The Girls of Tonsil Lake Read Online Free PDF

makeup is that the best things they can do for their skin have nothing to do with what they put on it. They need to drink lots of water and they need to get plenty of sleep. I tell them I may have to get up in the night to pee a lot, but I look good while I’m doing it.
    It was hard to follow those rules that night. The water in the hotel room tasted terrible even with ice, and I wasn’t about to pay the price of taking a bottle out of the little refrigerator.
    Then I couldn’t get to sleep when I finally lay down. Instead, I hugged the extra pillow to my stomach and planned how I would run my own region when I got my promotion.
    I overslept in the morning, but still arrived for my appointment by ten. Amanda and I exchanged hugs, compliments on hair color, and air kisses, before taking seats in the conversation area over by the floor-to-ceiling windows in her office. She buzzed her secretary with a request that we not be disturbed. I felt a little shiver of trepidation.
    Amanda opened a folder on her lap and took out a slip of paper. “First things first,” she said, beaming. “You had a spectacular Christmas and spring season. The company is grateful for your hard work and creativity.”
    The bonus check was the biggest I’d ever had, nearly twice as much, as a matter of fact, as I’d ever received before. It nearly took my breath away.
    Maybe I would get my breasts done.
    “Now,” said Amanda briskly, laying the folder on the table between our chairs, “let’s get down to business. We need to discuss your future with the company.”
    Vin
    I woke in the middle of the night, which isn’t like me at all. Mark used to say I must be eternally innocent, because I’d sleep through an earthquake and wake at my regular time wanting to know what the fuss was about.
    Menopause seems to have robbed me of that innocence in a way even his death had not. I slept around the clock in the days after losing Mark, but nowadays night sweats were attacking me at unexpected times.
    I stripped off my soaking wet nightgown and took a shower, which served to leave me wide awake at four-thirty in the morning with nothing to do. I could have worked on Andie’s book, I guess, but I really wanted to wait till we were together in Maine.
    I brewed a pot of coffee and sat at the kitchen counter with a cup in front of me. I wished suddenly and desperately for someone to talk to. Another sign of menopause, I suppose, since I’d never been the type to exchange confidences over coffee. But then, I’d always had Mark.
    Tears threatened, and I shook my head even though there was no one to see. “I know,” I said aloud, looking up—because if there’s a heaven, Mark is there. “I promised I wouldn’t do the bereaved widow thing.” But I am bereaved, goddamn it.
    The Andie-like thought made me smile, but I still wanted to talk, and no one I knew got up at this time of the morning. Except one.
    Jean answered on the first ring, sounding cautious.
    “Were you up?” I blurted. “If you weren’t, I’m sorry.”
    “Oh, Vin. No, I was up.” Now she just sounded exhausted. “I’ve been up since three, trying to finish this dratted book.”
    I made what I hoped was an appropriate response, and when Jean spoke again a few seconds later, it was as though she’d just been awakened from some kind of dream state.
    “Vin?” she said. “Are you okay?” It was her normal voice, laced with the concern and compassion-if-you-need-it that were an inherent part of her personality.
    “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “No, I’m not. This menopause thing is for the forny birds.”
    “Ah.” She laughed softly. “Don’t be brave. Go to your gynecologist and tell him or her to give you anything, you don’t care what it is, just to survive.”
    I tried to imagine Jean rushing off to her gynecologist and couldn’t. “What do you take?”
    There was a second of hesitation, but when she spoke, her voice sounded normal. “Me? Nothing. It hasn’t been