Free As Good as It Got by Isabel Sharpe

she ventured out onto the porch of widows, divorcées and dumpees chattering over their breakfasts as if they were already old friends.
    Anxiety stirred up her already stirred-up stomach. Where to sit? She didn’t want to talk to any of these people.
    “Ann!” Cindy beckoned cheerily from a corner table. She was smiling, showing her big teeth, short dark hair remi-niscent of Cindy Williams in the Laverne and Shirley TV
    show, orange lace showing at the vee of a large navy sweater that had probably belonged to her husband. Next to her sat Martha, wrapped in the same weird musical shawl from yesterday, staring out at the sea as if she longed to hurl herself into it. Across from them—the inevitable. Dinah, bleached hair puffy and immobile, wearing one of those white jogging suits old people wore in Florida.
    Ann lifted her mug to acknowledge Cindy and trudged over. Her club, apparently, her tribe. Accidental friends at best. Real friends knew better than to expect her to talk at breakfast.
    As it turned out, of course, since Dinah was presiding, no As Good As It Got
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    words were required from anyone else. Ann sat and sipped her coffee, which was excellent, made a halfhearted attempt to eat her toast, gave up and got more coffee.
    Coffee was her friend. No, her love. No, her salvation.
    “You’re not eating.” Cindy frowned at Ann’s plate and gestured to her own, which held more than Martha’s, though Martha was twice her size. “This food is incredible. I’ll probably gain twenty pounds in the next two weeks.”
    “Probably.”
    Cindy’s face fell. Ann considered apologizing, then settled on pretending not to notice.
    The sooner people figured out she was a bitch, the sooner they’d leave her alone.
    “Group therapy this morning.” Dinah picked up a piece of toast, negotiating it carefully around über-manicured nails, and started spreading jelly. The toast wobbled, then took a dive—jelly side down—onto her shelf of a chest, clad under the white jogging suit in tight yellow material that brought spandex to mind. “Aw, cheez-whiz. I swear it’s like my boobs are magnetized. I’m always doing this. This one time I was out to dinner when I was dating Frank, my second husband, and I was eating this huge rack of ribs . . . ”
    Ann tuned her out, took the last tepid sip of her second cup. Group therapy. She wanted to go about as much as she’d wanted to go to Paul’s memorial service. The night before that ghastly event she’d lain awake for hours, shaking.
    She knew grief was pain; she’d found out quickly it was also deep physical stress.
    The next day at the Presbyterian church his parents went to, she was stunned by the turnout. Not because she thought Paul and his family had no friends or support system, but 66 Isabel
    Sharpe
    because the crowd of sad faces had brought home shockingly that the tragedy hadn’t just happened to her.
    “Good morning.”
    She tensed—as if she wasn’t already tense enough—at the sound of Patrick’s voice.
    “Good morning!” Cindy and Dinah chorused the greeting, faces turned eagerly toward him. Even Martha took her gaze off the sea. Ann didn’t move.
    He scooted onto the bench next to her; his thigh touched hers briefly. “How’s everyone?”
    Cindy and Dinah assured him they were fine. Martha nodded and turned back to the ocean, wistfully resting her chins on her plump hand.
    “How’s Ann?” His low voice seemed too intimate.
    “Dandy.” She didn’t look at him. His presence threatened to drag her out of the familiar black depths of her mood, and that irritated her.
    “Dandy, huh.” From the corner of her eye she saw him glance at his watch. “I’ve got time, you want to take a walk?”
    Boom. Just like that, her composure up and ran off with the milkman. She turned, unprepared for how beautiful he was even in broad daylight where flaws tended to show, his gray eyes probing and concerned, blond hair boyishly mussed over his forehead, skin smooth