With Friends Like These... by Gillian Roberts Read Free Book Online

my whooping cough booster shot, and my mother had been so upset, she’d forgotten to produce the promised lollipop reward for bravery.
    Therefore, my evaluation of Richard Quinn was strictly force of habit. I thought.
    “This is Reed, everybody,” Lyle said a while later. Lord knew where the boy had slurked until this moment, since Tiffany had unhappily announced his presence earlier. He looked like the kind of kid who would have brought along an enormous stash of comic books and who would have found a secret place to read them.
    But I liked that his father’s graciousness extended to children. Not everybody’s does. Unfortunately, Lyle’s warmth hadn’t been inherited by his son, who was seriously sullen. “Reed has agreed to be bored to death at an old man’s birthday party, and I want to thank him publicly. It means a whole lot to me.”
    Lyle hugged his stiff and unbending son. Reed was in some very late larval stage. Soft and puffy, his head pushed forward pugnaciously, his eyes canvassed the room systematically, almost automatically and with no recognition. Until, that is, he spotted stepmama Tiffany, over in a corner yukking it up with TV’s own Dr. Sazarac, and gave her as evil an eye—as evil two eyes—as I’ve seen.
    His anger looked chronic, deep, and familiar. I teach at a school where lots of lost and furious children of privilege wind up. I’d seen that face many times.
    “And over there’s his gracious mother and chauffeur,” Lyle said, one hand still on his son’s shoulder. “Sybil is undoubtedly the reason Reed’s turning out so well.”
    I wondered if there was intentional irony in that statement. Maybe not. This was very much a let-bygones-be-bygones evening. Very sophisticated, indeed. Lyle’s stock escalated for complimenting his sour ex, who looked as hostile and unyielding as she had in the kitchen. She stood against the far wall, holding a drink, establishing her distance from and possible contempt for all of us and our party.
    “Sybil’s owner of a thriving landscape business,” Lyle told the rest of us. “Built it from the ground up, as they say. Sybil doesn’t have a green thumb; she has a green hand. Knows everything about anything that grows.”
    Sybil acknowledged his greetings with a quick nod. Her features were handsome, if sharp, and she did nothing to soften her appearance. She wore a high-collared black dress and no jewelry or makeup, and the starkness of her costume combined with her severe hairstyle made her look like a mourner and a shockingly dramatic contrast to her glittery successor.
    I couldn’t get over Tiffany. It had to be embarrassing to be such a blatant pneumatic, giggling stereotype, especially an anachronistic one, but then, what can be expected of girls named after retail stores? She was a commercial production—name by jewelers, body by Barbie. Her spangles barely met the definition of minimal coverage, so essence of Tiffany was everywhere, and in motion. She was extravagant with body language—fond of expansive hand movements, torso tilts, leg crosses—and semiverbal communication: giggles, exclamations, and coos. She was also in a much better mood than she’d been in, in the kitchen.
    Not a man there, including both father and son Zacharias, could take his eyes off her for very long.
    I could, however. As the hours dragged on, I became less and less captivated with party-watching. Finally, bored to the eyebrows, I fell back on tradition and excused myself to powder my nose. Maybe there’d be a new, Tiffanyized nose, etcetera, in the mirror.
    Up in the room, I powdered an all-too-familiar face. At least my disappointment was witnessed only by my mother’s Persian lamb and my down coat, both tossed on the bed along with our purses.
    Reluctantly en route back to the festivities, I decided to kill more time by checking on the cook. She’d had the opportunity to recover, to be by herself, and to eat something and raise her blood sugar, a folk