Free Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives by Josie Brown

moving to the head of this pack of über-nurturing she-wolves. She asks the Nordy shopboy to ring up not only the blue and the orange trunks, but five other pairs as well, a veritable rainbow of sensual microfibers.
    While she plucks ribbed pima cotton wife-beaters from the T-shirt bin (two sizes too small for Harry, I’m sure), I substitute a pair of good old-fashioned Hanes boxer briefs for the most shocking pair in the pile, a see-through leopard-patterned “bong thong.”
    Now,
that
is the true meaning of friendship.
    2:02 p.m.
    There is still a full hour before after-school pickup, plenty of time to marinade the shrimp for our dinner tonight. But just as we pass Harry’s house, Tammy veers into his driveway. She can hardly wait to present her little treasures to him.
    “I don’t think it’s a very good idea for us to barge in without calling.” In truth, I feel a little uncomfortable with that concept for two reasons. In the first place, since the women’s constant hovering began, Harry has been a bit distant to me, almost cold. And second, I’d hate for Harry to think I had anything to do with Tammy’s questionable gifts.
    But Tammy dismisses me with a wave of a hand. Her expertly manicured nails are too long and too red, like talons that have nabbed some delectable prey and won’t let go. “Oh, he won’t mind. Besides, I do it all the time.”
    Before I can say “Count me out,” she has leaped from the car and is standing at the front door. She tries the knob, but it is locked. Fiveminutes of leaning on his doorbell does nothing to change that fact, so she saunters over to the side of the garage where, after stepping out of her Manolos, she jumps up onto one of his garbage cans in order to peer into a window high overhead. I cringe at the thought that a neighbor may drive by.
    Or, worse yet, Harry himself.
    “That’s funny. His car is inside—”
    Just then, Colleen comes out of her pseudo-Tudor across the street, Le Creuset casserole dish in hand. But the smile on her face turns into a disapproving scowl when she notices Tammy perched on the trash can, and me standing beside it.
    With as much dignity as she can muster, Tammy jumps down onto the stamped concrete driveway. “Gee, Colleen, imagine meeting you here.” The sarcasm in her voice is palpable.
    “Ha. Well, I’m not surprised at all that you’d be parked on Harry’s doorstep. From what I hear from Brooke, you’ve practically moved in. I didn’t realize she’d meant into the garage. Isn’t it a bit crowded in there, what with Temple’s puppy and all?”
    Ouch.
    Tammy goes bright red under her Clarins Intense Bronze self-tanning tint. “That bitch! She of all people has no room to talk. Why, she was over here all day yesterday, and the day before that too.”
    That’s when I remember that yesterday Brooke begged off from the monthly class-mom meeting at the school, supposedly because she had a headache. “Really? She was here? Just how would you know that?”
    “Because I can see Harry’s house from mine.” She points across the street and far up the hill where, behind a copse of leafy heritage oaks, we can barely glimpse a high bathroom window of Tammy’s perpetually remodeled Midcentury Modern monstrosity.
    I shake my head in disbelief. “I don’t get it: you stand in your shower stall all day and spy on Harry?”
    Tammy’s expression changes from triumph to guilt. “I’m notexactly spying. I happen to glance out my window occasionally—”
    “That window is pretty high. Wouldn’t you have to climb up onto the toilet seat?”
    Tammy opens her mouth to say something, then thinks twice and shuts it again.
    Colleen isn’t interested in any more lame excuses. Time is fleeting, especially when you have three boys who have to be shuttled to different after-school programs simultaneously. She dives under the high privet hedge by the front door, searching until she spots one of those faux rocks for hiding keys.
“Aha!”
She