I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan Read Free Book Online Page B

yourself. Why aren’t you including the ex-husbands? You did love them, if I remember correctly.”
    “Because I still hate Michael.”
    “You couldn’t possibly after all these years, Georgia.”
    “He cheated on me.”
    “And he’s the father of one of your children.”
    “He was a mistake. She wasn’t.”
    “Where is he these days?”
    “Last I heard, he moved to Chicago to work for some Big Eight firm. Estelle doesn’t talk to me about him, because she knows it’ll make me break out in hives.”
    Wanda shoves me through the door of the restaurant, which looks like the lower level of a giant old sailboat complete with portholes, thick wooden walls, long rubber sharks, and silver fish hanging on them. We can see straight out to the deck, which juts out over the water.
    “And Niles?”
    “Can you use social media when you’re behind bars?”
    “Shouldn’t he be out by now? Anyway, I think you should start with the husbands and get them over with. Find out if Niles is a free man. But Michael should be next.”
    “Is this a directive, Lieutenant Jeffries?”
    “Look, this whole mission was your bright idea, so if you’re going to do it, do it in chronological order. That way you can see when and how and why you made such bad choices in men, which might help explain why you’re still lost and confused.”
    “Go straight to hell, Wanda,” I say, laughing.
    “Been there once. Didn’t like it.”
    “Look. In all honesty, I don’t really care what Michael’s doing or who he’s doing it with. In fact, I think I’ll skip him.”
    “You are such a hypocrite. I thought you said you wanted to get a new perspective, forgive them or yourself, and maybe tie up some loose ends.”
    “I did. But I think these would be called knots.”

So everybody’s not on Facebook. And everybody can’t even be Googled. Last night, before I went to bed, I took a peek at my home page, and apparently no one wants to be my friend. The only thing I see is a photograph of an old school and bold letters that say “40th Class Reunion!” Have I really been out of high school forty years? I’m almost ashamed to admit I’ve only been to one reunion, and that was the tenth, and I left early. By the twentieth I’d pretty much forgotten about high school, for the same reasons you don’t reminisce about kindergarten when you’re headed to middle school.
    Nevertheless, I decide right here right now that I’m going to this one. Why, I don’t know. I RSVP. Besides, it’s a whole year away. I have no idea what to expect or if I even remember some of the nerds and sluts I graduated with. What I remember most about high school is heat, tumbleweed, and dust. I was popular but not well liked, because the word had gotten around that the reason I was in so many honors classes was that I skipped two grades in elementary school, putting me in the same grade as Roger, my older brother, who decided to skip college to join the army, which is how we lost him at twenty-two. There weren’t very many black kids in my high school, and I often felt lonely. I’m so full of shit. I was just bored to death. By my senior year, I was tired of all the do-nothing clubs and couldn’t wait to flip my tassel. I generated even more adversaries once the word got out that I wasn’t going to Cal State Bakersfield but rather to the University of California in San Francisco. Bitch.
    But that’s all behind me. I now have a damn good incentive to lose twenty pounds by this time next year.
    I log out.
    Or off.
    Whatever.
    —
    So. Since Wanda opened her big mouth about the order I should consider looking up the five but probably seven men I loved, I’m also curious about how many I’ve had sex with. Since my social calendar isn’t exactly backed up this evening, I’ve decided to dig out my old phone books to see how many of these guys I can resurrect.
    Back in the day, I used to save every single phone book and bought a new one only when the pages started