Free The Almost Archer Sisters by Lisa Gabriele Page A

joke about that.”
    “Relax, they’re with Lou. He took them to the fair in Wheatley. He’s gonna feed them lunch there.”
    “Lou take extra pants?”
    “I don’t know. Probably.”
    “Jesus. I told you, that’s part of watching Sam, for chrisakes. Did you give him your cell?”
    “No. I forgot.”
    “Man …” I took my anger out on the answering machine button, smashing down PLAY .
    “Paging Dr. Peachy,” Beau screeched through a
TV Guide
bullhorn. “Waa, it’s Beth. Nobody loves me. Call me.
Waaa!
”
    Peach, it’s Beth. Check your email please, please, please. Then call me back. My cell. The hotel’s a backwater. I’ll call you right back. I did something kind of funny. Well, Jeb, Kate, and I did something funny. Anyway, can’t wait to tell you. Miss you. Need some HDP
.
    Heavy Duty Peachy.
    I used to ignore that laptop when Beth first gave it to us.Then I started researching Sam’s illness, a terrifically addictive and terrifying habit that I was trying hard to break. Her email was titled “I Want to Die.” The body of the email contained two Web links, the first one taking me to a New York newspaper’s daily gossip section.
    July 7—Media lawyer Marcus Edward Street probably isn’t laughing about his girlfriend’s latest antics last Saturday. Potent party girl and TV fashion diva Beth Archer roughed up one of the bouncers at Marquee after she and her friends refused to vacate a reserved table. The incident escalated to the point where the bouncer, who has since been fired, allegedly put Archer in a headlock after she punched him squarely in the face, breaking his nose. Aggressive Archer had police called to the Chelsea hot spot after she was escorted out, but declined to press charges. Now that’s, um, class!
    The second link in the email took me to a dating Web site, specifically to an ad featuring a “Newly Single Lawyer,” presumably Marcus. My heart actually leapt at seeing his handsome, happy face again, chin resting in his hand, making him seem professorial and wise. He looked exactly like a well-balanced, evolved, curious, committed, kind human man—no one like Beth had ever dated, including Beau. Plus, he ticked off an income category which exceeded that of everyone I knew or was related to, combined.
    I finished reading, checked the time in Thailand, and phoned Beth’s cell.
    “Congratulations!” I said when she picked up.
    “Fuck, Peach. You gotta be kidding.”
    “Whoa. Didn’t you say you always wanted to make the gossip pages?”
    “Not as Tara Fucking Reid!” she yelled over a loud crowdbehind her. I could hear a man’s voice say, “She was great in
The Big Lebowski
!”
    “Fuck off, Jeb,” Beth yelled, trying to muffle the receiver.
    She told me they were in the hotel bar after a long shoot involving cauldrons of dye on the beach. It was almost midnight there, just after lunch for us. I looked at the back of Beau’s skull, the alert part of his head facing NASCAR on that stupid flat screen we bought with the satellite dish after 9/11.
    “Beau, turn that thing down, okay?” He raised the remote over the top of the couch and ratcheted down the sound.
    “Peachy, did you see his fucking
ad
? We
just
broke up, and he had the balls to send the link to Kate, in case she had any friends who were single. I mean, he doesn’t even like Kate. No offense, Kate,” Beth said, presumably to Kate. I could hear people laughing in the background, but I could also tell Beth was on the cusp of some real pain for the first time in a long time. I whipped out my old voice, my soothing social worker voice, the one I had hoped to take out of its imaginary, velvet-lined box upon graduation.
    “Okay, calm down, Beth. What happened? Walk me through it slowly. Start from the start. What sticks out? And go somewhere quiet, would you? I’ll head out back too.”
    I grabbed a Coke in the fridge before letting the back door slam behind me. On my way out Beau muttered, “No, no, I’m