The Last Time I Saw Paris Read Free

smiling faces of her best girlfriends as they sang “Happy Birthday,” blushing as the waiter placed a tiny chocolate cake covered with fresh violets and lit with a single candle on the table in front of her. She felt uncomfortable, out of touch, not quite of today, hair pulled back, in her prim doctor’s-wife Saks suit, the skirt a bit too long, heels too low.
    â€œAt forty-five, you’d think you would have gotten over that girlish blush,” Susie teased.
    â€œAfter all, it’s not like your first kiss,” Vannessa said.
    â€œFrom that high school hunk and hero, Flabby Moxon,” Delia added, grinning.
    â€œOh, my God, remember Flabby Moxon?” they wailed in unison.
    Lara nodded. “I remember. Behind the bicycle sheds. I was just unlocking my speedracer—hot pink with silver stars on it—when he sneaked up behind me.” She shuddered. “I just wanted to die right there and then.…”
    â€œBecause guess who was right behind you …”
    â€œBuzz Johnson.” Lara laughed. “The John Travolta of Madison High and the love of my life. Or so I thought then.
And
Buzz saw the kiss. But even worse were Flabby Moxon’s soggy lips . . . ugghhh …” She shuddered again, remembering.
    â€œSo with those soggy lips, why else would he have been called Flabby?” Vannie asked.
    â€œBecause he had”—Delia glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening—
“breasts,”
she whispered loudly, and they all burst out laughing.
    â€œI hardly think Congressman John W. Moxon, Republican, of California, would be happy to have his voters know such a personal thing about him now,” Susie said. “Besides, only his wife knows for sure.”
    They were still laughing as Lara blew out her candle. She cut the little cake into four equal pieces and handed it around.
    â€œMaybe Flabby’s had liposuction,” Delia mused. “Men do these days, you know. Male breast reduction, they call it.”
    â€œJeez, Delia, I’m eating my cake.” Susie was disgusted. “Anyhow, what kind of guy would do something like that?”
    â€œA guy with tits,” Vannie said and choked on her cake. They yelped with laughter as Delia thumped her energetically on the back.
    But Lara’s tears of laughter threatened to become real tears as she looked at the faces of her girlfriends. She had known them forever. Of course they were no longer girls, but somehow “women friends” didn’t have the same nostalgic ring about it. It couldn’t express the length and breadth of their friendship, spanning so many years, so many experiences.
    They were the same age, born within months of one another. Their families had known each other, they had played together in preschool and started “real” school on the same day, clinging together like a single, many-limbed creature clutching four Snoopy lunch pails, climbing onto the little yellow bus, refusing to let their mothers accompany them.
    They had shared sleepovers and double dates, birthday parties and graduations, proms and failed romances. They had shared secrets and sexual encounters, college and jobs, weddings and babies. Their lives were as intertwined as liana vines in a jungle, and sometimes it was hard to know where one stopped and another began.
    Two were blond, two dark. Susie had started out mouse brown and graduated to honey-colored streaks that set off her golden-tan skin. She had always been the outdoors girl, the tennis player, the ace swimmer, and now the golfer. She was still skinny, still lithe, still always on the move, though she had been married to an architect for twenty years and had a clutch of teenagers running in and out of the house.
    Vannie was the natural beauty, golden blond, with huge green eyes, long legs, and a slender but voluptuously rounded figure. She had driven the guys wild right through high school, but