Frenemies(38)

But their major point—the thing, they’d said, that indicated I’d lost my freaking mind—was that I’d willingly gotten into a car with Henry who—as Amy Lee had reminded me—I’d been at pains to convince them was evil incarnate for weeks.

So I could hardly turn around now and announce that Henry really wasn’t that bad.

What would I tell them, anyway? That I imagined he might have tender moments? I mean, I could try, but sooner or later someone (probably Georgia, who was predisposed to consider problems concerning Henry) would start wondering why I hated him so much if he wasn’t that bad. I couldn’t tell them that we’d slept together the night I’d walked in on Nate and Helen, and I certainly couldn’t tell them about our more recent shenanigans, unless I was ready to explain how I’d managed to sleep with the major epic crush of Georgia’s twenties without sparing her so much as a thought. Twice.

So I was basically screwed. Either Henry wasn’t that bad and I would be outed as a liar and a betrayer, or he was evil as usual and I was just your garden variety psycho ex-girlfriend.

Frankly, I didn’t much care for either option.

What a tangled web, indeed.





chapter thirteen





“You don’t really think I’m crazy though,” I said the day after next, encouraging Amy Lee to agree with me. Amy Lee had her Thursday morning free and had met me for an early lunch. She just stared at me now, over her mountainous turkey sandwich. Fresh turkey sliced from the newly-roasted bird in front of her eyes, because suddenly nothing prepackaged would suit her, yet I was the crazy person.

“Oh, come on!”

“Gus, I don’t care if you’re clinically psychotic,” she replied. “Just to be clear.”

“But you think I am.”

“Oh, hell, yes,” she said. “But the good news about that is, I’ve always thought you were crazy. Since the day we met. When you were ranting about your mix tapes and you had your hair in that …”

She gestured at her head, forcing us both to remember the hair I’d graduated from high school with.

“That thing,” she finished vaguely.

“That’s very reassuring.” I stared glumly at my own sandwich—sun-dried tomatoes and brie, usually delicious and today practically tasteless as far as I was concerned. Revisiting hairstyles past didn’t exactly help, either.

“It was actually sort of cute back then,” Amy Lee lied, looking at my expression.

“I don’t know that you should really be the one to talk, here,” I sniped at her. “It’s not like you’re your usual pulled-together self today, are you?”

It was true. Amy Lee looked frazzled, and her cheeks were flushed. Two things about as un-Amy Lee-ish as could be.

“I’m fighting off the flu,” she snapped at me. And apparently she was feeding that possible fever, because she practically inhaled a huge bite of her sandwich.

“Obviously,” I said then, forgetting about her flu, “I want you to tell me that you think Georgia’s just using my supposed insanity as a cover for the fact that Georgia’s own situation with what’s-his-name—”

“Jared,” Amy Lee interjected. “I’m pretty sure. Or maybe Justin. Or no, that’s the singer guy.”

“Her own thing is precarious and bad and also insane, and that’s what her issue is.” I eyed her. “That’s what’s going on here, right? This isn’t actually about me at all.”

She smiled.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “I think Georgia is also crazy.”


Friday night came despite my best efforts.

I didn’t make the mistake of believing that Georgia might be put off by a display of surliness on my part or by my not being ready when she arrived. I’d tried that kind of thing before, with little result. If I was lolling around in sweats and an attitude when she arrived at my house to usher me to the Waterbury, Ellis and Reardon holiday party she would simply haul my butt into the shower, then into an outfit of her choosing, and then frog-march me off to make merry.

Much as she might enjoy that, I knew I certainly would not, so I was reluctantly dressed in all my finery when my buzzer rang. (I’d even applied a curling iron to my hair—an almost unheard-of event.) So much for my fervent prayers that the snow we’d been having would have caused interminable delays and she would remain stuck somewhere south. She buzzed again—and I could practically hear her impatience. I pressed the button to unlatch the door. Slowly.

“This is very disappointing,” Georgia murmured when I opened the door for her. She had an evil spark in her eye. “I was really looking forward to dragging your ass off the couch and tossing you into the shower. Sometimes I think I would have made an excellent prison guard.”

“It’s nice to see you too, so glad your plane wasn’t delayed,” I said, with a wide, insincere smile. “And that’s possibly the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth. Which is saying something.”

“Whatever,” Georgia retorted. “Let’s go. Jared said he’ll meet us there later.” The “maybe” was implied.

“Great,” I said, with an eye roll toward the back of her head as she walked out the door. “What a fun night. Lawyers and partners and Jared, oh my!”