Free Friends Like Us by Lauren Fox Page A

you!” she says, with surprising force. Mrs. Weston is wearing a zigzag-striped sweater, a horrible, mesmerizing thing in pinks and browns that, I feel, could be used for nefarious purposes. You’re a duck! Quack like a duck! She’s at least six inches shorter than Jane and I, her brown wavy hair cut to just above her shoulders. She reminds me of a doll I had when I was little whose appearance you could change by snapping different hairstyles onto its head.
    “Hello, dear.” She places one hand on my upper arm and squeezes; she seems like a person who understands the nuances of a good arm squeeze. “You must be Willa. We are so pleased that you’re here.” Squeeze. She juts her chin toward the plate of cookies. “I was just going to run this over to the Tylers’. Dougie’s getting divorced!”
    “So you baked them cookies,” Jane says. She reaches for the plate again and takes two, offers me one. Oatmeal raisin, the Miss Congeniality of cookies.
    “He’s over there now,” Jane’s mother says, her voice a sudden, conspiratorial whisper. She nudges Jane. “Go on, you take them over.”
    “Oy vey, Mom,” Jane says, raising her palms dramatically. Mrs. Weston purses her lips a little and tilts her head as if she is hearing distant, complicated music. “Dougie and I grew up together,” Jane says to me. “My mom and his mom have been trying to get us together for … twenty-five years?” Her mother nods. “Since preschool. Dougie is a salesman for a sporting goods company. He still gets drunk every Saturday night with his college frat brothers. Still calls them his brothers. Last time I saw him he bragged to me that the only reading he does is the sports page while he’s in the bathroom. Except he didn’t say ‘in the bathroom.’ We’re perfect for each other!” Jane glances at me above her mother’s head, raises her eyebrows; clearly, you don’t tell a woman like this about the promising first date you had last night with a boy who works part-time at the library and plans to become a social worker.
    “Scoot them on over, Janey,” Mrs. Weston says, doing a convincing impression of someone who hasn’t heard a word her daughter just said. She passes the plate to Jane and then, her hand still gripping my upper arm, leads me inside.
    The door opens into the warmth of a small entryway with just enough room for two people to stand too close to each other and a living room with a shock of fluffy, salmon-colored carpeting and everything else in shades of white: cream-colored sofa, puffy beige armchair, off-white throw pillows scattered about. I have the disquieting feeling of being inside someone’s mouth. Mrs. Weston glances around, looking pleased.
    “You have a lovely home,” I say, which is stupid, because I haven’t seen any of it beyond this humid corner, and also so unlike me that I think Mrs. Weston’s arm squeeze may have been some kind of alien personality meld. I resolve not to say anything else until Jane reappears.
    “Do I hear our city slickers ?” A voice booms from a nearby room, then a clank of pots and pans. “Oops! It’s okay! I’m fine!”
    Mrs. Weston clears her throat, then guides me through the living room into the bright, cluttered kitchen, where Mr. Weston is standing over a steaming kettle of something. He’s wearing an apron, in the style of men who believe that they cook frequently. He raises the lid of the large pot and inhales deeply. “It’s water!” he yells, in what I fear is his normal decibel level. “I’m boiling water!”
    Mr. Weston is tall. He’s more than tall. He’s stretched out, elongated, every limb like pulled taffy, gangly and loose, and he looks elaborately ill at ease bent over the stove.
    “Charlie,” Mrs. Weston says.
    “I’m making supper for our gals about town, if they’re not too sophisticated for Charlie Weston’s old-fashioned spaghetti and meatballs!” I look down at the kitchen floor, feeling awkward and bony, like a