Free Loose Screws by Karen Templeton Page A

Nedra (note to self: research feasibility of having some old gnarled Italian female relative put evil eye on own mother) on to her place, I played about a million games of FreeCell on the laptop, went to bed, got up, played another million games of FreeCell, finally deciding this definitely called for an emergency Bitch Session.
    Shelby, Terrie and I have been calling these with sporadic regularity for probably twenty years, or approximately for as long as we’ve known that meaning for the word. Bitch, not years. Rules are simple: anyone can call one at any time, no low-fat food items allowed, and whoever calls the session gets the floor first. In the past ten years, I think I’ve called maybe a half dozen, Shelby none, and Terrie approximately five hundred.
    And yes, I know what I said, about preferring to handle crises from the comfort of solitude, but these are extenuating circumstances. First off, it’s a known fact that too much FreeCell causes brain rot. And second, these two women are like extensions of my psyche. They’d only nag the hell out of me until I spilled my guts anyway. A favor that, in the past, I have regularly returned.
    It’s definitely weird, the way we’re so close, since we’re all so different. But we go way back—Shelby and I to birth, practically, since we’re first cousins and only three months apart in age, with Terrie joining us in kindergarten. I suppose we initially glommed onto Terrie because she’d regularly beat up the other kids who’d hassle Shelby—who was eminently hassleable in elementary school—thus taking the pressure off me to do something for which I have no natural proclivity, namely, shedding blood. Especially my own. As for why Terrie, with her sass and street smarts, hitched up to a pair of white wusses…well, that’s a no brainer. We kept her supplied in Twinkies and Cokes for at least six years.
    In any case, even after we grew out of needing her protection—Shelby grew into a Cute Little Thing and wormed her way in with the popular crowd, while I went on to cultivate the fine art of the Cutting Remark—we remained friends. The kind of friends who can say anything to each other, and do, which means we regularly tick each other off but we always get over it. All through adolescence, Shelby and I looked to Terrie to pave the way for us, a role Terrie was more than willing to accept. Not to mention reporting back to the troops, who’d listen in silent, envious awe. Or disgust. (Took poor Shelby six months to recover after Terrie described, in minute detail,her first French kiss. Of course, we were only twelve: at that point, we couldn’t even imagine a boy’s lips touching ours, let alone his tongue. We got over it.) In any case…Terrie got her period first, got kissed first, got felt up first, got laid first, got married first, got divorced first. Twice. Shelby bested us both only in one category—getting pregnant. Other than death or an IRS audit, I don’t suppose there are many firsts left.
    So these days we content ourselves with muddling through our lives, dealing with our womanhood and all the crap attendant thereto. Shelby, of course, has been the Resident Married Lady since she was twenty-five; I have, for lo these many years, borne the standard as the singleton; and Terrie has been the switch-hitter, considering herself an expert on both sides.
    The Bitch Sessions, and a passion for all things edible, unite us. But these sessions serve more of a purpose than simply outlets for venting and binging, at least for me: I know I can count on Shelby to be sweet, on Terrie to be snide, thus giving me two views of any given situation I may not be able to see myself, even as I know they both only want the best for me, as I for them. Husbands, boyfriends, jobs, may come and go, but these are my friends forever.
    Friends who, at the moment, are hanging breathlessly on my every word as I