Best Friends Read Free Page B

away in an untrendy corner of the county, ignored by the kind of people who would recognize them. As ill luck would have it, Jane had just that morning asked her spouse for a divorce, else she might not have been so bitter, and Roy’s gently but justly disclaiming personal responsibility had not helped.
    Showing how drunk he all at once was, Sam suddenly relieved Roy of the current dilemma, asking, “Gimme a rain check on the movie, willya? Don’t feel up to it, if you don’t mind.”
    As if it had been Roy’s idea! He nevertheless went along with the game, as he usually did. “We’ll do it another night.” He was eager to get away. He praised Kristin’s meal again and said that week after next it was his turn, the Auberge if that would be okay, Gérard promised a saddle of venison, and she responded graciously. He never called her “Kris,” as did Sam and, apparently, her other friends, nor had he ever exchanged even air-kisses with his best friend’s wife. For her part, she had never offered him a handshake.
    â€œTalk to you, kid,” he said to Sam.
    â€œHey,” said Sam, winking blearily. “There you go.”
    There was a touch of coolness in the evening breeze and the sports jacket Roy wore would be a bit light in the open car, but raising the Alvis’s canvas top was too much work, especially in the darkened driveway. Sam if sober would have switched on the outside lights and even might have come along to help with the top.
    Roy worried that the Alvis would not start immediately, as he had not driven it much, but the engine came throatily to life with one touch of what one who sold vintage British cars should be careful to call the self-starter (as in fact the canvas top was the “hood,” and the hood, the “bonnet”) and echoed loudly throughout the neighborhood of broad lawns and designer landscaping.
    At home there were five calls on his answering machine, one from a usually overwrought woman named Francine Holbrook, the other four, one per hour, were from his sister. He elected to call his twin first, who was always exasperated with him—but he had known her since birth.
    â€œGoddammit!” she cried. “Why can’t I get you when I need you? The IRS is after Ross. He might go to jail.”
    Robin’s husband was almost twenty years her senior and, perhaps for that reason, in a hurry to sire another string of kids to replace the three from his first marriage who had been commandeered by his ex-wife. Therefore Robin was usually pregnant and more self-concerned than ever.
    â€œCome on,” said Roy. “You’re overreacting.” Over acting was more like it. Born second, Robin got all the emotion left over after Roy had been furnished with the reasonable amount, or so he saw it. She spent much of her childhood in a tantrum. When their mother decamped, Robin made the most of being the only female under the family roof. “This is America. You can’t be sent to jail without a trial. He’s probably just being audited at this point.”
    â€œEasy for you to say. You don’t have two children with another on the way, and I’m alone tonight. Ross is being bicoastal.” Alone to Robin meant with at least one au pair, if not a team.
    â€œI’ve been working my head off,” Roy said, answering the, to him, deafening though silent accusation. “I’ll drop in tomorrow evening.”
    â€œLate enough to miss the kids.”
    â€œI was trying not to stick you with dinner. How about I come earlier and bring Chinese?”
    â€œYou do what you want, Roy. You always do.”
    This of course was a blatant misrepresentation, and she knew it. He had never done what he wanted, but rather what he had to do according to standards that few others noticed, let alone respected. For example, he was careful never to mention Sam’s name to Robin, who had had an affair with his best