Secret Lives Of Husbands And Wives by Josie Brown

rest of them lean forward expectantly.
    Cha-
ching!
The conversation has come around to where I’d hoped. Silently I bless the fact that Colleen is once again attending our meetings (but only because she’s finally weaned herself from the notion that McGuyver, her three-year-old son, still needs to be breast-fed), and I go in for the close. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I arrange a little get-together tomorrow? You know, we can all meet for coffee, and you all can get to know him better.”
    Their slight nods are casual enough, but the sly smiles that slip onto their faces for a mere nanosecond speak volumes.
    Only Margot is still wary. “Well . . . I guess that will be okay. His son is the same age as my Laurel, and he seems polite enough. Although, considering how absent his father has been in the past, I assume his manners are his mother’s doing.”
    To keep from reacting to her remark, I look down at the marble floor and focus on its dizzying herringbone pattern. I hope I don’t throw up before I can think of an answer that won’t blow this forHarry. The fact that Harry is a man—and a very handsome one at that—makes him catnip to this group of women who, by the time the last mojito has been poured, will readily admit that their sex lives leave a lot to be desired.
    Well, Harry is certainly desirable.
    Before I have a chance to answer Margot, Tammy mutters, “If you think DeeDee is some kind of Miss Manners, you’re wrong. Admit it, Margot, the only time that woman ever said two words to any of us was when she wanted something. I for one think she’s a very cold fish.”
    “Well, she warmed up to someone. Ha! I wish we knew who he is,” Brooke says slyly.
    I can feel Margot’s back stiffen. “That’s just my point. We don’t know anything at all, about either of them. So why stick our noses in their business now? I mean, for all we know, it may be one of our husbands she’s sleeping with.”
    For the second time this evening, the room is dead silent. Warily we all glance at each other as we contemplate this crazy thought.
    Then Isabelle snickers again.
    One by one, our giggles join her cackle as we all hit on the same vision:
    DeeDee Wilder, Paradise Heights’s ice queen, trading handsome Harry for one of the other husbands whose sexual prowess at least one of us thinks she can vouch for.
    Or, more honestly, couldn’t vouch for if her life depended on it.

9
    “Men always want to be a woman’s first love.
Women like to be a man’s last romance.”
    —Oscar Wilde
    Wednesday, 6 Nov., 9:06 a.m.
    I’ve arranged for the meet-and-greet to take place the next morning after school drop-off, at the Paradise Heights Starbucks. For some stupid reason I seem more nervous about it than Harry, who laughs off my suggestion that we rendezvous earlier than the nine o’clock appointment time so that we can commandeer enough chairs in the primo spot, a windowed nook.
    “In fact,” he says much too casually, “I may be running a little late. Why don’t you save me a seat near you?”
    I bite my lip to keep from reacting like an overbearing mother whose first-grader has made the inevitable pronouncement that from now on he plans on walking to school without her.
    Unlike Harry, I fully comprehend the importance of this first impression to his future here in the Heights. Thus far, though, playing hard to get has worked in his favor, so maybe he knows what he’s doing after all.
    Still, my heart flutters when I get there and realize that everyone has arrived but Harry. My friends try to keep their expressions blank, but I feel an undercurrent of excitement. They are as giddy as sophomore schoolgirls on a first date with the football team’s captain.
    Although it has not yet been determined if Harry is friend or foe,full war paint has been applied. (What, did they all stop by Benefit for makeovers first?) And unlike me, all of them have forgone the usual morning attire—yoga pants and hoodies—for