Free By the Numbers by Jen Lancaster Page B

factor by including a fish fork in the place settings.
    Still, in the ultimate act of rebellion, I’m marrying Chris and not Marjorie’s first choice of Wyatt the anagram-adoring attorney, so none of the details really matter.
    While I’d love to cut loose tonight, I fear a lifetime of retribution were I to do so. Foster must have sensed this, and thus he’s drinking for two. When he sobers up, I will absolutely fix him up with my college friend Judith. Come to think of it, they’d be agreat match—they both feel Timothy Dalton is the best James Bond, which is madness.
    â€œLet me set the scene for you,” Karin says. “We’re in tenth grade and Penny has speech class with Miss Delancey. Now, who in here went to New Trier High School?” Many of the younger guests cheer. “Cool. You guys remember Miss Delancey?” These same guests now jeer. “For those who are unfamiliar, Miss Delancey was this hag who was, like, famously unfair to her female students. She was a complete effing bee.”
    Marjorie’s pained expression upon hearing Karin say “effing bee” takes my mind off the squirrel’s nest atop my head.
    Karin says, “Remember how she was so horrible to the cute girls and she’d flirt with the guys, always shoving her flabby cleavage in their faces? Pathetic. Did she need to get l-a-i-d or what?”
    Our former New Trier classmates laugh and nod in encouragement while Marjorie white-knuckles her cocktail.
    Chris whispers in my ear, “Look at Marjorie right now; she’s
literally
turning violet.”
    I touch one of my offending sleeves. “These toasts almost make being dressed like crown roast worth it.”
    â€œYou look delicious.” He plants a kiss under my earlobe, and I feel a shiver down my spine.
    I smile. “Keep it up and you might get lucky tonight.”
    â€œYeah? What are my odds?” He takes my hand and rubs his thumb across my knuckles, a simple gesture he’s been doing ever since we started dating. Years ago, his Bonpa (paternal grandfather who was Belgian) did the same after his tracheotomy. He couldn’t use his words to tell Chris he loved him anymore, so this was how he communicated that thought to him.
    â€œEasily one in four. Now, hush, we’re supposed to listen.”
    â€œ. . . Penny had to talk about what she wanted to study in college and what she hoped to do with her degree. Pretty standard assignment in a class everyone had to take before they graduated.”
    My speech was on my passion for all things mathematical. I remember explaining that I adored math because it’s a constant set of truths, rather than an ever-changing array of rules. I talked about how math is a way to rein in and give meaning to the abstract, whether it’s the relationships between shapes or quantities or numbers. I said math allows you to solve problems and make predictions by detecting patterns and that math reveals order. I loved math because it tells you what’s going to happen next and that the best part about math is that it mitigates risk.
    I was proud not only of my speech, but also of my plan for the future.
    In college, my friends would say, “How can you stand all those complicated calculus and statistics classes?” and I’d reply, “The numbers are easy; it’s figuring out people that’s hard.”
    I stand by this belief. I dislike that given the exact same set of circumstances, I might elicit entirely different reactions depending on location or time of day, especially where Marjorie’s concerned. For example, when I was a kid, if I were to ask to sleep over at Karin’s house while at the dinner table, Marjorie would shrug and tell me to do whatever I wanted. Yet if I were to inquire while she was sitting at a table full of her club cronies, she might sneer and say, “The little girl with the divorcée mother? Darling, no,