The Men I Didn't Marry Read Online Free PDF Page B

you’re not in New York? Are you married? Do you . . .”
    I’m just starting to ask if he has any children, when I realize that I’ll have to wait and find out in person. His mission accomplished, Eric clicked off the phone after the word “good.”
    By the next day, my ankle’s feeling better and my face is almost back to normal, although, frankly, a case might be made in favor of the swelling. At least it plumped out the lines in my forehead. I could go back to work, but I’ve already told Arthur that I’m taking off the week. And I have a plan for today. My new motto: Don’t get mad, get even. I’ve decided that I’ll definitely feel better if instead of sulking, I do something completely vile to Bill.
    I go to a box of old videos in the basement and pull out
The First
Wives Club
. After twenty minutes, I turn it off. Way too tame. What I need is
The Godfather
. How satisfying to think of Bill and Ashlee waking up to a dead horse head in their bed.
    I go online and Google “revenge” and I’m stunned to see ten thousand four hundred thirty-two websites come up. Clearly there’s a multimillion-dollar industry being built on the idea that instead of turning the other cheek, you should slap someone else’s. Eager online entrepreneurs have stepped in, offering to provide gifts that FTD never thought to deliver—dead flowers, doggie poop, or for those willing to splurge, cow patties from Hereford’s Dairy (delivered to the door, fresh and warm). One idea does capture my fancy. According to the website, if I slip frozen shrimp inside a curtain rod in Ashlee’s apartment, within two weeks the stench of decaying fish will render the place completely unlivable. She and Bill can hire all the fumigators, exterminators, or private investigators they want, but nobody will ever find the source. Yummy. A new use for shrimp that doesn’t involve cocktail sauce.
    Just reading about the revenge seems to have done the trick. I can stay above-it-all for the moment, knowing I have options just a click away. Besides, isn’t living well the best revenge? And evidently living well is what I’m going to do next weekend. Per Se, Masa, Masa, Per Se. Maybe Eric and I will have dinner in one and dessert in the other and— well, a nightcap in his apartment. No, I’m not going there. I mean, I’m going to his apartment, but I’m not going to think about what might happen. Two decades since our college love and a lot has changed. Forget about his being married. What if he’s bald?
    Before my rendezvous with Eric, I have another engagement to think about—my maiden voyage at a party as a single woman (though am I still a maiden at forty-four, after twenty years of marriage and two episiotomies?). I pull out the boxed invitation that I received from my neighbor Rosalie Reilly a couple of weeks ago. Rosalie invited all the parents from Emily’s high school graduating class to her get-together and the note, handwritten in gold leaf calligraphy, says, “Now that our little birdies have flown off, please come to our Empty Nest Party!” The note is sitting inside a handmade woven raffia bird’s nest. Who but five-year-olds, mental patients, and lonely moms have enough time for arts and crafts?
    I drive over to Rosalie’s house because there’s an unwritten law in the suburbs against walking, unless you have a dog at the end of a leash. Since she lives around the corner, I end up parking practically in my own driveway.
    I ring the bell and smooth my perky polka-dot skirt; I might as well look cheerful. I’m armed with a bottle of Cabernet and a cover story.
    “So good to see you,” says Rosalie, kissing me on each cheek at the door. She steps inside and puts the wine on her foyer table, to join the anonymous lineup of a dozen other gift bottles. Next time I’m going to put a discreet “X” on the label and see how many parties it takes before the bottle ends up back at my house.
    “Where’s Bill?” Rosalie