Sounds Like Crazy Read Online Free

standing in the middle of a much larger one. Not to mention that I’d be with people I didn’t know well enough to dislike; a boyfriend who didn’t have the first clue about me; my sister, who’d probably expose me in her attempt to protect me; and Betty Jane, who was liable to pull something really awful because she’d been excluded. If you were in my shoes, even if you said you wouldn’t, when the time came, you’d be willing to do anything to avoid that situation. Trust me on this.
     
    When I opened my eyes on the morning of my birthday, Betty Jane raised her glass in a toast. I thought she’d forgiven me for her impending banishment. Then, as I buttoned my work uniform, she said, “I’ve told you many times that style doesn’t flatter your figure, or maybe Peter was right, and you’ve put on weight.”
    “He never said that,” I said. She arched one eyebrow. “I said it.”
    Betty Jane smiled. “Never mind.”
    I stood five-foot-three if I held my head up straight. My waitress uniform with its tie at the waist drew attention to my long torso and short legs, making me appear squat and fat. Betty Jane had an eye for clothing that flattered. I didn’t. But Betty Jane
and I had been playing the game of retribution in the form of insults thinly veiled as truth for a long time. Only she played it much better than I did. She knew all my weaknesses and played on them like Beethoven on a fortepiano.The notes were soft or hard depending on her anger. Commenting on my weight meant her hands were crashing down on the keys.You couldn’t find an ounce of excess fat on my body if you put me under a microscope.
    In other words, I was not forgiven.
    She raised her glass again at that thought and I realized that there was more than orange juice in it. I’d never seen Betty Jane drunk before, but having witnessed the combination of my father and a bottle of booze on many occasions while growing up, I recognized a mean drunk when I saw one. But I’d chosen to comply with my sister’s wishes, and I left the responsibility of containing Betty Jane to Ruffles.
     
    On my way home from the diner, I made my daily stop at the A & P grocery store. I believed that shopping weekly would force me into choices I might not like. How was I to know on Tuesday what I would want to eat on Saturday?
    I stood in front of the cereal boxes debating with Ruffles and Sarge about whether Sarah would want Cheerios or toast for breakfast. Then Betty Jane slurred, “She banished me. Don’t get her anything.”
    “I can’t believe you silenced her with a bottle of gin,” I said.
    Inside my head, Ruffles held up her hands. “Hey, I did the best I could under the circumstances.” Betty Jane controlled the Committee, so they couldn’t banish her any more than I could.The only other option was to make her unavailable. Getting her drunk accomplished that and then some.
    “Can you at least take the bottle away and hide it?” I asked.

    I closed my eyes. Sarge reached for it. Betty Jane slapped him as she stumbled toward her bed, upending and draining the bottle on the way.
    “Jesus, she’s smashed,” I said. I shook my head.“Quick, before she goes down, cereal or toast?”
    Chatting in front of the Cheerios with myself went unnoticed in a big city. If I let down my guard like this back in Palo Alto, Nancy from my mother’s bridge club would spot me and tell Marjorie and Kate, and the next thing you knew all the families would be sitting poolside at some neighborhood barbecue whispering about me instead of their monthly Botox treatments.
    Living in New York definitely had its abject moments, but when the woman standing next to me pulling a box of Rice Krispies off the shelf didn’t even glance sidelong as I discussed Betty Jane’s inebriation along with the pros and cons of cereal versus toast, those moments didn’t seem so bad.
    We decided on cereal and toast, and I also bought the makings for a salad and pasta. On the way to the