Funny Story(16)

I tap over to Sadie’s account and instantly regret it. She uses social media as infrequently as I do, which means there, right in the top row of images, three shots back, is a picture of her and Cooper with me and Peter at Chill Coast Brewing on their last visit—beer being the one thing Peter breaks his low-carb diet for.

I personally hate beer. Obviously Petra loves it. She’s a walking fantasy, and I’m a librarian who actually does wear a lot of buttons and tweed.

From behind the office door comes a frustrated shriek-groan. Not an outright scream, but a sound loud enough to cause kids gaming at the computer bay to spin toward the desk in unison.

“It’s fine, everything’s fine!” I tell them with a wave.

Behind me, the door flings open and Ashleigh, five foot nothing with a topknot the size of a melon, storms out. “Never make friends with moms,” she tells me before stomping over to her rolling chair.

“You’re a mom,” I point out.

She whips toward me. “I know!” she cries. “And that means I have basically one night, every two weeks, when I can do something fun with other adults, except all those other adults I used to call are also parents, and in many cases partners. So half the time, the plans fall through because someone’s puking or fell off a trampoline or forgot they have to build a fucking volcano for science class by tomorrow!”

“Ashleigh!” I hiss, jerking my head toward the row of teenage gamers.

She follows my gaze and greets their stares with a blunt, “What?”

They spin back toward their screens.

“I want to get out,” she says. “I want to look hot in public and drink alcohol and talk about something other than Dungeons & Dragons.”

And as she’s saying it, I’m picturing myself at home, alone, watching happy couples shop for or renovate the homes of their dreams on HGTV, just like I did last Friday night, and the Friday night before that, and basically every night since the breakup, barring my drunken MEATLOCKER escapade with Miles.

Meanwhile, Peter’s and Petra’s social media feeds are an in-real-time documentation of her and Peter kissing, hugging, and selfie-ing their way through our old haunts, with our old friends in Arbor Park.

His haunts, I correct myself. His friends. Just like Arbor Park is his neighborhood.

I’d thought we were building something permanent together. Now I realize I’d just been slotting myself into his life, leaving me without my own.

I feel the words rushing up my throat, and then they’re splatting out between us: “I’m free tonight.”

Ashleigh stares, wide-eyed. Like I just threw up on her shoes. Or like I threw up a whole shoe.

I search for a graceful way to take it back.

I’ve landed on something along the lines of, Oh, shoot, I forgot! I have plans to organize my e-reader, when she gives an abrupt shrug and says, “Why not? Text me your address, and I’ll pick you up on the way to Chill Coast.”

“Chill Coast?” I’m sure my face just went from tomato red to milky white.

Luckily Ashleigh is looking at her phone. “It’s a brewery,” she says, typing. “In Arbor Park? My friend who just bailed said it’s super cute, has a big patio.”

There is absolutely no way I can go to Chill Coast. Waning Bay is small enough without me wandering directly into the heart of the Peterverse.

“Unless . . .” Ashleigh reads my hesitancy. “You had somewhere else in mind?”

Of course I don’t have somewhere else in mind. I don’t foresee Ashleigh loving MEATLOCKER.

But I have to say something, so I blurt the first place—the only place—that springs to mind: “Cherry Hill.”

Her dark brow lifts appraisingly.

“It’s a winery.”

“Is that the one with the hot drug-dealer bartender, or the one down the road from that one, where they only play Tom Petty?”

“Um,” I say. “I really only know . . . about the wine.”

In that I know they have wine.

After a protracted pause, she says, “Okay. Cherry Hill.”

“Great!” I say.

She goes back to scanning books in. “Are you going to dress like that?”

I look down at my brown high-necked button-up. “No?”



* * *





?“A coworker and I are going to stop by Cherry Hill tonight,” I tell Miles from the doorway as he’s brushing his teeth in our tiny, pink-tiled bathroom.

He meets my eyes in the mirror, toothpaste foam spilling out of his mouth. “Why did you say it like that?” he asks.

“Like what?”

“Menacingly.” He spits into the sink and knocks the faucet on. “Like, Me and my friend are gonna pay you a little visit, and we might have a baseball bat with us.”

“Because me and my friend are going to pay you a visit,” I say, “and we might have a baseball bat with us.”

He thrusts his head into the sink, under the running water, to rinse. When he straightens up, he grabs his towel from the rack and buries his whole face in it.

“I just thought it might be weird for me to show up without mentioning it,” I say.

He faces me, one hand and hip propped against the sink. “I’m flattered you remember where I work.”