This One Is Mine: A Novel by Maria Semple Read Free Book Online Page B

pulled up alongside her. The driver gave Sally an exasperated are-you-staying-or-are-you-going look and threw up her hands. That settled it. No way was Sally going to gift this biotch with a primo parking space. She pulled the key out of the ignition.
    In Jeremy’s courtyard, she came upon the mailman sorting mail. “Apartment Two G?” she asked. “I’ll take that.” She plucked Jeremy’s bundle and rolled off the rubber band. Bulk mail coupons, a reminder from his dentist, a Visa bill — Sally felt a pang at the mere sight of a boyfriend’s Visa bill.
    Once, during the final throes of her relationship with Kurt, she had steamed open his Visa bill. Orders for the leather jackets weren’t coming in as expected, and Sally had been forced to take out a second credit card to pay off the first. Then one day, lo and behold, Kurt — whose signature look was vintage Hawaiian shirts — traipsed out of the bedroom wearing a new one. “Where did that come from?” she asked. “I’ve had it forever,” he said, rattling the pen cup for the black Sharpie he used to paint his gray hairs. “Well, why haven’t I seen it before?” “Maybe you weren’t looking.” After Kurt left for work, Sally ransacked their wastebaskets and even the big cans in back to find proof he’d recently bought the shirt, but came up empty. Then his Visa bill appeared in the mail. She steamed it open and discovered an eighty-five-dollar charge from Wasteland, his favorite vintage-clothing store. She drove to the boot shop where he worked and confronted him. But he totally turned it around and used this “invasion of privacy” as his basis to dump her!
    Sally tucked Jeremy’s Visa bill into his other mail and knocked on 2G.
    Jeremy opened the door. “You don’t have to knock,” he said. “You have a key.”
    “I know.” She gave him a big kiss. “I just don’t want to barge in on anything.”
    “There’s nothing to barge in on. You’ve already seen me naked.”
    Sally laughed. “You’re so sweet. Here’s the mail.”
    “How was your class this morning?”
    “I had forty-five people,” Sally said. “They were spilling next door into the hip-hop class. My manager couldn’t believe it.”
    “That’s really great,” he said. He tried to shut the door, but it caught on his shoe. Sally wished he’d get rid of those clunky docksiders with the gigantic gummy soles. But he had resisted her attempts to make him over. She finally had to resort to stuffing his
really
geeky clothes between his mattress and box spring. Unfortunately, the dumb shoes were too bulky to hide. Maybe if they went to a shoe store together, Sally could innocently suggest he try on some cross-trainers. . . .
    “Hey, I need some new sneakers,” she said. “After lunch maybe we could drive to that running store.”
    “I write my column after lunch.”
    As if she hadn’t noticed! Every day, Jeremy woke up, read two newspapers, ate his breakfast, checked his sports websites, walked to Hamburger Hamlet for lunch, came home, wrote his column, then walked to El Torito and watched sports at a corner table while he ate a cheese quesadilla. Yes, it was boring. On the upside, Sally didn’t have to spend her whole life driving around to check if he really was where he said he was.
    “Of course
after
you write your column, silly.”
    There was a knock. It was Jeremy’s friend Vance, who joined them for lunch every Wednesday.
    “Surprise, surprise,” she said.
    Vance had been Jeremy’s roommate at Cal Poly Pomona. An inveterate gambler, Vance would drag Jeremy to Santa Anita, where he had discovered Jeremy’s genius at handicapping horses. It was Vance who had persuaded a friend at the
LA Times
to give Jeremy a column.
    “You’re three minutes late,” Jeremy said to Vance.
    “I know. Traffic.” Vance winked at Sally. Not a lascivious wink, but in shared appreciation of Jeremy.
    The trio walked down Van Nuys Boulevard, Jeremy working himself up about the