The Bad Friend (Never Tell collection) by Caroline Kepnes

Author:Caroline Kepnes [Kepnes, Caroline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2024-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Eighteen holes wiped you out, but Ross could go for more. This is who you are now. Empty nesters who play golf. He starts the cart, and you grip the bar because he drives like a maniac. Time is moving quickly and slowly, and it’s all so confusing. Abby and Josie are in their own lives, Josie at law school in Boston, Abby in New York in the arts. Last month they met up at a spa in the Berkshires. They didn’t invite you. Abby was exasperated when you said you wished they had. You’ve never longed for spa weekends, girls’ trips. Those things are only appealing now because you love your girls and you miss them. Abby was firm. Boundaries, Mom. And then she softened. She said that you seem lonely, that you should go online, find old friends or new ones. You’ve never been good at friendship, and you made her. She’s yours. Why can’t she want it to be you and her and Josie? You fixate on that conversation, the day your daughter made you feel like a loser. Desperate, and needy.

You tell yourself to be happy for the girls. You’re not one of them. You’re this.

“Troy, please. Slow down.”

He brakes, barely. “The name’s Ross, hon.”

You do that a lot lately, and you’re atoning when you’re on foot, in the parking lot, rubbing your second and final husband’s sore back, as if your touch ever helps. His doctor told him to see a chiropractor, to lay off the golf. You can’t fix it, him.

“So how about Valero’s?” he says.

Valero’s. You just went there last week with Troy and Maxine. You hate it in there, the horror of that moment Troy told you about his new love, the way you knew that everything was changing again, that your days of having the tall man and the short man were numbered. It’s embarrassing how often you’ve daydreamed about weaving through a packed restaurant with your two men. You were convinced that all the women envied you, that all the men wanted you.

“How about burritos?”

Ross nods. “Burritos it is.”

The Mexican place is crowded, and the hostess is perky. “It’s a bit wild tonight, just so you know. We have not one but two bachelorette parties.”

Ross cracks a joke about being the cock in the henhouse, and he’s become that old guy who talks too much to waitresses. Troy is the hip one now, the one with all the mint old sneakers that look brand new. Maxine encouraged him to hold on to his valuables, got him back into collecting. You might be here with Troy if you’d rooted for him to hold on to his sneakers, but you didn’t. You’re the same old you, and the bachelorette parties are loud. They make you think of Tanya again, the way you used to trade fun ideas about how you’d celebrate your own bachelorette parties. Skydiving. Wine country. Thelma & Louise.

“So,” says Ross. “Palos Verdes, yeah?”

You’re turning fifty next week, and you nod because that’s the plan.

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