Free The Starter Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer Page B

had shed 190 pounds of ugly fat in less than a day! One ninety-five, fully clothed and sopping wet, holding Ray-Ban sunglasses in one hand and a script in the other.
    She grabbed the last two breadsticks and ate them.
    “Gracie, maybe I shouldn’t bring this up, but now’s as good a time as any,” Cricket said. “There’s a whole new world out there, and I want to talk to you about labial rejuvenation.”
    “CHECK!” Will screamed.
    “I’m trying to save her marriage!” Cricket said. And then, in hushed tones, “I’m thinking about doing it myself. I heard Courtney Love did it. I hear her vagina looks like a rosebud.”
    Will put his head in his hands; Gracie was afraid he would start sobbing.
    And then Cricket said quietly, “My waxer, Janusz, told me …” She pointed to her Dolce’d crotch.
    Her voice choked up. Gracie handed her a glass of water.
    “Is this FIJI?” Cricket asked before she drank.
    “For God’s sake, what did Janusz say about your …” Will said, then waved his hand down there.
    “He said …” Cricket hesitated. “He said …” she continued in a voice that sounded somewhere between Gorbachev (remember him?) and the guy who pumped Gracie’s gas, “‘she-a looks like-a Dumbo.’”
    Will looked at her, aghast. “The very best argument for male homosexuality,” he finally said.
    “I don’t care what
Redbook
says,” Cricket said. “The vagina is never the same after having kids—”
    “Mom!” Will said to Gracie, “Cricket’s reading
Redbook!”
    “Back to the topic at hand,” Gracie said, herding the strands of conversation like errant sheep. “Cricket, it’s really important to me that you keep this to yourself. No one else can know about this. It’s entirely possible that Kenny and I can work this all out.” For now, Gracie thought she should stick to the abridged “Kenny and Gracie Divorce Story”—the
Reader’s Digest
version.
    “Your alarm clock’s ringing,” Will said helpfully. “Wake up. Kenny and I have a better chance of exchanging vows at the Bel Air, giving birth to five biracial puppies, and working out our marital issues than Kenny and you.”
    Gracie snapped Will in the arm with her knuckle while Cricket zipped her collagened upper lip, the one her husband thought was hers and hers alone, though mysterious bruises appeared on them every three months. “Your secret is safe with me,” she whispered at Broadway-stage levels. “I won’t tell a soul!”
    “I S IT TRUE?” Sharon Adler, wife of Kenny’s business attorney, Mervin, widened her already preternaturally wide eyes at Gracie—wider even in the last year because of the Brentwood essential, thirty-eight-years-and-counting eye lift. If they were any wider, Gracie would be looking at the back of her head. Moments like these made Gracie wonder why she bothered with mascara. How could one compete by using the usual, pedestrian eye-widening tools?
    Gracie was picking Jaden up from her preschool class at Tiny Miracles, the nursery school Kenny insisted Jaden attend even though the class interfered with her naptime. The place was indeed tiny, with a dirt yard spotted with tufts of dying grass that was barely big enough to accommodate five or six children, much less the fifteen connected kids in her class.Worse, it stood next to a dry cleaner that had steadfastly refused to use environmentally safe cleaning agents. Smoke billowed out from the top of the square, windowless concrete building, forming perc clouds over the preschoolers playing in dirty sand with the school mascot, the nursery founder’s ancient, ornery rabbit.
    So why attend? Kenny and Gracie had come to this school for a tour when Jaden was barely three months old. Kenny had immediately scoured the room for the presence of excellent trade placement; he was looking for anyone who would warrant a front-page story in the
Daily Variety
or
Hollywood Reporter.
Kenny wanted Jaden to be at a school where he could schmooze. If there