Ex and the Single Girl by Lani Diane Rich Read Free Book Online Page A

stepped out from behind the coffee bar and listened. Vera was still on the phone. I could tell by the tone of her voice that it wasn ’ t anyone from Truly. That probably gave me about five more minutes; someone from Truly would have taken a good twenty. I stepped out from behind the bar and made a beeline for the fiction section. My finger ran quickly a long the B ’ s, my eyes popping up to the office door to make sure Vera wasn ’ t going to catch me.
    Barnes. Baxter. Beals. Bebey. Bederman.
    No Ian Beckett, which was fine by me. The Page was a small bookstore, which meant we could afford shelf space only for t he stuff that was selling well, and literary fiction wasn ’ t always on that list. I smiled again. Maybe I ’ d look up his books later and special order them. Set up a book signing for later that summer. After all, it was the neighborly thing to do, and the M i z Fallons were nothing if not neighborly.
    The bell jingled, followed by an excited wail. I turned around and saw a pregnant belly waddling toward me, arms outstretched, followed by the round, freckled face that had smiled at me through many guilty trips to the principal ’ s office.
    “ Portia, baby!” Beauji ’ s belly hit me in the gut, bending me into her embrace. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and we wagged from side to side as a single, excited unit.
    “ What did you do to your hair?” I said, running my fin gers over the half-inch or so of red that puffed out of her head. It was shocking to see, as Beauji had always kept her hair in long, fiery locks. Well. At least something in Truly had changed.
    She pulled away and swept one hand on her scalp. “ I ’ m gonna be bald during every pregnancy,” she said. “ Even hair irritates me now. Pearl almost cried when I made her take out the clippers.”
    “ I don ’ t know why. You ’ re gorgeous. As always.” I stepped back, holding her arms out, staring at her smiling face, her bright b lue eyes, her ruddy cheeks. Beauji had always been what you ’ d call a natural beauty, the one the boys notice in the sixth grade but then pass over for the made-up Barbie types in the ninth grade. Somehow, it never fazed her. She was the only woman Id ever known who really never gave a rat ’ s ass how she looked.
    “ Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I need to sit my gorgeous self down,” she said, turning from me and waddling over to the comfy chairs surrounding the bar. “ I hope motherhood is pleasant, because pregnancy is a right pain in the ass.”
    I followed her, tucking myself behind the bar to make some herbal tea. In Truly, there was always a pregnant woman in the general populace requiring entertainment at the Page. We had a special store of teas set aside, organized by touted effects: peppermint tea to mitigate nausea, red raspberry leaf to encourage labor.
    “ How far along are you?” I asked, poking my fingers through the sweet-smelling box.
    “ Thirty-four weeks and counti ng,” she said.
    “ I just can ’ t believe —”
    “ Ow!”
    I looked up, my eyes wide and my heart beating like a jack- hammer. “ Beau? You okay?”
    She winced and pushed at the top of her big lump of a belly, shouting downward. “ I told you! Get your damn foot out of my rib s!” She shifted in her seat, sighed, and leaned her head back, talking to the ceiling. “ I hate my life!”
    I tucked my finger behind an index card marked “ irritability” and pulled out a bag, then stood up and set the full teakettle on the hot plate.
    Beauji w histled out a breath of air and shifted again, her legs and arms splaying out so that she looked like a spider squashed by a tremendous, spherical rock. “ I ’ m not very good at being pregnant,” she said after a moment.
    I smiled. “ I think you ’ re doing fine.”
    “ You ’ re a big fat liar, but I love you for it.” She shifted in her seat again. “ By the way, I would have come to your party last night but the idea of standing around with everyone