His First Wife

“My mother used to say that to me.”

“Well, mine had a different philosophy,” I said, imagining what my mother would be sipping on at the moment.

“You know, I wished I was invited to your shower,” she ambushed me. Piper was not one of my friends and there was no reason in the world for her to have been invited to the shower.

“Well, it was a small gathering,” I responded.

“Yeah, but sometimes I just wish we were closer.” She sighed and it was almost sincere. “Like if you’d pledged or something, we might be best friends. We have a lot more in common than you and Marcy. . . . Same family, same history.... We could have been close.” She paused, expecting me to respond, I supposed.

“Sure,” I said.

“Oh, it just makes me so sad that I couldn’t be there for you right now . . . with Jamison,” she finally said.

“Be there? Jamison?”

“Yeah, like through all of this . . . that I couldn’t be your friend and comfort you.”

“All of this?” I assumed she was talking about the baby, but the tone in her voice . . . Maybe it was the alcohol I smelled on her breath talking.

“Jamison . . . and why he’s not here.”

“Why he’s not here? And why isn’t he here?” My heart skipped a beat.

“I know about the other woman,” Piper whispered, gritting her teeth.

“Really,” I said to stop myself from saying a long list of other things. I didn’t want to give Piper that satisfaction. She was no shoulder to lean on. She was just as fake as the filler she’d had pumped into her lips. I began to block Piper out and searched the room for the source of this drama beside me. Marcy was the only person who could have told her.

“No problem, Kerry,” I heard Piper say. “You know I have your back. I always will . . .”

I felt the fire raging in my stomach. I held tight to my glass to stop my fist from meeting Piper’s jaw.

“You’re a troll,” I heard myself say.

“Excuse me?” Piper placed her hand over her heart.

“You heard me,” I said rather loud. The people standing closest to us turned around. “What gives you the right to come over here and say something like that to me? Who do you think you are?”

“Kerry!”

“No, not Kerry to you. And if you really want to know why I didn’t join your sorority, it was because of simple women like you that I have no desire to associate myself with. In fact, that sorority would be better off without women like you. The world would be better off without you.” I threw what was left in my glass in her face. “Now that’s water under the bridge.” I slammed the glass on a table. “My mother used to say that to me.”

I walked away as the crowd around us grew. Piper sto

od there gasping as if I’d had a full gallon of water in that little glass.

“What did you do?” Marcy asked, pulling me into the kitchen.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” I said.

“What?”

“You told her? I can’t believe you did that! I just can’t believe you’re up to your old stuff, Marcy.”

“I didn’t.”

“Don’t lie. Because I already know. There’s no way out of this one.” I was fuming.

“I didn’t tell her.”