Free This Is How It Happened by Jo Barrett Page A

going to lose it.
    I dial Heather’s number.
    “Pick up, pick up—” I say, hopping up and down. Doing a rain dance as the phone rings and rings. Heather always answers on the first ring so I’m worried she’s not home.
    “Hey Maddy!” she chirps into the phone. She sounds out of breath. “Sorry. I was painting the second bedroom. It’s going to be the cutest little nursery when I get finished!”
    “When can I see it?”
    “Maybe a week,” she says. “So what’s up?”
    “You’ve been studying the Talmud. What does it say about murder? Is there ever any justification?” I ask.
    “No,” Heather says, flatly.
    “You sure? I thought the Jews were big into the whole ‘eye for an eye’ thing.”
    “Hang on a sec,” Heather says. I can hear her rummaging through a book, flipping pages. “Here. It says something right here,” she says.
    “What does it say?”
    “It says—Get Over It, Maddy.”
    “Okay. I just want you to think about all the murder throughout history that was considered justified. Like Clint Eastwood in The Unforgiven .”
    “That’s a movie,” Heather says. “Not history.”
    “So you’re saying the military can bomb villages and kill hundreds of innocent women and children, but I can’t OFF one lousy ex-fiancé?”
    “He wasn’t technically your fiancé, Maddy.”
    Oh. So we’re back to this again. Heather, by the way, is big on technicalities.
    “What was the Juliet ring? And the ‘I intend to marry you?’ What was that all about?” I ask, and my voice sounds whiney. I’m even starting to annoy myself.
    “It was a promise,” Heather says. “But it didn’t work out. You can’t hold it against him for changing his mind.”
    I want to tell Heather about the worst thing Carlton did to me. I want to bolster my argument. Lay out my case. But I can’t. I’m too ashamed. Embarrassed. Humiliated. Repulsed.
    “Forever, my Juliet. Yeah, right,” I grumble. “Forever sure isn’t what it used to be.”
    “He’s a bad seed, Maddy. But at least you found out before anything worse could happen.”
    Something worse did happen , I think.
    Heather starts talking quickly now. She’s on a roll.
    “Imagine if you did marry Carlton and have his children, Maddy. Then what? Then you find out he’s a schmuck, but you’re stuck with a mortgage and a bunch of rug rats.”
    “Good point,” I say. I’m resigned to accepting her advice. I know it will make her feel good. As if she’s accomplished something.
    “Thanks for the advice,” I say, magnanimously.
    I grip the phone and stare up at the ceiling. Thinking of ways to poison Carlton without poisoning the other employees.
    I look around the kitchen. At the refrigerator. The freezer.
    The freezer! Carlton always kept a vodka bottle in the freezer and took a nip after work. Maybe I could start with that. Cyanide meets Grey Goose.
    A-ha!
    Perfecto , I think.
    “What do you know about cyanide?” I ask, swinging my toe in an arc across the tile floor.
    “Oy Vay,” Heather sighs into the phone. My friend, the sorority girl from South Carolina.
    “You think I can buy cyanide on the black market?” I ask. I’m really nutty this morning.
    “Where is the black market?” Heather says.
    “I don’t know. We could Mapquest it.”
    “You could get a heat-seeking missile launcher,” Heather pipes up. “You know, since Carlton’s so hot.”
    I giggle. God bless my friend Heather.
    “Cyanide smells like almonds,” I say.
    Heather ignores me. “Come over,” she says. “I’m making a traditional Israeli breakfast.”
    “Ooh. Sounds de-lish,” I say. “I’ll be there in a jiffy. Want me to bring anything?”
    “Just your appetite,” she says.
    Heather loves to cook and I love to eat so, in a way, our friendship revolves a lot around food.
    I jump in the shower, wash my hair for the first time in three days, and shave my legs because I don’t want Michael to say I’m “going native.”
    Throwing on a pair of cargo