Best Friends Forever: A Novel
3.5/5
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About this ebook
Addie Downs and Valerie Adler will be best friends forever. That’s what Addie believes after Valerie moves across the street when they’re both nine years old. But in the wake of betrayal during their teenage years, Val is swept into the popular crowd, while mousy, sullen Addie becomes her school’s scapegoat.
Flash-forward fifteen years. Valerie Adler has found a measure of fame and fortune working as the weathergirl at the local TV station. Addie Downs lives alone in her parents’ house in their small hometown of Pleasant Ridge, Illinois, caring for a troubled brother and trying to meet Prince Charming on the Internet. She’s just returned from Bad Date #6 when she opens her door to find her long-gone best friend standing there, a terrified look on her face and blood on the sleeve of her coat. "Something horrible has happened," Val tells Addie, "and you’re the only one who can help."
Best Friends Forever is a grand, hilarious, edge-of-your-seat adventure; a story about betrayal and loyalty, family history and small-town secrets. It’s about living through tragedy, finding love where you least expect it, and the ties that keep best friends together
Jennifer Weiner
Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-one books, including The Summer Place, That Summer, Big Summer, Mrs. Everything, In Her Shoes, Good in Bed, and a memoir in essays, Hungry Heart. She has appeared on many national television programs, including Today and Good Morning America, and her work has been published in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, among other newspapers and magazines. Jennifer lives with her family in Philadelphia. Visit her online at JenniferWeiner.com.
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Reviews for Best Friends Forever
688 ratings82 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title breathtaking, exceptional, terrific, touching, sad, good, amazing, outstanding, fabulous, fantastic, really good, awesome, and loved. However, there are some negative reviews about the character Val and the relationship between Jordan and Addie. Overall, readers enjoy this book and find it relatable to their high school years.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Though this was not my favorite of Jennifer Weiner's books, it delivers that same tender, yet sometime funny, coming of age tale within the larger picture of a present day dilemma. The story of how two women lives reconnect after years of leftover drama and trauma starts with a crime, hooking the reader at the first page even when the "crime" slowly dissolves into just that, a beginning hook and not much more. Though Val's character is very 2 dimensional and their friendship frustrating, Addie is painted perfectly, I wish I could meet her in real life and have coffee. Her story is impeccably told and I wanted to know so much more about her life. Another hit for Weiner, I can't wait to see what she does next. (if she did a follow up to Addie a la Certain Girls style, I would be first in line!)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chick-lit. Novel is best when the story looks back at a shy girls first best friend. Author captures high school angst and family tradegy with humor and poignant moments. However, the present day storyline is rather silly. This story may be not be Weiner's best, but it is still a fun read.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Definitely the worst Jennifer Weiner book I have ever read, for its flat, uninspiring characters and ridiculous plot. Poorly written, Weiner's latest lacks pretty much everything that makes her books great: a sassy, not-skinny-but-mostly-proud-of-it heroine, a developed romance, great dialogue, true friendships. Pass this one by.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I would consider this an easy summertime, beach read. Not very thought provoking and quite predictable. Not even a new story - high school friendship, betrayal, rediscovery of friendship. But a quick light read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A typical Weiner, nice, entertaining, flat characters and utterly predictable. I liked it! (Although I kept wondering why the police would want to spend so much time on a vague crime no one cares about...)
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When I started this book, I loved it. In particular, I loved the childhood sections, seeing these two very different girls with very different lives, who became such close friends.Even when the book was dealing with the pain of their high school years, the book rang true to me. I liked how this storyline unfolded, and pieces were filled in for us about what really happened.At the beginning, I liked Addie's story. I found her Internet dating story hilarious. Seeing her relationship with her brother, hearing about her parents-- all of these built her up into a character I found interesting and wanted to know more about.Then adult Valerie appeared on the scene. I could understand her desire for revenge, but that's about all. Perhaps I'm taking this book too seriously, but I don't understand how she thought she'd get away with any of her actions. I really don't understand how she'd have the nerve to turn to Addie. I REALLY, REALLY don't understand why Addie was willing to go along with Valerie.The love interest didn't quite work for me, although it was a near miss.I did enjoy the end of the book, as well as the beginning. I found the middle interesting, even as I didn't understand the character's behavior. But maybe that's more about me.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A gentle read focusing on two women who have grown up as best friends, then grew apart after a traumatic event in highschool. Now they are brought together again 10 years later, with one seeking the others help. I found this book kind of depressing; altho I suppose readers of this genre expect a bit of tear jerking to be included in the story. I didn't like Addie much either - we are meant to sympathize with her poor, beaten-down, overweight soul. However, myself being a person of size, I'm irritated by her lack of self esteem. It seems so many stories these days focus on the poor fat girl who makes no friends and can't get significant others. I reject this idea whole-heartedly. It has nothing to do with your size, it has to do with your personality. I sympathize with her shyness - not her size. Ok, end rant. Gentle read, happy ending, women's lives and relationships genre. I feel like maybe the author tried to include too many intertwining story lines here, instead of focusing on one subject. I feel that if she had focused more, she would have a more defined story, instead of the wandering tale she has given us. Overall - meh. Sweet, but unremarkable.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really connected with this story. Having just passed 10 years out of high school I find myself thinking about people I haven't seen in years and what they are doing now. So reading a story about two friends who had lost touch and have been reconnected was something that really resonated with me. I connected with Addie, the main character. Even though she has made some changes to her life since high school, she is still pretty much the same person she was. She's shy and she lives her life without trying to cause too many ripples. Given the circumstances that surrounded her path to where she is in life at this point, I think that I would have made some of the very same decisions. I didn't like Valerie at the beginning of the story, but as the story progressed she kind of grew on me, as I've known people in similar positions and I almost felt sympathy for her. Even though the story is told from Addie's perspective Valerie is very much the catalyst that keeps the story going. The writing was pretty good. The story jumps between the past and the present and also jumps between a few different locations. While this jumping can sometimes lead to a very disconnected story it was very well executed in this book. The flashbacks help to explain the time gaps between high school and the present. They also help build the story behind Val and Addie. The characters were very believable. The plot was a bit on the crazy side, but after I got to know Valerie I started to think that she's the kind of person that really could get herself into something like this. This one really played with my emotions, as I really wanted to dislike Val but ended up feeling kind of sorry for her. Plus as we learn about Addie I really could let myself become her as I was reading. I even pictured her to be almost like me. The other characters were kind of two-dimensional, but because their importance to the story was limited I think they didn't need to be well-rounded. I really liked this one.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I liked this book. I wouldn’t say I loved it like I do some of Weiner’s other works, but it was enjoyable. Goodreads describes this novel as hilarious and I disagree with that statement. This book was about broken relationships and it was heavy and not humorous.Addie and Valerie are the best of friends until they are torn about by high school shenanigans. After not speaking to each other for over 15 years, the two reunite under interesting circumstances and try to see if the close relationship they once had can be repaired.The novel was very engaging and read quickly. I found it to be well-written and interesting. It did lack a bit of punch. I think that is why the ratings of this novel are so low. I had the sense of something being missing, but not to the point that it caused me to dislike the book.I would recommend it to Weiner fans.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love almost every one of Jennifer's books. Adored this one as well.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At first I wasn't sure what to make Addie and Val. Addie has such a rich interior life and Val seems so shallow. As the book went along I couldn't help but realize it's brilliant. Addie's metamorphosis from a woman who lets her life be decided by easy decisions to one who celebrates life is breathtaking.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A quite amusing author. She tells this story in a zigzag fashion from the present back to the past. From one character's point of view to another. But that adds to the surprising revelations of character. Not terribly deep, dealing mostly with the main character self actualizing with a romance leading to a big romantic kiss near the end. I hope every reader has fun with this.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Addie Downs, like the protagonists in Weiner's other novels, is an overweight, 30 something brunette with a beautiful sidekick. While Addie has lost a good deal of weight when the book opens, she still struggles to reconcile her new body with the fat girl inside. Addie's high school BFF, Valerie, turns up on her doorstep after a violent incident outside their 15th high school reunion. Addie and Val then go on the lam while we learn about how Addie wished she was skinny and cute with a cool mom growing up and Val wished she had a functional family even though Addie and her mom were fat. I have read at least 4 of Weiner's books and I don't know why I keep reading them. I did quite enjoy Good in Bed back in 2003 but my enjoyment has diminished with each new release. The thing that I love most in Weiner's books is the Philadelphia setting and I would have squeaked out another half star to recognize my favorite Philly locations in this book.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5To sum it up in one word. "Boring." This book was so unmemorable...all I can remember was that I was trying hard to finish it...there was no "depth" to the book- it was a little to unbelievable to me...not realistic at all, and not entertaining...perhaps a good read for the beach or light summer reading, but not something that would keep your interest for very long. I was very disappointed since I LOVED the film "In Her Shoes," which is based on one of her works, so I had high hopes for this book, but it just kinda fell flat.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Trite and trivial. Poorly developed, unbelievable and with an unlikely ending. On my list as a reminder not to read anything else by this author.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Good, but not great. I didn't feel a connection to any of the characters, but I enjoyed the story. More than anything, I just felt sorry for the characters (they each had their pathetic moments).
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I enjoyed this book well enough although I spent much of the novel trying to figure out who the narrative voice reminded me of--Susan Isaacs, Janet Evanovich,or Carl Hiaasen perhaps. And I felt like the humor sat kind of uneasily in the novel. Like it really wanted to be or could have been a serious and meaningful novel but instead the author settled for trite and formulaic. Still, I think she has the potential to be a really good writer (I loved the details in the beginning about the two girls growing up) so I'm interested to read more of her books.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I don't think that it is a good sign that I like the main character less because she gets suckered into her best friend from high school's self absorbed insanity twenty years later. I was so annoyed that she just let someone who made her life hell back into her life and it all became about the "best friend" again. Playing a secondary character in her own life when this chick shows up again. Ugh...I liked it so little that I can't even remember the characters names. So, if this review made little sense, well, I apologize.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I didn't love this as much as I've loved some of Weiner's other books, and I'm not sure why. The story requires a little more suspending of the disbelief than I'm comfortable with, maybe, and I think I had some trouble identifying with a narrator who is as little interested in vengeance as Addie is, even after what she's been through. The book is still a lot of fun, though, and even if I didn't like it as well as I've liked others of her books, I really did enjoy it.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I'm not doing a spoiler when I say that promo copy for this book is way dishonest. What's her name--the cool, skinny girlhood friend--didn't accidentally kill anyone; you learn that in the first few pages. If this were a screenplay, you'd leave out this guy's boring trajectory and totally unbelievable Christian savior (Jennifer, fundamental Protestants, probably no Protestants, use rosary beads. They're not big on images either.). Leave out the disabled brother side story, throw in a little more about online dates. Maybe there would then a modicum of suspense, momentum.The tone is off with the pretty reckless friend, Val, though. Val thinks robbing a bank is a nifty idea? She's stupid enough to use credit cards? Aren't they supposed to be sharing, evolving or having fun on a road trip? The crazy character can work, if not hold a respectable job, but all the other characters and situations have to out-of-kilter tone too.Sigh. I'm interested in this genre because I think it would be easy to write this type of book (Yeah, yeah, I know but Weiner started off as a journalist as well). But how do you find the good ones? I've picked up some others and barely glanced because the sentence construction and stereotyping was so offensive. Also, acknowledgements and forewords are often riddled with punctuation errors. Weiner's grammar and punctuation are fine and sometimes she even gets a joke off.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5listened to the abridged version on my trip down to corning and back this week (I wish I had known it was abridged! I hate abridged!) It wasn't bad. It was okay. Kept me occupied for my ride.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I really enjoyed the backstory and character development, but I thought the overall story was a bit weak and unrealistic. Love Weiner's books and her writing style, but this was just an okay one for me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Addie and Valerie were best friends since they were little girls living next door to eachother. Though their home lives were radically different, they were loyal friends until an event in high school tore them apart. Now, years later, Valerie shows up unexpectedly on Addie's doorstep asking for help. As the two engage in an impromptu flee from the law, the girls revisit their past and rekindle their friendship. This book was funny and heartwarming, but also painful at times, as the girls' relationship and the troubled experiences of high school were revisited. As with all of Jennifer Weiner's books, I really enjoyed this one. I think the girls' friendship was honest and the characters were well-developed. I was sad to leave them behind and would love to revisit them in a future book!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Enjoyable, but not amazing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I think this is my favorite Jennifer Weiner book so far. It was funny and perfect for reading on a sunny summer day.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A thoroughly enjoyable book for winter and recuperation. When they were both nine years old, Valerie Adler moves across the street from Addie Downs and they become fast friends. In high school something drove the two apart and Addie went on to become at stay at home artist for a greeting card company and Valerie went out into the world and became a TV weather person. Fifteen years later Valerie is back in town for the high school reunion. And late in the evening she shows up at Addie's door seeking her help. The story was a delight to read except for one or two events that I know could not have happened without consequences and therefore were unbelievable.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I couldn't finish this book. I thought it sounded promising, but the characters are loathsome and flat, the plot contrived, etc. I read about 100 pages and then skimmed the rest and will be returning it to the library.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A light and entertaining read with an underlay of something more substantial that never quite emerges. Well written, as all of Weiner's books are, with memorably drawn characters.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Publishing industry professionals in this country declared the Chick Lit genre dead some years ago, forcing hordes of writers to reinvent themselves—at least on the surface. A novel written in Chick Lit’s distinctively snarky voice must now call itself women’s humorous contemporary fiction, or light women’s fiction, or any combination thereof, as long as the words “Chick Lit,” so offensively yesterday, are absent. First person point of view, intrinsic to the Chick Lit craze, is no longer acceptable in adult fiction. Unless you’re Jennifer Weiner.Which is a good thing. Just because the publishing industry begged for Chick Lit, got Chick Lit, got too much Chick Lit, and got sick of Chick Lit all within a decade or so, doesn’t mean there’s suddenly a shortage of women readers looking for the fluffy pink beach reads they’ve known and loved.Best Friends Forever (BFF) still has Weiner’s funny, everywoman’s voice, a plot that entertains like a cat zipping around the room after a laser pointer, and characters spiced with a finely balanced combination of angst-that-doesn’t-take-itself-too-seriously and plausible back-story.Fat Adelaide Downs and ditzy Valerie Alder are the products of normal American families, and by “normal,” I mean to say “highly dysfunctional.” As children, Addie and Val bond over their mutual, but unspoken, wish to belong to the other’s family. Addie is ashamed of her obese mother, who Val sees as the nurturing, supportive woman she is, and Val, with her filthy boys’ clothes, greasy hair and mossy teeth, somehow hides the fact that her mother is flat-out neglectful, while Addie sees her as glamorous and free-spirited.Was Ms. Weiner somehow privy to my own adolescence, or are there really that many former kids out there suppressing memories of a similar childhood? Stir the BFF characters’ early lives with an ugly stick, and you’ve got me and my best friend; we’ll call her Lesli, because that was her name. Les was a size-16 girl with a strikingly pretty face, whose mother was thin, polished, never-without-a-man, and drove a Trans Am. I was the neglected one with the obese mother, and alright, Les probably never wished she had my mom, but I sure wanted to exchange my hand-me-downs and thrift-store clothes, self-cut hair, and filthy apartment for her designer jeans, thick, waist-length brown hair and germ-free living conditions.I haven’t seen her in years, but if Les showed up on my doorstep tomorrow needing help because she thought she’d killed her high school date-rapist in a semi-deliberate hit-and-run, it’s unlikely I’d rob a bank and go on the lam with her, like Addie does for Val. Well, they don’t really rob a bank. Val just thinks they did, but I don’t want to pepper this review with too many spoilers. Suffice it to say, BFF won’t disappoint the majority of Ms. Weiner’s fans. Chick Lit may be D.O.A., but the void has been effectively filled with the exact same product, different name. (Review originally posted to Booksquawk)
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Definitely my least favorite book of hers, but still worth reading...
Book preview
Best Friends Forever - Jennifer Weiner
PART ONE
Reunion
ONE
Dan Swansea came awake in the darkness, not knowing for a minute who he was or where. He lifted one hand to his head and groaned when it came away sticky with blood. Slowly (or at least it felt that way), things returned to him. His name. That he was outside in a parking lot, on his back in the gravel, and he was freezing. Also, except for his shoes and socks, he was naked.
He sat up, his stomach roiling as a wave of pain swept through him, and wiped his head again, flicking drops of blood onto the gravel. He’d followed a girl out here. A girl—her name was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite get it. A high school girl, an old classmate, with flashing white teeth and red soles on her shoes. Come to my car, she’d whispered. It’s warm. They’d kissed for a while, with the girl backed against the driver’s-side door, her mouth fiery underneath his, their breath steaming in the blackness, until she pushed him away. Take off your clothes, she’d said. I want to see you. It’s freezing! he’d protested, but his hands were already working at the buttons of his shirt and the clasp of his belt, because it was cold but she was hot, and he wasn’t passing this up. No way. He’d squirmed out of his clothes, kicking his pants off over his shoes, dropping each garment in a pile on the gravel, and when he looked up, naked and shivering in the cold, one hand cupping his cock, she was pointing something at him. His heart stopped—a gun?—but almost before he’d thought the word, he saw that it wasn’t a gun but a cell phone.
The flash was brilliant, blinding him as she snapped a picture. Hey! he shouted. What the fuck?
See how you like it, she’d snarled. See how you like it when they’re laughing at you.
He’d lunged for her, trying to snatch the phone. What is your problem?
What’s my problem? she’d answered, dancing backward on her red-soled shoes. You’re my problem. You ruined my life!
She dived into the car, slamming the door before he could grab the handle. The engine roared to life. He’d jumped in front of her, thinking she’d stop, but judging from the cuts on his side and the terrible sick throbbing in his head, maybe she hadn’t.
He groaned again, pushed himself upright, and peered at the country club, which was empty and locked. Through the darkness, he could see the tennis courts off to one side, the golf course behind the building, the sheds and outbuildings underneath a stand of pine trees a discreet distance from the club proper. Clothes first, he decided, and stumbled painfully toward the nearest building. Clothes first… and then revenge.
TWO
Looking back, the knock on the door should have scared me. It should at least have come as a surprise. My house—the same one I grew up in—is set at the farthest curve of a cul-de-sac in Pleasant Ridge, Illinois, a Chicago suburb of fourteen thousand souls with quiet streets, neatly kept lawns, and well-regarded public schools. There are rarely pedestrians or passersby on Crescent Drive. Most weeks, the only signs of life after ten p.m. are the flash of headlights on my bedroom wall on the nights that my next-door neighbor Mrs. Bass has her Shakespeare Society meeting. I live alone, and I’m generally asleep by ten-thirty. But even so. When I heard the knock, my heartbeat didn’t quicken; my palms did not sweat. At some level underneath conscious thought, a place down in my cells where, the scientists tell us, memories reside, I’d been waiting years for that knock, waiting for the feel of my feet moving across the floor and my hand on the cool brass knob.
I pulled open the door and felt my eyes get big and my breath catch in my chest. There was my old best friend, Valerie Adler, whom I hadn’t spoken to since I was seventeen and hadn’t seen in person since high school ended, standing underneath the porch light; Valerie with her heart-shaped face and Cupid’s-bow lips and lashes heavy and dark as moth’s wings. She stood with her hands clasped at her waist, as if in prayer. There was something dark staining the sleeve of her belted trench coat.
For a minute, we stood in the cold, in the cone of light, staring at each other, and the thought that rose to my mind had the warmth of sunshine and the sweet density of honey. My friend, I thought as I looked at Val. My friend has come back to me.
I opened my mouth—to say what, I wasn’t sure—but it was Val who spoke first. Addie,
she said. Her teeth were gleaming, perfect and even; her voice was the same as I remembered from all those years ago, husky, confiding, an I’ve-got-a-secret kind of voice that she currently deployed to great effect, delivering the weather on the nightly newscasts on Chicago’s third-rated TV station. She’d been hired six months ago, to great fanfare and a number of billboards along the interstate announcing her new gig. (Look who just blew into town!
the billboards read, underneath a picture of Val, all windswept hair and crimson, smiling lips.) Listen. Something… something really bad happened,
she said. Can you help me? Please?
I kept my mouth shut. Val rocked back on high heels that seemed no thicker than pins, gulping as she raked both hands through her hair, then brought them to waist level and began twisting her belt. Had I known she had that haircut, that buttercup-yellow color, that shoulder-length style, with layers that curled into ringlets in the rain, when I’d given my hairdresser the go-ahead? I made a point of not watching her station, but maybe I’d caught a glimpse of her as I changed channels or the billboards had made an impression, because somehow here I was, in flannel pajamas and thick wool socks, with my ex-best-friend’s hair on my head.
Look at you,
she said, her voice low and full of wonder. Look at you,
said Valerie. "You got thin."
Come in, Val,
I said. If time was a dimension, and not a straight line, if you could look down through it like you were looking through water and it could ripple and shift, I was already opening the door. This had all already happened, the way it always did; the way it always would.
THREE
I led Valerie into the kitchen, listening to the drumbeat of her heels on the hardwood floor behind me. She wriggled out of her coat and used her fingertips to hang it over the back of a chair, then looked me up and down. You weren’t at the reunion,
she said.
I had a date,
I answered.
She raised her eyebrows. I turned away, filling the kettle at the sink, then setting it on the burner and flicking on the gas, unwilling to say more.
My night had not started out well. On the dating website’s advice, I’d met the guy, my sixth blind date in as many weeks, at the restaurant (Do NOT invite a stranger to your house!
the website had scolded. Always meet in public, always carry a cell phone, car keys, and/or enough money for transportation, and always let a friend know where you are!
) I’d gotten the first parts of it right, driving my own car, with my cell phone charged and enough money to cover the bill in my wallet, but I hadn’t been able to fulfill the last part, on account of being, at the moment, friendless (friend-free?), so instead, I’d printed out a note in eighteen-point bold type and taped it to my fridge: I WENT TO MEET MATTHEW SHARP ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23. IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO ME, IT’S PROBABLY HIS FAULT. I’d added my date’s telephone number, the name and address of the restaurant, and a photocopy of my insurance card. I’d thought for a minute, then added, P.S.: I WOULD LIKE A MILITARY FUNERAL…because, really, who wouldn’t? Buglers playing taps equals guaranteed tears.
Addie?
the man by the hostess stand said. I’m Matthew Sharp.
He was on time, and tall, as promised. This was a refreshing change: the five guys I’d previously met were not, in general, as promised. Matthew Sharp was neatly dressed in a tweed sports coat, a dark-blue button-down shirt, pressed pants, and loafers. His breath, as he leaned close to shake my hand, smelled like cinnamon, and a mustache bristled over his lip. Okay, I thought. I can work with this. True, the mustache was an unpleasant surprise, and his hairline had receded since he’d posed for his online picture, but who was I to complain?
Nice to meet you,
I said, and slipped my black wool coat off my shoulders.
Thanks for coming.
He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering briefly on my body before flicking back to my face. He didn’t look appalled, nor did he appear to be edging toward the door. That was good. I’d dressed in what had become my date uniform: a black skirt that came to precisely the center of my knees (not short enough to be slutty, not long enough to be dowdy), a blouse of dark-red silk, black hose, black boots with low heels, in case he’d been lying about his height or, less likely but still possible, in case I needed to run. Our table’s ready. Would you like a drink at the bar first?
No thanks.
The website recommended only a single glass of wine. I’d keep my wits about me and not give him any reason to think I had a drinking problem.
The hostess took our coats and handed Matthew a ticket. After you,
he said as I tucked my scarf and hat into my purse and shook out my hair. My calves had finally gotten skinny enough for me to zip my knee-high boots to the very top. I’d gone to my hairdresser that morning, planning on nothing more than a trim, but, buoyed by Paul’s repeated use of the word amazing!
and the way he’d actually gotten teary when he’d seen me, I’d allowed myself to be talked into six hours’ and five hundred dollars’ worth of cut, color, and chemicals, and left with a layered bob that Paul swore made me look sixteen from certain angles, honey-blond highlights, and conditioner with a French-sounding name, guaranteed to leave my hair frizz-free and shiny for the next four months.
I asked for a glass of Chardonnay, Caesar salad, and broiled sole, sauce on the side. Matthew ordered Cabernet, calamari to start with, then a steak.
How was your holiday?
he asked.
It was nice,
I told him. Very quiet. I spent the day with family.
This was true. I’d taken the full Thanksgiving dinner—butternut squash soup, roast turkey, chestnut stuffing, sweet potatoes under a blanket of caramelized marshmallow, the obligatory pumpkin pie—to my brother, Jon, at his assisted-living facility on the South Side. We’d eaten sitting on the floor of his small, overheated room, our backs against his single bed, watching Starship Troopers, which was his favorite. I’d left by three and been back home by four. There, I’d made myself a cup of tea, added a slug of whiskey, and left a dish of chopped turkey and gravy out for the little black cat that frequents my back door. I’d spent the evening sitting in the living room, one hand on my belly, looking at the shifting grays and lavenders of the sky, until the moon came up.
How about you?
Matthew told me he’d had dinner with his parents, his sister, and her husband and kids. He’d cooked the turkey, rubbing butter and sage under the skin and slow-roasting it over a bed of onions. He said he loved to cook, and I said I did, too. I told him about my adventures in guacamole. He told me about the shows he watched on the Food Network and the hot new restaurant in Chicago he was dying to try.
The waiter slid our plates in front of us. Matthew tucked a tentacle into his mouth. How’s your salad?
he asked. A bit of fried breading was stuck in his mustache, and I had to fight an impulse to reach over and brush it away.
It’s great.
It was overdressed, each leaf oily and dripping, but that was okay—a bad salad was a perfectly reasonable trade-off for, finally, thank you God, a decent date. I chewed a mouthful into lettuce-flavored paste, and we smiled at each other.
Tell me about your job,
Matthew said.
I paint illustrations for greeting cards.
He actually seemed interested, which was a pleasant change from my previous dates. How had I gotten into that line of work? (Through my mother, who’d written copy for the same line of cards and had submitted one of my watercolors without telling me years ago.) Did I work from home? (Yes, I’d set up a studio in the dining room, with my easel by the window, where the light was best.) He asked about the hours, about my training, about whether I got lonely working all by myself, instead of in an office. I could have given him a soliloquy, an essay, could have sung an entire libretto on the topic of loneliness, but instead I’d just said, I don’t mind being by myself.
He told me about his job running a chain of self-storage warehouses in Illinois and Wisconsin. I asked about where he’d grown up and where he lived now, lifting a soggy crouton to my lips, then setting it back on the plate, untasted, waiting for the moment that had come during each of my other dates, when he’d start trashing his ex-wife. Of the five men I’d gone out with, four of them had proclaimed that their exes were crazy (one had upped his diagnosis to certifiably insane
). The fifth was a widower. His wife had been a saint, which sounded even worse than crazy when you were the potential follow-up act.
He was nice, I thought, as Matthew expounded enthusiastically on the hike he’d taken just last weekend with the Sierra Club. I go out with them a few times a month,
he volunteered. Maybe you could join me?
My first thought was that he was kidding—me, hike? Where, from the Cinnabon to the Ben & Jerry’s? I still had to remind myself that I was now more or less normal-sized, and that Matthew had never seen me in my previous incarnation. Sure. That sounds like fun.
A hike in the woods. I let myself picture it: a red fleece pullover, a hat that matched my mittens, the thermos full of hot coffee that I’d bring. We’d sit side by side on a blanket in the leaves and watch as a stream burbled by.
Our entrees arrived. My fish was mealy at the edges, translucent in the center, tasting as dead as if it had never been alive. I managed two bites while Matthew told the story of how his colleague, a middle-aged middle manager named Fred, had suddenly taken it into his head to get his eyes done. He came into the office and he looked—Well, one of the secretaries said he looked like a squirrel with something jammed up his…
He paused. A dimple flashed in his cheek. Like a startled squirrel. Like his eyes were trying to jump right out of his head, and I heard that when his granddaughter saw him for the first time she started crying.
He chuckled. I smiled. Love me, I thought, and sipped my wine and trailed one manicured thumbnail delicately along the edge of my blouse, beneath which my breasts swelled, clad in itchy lace, helped along by heavy-duty underwire.
Matthew leaned across the table, with his tie dangling dangerously close to the puddle of beef blood on his plate. You’re a really unique person,
he said.
I smiled, shoving my doubts about the syntax of really unique
to the back of my mind.
I feel so comfortable with you. Like I could tell you anything,
he continued.
I kept smiling as he gazed at me. He had nice eyes behind the glasses. Kind eyes. Maybe I could talk him into shaving the mustache. I could see us together, on a slope covered with fallen leaves, my mittened hands around a cup, the coffee-scented steam curling in the air. Please stop talking, I begged him telepathically. Every time you open your mouth, you are jeopardizing our beautiful life together.
Sadly, Matthew didn’t get the message. Six months ago,
he began, with his eyes locked on mine, I woke up with a bright light shining through my bedroom windows. I looked up and saw an enormous green disc hovering above my home.
Ha!
I laughed. Ha ha ha!
I laughed until I realized he wasn’t laughing… which meant that he wasn’t kidding.
I have reason to believe,
he continued, and then paused, lips parted beneath his mustache, that I was abducted by aliens that night.
He was so close that I could feel his beefy breath on my face. "That I was probed."
Dessert?
asked the waiter, sliding menus in front of us.
I managed to shake my head no. I couldn’t speak. I was single, true. I was desperate, also true. I had slept with only one man at the shamefully advanced age of thirty-three. I’d never heard the words I love you
from someone who wasn’t a parent. But still, I was not going home with a guy who claimed to have been violated by space aliens. A girl has her limits.
When the check came, Matthew slipped a credit card into the leather folder and looked at me ruefully. I guess I shouldn’t talk about the alien abduction on first dates.
I adjusted my neckline. Probably not. I usually wait until the third date to talk about my tail.
You have a tail?
Now he was the one who couldn’t tell if I was kidding.
A small one.
You’re funny,
he’d said. There was a kind of drowning desperation in his voice, a tone I knew well. Help me, he was saying. Throw me a rope, give me a smile, let me know it’s okay. I got to my feet while Matthew searched his pockets for a few bucks to tip the coat-check girl, then followed him through the restaurant, waiting as he held the door. You seem like a good person,
Matthew said in the parking lot, reaching for my hand. I moved sideways, just enough so that I was out of his reach. You’re wrong, I thought. I’m not.
Outside, the predinner mist had thickened into a chilly fog. Streetlamps glowed beneath golden halos of light. Matthew ran his hand through his hair. Even in the cold, he was sweating. I could see droplets glimmering through his mustache. Can I call you?
he asked.
Sure.
Of course, I wouldn’t answer, but that didn’t seem smart to mention. You’ve still got my number, right?
Still got it.
He smiled, pathetically grateful, and leaned forward. It took me a second to realize that he intended to kiss me, and another second to realize that I was going to let him. His mustache brushed my upper lip and cheek. I felt absolutely nothing. He could have pressed a bottle brush or a Brillo pad against my face; I could have been kissing his lapel or the hood of my Honda.
By the time I got home, he’d already left a message, long, meandering, and apologetic. He was sorry if he’d freaked me out. He thought that I was great. He was looking forward to seeing me again, maybe on Sunday? There was a movie that had gotten a good write-up in the Trib, or a hot-air-balloon festival. We could drive out, pack a picnic… his voice trailed off hopefully. Well,
he said. I’ll talk to you soon.
He recited his telephone number. I thumbed number three for erase,
kicked off my boots, twisted my bright new hair into a plastic clip, then sat on the edge of my bed with my face in my hands and allowed myself one brief, dry, spinsterish sob. Don’t get your hopes up. The website didn’t say that. It was what I told myself as inoculation against the fantasy, persistent as a weed, that one of these guys could be the one: that I could fall in love, get married, have babies, be normal. Don’t get your hopes up. I’d chant it like a mantra on my drive to the Starbucks or the Applebee’s or, with Date Number Four, the bowling alley, where, it turned out, the fellow had had the ingenious notion of combining a first date with a fifth birthday party for his son (his ex-wife had not been glad to meet me; neither, for that matter, had his five-year-old). Don’t get your hopes up… but every time I did, and every time I got my stupid heart crushed.
Oh, well,
I said out loud. Funny. That had been nice to hear. But it was so unfair! To get a date on the Internet, a woman had to be many things, starting with thin and proceeding relentlessly to attractive and pleasant and a good listener and good company. Young, of course. Still fertile, still cute, with a good body and a decent job and a supportive (but not intrusive) family. The men didn’t even have to be sane.
I looked at the clock, the antique pink-and-green enameled clock on chubby gold legs that I’d bought myself for my birthday. It was just after ten. The reunion would be in full swing. Merry Armbruster had called me that afternoon, making one more last-ditch plea for my attendance. You look fantastic now! And I’m sure everyone’s forgotten about… well, you know. We’ve all grown up. There’s other things people will want to talk about.
Thanks but no thanks. I swallowed my vitamins with a glass of water and chased them with a shot of wheatgrass (I’d been drinking the stuff for two years, and it still tasted exactly like pureed lawnmower clippings). I hung up my date uniform, replaced the lace bra with a comfortable cotton one, pulled on my favorite flannel pajamas and a pair of socks, then sat back down on the edge of my bed, suddenly exhausted. Just lately, I’d been thinking a lot about the girl I’d been, and what she would have made of the woman I’d become. I imagined the little me standing at the doorway of my bedroom, once my parents’, in a neat cotton sweater and a pleated skirt, dark-brown hair caught in a ponytail and tied with a ribbon that matched her kneesocks. At first she’d be pleased by the rich color of the paint on the bedroom walls, the oil painting that I’d done of a lighthouse casting its beam of gold over the water, hanging above the window. She would like the enameled vase on the bedside table, the crisp linen bedskirt and the trellised iron headboard, but then she’d realize that it was my parents’ bedroom. Still here? she’d think, and I’d have to explain how I hadn’t meant to stay, how I’d tried to go away to college, how I’d planned to live in a big city, to have boyfriends and an interesting job, to make friends and take trips and have an apartment that I’d decorate with souvenirs and statues and photographs I’d have taken on my travels around the world, how I’d planned on all of that, but somehow…
I rolled onto my side. My blood buzzed, and my thoughts were darting wildly, jumping from my date who’d looked so promising, to the website where I’d found him, to my ex-boyfriend Vijay, who’d been ex
for four months, and who’d never exactly been a boyfriend. You couldn’t call him a boyfriend, I guess, if we’d been out together in public only once, but I’d loved him with an intensity that I thought—or at least hoped—was reserved for the first man you’d wanted who’d broken your heart.
I squeezed my eyes shut and let my hand rest briefly on my belly, holding my breath as I pressed. Still there. The lump—it was actually more of a stiffness than a lump—was still there, between the ridge of my pubic bone and my belly button. I pushed at it, prodding with my fingertips. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it didn’t feel normal, either. I didn’t know how long it had been there—for years I’d been so fat I could have been gestating twins and probably not noticed—but I was sure that I knew what it was. Hadn’t I watched my own mother die of the same thing? First her breasts, then her liver, then her lungs and her bones, then everything, everywhere.
I’d scheduled an appointment with my doctor for next week, the soonest they could take me. The receptionist’s chirpy voice had cooled noticeably at my name, and I knew why. Last year I’d called in a panic after my fingers had found an odd-shaped protuberance on the side of my abdomen… which had turned out to be my hipbone. Well, how was I supposed to know? I thought, as sullen as I’d been when the nurse delivered the verdict, then stepped outside the exam room to laugh her stupid highlighted head off. You spend ten years in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds and see how well you recognize your own bones when you find them again.
Besides, this time it felt different. Big, strangely stiff, growing each day. I knew what it was, and deep down, I’d known that it was coming. Bad luck always found me. I was a bad-luck kind of girl. The cancer had eaten my mother and found her sweet, and now it had returned to Crescent Drive, hoping I’d taste the same. And maybe that wouldn’t be so awful, I thought, as I lay on my fancy bedding, staring up at the crown moldings I’d hot-glued in place with my birthday clock ticking quietly beside me. I could just give up on everything, starting with Internet dating. No more freaks and geeks and unexpected mustaches; no more regular-looking guys who turned out to be from the Twilight Zone. I could just read, stay in bed eating shortbread cookies and gelato, and wait for the end… and with that, I heard the knock at the door, and I went downstairs to find my best friend standing there, just like old times.
FOUR
By the time Jordan Novick, Pleasant Ridge police chief, arrived at the parking lot of the twenty-four-hour drugstore, the woman was almost in tears. I can’t figure out what’s wrong,
she said, brandishing her key fob and raising her voice as the infant in her arms howled. It’s a brand-new car. You’re just supposed to walk up to it with your key fob, you don’t even have to press anything, and I keep trying, but the door still won’t open.
Don’t worry,
he said, giving the woman a fast (and, he told himself, completely professional) once-over. Five-five, one-forty, Caucasian, brown and brown. Sweatpants, ponytail, crusted patch of either vomit or dried applesauce on her shirt, diaper bag on her shoulder, recycled-plastic shopping bag in her hand, panicked look in her eyes and dark circles underneath them. Why don’t you and the little one sit in the cruiser and stay warm?
She nodded gratefully, babbling thank-yous as he walked her to his car and got her settled in the backseat. He took the woman’s key fob, which held no actual keys, just a plastic rectangle, shut his car door, and stood for a moment, surveying the parking lot. The drugstore anchored one end of Pleasant Ridge’s two-block downtown, which, Patti used to joke, had been zoned cute.
Next to the parking lot was the town hall, a stately brick building with Doric columns and a marble memorial to the World War II dead out front. Next to that was the organic grocery store, a coffee shop where you could obtain a four-dollar scone or a five-dollar cappuccino, the post office, a bookstore, and a handful of boutiques that sold things like potpourri and pottery. He scratched his stubble, thinking, then waved the key fob next to the driver’s-side door of the Prius the lady had indicated. Nothing happened. He scanned the rows of cars and located three other Priuses (Prii? he wondered). The second one had an infant seat in the back, and its locks popped open obligingly when he approached. Close the books on that one,
Jordan said, then looked around to make sure no one had heard.
Back in the cruiser, the woman had pulled up her shirt, and the baby had stopped squealing and started nursing. Jordan caught a glimpse of the woman’s bare white belly and the curve of her breast before hastily averting his eyes.
I’m so sorry,
she said, sounding wretched. We ran out of Tylenol, and my husband’s out of town, and I didn’t know what else to do.
It’s fine,
Jordan said. I believe I’ve solved the mystery.
He explained, without looking at her, that she’d been aiming her key fob at the wrong car.
The woman slumped back against the seat and pounded at her forehead with the heel of her free hand. You must think I’m the biggest idiot in the world.
No, ma’am,
he said, and meant it. The biggest idiot in the world is the guy—the detective—whose wife is having an affair with her dentist and who fails to notice the new lingerie, or the gym membership, or that she’s suddenly walking around with a mouthful of blinding-white teeth. These things happen.
He waited until she’d burped the baby (its name was Spencer, and Jordan wasn’t sure if that made it a boy or a girl), then walked her back to her car. Drive safe,
he said as she strapped Spencer into the seat, fastened her own seat belt, and gave Jordan a weary wave.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his parka and considered the night sky. Something is coming, he thought… but he couldn’t say why he was thinking it, or what he imagined was approaching. Snow, probably—snow was usually coming toward the end of November in Chicago… but maybe something else was on its way, something better. Jordan took a deep breath, then climbed into his cruiser to head back to the station and type out a report on the Case of the Locked Prius, by far the biggest event of his shift. Something was coming, and he’d just have to hope that he was ready when it came.
FIVE
Valerie Adler’s family moved into the green-and-tan ranch house across the street in June of 1983, when I was nine years old. They arrived on a Saturday morning. My brother and mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table as the moving van roared around the corner. Attracted by the noise, we went to the living room to look. I could hear the grumble of a lawnmower from the house next door (Mr. Bass would be pushing it, wearing a sleeveless undershirt and leather sandals that exposed his thick yellow toenails, while his wife watched from their screened-in porch, reading a paperback and pointing out the spots he’d missed).
New neighbors,
Jon called to my father, who was at his station at the stove, making his famous pancakes.
Really?
My mother put her hands on Jon’s shoulders, standing on her tiptoes to peek over his head. She watched the truck for a minute, then went back to the kitchen. That morning she was dressed in her blue cotton bathrobe, with her hair in a thick braid over one shoulder. Her breasts swung above the belt that barely made it around her midsection, and her broad feet pushed at the seams of her slippers.
This was the year I had begun to understand that most mothers weren’t like my mother, that my family was different from other families in Pleasant Ridge. Some of my classmates’ moms were skinny and some of them were plump, but none of the plump ones were near the size of my mom, who had to work hard every time she got up from a chair or out of our station wagon, who had to stand through my parent-teacher conferences because she couldn’t fit behind the desks.
Wow, look at her,
I’d heard Lauren Felsey whisper to Kara Tait when my mom had come to school on Career Day. I’d felt furious at Lauren, but furious at my mother, too, for failing to be a normal mom, in jeans or khakis, with a neat haircut and a brisk manner. My mom was big, and soft, and dreamy, and until then I’d always thought she was beautiful. She had pale skin and rosy cheeks, like a painted doll, round blue eyes and light-brown hair that fell to the small of her back. At night, I loved to lie on her bed and watch her brush her hair, as light and fluffy as the stuff you’d