Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner Read Free Book Online Page A

my first year of college.
    She sauntered up the stairs and peered into the house. "Hello, rug rats."
    "Aunt Janie!" said Sam, who loved Janie.
    "Janie!" crowed Jack, straining forward with his arms outstretched. Jack loved Janie even more than Sam did.
    "Hello," said Sophie, air-kissing Janie's left and right cheeks in the manner of socialities the world over. She loved Janie more than both of her brothers put together, but even at four, she was too sophisticated for gushing. I led Janie and the kids into the kitchen, where we were working on a Welcome Home, Daddy banner to hang over the front door.
    "Ooh, craft time!" Janie said, picking up a crayon and examining it like it was an artifact from another planet. She brushed glitter off a chair and took a seat. "Can you guess who brought you presents?"
    "Aunt Janie!" shrieked the kids.
    "Do you know who loves you more than your mother and father put together?"
    "Aunt Janie!" they shouted.
    "Guess who's having dinner at Per Se Friday night with a guy she's been out with three times and suspects might wear a toupee?"
    "Aunt Janie!" said Sam and Jack. Sophie crinkled her nose. "What's a doupee?"
    "Pray you never have to find out." Janie tapped Sophie's nose with the crayon and produced three gift-wrapped boxes from her Birkin bag.
    The boys got remote-control race cars that they promptly began racing across the kitchen floor. Sophie got another custom-made outfit for her Uglydoll. Uglydoll was a rectangular blob of blue fur with buck teeth, yellow eyes, and small, protuberant ears that Janie had given to Sophie when she was born. I watched in awe as Sophie unwrapped a miniature cowboy hat, a lasso, bandanna, tiny cowboy boots, and a pair of chaps. "Chapter two hundred and thirty-seven," Janie growled in the gravelly southern drawl she'd assigned the toy years ago. "In which I ride a mechanical bull to glory."
    Sophie giggled with delight and ran upstairs to dress her doll in his new finery.
    "Got anything to drink around here?" Janie asked, rummaging through the frozen peas and chicken parts until she found the vodka she'd left on her last visit. The refrigerator yielded an empty carton of orange juice--a carton I swore had been full that morning. I waited until Janie's back was turned, mixed her a vodka and Pedialyte, and led her into the living room.
    "So let's review," Janie said. She sank into the couch. (The decorator Ben had hired turned out to have had a vastly different view of what the word overstuffed meant than I did. I'd been thinking something comfortable in nubbly, washable linen. I'd ended up with a nine-foot sectional with taupe cushions so wide and deep you had to practically swim your way out of them.) Janie took a long swallow of her drink and winced, but luckily didn't ask me what it was. "You abandon me in Manhattan in favor of this hellhole."
    "Give it credit," I said, smoothing the tassels on a throw pillow. "It's a hellhole with an excellent school district."
    "The women here are a bunch of dopes who can't stop reproducing--and talking about it," Janie continued with a shudder, "like the whole world wants to hear about their sore nipples."
    I made a noncommittal noise, knowing what had my friend so freaked out. On her first visit to Upchurch, Janie had been cornered at the nursery school craft fair by Marybeth Coe, who'd described to her at great length how she was raising her newborn son without diapers by "getting in touch with his natural rhythms" and placing him atop what had formerly been a salad bowl when she sensed he was ready. Janie had proclaimed herself scarred for life by the experience. It had taken her weeks, she'd told me, before she could eat vinaigrette again.
    "You're at least twenty miles from the nearest Saks, not to mention good deli," she continued. "Oh, that reminds me..." She rummaged in her bag and tossed me a gift-wrapped knish. I opened it up and took a big, blissful bite as the rant continued.
    "You ditch me for bucolic little