs. “My bestie, of course.”
She knocks on the door, then throws it open without waiting for her friend to answer—and we walk straight into a Pottery Barn catalog. Seriously.
And I’m shaken with envy. Not gonna lie. After spending a day surrounded by clutter, this is like a breath of fresh air. Everything perfectly matched and in its place. Nothing extra would dare invade this space. The only nod to personalized items is the enormous oil painting hanging over the fireplace of what is probably her and her husband and their five children of varying ages, magazines about parenting scattered on the large wooden coffee table, and random small, framed photos atop a short bookcase near the front door that features the family doing various activities together.
A birthday party. New puppy. Camping trip. School play. Paris.
I swallow the sudden lump in my throat. They took their kids to Europe.
I wrap my arms around my waist and stare at the picture, their grinning faces in front of the Eiffel Tower blurring as tears well in my eyes. Christee is living my anti-Karl life. The life I naively thought was mine for the taking if I didn’t make a fuss, did what was expected, made everyone comfortable.
I desperately want to go home now, but I know I won’t. A masochistic bitch has control of my body, and she greedily glances around with a macabre fascination to see what else I missed out on.
A woman whose hair is stick straight, parted down the middle, and as black as the mental hole I fell down rushes up to Angela and pulls her into a huge bear hug before leaning back again and giving me a wide, toothy smile.
“Wine or whiskey?” the grinning woman asks as she loops her arm through mine and guides me across the giant foyer.
My gut—obviously still horrified by last night’s bender—gurgles. “Water, please?”
“Water?” She raises an impeccably groomed eyebrow and smooths her fingertips over her shiny hair as if she needs a moment to process. “Tap or bottled or sparkling? Perhaps tonic with just a splash of vodka?”
“You two are going to love each other.” Angela squats down and scratches a mop dog who trails behind our host before standing back up and waving an arm between us. “Mallory, Christee. Christee, Mallory. And if she doesn’t want that vodka and tonic, I’ll take it.”
“Nice to meet you?” It comes out sounding way more like a question than I intended. But that’s only because Christee is dragging me down her picture-filled hallway like she’s a prison guard and I’m the most reluctant inmate in the yard—which, as I think about it, might be a fairly accurate summation of the situation.
As we make our way into the family room, my gaze widens at the massive kitchen in the open floor plan. It has enough French country decor to have been Julia Child’s wet dream. Christee snags a glass of white wine off the makeshift bar on the counter and hands it to me.
“It’s so light, it’s practically water,” she says with a wave of her hand.
After foisting the wine on me, she doesn’t even wait for me to take a sip before dragging me into the center of the family room where at least thirty women—not the fifteen or twenty Angela said might be here—are gathered.
“Everybody,” she says in a voice loud enough to be heard back in Manhattan. “This is Angie’s friend Mallory. She went to school in Brunswick with Angie back in… Well, we don’t talk about anything that could give away our age, now, do