Carpool Confidential by Jessica Benson Read Free Book Online Page B

No idea how I was going to handle “later,” but I figured I’d get to that when the time came.
    Jared nodded and headed toward the kitchen.
    â€œWhen’ll he be back?” Noah asked.
    â€œSoon,” I said vaguely. “Get dressed and come in for breakfast, OK?”
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    â€œI don’t like oatmeal any more.” Jared let his spoon fall back into the bowl. “It’s gross.”
    I had just put the empty oatmeal packet in his lunchbox and was about to drop his sandwich in the trash. My mind was moving at the speed of lead. “You’ve refused to eat anything else every morning for the last two years.” I rescued the sandwich.
    â€œWell, I used to like it—”
    â€œYesterday.” I slid the sandwich into a Ziploc.
    â€œI hate it now. It makes me gag. Can I have Frosted Flakes?”
    Doesn’t it seem like on the morning your father leaves you should get Frosted Flakes for breakfast? But they didn’t know yet. “No,” I said.
    â€œBen gets Frosted Flakes. And sometimes Lucky Charms.”
    The phone rang and my heart thudded. Maybe Rick had already come to his senses.
    â€œThe only cool thing about oatmeal is that it looks like barf,” Noah told Jared.
    My throat closed in disappointment. It was Sue Moriarty, not Rick.
    â€œEeuw.” Jared started eating with gusto. “Barf for breakfast. That’s sick.”
    â€œJust calling to make sure you got my reminder last night,” Sue chirped.
    We hung up, and I started organizing toothbrushing and dressing.
    â€œI can’t find my violin,” Noah shouted from down the hall.
    â€œIt’s in your room,” some still-functioning autopilot part of me said. “On the floor.”
    He appeared in the doorway, looking baffled by my lack of comprehension. “That’s just the case. I brought that home because I needed something to carry Sam’s Yugioh cards. We’re trading. But I don’t remember what I did with the violin. I’m telling you, it’s lost.”
    Who loses a violin? The son of a man who forgot to mention that he was poised on the high dive over the deep end for six months. That’s who.
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    Sue ruffled through a sheaf of papers and put down her bagel. She had apparently fallen off the carb wagon—“Seventeen percent of Harvard’s freshman admits in 2003 had seriously started a second language by the time they were four.”
    I looked down. How interesting that my legs could shake independently, like they weren’t under any actual control of my body at all.
    â€œSurely this proves that it’s imperative the school introduces a second language by kindergarten, at the latest,” Ken Ebersole said. Ken was the token male on the committee, a single father who radiated earnestness like George Clooney does testosterone and Ralph Lauren Polo to the point of flammability.
    Marriages don’t just end like this , I thought. They fall apart after a slow, damning drip of Pick up your own shirts at the dry cleaners and You’re just like your mother after all eating away at the fabric. We didn’t do that. We didn’t even argue.
    Ken blew on his paper cup of coffee. The steam made his glasses fog up.
    Ailsa Grandman nodded her agreement so fervently I was afraid one of her giant diamond earrings might fly off and crash through a wall like a meteor.
    â€œAbsolutely!” Betsy Strauss chimed in.
    â€œI knew we could count on you both to be on board.” Sue beamed down the table at them.
    Why didn’t Sue’s husband leave her ? I mean, if there was ever a woman who deserved to be left, trust me, it’s her, was my next—particularly mature—thought. After Wharton, Sue had gone to work for a media PR firm, becoming the youngest—and one of the rare female—vice presidents. When she married Tim Stephens, a major intellectual property lawyer at Fitzwilliam & Compton, it was