Playing Hard To Get

There was no recovering retort for Tasha. She rewrapped her shawl and held her Birkin out on her wrist like some security doll a child would clutch.

“Well, it’s been nice chatting with you, beautiful!” Venus’s smile reappeared like lightning striking a tree. She pulled Tasha into her arms and held her tight, kissing her on either cheek. “Take care of you. It’s a jungle out there,” she whispered in her ear before disappearing into the crowd of beautiful friends to gather another glass of wine and find a new victim.

Tasha exhaled and waved at one of Lionel’s teammates. She wanted to go over to the bar to gather her husband, but knew the rule of these functions. A hanging-on wife was worse than an eager groupie. She could only come and go, smile and drift away to network in her own circles.

“Where’s Tamia?” Tasha

asked herself, knowing better than to look at her watch. The bored wife was worse than the hanging-on wife.

Attack of the Frenemies: Surviving the Ultimate Extraterrestrial Expereince

Rodney King was wrong—we all can’t just get along. And when the foe is also a friend, the result is even worse—we manage to get along and fall out all at the same time. Every woman is bound to have a frenemy in her lifetime. She’s the woman she loves to hate, and hates to love. Her life would probably be better without the frenemy, but she needs her for something. And while the relationship might cause some bumps and bruises, she endures the enemy’s pain to get the friend’s pleasure. Here are tips for dealing with frenemies and surviving an encounter from out of this world.

Dos:

1. Know your enemy and her weapon of contact (usually her mouth).

2. Know yourself and what weapon you have that can trump hers.

3. Keep your cool and kill her with kindness.

Don’ts:

1. Fall for her petty games.

2. Forget that this friend is an enemy, so keep your business to yourself and do your dirt alone.

3. Play frenemy if there’s nothing to be gained. If the relationship is truly worthless, it isn’t worth your time.

?

While most men relished the idea of coming home to a freshly prepared dinner, before he even got married Kyle realized that a home-cooked meal by Troy came with a price tag—she’d usually done something wrong and after she finished crying he would have to order takeout and dispose of the garbage to get rid of the smell of whatever cut of expensive meat Troy had charred to a dry mess.

After smelling the now familiar scent of what he identified as burning beef when he walked into the house, he immediately asked his wife what the matter was and thwarted her phony half smile with an eye roll. He insisted it was something and she insisted it was nothing.

“Why can’t I just do something nice for you? For my husband?” Troy asked, standing beside Kyle at the kitchen table.

“You call this nice?” He pointed to what looked like a mass of tar at the center of a silver platter.

At least the platter looked nice, Troy thought. She’d actually put fresh parsley sprigs and baby carrots on the side to dress it up.

“It’s for you.”

“Look, just tell me what’s wrong, baby, so we can go get something to eat—”

“So you’re not going to eat it? It took all day to cook that.”

“Yeah, it looks like it’s been cooking all day. And what is it? What was it?”

Troy pouted and went to the sink. How did he know something was wrong? The plan was to get him full and butter him up before she told him about what happened at the meeting. The last thing she needed was to stall and let Sister Glover get to him first. Even in her un-right mind, Troy knew that wasn’t quite the right thing to do. She stared into the empty sink and tried to find the right thing to say. There was no way Kyle was going to eat that steak, or roast beef, or London broil, or whatever it was supposed to be. She might as well get on with it.

“I need you to ban Sister Glover from the Virtuous Women.”

“What?” Kyle was half listening as he looked through his cell phone for the number to the Chinese restaurant. Troy hadn’t left the sink.

She turned to him.

“I need you to ban her…from the Virtuous Women.”