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"Here you go Make sure you put a roof on City Hall there" I nodded toward the recent addition
"No, Caroline, that’s City Hall down there Right now I’ on the fire station," she huffed
Mimi’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline "Okay, that’s it I’ over to sweep the town off the table
"You touch that jelly and I’ll punch you in the throat," Sophia warned, her et violent so early in the , shall we? I haven’t even had ht hed, leaning back in ue out at Mimi, which carved a s as always this , clad in a plaid miniskirt, kneesocks, and a turtleneck sweater Give her sotails and a backpack and she’d look like a Filipino schoolgirl--an outfit I’m sure her fiancé, Ryan, would love
Yep, Mied Like a scene from a rohts in shining sweaters on the saht Best buddies to my Simon, Ryan and Neil had fallen head over feet for my ladies After a little switcheroo, mind you So between Jillian and Benja fever had hit my little circle in San Francisco
But part of my circle was broken Broken up, rather
As Sophia and Miain how tired Sophia looked She wasn’t sleeping well--not that I could blame her
When she first told us that Neil had cheated on her, we didn’t knohat to do Our first instinct was to set fire to his car, soes are a hard thing to have following you the rest of your life
For a brief and crazyone of his broadcasts and telling his viewers that they got their sports news froain, wiser heads prevailed
So Mimi and I simply stood by our friend as she fell apart
It started when I got a call fro nonstop; sailors all over the world would have been proud I could only catch occasional phrases like "asshole cheater" and "the nerve of that fuck" and "balls are in my pocket" By the time she walked over to inning to cal fiercely She pushed away my offer of tea, sucked back some scotch, and told me what had happened By the time Mimi made it over, it was all out on the table
Neil had had dinner with an old girlfriend; dinner turned into after-dinner drinks; after-dinner drinks turned into kissing Or a kiss, depending on as telling the story Regardless, that’s what caused her to flush his car keys down the toilet
We were all stunned They’d seemed so happy; perfectly matched and twisted in the best of ways Neil was the local sportscaster for NBC, great looking, sweet, lovable, an all-around great guy Who was a cheater, so
She broke up with him immediately, livid She refused to see hih Simon or Ryan to have any contact with hiot really sad, and now she was
Well, it eeks later and she was sitting in a diner in her pajales around her puffy face, wearing noa town out of jelly A y, she was a cellist for the San Francisco Symphony One of the most beautiful and acco it snow in Jelly Town God, no--not with dandruff, but with sugar packets
"Sophia stop, stop--stop!" I yelled, grabbing her hand and spraying sugar snow everywhere "This is enough NoThis is ridiculous!"
"Yeah!" Mih I don’t want to go all Afterschool Special here, but my God, wo hot, and you’re fking great, you’re a fking catch And if fking Neil doesn’t get to have you any awesome," I finished
"Fuck, yeah!" was Mimi’s contribution
The table fell silent Sophia played with one last sugar packet, running it along her fingernails, then stopped to really look at thehed, and then looked up at us, two big tears rolling down her cheeks
"I hate hi breath "And ISophia’s hand into hers
I leaned over and gave Sophia my napkin, which she used to wipe her eyes She looked down at her sweatshirt, ruriain, which cracked a smile out of Sophia for the first time in a while
A little pink crept back into her cheeks She pulled a ponytail holder out of her purse and wrapped her lanced up as the waiter cae when she realized the mounds of food she’d ordered Once he had left, she unfolded her napkin and tucked it in her lap
"Okay, nothis afternoon, nolike a thirteen-year-old boy"
"Boys that age have to eat like that They have to keep up their strength for theirher blueberries fro them up on the side of her plate like tiny cannonballs Sophia and I stared at her as she went on to explain the extreh boys As related to her by her fiancé, apparently an expert
"Ryan really told you all this?" I asked as I sipped e, he couldn’t keep his hands out of his pants for the life of him," she prattled, oblivious to the attention the table behind us was now giving her
"You and Ryan sure see her head incredulously as Mimi demonstrated a particular "technique" that had been ee Ryan