Best Friends Forever Read Free Page A

. Help me, he was saying. Throw me a rope, give me a smile, let me know it’s
    okay. I got to my feet while Matthew searched his pockets for a few bucks to tip the coat-check girl, then fol owed him through the restaurant, waiting as he held the door. “You seem like a good person,”
    Matthew said in the parking lot, reaching for my hand. I moved sideways, just enough so that I was out of his reach. You’re wrong, I thought. I’m not.
    Outside, the predinner mist had thickened into a chil y fog. Streetlamps glowed beneath golden halos of light. Matthew ran his hand through his hair. Even in the cold, he was sweating. I could see droplets glimmering through his mustache. “Can I cal you?” he asked.
    “Sure.” Of course, I wouldn’t answer, but that didn’t seem smart to mention. “You’ve stil got my number, right?”
    “Stil got it.” He smiled, pathetical y grateful, and leaned forward. It took me a second to realize that he intended to kiss me, and another second to realize that I was going to let him.
    His mustache brushed my upper lip and cheek. I felt absolutely nothing. He could have pressed a bottle brush or a Bril o pad against my face; I could have been kissing his lapel or the hood of my Honda.
    By the time I got home, he’d already left a message, long, meandering, and apologetic.
    He was sorry if he’d freaked me out. He thought that I was great. He was looking forward to seeing me again, maybe on Sunday? There was a movie that had gotten a good write-up in the Trib, or a hot-airbal oon festival. We could drive out, pack a picnic…his voice trailed off hopeful y. “Wel ,”
    he said. “I’l talk to you soon.” He recited his telephone number. I thumbed number three for “erase,” kicked off my boots, twisted my bright new hair into a plastic clip, then sat on the edge of my bed with my face in my hands and al owed myself one brief, dry, spinsterish sob.
    Don’t get your hopes up. The website didn’t say that. It was what I told myself as inoculation against the fantasy, persistent as a weed, that one of these guys could be the one: that I could fal in love, get married, have babies, be normal. Don’t get your hopes up. I’d chant it like a mantra on my drive to the Starbucks or the Applebee’s or, with Date Number Four, the bowling al ey, where, it turned out, the fel ow had had the ingeni-ous notion of combining a first date with a fifth birthday party for his son (his exwife had not been glad to meet me; neither, for that matter, had his five-year-old). Don’t get your hopes up…but every time I did, and every time I got my stupid heart crushed.
    “Oh, wel ,” I said out loud. Funny. That had been nice to hear. But it was so unfair! To get a date on the Internet, a woman had to be many things, starting with thin and proceeding re-lentlessly to attractive and pleasant and a good listener and good company. Young, of course. Stil fertile, stil cute, with a good body and a decent job and a supportive (but not intrusive) family. The men didn’t even have to be sane.
    I looked at the clock, the antique pinkand-green enameled clock on chubby gold legs that I’d bought myself for my birthday. It was just after ten. The reunion would be in ful swing.
    Merry Armbruster had cal ed me that afternoon, making one more last-ditch plea for my attendance. “You look fantastic now! And I’m sure everyone’s forgotten about…wel , you know.
    We’ve al grown up. There’s other things people wil want to talk about.”
    Thanks but no thanks. I swal owed my vitamins with a glass of water and chased them with a shot of wheatgrass (I’d been drinking the stuff for two years, and it stil tasted exactly like pureed lawnmower clippings). I hung up my date uniform, replaced the lace bra with a comfortable cotton one, pul ed on my favorite flannel pajamas and a pair of socks, then sat back down on the edge of my bed, suddenly exhausted. Just lately, I’d been thinking a lot about the girl I’d