Thy Neighbor's Wife Read Free Page A

with
    him constantly trying to tell the furniture deliverymen how to do
    their job. He’d been directing them all morning and she’d had just
    about enough of it. Judging from the disgusted scowls on their worn
    faces, so had they.
    “Well, he’s right, dear. That will never fit through the door-
    way.” Claire Wainwright had decided to “help” with the move,
    much to Jennifer’s dismay. Her mother-in-law never failed to take
    the opposite side as Jennifer and she had been antagonizing the
    poor deliverymen nearly as often as Eric had. Between the two of
    them, Jennifer was ready to scream.
    “How ’bout we let them try?” she growled. She caught the
    grateful glance tossed her way by the largest of the three hulky men
    and she tried to smile her reassurance that she was doing the best
    she could for them.
    They stood in silence as the men from Stickley spun the new
    sofa into several various positions until they did indeed find the one
    that would allow them to bring it through the front door. Jennifer
    bit her tongue to keep from sneering, “neener, neener, neener” at
    her husband and his mother. Claire shot her a look, one that clearly
    said how much she hated when Jennifer was right.
    Claire Wainwright was a beautiful woman. Even if she hadn’t
    had enough money to buy herself the perfect hairstyle in the perfect
    color, the most expensive manicures, and the best in designer
    clothes, she still would have been beautiful. At age fifty-eight, she
    looked like she was in her mid-forties. Her bottle-blonde hair was
    impeccable, not a strand out of place, and it gently brushed the back
    of her neck. Her eyes were the same chocolate brown as Eric’s,
    made up with subtle perfection. Jennifer had managed to keep from
    rolling her eyes when Claire had arrived in her typical moving
    attire: a beautifully tailored black pantsuit and pumps of Italian
    10 Georgia Beers
    leather.
    Jennifer had known Claire for as long as she could remember.
    She was five and Eric was six when Jennifer’s father had made part-
    ner at Eric’s father’s law firm. Michael Remington and Daniel
    Wainwright had become fast friends, as had their wives, Kathleen
    and Claire. They did the same things, moved in the same circles,
    and became members of the same country club. Both their families
    were small—Jennifer had a brother and Eric had an older sister—
    and it wasn’t long before they became a nearly inseparable group.
    Because Eric and Jennifer seemed to get along so well from the
    beginning, it became a sort of predetermined destiny that they
    would end up together.
    Claire was a typical mother in the sense that nothing—and no
    woman—would ever be good enough for her baby boy. She and
    Daniel had never had what could be called a happy marriage, so it
    often seemed like she’d decided to try her best to control her son’s.
    Jennifer understood this behavior and had spent much of her life
    trying to accept it, but Claire was interminably hard on her and
    every once in a while, it really got on her nerves.
    Like that moving day. Claire continued to supervise the mov-
    ers, despite Jennifer’s kind attempts to get her to stop. She took
    issue with the way Jennifer sought to arrange her kitchen cupboards
    and directed her to stock them the way Claire saw fit. She had sev-
    eral opinions on the window dressings that were needed, none of
    which agreed with Jennifer’s. She even pointed out streaks on the
    glass that Jennifer had missed in her cleaning. Jennifer’s irritation
    bubbled slowly in the pit of her stomach all day long until she
    started to worry that she might say something nasty. She knew she
    had to get away before her mouth went on a rampage without her
    permission, one she would truly live to regret for Claire Wainwright
    could hold a grudge longer than anybody had a right.
    “I need some air,” was all she could manage to grind out before
    stomping out the back door sliding it shut with such force that she
    was