Keeping Secrets in Seattle - By Brooke Moss Page 0,6
myself up and followed her. “Well, they made up. And now he’s marrying her.”
Kim opened the freezer and presented me with a container of ice cream and a spoon. “The bastard really proposed to her?”
“She’s all wrong for him.” I peeled the lid off the fudge ice cream and climbed onto the stationary bike we had in the corner of our living room. “Good Lord, she’s a poster child for eating disorders. And she’s such a…snob. A snoot, too.”
“I think that’s the same thing.” Betsy never took her eyes off the television screen. She and Kim were watching a rerun of Little House on the Prairie when I’d barreled through the apartment door and made a beeline for the bathroom.
“Wait, wait. Didn’t you tell me she volunteers in a soup kitchen?” Kim asked.
Betsy pushed up her glasses. “And reads to blind people in an old folks’ home?”
I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. “Ugh. Who cares? She’s horrid. Nobody’s caught on to it yet, that’s all.”
When my roommates exchanged a raised-eyebrow glance riddled with doubt, I added, “Do you know what she had to drink at the dinner tonight? A cup of hot water with a lemon slice. She looked right at her future mother-in-law, who was standing there with a bottle of Taittinger, and asked for a cup of hot water with lemon. What, is she seventy-three years old? Is she saving her voice to sing the national anthem tomorrow? Is she freakin’ Aretha Franklin or something?”
Kim snorted. “Well, maybe she’s thin and frail because she’s actually an old lady in disguise, and one of your stepdad’s best Botox patients.”
I almost chuckled. My most recent stepdad, Curtis, was my mother’s fourth husband, and the one who’d stuck around the longest. I’d never be sure if my mom kept him around because he was the love of her life or because she got free face-lifts. It didn’t matter. Curtis was a good guy. So I tried not to complain.
I scoffed. “She’s thin and frail because she is a model.”
Kim peeled her eyes from the television screen. “Gabe’s marrying a model? He must be so proud.”
I shoved another bite of ice cream into my mouth and hit the tension button on the bike’s display. “She’s a model-slash-waitress. She’s apparently working the dinner shift at Mizithra’s between modeling gigs.”
“Oooh, good manicotti there.” Betsy rubbed her tummy. “Think she can get us in without reservations?”
“Not helping, babe.” Kim patted her girlfriend’s leg. “Violet always finds something wrong with all of Gabe’s girlfriends. You know…’cuz they’re not her.”
“That’s clearly an exaggeration.” I stopped pedaling long enough to pluck the lump of chocolate off the front of my dress and lick my fingers. “I guess I learned my lesson. I should have told him how I felt a long time ago.”
Betsy slapped her hand down on her knee. “You see? Haven’t I been telling you that for years?”
“Don’t gloat,” I grumbled. Kim and Betsy’s faces were turned back to Little House on the Prairie, the sound of the closing credits playing softly, both of them somber now that Laura and Pa had enjoyed their bonding moment.
I climbed off the stationary bike and sat next to where they were cuddling on our leopard-print couch. “Okay… You guys were right, and I was wrong. I should have told Gabe that he deserves to be with someone who would always treat him like gold.”
Kim looked at me pointedly. “What’s to say that Bulimia Betty won’t treat him like gold?”
“He should be with someone who knows him inside and out. He should be with…” My voice trembled, and I stopped speaking.
“You?” Betsy finished.
I nodded sadly. “Yes. But he doesn’t love me back anymore. Not that way.”
Kim’s spindly arm pulled me close. “Why didn’t he tell you before it happened? Don’t you two tell each other everything?”
Betsy snorted. “To a sickening degree.”
The relationship between Kim, Betsy, and Gabe had never exactly taken flight. They thought he was pompous and overconfident, and he thought they were loud, brash freaks.
Kim’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. “This really is happening fast. They’ve been dating for what? Two months?”
“Four.” My stomach clenched. “Four months, two weeks, and three days…not that I’m counting.”
“Maybe now’s the time to try getting to know her.” Betsy offered me a shrug. “Since he’s marrying her and all.”
I shook my head vehemently. “She already hates me.”
Kim started flipping through the television channels. “I thought she was nice to you.”