Life After Coffee Read Online Free

with fungicides, rats running in and out as they please, I’d be out.
    Damn it. First things first. Okay, so obviously it’s a complete disaster that the only income in our household is no longer going to be coming in . But . . . there is an upside to being unexpectedly thrown into the pit of unemployment today: I’m going to make it to Billy’s birthday party! Better than that, I’m going to see my kids again. And even better than that, there is no dark-black moment of departure on the horizon. This is a first. This changes everything. I’ve never had this in my life before. As I zoom back down the freeway, I swoop through the emotional arc from complete fear to extreme joy. And then all the way back again. I manage to distract myself by thinking about practicalities. The party is an hour and a half in. Will it mess Billy up for life if I turn up at this point? Will he forever presume that in the future when I say I can’t make something, I’ll actually show up right at the end? It really will mess him up for life if I turn up halfway through his party with a “Hey—Mommy got fired. Happy fucking birthday, kiddo!” Not good. Obviously I don’t want to miss it. But everyone’s going to want to know why on earth I’m not on a plane.
    I’ll just have to wing it. Tell the kids I missed my flight. How wrong can it go? They’ll be over the moon to see me. It’ll be like the best birthday surprise ever.
    I’m here. I park in the driveway outside the garage. I’m a little surprised that my spot’s still open and that Peter didn’t direct a Prius party parent into it. Maybe he just knew. I let myself in the back gate. Everyone’s assembled on and around the side deck. Must be almost cake time. I slip in at the back of the crowd. I’ll make myself known after Billy’s blown out the candles.
    The mom I’m standing next to makes smiley eye contact. She’s all stylish black wrap, snub nose, smooth swept-up hair, and sparkly blue eyes. I instantly know her as one of those women who can chat with people. Anyone—doesn’t matter who it is, she’ll be able to bypass all the “getting to know you” formalities and slip straight into decadent “we’ve been friends for years” mode. I really admire that trait in people as I’m so, so lacking in it. I’m painfully awkward for at least the first six months of knowing someone. Maybe this woman will be so friendly, it’ll completely disguise my social failings and we can do things like have coffee dates where we bond over the banal-yet-wacky adventures we have with our children! Maybe this woman can be my first mommy friend.
    I don’t have mommy friends. Okay, I don’t have any friends. No “snort your wine back up through your nostrils ’cause you’re screaming with laughter” friends, anyway. I’ve been doing this circling-the-globe thing since Mom put her foot down, made Dad get a job with an insurance firm in London, and moved the family from Indianapolis to suburban England. I was eleven years old. Quite the culture shock for a midwestern tween, I can tell you. Female friendships have been one of the many casualties. I always thought the friendships would bloom once I had kids and got settled in one town, but so far that’s not been the case. Partly because when the other women are standing at the school gates bitching about Common Core math, I’m likely to be inching along some perilously narrow mountain pass, high on quinine and fighting off the latest round of dengue fever. Yeah, my gig’s not all Dora the Explorer meets Romancing the Stone , by the way. Life at the equator is brutal .
    “Which one is yours?” asks Snub Nose, still smiling. I gesture toward Violet, who’s running past in the middle of a pack of girls. The woman doesn’t pause long enough for me to politely return the question, which is probably for the best as I’m sure I’d forget to ask it. “Did you see that cake?” She laughs. I give a half nod. Yes, I saw it. I