Out to Lunch Read Online Free Page A

to tell me she married him on the beach, without asking me, without even talking it over, it was the only time in our life together things ever got strained. And Aimee thought I was just hurt that I wasn’t there, that there wasn’t some big wedding to plan and showers and parties and I didn’t get to be maid of honor and all that, but that wasn’t it.”
    And it really wasn’t. When I was engaged to Jack, we were planning a tiny, private ceremony. Aimee and I spent enough time dealing with other people’s parties and celebrations. I didn’t resent not being a part of her wedding, I resented not being a part of her decision to marry Wayne.
    I take a deep breath. “Wayne wasn’t good enough for Aimee. He wasn’t smart enough or handsome enough or elegant enough or ENOUGH enough. He didn’t deserve her, and she deserved so much better, and I just never got it, and now she’s gone and he’s here and it makes me hate him. I know it isn’t his fault that she got sick, and he was actually amazing with her every step of the way, a really good caregiver, and I was grateful for that. And I know that he truly loved her and she loved him, but I just never got it and now Aimee is gone and I feel like she wasted all these years on this guy who I. Cannot. Stand.” I have never, ever, said this aloud to anyone except Volnay, and it feels horribly, deliciously, wonderful. And it just keeps coming, eight years of built-up resentments and snark and choked-back commentary flooding out of me.
    “Wayne is a geek with no chic. He is weird and odd and socially awkward. He can’t hold his liquor. He only eats eleven things. ELEVEN. Total. And he’s proud of it, like it makes him some special cool guy to sit at a dinner party with a shitty take-out burger that he brought with him while the hostess cringes. Wayne can’t keep a job, but he can keep all his strange Dungeons & Dragons friends from high school, with their nonironic, crusty Rush concert shirts and huge 1980s wire-rimmed glasses. Wayne can spot a stupid investment from eighty paces and hand over his life savings, but Wayne can’t ever see that his pants are always an inch too short. Wayne was supposed to be the blind date Aimee and I laughed about and made fun of, he wasn’t supposed to be the one she married, and now she’s gone and he’s here and I sort of hate that he is alive when she is not.” I deflate back into the chair like a morning-after party balloon.
    Nancy looks up at me. “Did you and Aimee talk about how you felt?”
    I shake my head. “She didn’t know.”
    Nancy looks at me over the tops of her glasses, one perfectly groomed eyebrow raised in disbelief. Her tone is that of a gently chiding parent. “Jenna, of course she knew. Friends know these things, and you and Aimee were more than just friends. She knew. And next time, I think we should talk about what it means that she knew and you never spoke of it. Okay?”
    Aimee knew. I guess I probably knew that deep down, but it sounds sort of awful coming out of Nancy’s lips. Like an admonition.
    Nancy hands me a prescription for a week’s worth of Ambien, and we schedule our next appointment.
    I leave through the second door to Nancy’s office, and duck into the small powder room to pee. This requires struggling out of and then back into my Spanx, because I do not care that there is that little split-crotch thing going on, I have never been able to go commando under my girdle. And the one time I tried, I both peed on my hands trying to keep the split open, AND ended up with my skirt stuck in my junk when I stood up from my chair. There is just no classy way to pull your clothes out of your kitten as you leave a restaurant. I’m an all-underwear-all-the-time girl. By the time I am done wedging my butt back into its spandex prison, I am flushed and a little sweaty. But the pink actually takes some of the green tinge from my face, and once I pat the little sweat-bead Hitler mustache off with a