Say Yes and Keep Smiling by Laurence Beaudoin-Masse

Author:Laurence Beaudoin-Masse [Beaudoin-Masse, Laurence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Published: 2023-08-10T17:55:06+00:00

23

“Oh, geez! Dave just wrote me.”

I drop my phone on the kitchen table. Opale puts her fat book down next to her plate of General Tao tofu and her fork goes flying and falls to the floor. Alice picks it up and folds down the top of her laptop.

“Ooh! What does he say?”

“He says he’s sorry for the other night. With two kisses.”

“Hmmm. Sounds like Daddy wants some sugar!”

“What?”

Alice raises her eyebrows and makes little kissy sounds with her lips.

“He wants you to ride his baloney pony. Of course.”

I roll my eyes.

“How old are you, Al — twelve or seventy-two? And what are you talking about, anyway? He’s apologizing, that’s all.”

I start to type a reply to Dave.

“It’s none of my business,” Opale says, “but I haven’t seen Florence at the café for at least a week. Maybe they’re already finished. I mean re-re-re-finished. I’ve lost track.”

Alice looks at me and makes penis-in-vagina gestures with her fingers.

I groan and bury my face in my hands.

“Alice, you’re being infantile. Besides, it doesn’t mean anything. She’s away for the weekend with her friends.”

“Stalker!” she says, mocking.

“Research and development,” I clarify, raising a finger in the air.

“What are you going to do?” Opale asks.

“I’ve already replied that I said what I had to say, and that I’ve moved on, which is a big fat lie, I realize, but then, if he’s single, that changes everything, doesn’t it?”

A shiver of excitement goes through me and stirs my little heart.

My phone vibrates. A new message from Dave. Alice rushes to grab it before me.

She reads it in a loud voice: “ ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ Oh, come on! We’re going to need more than that before we forgive and forget, my little friend.”

“My little friend?”

She widens her eyes, sighs and starts to type. I try to take back my phone, but she turns, taps away and presses Send.

“Alice Bourdon-Marois, NO! Don’t do that! What did you write?”

I grab the phone out of her hands and read her reply: “It is what it is. Bye!”

“But that’s way too boring!”

“Ellie, you are not just going to crawl your way back into his bed.”

“No, of course not! But . . . you’re getting too worked up about it. He doesn’t even know I’ve left my boyfriend. Maybe he would never have got back together with his ex. I mean, can we really hold it against him?”

“Stop it. This guy knows very well what he’s doing.”

She gets up, gets a bottle of vodka out of the freezer, a carton of orange juice from the fridge and some glasses.

“It’s time for strong measures.”

“What do you mean, he knows what he’s doing?”

“Vodka and orange?”

I do the math in my head. About a hundred calories for a small glass. If I skip my pasta with lentils and kale pesto for dinner, I should be good to hang around with them for a bit. And get more information about Dave.

“Okay, but skip the orange juice.”

“Wild.”

At any rate, things are going well.

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