Free This One Is Mine: A Novel by Maria Semple

natty look.”
    “Who you calling natty?” Teddy barked, as Red Foxx. “And whatchyou doing wasting my minutes, woman?”
    Violet snapped her phone shut. “Hey, look.” A BMW had pulled into the space next to hers, about five cars down. A plump man had squeezed out and was writing something in the dirt on her window.
    “What’s he doing?” asked Teddy.
    L-E-A-R-N T-O, the hothead spelled in the dirt. “
Learn to park,
probably,” Violet said. “The car next to me was parked over the line, so I had to park over the line, too.” Indeed, the next word was P-A-R-K.
    “There’s more,” said Teddy. They watched, side by side, Teddy leaning into Violet’s arm. It was all she could do to concentrate on the man finishing his sentence: Y-O-U-D-U-M-B A-S-S-H-O-L-E.
    “That’s amazing,” Violet said. “Not only did he know I’m an
asshole,
but a
dumb
asshole, too!”
    The guy got his golf clubs out of his trunk and stomped off. Teddy stormed over to Violet’s car and wiped the words off the window. “That’s not right,” he said, blackening. “Hacker with his brand-new Pings.” Teddy returned to his car, Violet at his heels.
    “Once,” she said, “I worked on a show on the Radford lot, and my parking spot was outside the
Seinfeld
writers’ offices. They got so traumatized by my dirty car, which they had to stare at all day, that they wrote all over it ‘Eat more meat, I love chicken.’ Because I’m a vegetarian and they knew it was the only way to get me to wash my car.”
    “What a fucking hard-on,” Teddy muttered. “I’ll meet him on the dance floor.” He pulled a ratty putter from his golf bag, then opened his trunk and threw the rest of the clubs back in. He choked the putter and headed toward the clubhouse, a wild look in his eye.
    W HERE would it be? Sally had already scoured Jeremy’s dresser, medicine cabinet, and jacket pockets. She pulled open his bedside drawer, which was filled with loose earplugs and scraps of paper scrawled with variations of “H-H-H-T-T-T-H.” Jeremy had a habit of flipping a coin, then marking down if it was heads or tails. To what purpose, she had no idea. Why he kept them, still no idea. Sally sifted through the fluff and shuddered: it was like running her fingers through the bottom of a hamster cage. She returned to the living room and opened his desk drawer.
    There it sat, a pink velvet cube. She cracked it. Inside was a diamond ring. She opened it all the way. Her spirits flattened. She had always imagined nothing smaller than a four carat, and this was barely a two. Sally bucked herself up. The ring was gorgeous. Classic. Tasteful. And if anyone gave her attitude about the size, she could say it had belonged to his mother —
    “Sally?”
    She spun around. It was Vance. She dropped the ring box on the desk. “Vance! Hi! I thought you were at lunch!”
    “I wanted to see how you were.” He stepped closer.
    “I’m dandy.” Sally hopped up onto the desk to block his view of the ring, and closed the drawer with a calf as she twisted her legs.
    “I know sometimes Jeremy can be tough. Today — the thing with lunch. Well, that’s going to happen. But it’s nothing personal.”
    “Couples disagree. It’s healthy.” She reached behind her, closed the ring box, and tented it with her hand.
    “I know,” he said. “And I’m glad you do, too. I always knew he’d find someone who appreciates him as much as I do.”
    “I’m an appreciator!” she said with a laugh.
    Thump. Thump. Thump
. Jeremy’s big shoes pounded the stairs. His shadow rippled across the venetian blinds.
    “Oh look, Jeremy’s home!” Sally pointed. Vance turned. Sally opened the desk drawer, dropped in the ring, and slammed it shut just as the door opened. “Welcome home, my love!” she cried.
    V IOLET followed Teddy through the cheesy wood-paneled clubhouse and out to the putting green. The darkness that had befallen Teddy in the parking lot was still in effect. His jaw worked