Just Like Mother Sneak Peek by Anne Heltzel

Author:Anne Heltzel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

* * *

The server ended his shift, and Andrea settled up without me noticing. After the initial discomfort of dancing around our pasts, our conversation picked up. I thought this must be what it was to have a life, to feel alive. At some point Andrea motioned for a cocktail menu.

Soon Andrea was tipsy enough to repeat herself. I wondered about the meetings she’d mentioned having, but I was enjoying myself too much to question it. It was only one in the afternoon, so we’d graduated from coffee to very respectable mimosas, and the mood had lightened. “Rob’s in tech,” Andrea was explaining again. “He’s a developer. A total genius. But I’m the alpha of the two of us.” She laughed.

“Oh?” I smiled, enjoying this. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me at all.” Andrea had always been the one in charge.

“Rob’s completely dedicated to me,” she went on, waving away my comment. “He’s amazing. He’s the only man I’ve met who just … allows me to spread my wings.”

“That’s fantastic. I’m so glad to hear it.” I meant it. As much as I had this fantasy of the two of us coming back together into the inseparable unit we’d been as kids, I was happy she’d found a partner.

“So do you have a picture of the hot fling guy?” she asked. “Does he have a name?”

“Oh god.” After a single mimosa and fielding a lot of Andrea’s prying questions, I’d admitted to my casual affair with Ryan. Rather than being disapproving, Andrea had been delighted. She’d asked me a million questions, right down to the specifics of our sex life. I was too overwhelmed by it all to play defense; and anyway, it felt like what family probably did. Now I reached for my iPhone, flipping through my photos until I landed on one of the two of us grinning into the camera against the backdrop of his Brooklyn bar. “His name’s Ryan,” I told her.

“He’s cute,” she said admiringly, waggling her eyebrows. “I’ll have to live voyeuristically through you, I guess.” Before I could ask her what that meant, she switched the subject. “Oh man. If I could go back to my single days … I love my husband, but you’re only young and in Europe once.”

She explained that she’d lived all over, even Paris for a year, where she’d had an affair with a French woman nearly fifteen years her senior. It was from Adele that she learned the ins and outs of investing and was inspired to go to business school when that relationship went up in flames. “Very hot flames,” she clarified. After business school she began to build her life coaching business, and it took off around when she met Rob. She didn’t even have to work if she didn’t want to. But as it turned out, she did want to. Then she got pregnant with Olivia and switched gears to coaching in the lifestyle space: more specifically, family planning. After Olivia’s death, she added grief management and recovery from loss.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.