Free The New Husband by D.J. Palmer Page B

time.
    â€œI’ve noticed you eat alone a lot,” he said.
    Oh great, I thought. My social status has sunk so low that I’m getting sympathy from the class geek.
    â€œIt’s not a big school, Ben,” I said. “I’m pretty sure you know why.”
    â€œDo you want to talk, or do you like to eat in silence?”
    Ben was funny, not the haha kind, but the peculiar kind. He was nice enough, I guess, but all I really knew about him was that he was supposedly on the autism spectrum somewhere—like an Asperger’s kid, I think. Wherever he was on that spectrum, if in fact he was on it at all, it would have to have been on the super-duper-smart end of it.
    â€œI can talk and eat,” I told him. “I’m multitalented that way.”
    â€œI heard you moved,” he said. “How do you like your new house?” I was about to answer him, but Ben continued talking. “I moved last year. I hate my new house,” he said. “It’s smelly—like old cheese.”
    And then Ben smiled, and when he did, something inside me opened up—a little door that had closed to people like him, people different from me. Maybe it was because of my circumstances, or it could be I’d developed more empathy, or perhaps I was feeling especially glumthat day, or maybe it was his gap-toothed smile. Whatever it was, I suddenly found myself feeling incredibly glad that Benjamin Odell had decided to sit down next to me at lunch.
    A smile came to my face as I thought about Laura Abel, Justin D’Abbraccio, and all those fake people who’d pretended to be my friends. I looked at Ben like he was crazy or something, and then a laugh came out of me.
    And with that laugh, for the first time in a long time, I felt less alone.

 
CHAPTER 11
    Nina, Ginny, and Susanna emerged from the barre fitness studio into a dry, perfectly temperate late-September afternoon, sweat-drenched and ready for post-workout lattes at nearby Pressed Caf é . It was Ginny who had gotten the trio into doing the ballet-inspired workouts to build up core strength and boost their increasingly sluggish metabolisms. And it was Ginny who would bemoan the pitfalls of getting older—sagging parts that shouldn’t sag, wrinkles that came and went like lines on an Etch-a-Sketch, battled away with creams and facials—while Susanna, far more pragmatic, would note that the grim by-product of never having another birthday meant saying sayonara to this life.
    For what it was worth, Nina felt increasingly comfortable with the changes of aging. Her long dark hair, which could be wavy or straight depending on the humidity, still had plenty of body and only sporadic grays to pluck. Her lips were full, and the prominent nose she had wanted reduced in high school now seemed to fit her heart-shaped face perfectly fine. The creases around her brown eyes had grown deeper from stress, but Nina wasn’t about to erase them with Botox injections.
    She was perhaps eight pounds over her ideal weight, but it was a soft eight. Her arms and legs were well-toned from the barre workouts, but more than those exercise classes, Nina gave Simon the credit for the recent boost in her self-esteem and comfort with her appearance, years be damned. His support and admiration, the love he gave so freely, made it possible for her to stop blaming herself for what Glen had done.
    It was natural, her friends said (and Dr. Wilcox later confirmed), for Nina to experience feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy after Teresa appeared on the scene. As time went on and the wounds felt less fresh, Nina invented several intentionally cruel names for Glen’s paramour—Tarty Teresa and Strawberry Shortcake being two of her favorites, though these sobriquets she shared only with Ginny and Susanna. Nina often asked herself why Glen strayed. Was she not enough of a wife, mother, or lover to make him happy?
    â€œScrew him,” had been