Free Wicked Jealous: A Love Story by Robin Palmer

years, but no one that serious until now. Hillary—this woman he’s been dating—moved in a few months ago. It was only supposed to be while they redid her floors, but—”
    Gwen held up her hand. “You don’t even have to continue. We all know exactly where this is going.”
    “You do?”
    “The floors are finished, and she’s still there,” Cookie said.
    “Right.”
    Marcia sighed. “That’s
exactly
the MO my ex-husband’s third wife used,” she said. “She was an executive at Paramount until she finally roped him into giving her a ring, and now she’s pregnant with their second child and is planning on having a water birth and wants me to be the midwife.” She looked at the group. “Just so you know, I said no.”
    The women nodded and clucked in approval.
    My stomach got all wonky. I had a feeling that if anyone knew the way evil gold-digging D-girls like Hillary worked, it was this group.
    Cheryl reached over and pulled me to her, surprising me with her strength. For someone so tiny, she was like a well-dressed barnacle. “Oh you poor, poor girl!” she
tsk
ed. “And you don’t even have a mother to commiserate with! I don’t even want to
think
about what it would be like for my son without me here.”
    I smiled. Her son was lucky. Out of all the women, I liked Cheryl the best. Although I got the sense that because she was so overprotective, he was probably the nerdy type—like a Russian Club member who tried to scrape together a goatee with very limited facial hair. Or a tie-dyed, faux dreadlocked MAKE PEACE, NOT NUCLEAR ARMS
T-shirt-wearing type.
    “Oh look—here he is!”
    I managed to wrestle my head out of the death grip Cheryl had me in, and I saw that I was way off. Because her son was Jason Frank. Who, at that moment, was giving me a very strange look. Probably because his mom was holding me against her boobs while I sat around drinking coffee with a bunch of middle-aged Zumba-ers.
    “Jason, honey, this is—”
    “We know each other,” we mumbled in unison.
    “She goes to Castle Heights,” Jason said.
    “Really?! What a coincidence!” Cheryl said. “Honey, did you know that Simone doesn’t have a mother? She died
giving birth to her.
Isn’t that just
awful
?”
    Okay, really? Suddenly, I was wondering whether I needed to rethink my positive opinion about Cheryl.
    “I have a question, though,” she said. She turned to me. “Honey, what did you do when it came to things like menstruation? Did your dad explain it to you, or did you—”
    Okay—
really
really?! This seemingly sweet little woman was making it so that I was now going to have to transfer schools?!
    The good news was that with all the sweat that came pouring out of my forehead at that moment, I probably lost another three pounds. The bad news was that Jason looked like he was going to hurl right then and there.
“Mom,”
he said. “Stop.”
    “Okay, okay,” she said. “I was just curious.” She stood up. “Ladies, I’ll see you next class. I have to take Jason to the doctor. He’s got a bit of a rash that starts—”
    “Mom!”
he barked.
    It was good to know that Cheryl was an equal- opportunity embarrasser. As much as it had sucked to grow up without a mom, I did have to say I didn’t miss that kind of thing.
    “I’m willing to pretend the last five minutes never happened if you are,” I mumbled as Cheryl said her good-byes.
    “Deal,” he mumbled back.

    Almost being embarrassed to death by the ZB was bad enough, but dinner with my family? Even worse.
    Per Dad’s shrink Dr. Melman, he wanted us to start having family dinners together on a regular basis. It was bad enough having to pass Hillary in the upstairs hall at home (I tried to time it so that didn’t happen often), so having to spend a Sunday night at Twin Dragon—especially when there was a special on IFC about
Best Moments in French Cinema—
was not high on my list of Things I Look Forward to Doing Now, Or at Any Time in my Life. I