full of shit and that it's gonna hurt like hell later. My hands, which had finally stopped tingling earlier, started up again, and I shook them out, then turned to Peach.
"See, I told you he wasn't gay. He's been sleeping with Stacy!" My laugh sounded tinny even to my own ears, and I reached for my margarita, hoping the drink would keep me from making noise of any kind.
"He hasn't been sleeping with me," Stacy said. "We have slept together. Totally different."
And then a thick blanket of awkwardness fell over us. The three of us went quiet, and Millie, who had been quiet all along, continued to stare into her empty margarita glass.
"Okay," I said, slapping my hands down on my knees a little too hard, making the tingly sensation in them even worse. "How about a game of Apples to Apples?"
Millie stood up. "I think I'm going to go home."
Peach stood up, too, her smile extra-sunny, and too tense to be real. "Let me drive you, honey."
"It's just a few blocks. I'll walk." And then Millie hurried out, without a single word to the rest of us. We sat there in silence for a while, then Peach picked up her margarita glass, downed the last of it, and refilled it.
"I'll bring this back later," Peach said, and walked out. Thirty seconds later, I heard the front door to her house slam behind her.
Stacy and I sat stiffly next to each other in silence for a while, and then finally she said, "Well, it's probably about time for me to go." She got up from the couch and headed to the door. "I have to go prepare to collect and reassemble Mom's brains once she hears that Nick's marrying a Barbie doll."
I followed her toward the door, still feeling a little numb. "Okay."
She turned to me. "It was a long time ago, Liv. He'd just gotten here, it was before I knew how you felt about him. That's why I never told you. I'm sorry."
"Oh, no, I don't..." I smiled at her, took a deep breath, and said, "There's nothing between me and Tobias. Really."
She gave me a dubious look, then turned and left. I shut the door behind her, leaned back against it, and stared at the ceiling, trying to stop the visuals of Stacy and Tobias, naked and writhing, from running on an endless loop in my head.
I was unsuccessful.
So I finished off the plate of Peach's chili brownies and went to bed.
* * *
"Oh, Livvy, thank god you're here!" Betty pulled her glasses down to the tip of her nose, and looked at me over the frames. "I can't read this goddamn thing."
The place was dead, as I knew it would be between the Sunday lunch and dinner shifts. I sat down at the counter and glanced at the number at the bottom of the invoice. "One thousand, two hundred seventy-nine dollars and forty-eight cents," I read. I watched as she scribbled the number down in her ledger, then said, "You know, they have computers for that sort of thing now."
"I'm seventy-three years old," she said. "You want to teach me how to use a computer?"
I handed the invoice back to her. "Game, set, match."
She smiled, shut the book, and stuck it under the counter, then leaned over the counter with a glint of glee in her eye. "You'll never guess who Frankie Biggs is screwing now."
"You know what I love about you, Betty? Your complete lack of shame." I grabbed a menu and glanced at it. I hadn't come in to eat, and even if I had, I already knew that damn thing by heart, but I was feeling nervous, and it gave me something to do with my hands.
"I don't need shame," Betty said. "I've got the goods. But if you don't want to hear it..."
"No, I really don't." I put the menu down and drummed on it with my fingertips, then shook out my hands, which were still feeling tingly. The sensation kept coming and going, and I figured eventually it would go altogether, but it wasn't making me feel any better. "Hey, have you ever pinched a nerve? Is it normal for your hands to tingle for a few days afterward?"
Betty slammed her hand down on the counter. "Dixie Connors!" And then she laughed maniacally.
"Dixie Connors? My high school English teacher, Dixie Connors?"
She gave me an exasperated look. "Do we have two? Isn't that just the best?"
"It's unlikely, is what it is," I