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Just in time for the two of them to arrive, I pull a soft, creamy omelet, one of my specialties, off the stove. Actually, this is one of the few things I can cook well and is kind of my fallback.
When the front door opens, Lana barges in, all flying hair, perfume, and sample-sale luxury including a Chanel flap bag I still don’t know how she afforded. “Honey, honey, honey,” she says, enveloping me in her cashmere-covered arms, smothering my face into her huge chest. She strokes my hair before letting me come up for air, holding me at arms’ length, studying my face as if for visible wounds.
I shake myself free. “I’m okay, Lana. I really am.”
I mean, IguessI am.
She takes a seat at the kitchen counter while Cami fidgets behind me, opening and serving lukewarm chardonnay.
I go to the freezer and help myself to an ice cube for my wine. I am staying here now, after all, so there’s no need to hide my tacky habits. Most of them, anyway. “Cami, your husband was so nice to me today. He’s such a good guy.”
“Yeah. He’s all right. Sometimes,” she says with a shrug.
Damn.
I raise an eyebrow. “Still think he’s cheating?”
She sighs loudly. “No. Idon’t. I was just freaking that day. It’s all behind me now,” she huffs.
Yeah, until the next time it comes up.
“What about your vertically challenged insult? Ever work that out?” I really shouldn’t be bringing up sore subjects because it’s none of my damn business, but since I have to hear all Cami’s married life drama, I feel entitled to my comments.
“Um, well, yeah. That was kind of silly of me. I am short, after all. And his buying me high heels doesn’t mean a thing. After I put them on, he could barely keep his hands off me, he was so hard—”
I raise my hand. “Okay. Enough. I don’t need to hear that about your husband, Cam.”
Lana picks up on the tension and changes the subject. “So, ladies, here we are. A new view for Ava, if temporarily, but it’s always nice to freshen the scenery.” She raises her glass to me.
I can’t deny that lingering in the back of my mind is whether my move here will turn into a case of buyer’s remorse. But I can’t think that way.
Get it together, girl.
“It feels good to be here. Like I can breathe for the first time in weeks,” I say, all breezy and casual.
Cami looks at me suspiciously but Lana accepts my cavalier remark, moaning as she tastes a bite of my omelet. “Damn, girl. Where’d you learn to make this? I’m about to have an orgasm without even touching my goodies.”
Cami and I giggle.
“Speaking of goodies,” Lana continues, raising a finger in the air, “I want you to know, Ava, that I hooked up with your brother.”
A forkful of food misses my mouth, and artichoke omelet splats the front of my shirt. And I still don’t close my mouth.
Oh God.
I try to set my fork down quietly, but it clanks on my plate like a warning bell. I want to grab the whole bottle of wine and drain it in one gulp, but I’m afraid my shaking hands might drop it. So I just grip the counter edge.
Lana? With mybrother?Andy?
Andy Sterling, the guy I grew up with, whom I just had a giant blowout with?
ThatAndy?
Cami coughs and sputters. “What?”
I’m glad she’s asking questions because I am at a complete and total loss for words.
Lana tops off her wine. “Yeah. And it was so hot.”
