Dumping Billy by Olivia Goldsmith Read Free Book Online Page A

the red snaps with the orange centers. “I wish I could wear two of these as earrings,” she joked.
    “You don’t need any earrings,” Max said. “You look perfect. And as cool as a cucumber.”
    Kate took the flowers and set them on her small dining table. They did make a pretty spot of color. “Thanks, Max,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek, leaving a small imprint of lip gloss.
    “Where you off to?” he asked.
    “Oh, just dinner at Elliot’s.” Max, an accountant and actuarial, occasionally enjoyed talking higher math with Elliot. She hadn’t yet told Max about Michael.
    “Well, that dress is wasted on him,” Max said, and to Kate’s dismay, he sat down. It wasn’t that she had any reason to feel guilty, but she didn’t want Michael to arrive and find another man in her apartment or to have to introduce them to each other. Michael didn’t seem overly possessive. On the contrary, he seemed a little nervous. But Kate wanted him to feel secure, so she also wanted Max to get up and go, although she didn’t want to have to ask him.
    Max shifted position on the striped sofa and pulled some envelopes and a rolled-up magazine from his back pocket.
    “Oh, here. I picked up your mail.”
    Kate smiled and tried to hide a sigh. There were no separate mailboxes for the four tenants of their brownstone, and mail was left on a radiator in the vestibule. “Are you being so nice to me because you wanted to borrow a bottle of Absolut?”
    “No, I try not to rustle booze until it’s Absolut necessary.”
    Kate gave him another obligatory smile. He was a nice guy, but a little tiresome. “Well, hey, I’ve got to go.”
    Max got up and ambled over to the door. “Whatever.” At last she saw his back and closed the door. She took the mail he had brought and walked over to the wastepaper basket beside her desk. She tried to smooth out
The New Yorker;
picked up a catalog from Saks, tore it in half, and threw it into the basket before it could tempt her; filed a bill from Con Ed next to her checkbook; and threw away all the junk mail. Then, at the bottom of the small pile, she found an almost square envelope addressed to her in gold calligraphy. Oh, my God, she thought, has Bina jumped the gun and sent out wedding invitations before the proposal?
    She turned over the ominous communiqué and saw Mr. and Mrs. Tromboli’s address written across the back. Kate’s hands began to tremble. She slit open the envelope and accidentally tore off the corner of the enclosed pasteboard. She pulled out the inevitable: an invitation to the wedding of Patricia (Bunny) Marie Tromboli to Arnold S. Beckmen. For a moment, Kate felt dizzy. How could this have happened? What had Bina been saying earlier about that Brooklyn guy who had broken Bunny’s heart? Now Kate felt her own heart quiver. With Bina engaged and Bunny about to get married, she would be the last of her old friends to be single. When they started having children, she would really be alone. And Bev was already heavily pregnant; inevitably, young mothers got involved with playgrounds, preschools, play dates, and pregnancies—the four Ps. Four peas in a pod, the Bs would be busy reproducing, and Kate would be closed out of the circle completely.
    She put down the invitation, feeling a little dizzy. Then the buzzer rang. She and Michael had no time for a drink now, and she had no desire for one, either. She hit the intercom as hard as the wedding invitation had hit her, and when he said hello, instead of inviting him upstairs she told him she’d be down in a minute. Stuffing the stiff card into her purse, she told herself she wouldn’t think about the Bunny situation; but on her way down the stairs, careful not to trip in the sandals, the idea of Bunny reproducing like a rabbit came to her. As much as she loved the children at school, and as dedicated as she was to them, Kate felt mournful. She knew she would always make do if she didn’t have a child of her own to