Make Me Sin

24

“I’m a whore.”

There’s a pause. Finally, she says, “Really? What nasty deed did you do? And how much did you get paid for it? I want all the details, I’m thinking of writing a book.”

“I didn’t get paid anything.”

Grace scoffs, “Then you’re not a whore.”

“Fine, I’m a slut.”

She says warmly, “It’s one of the things I most love about you, sweetheart.”

Staring at the shadows crawling across the ceiling from passing headlights, I heave an epic sigh.

“All right, out with it. What’s wrong?”

With Grace, it’s best you get right to the point. As a therapist, she’s always got one eye on the clock while you’re telling your sad story. Also, she was involved in a car accident when she was in high school that killed her parents and left her with no memory of her life before the crash. Other, weaker-willed people might have coped by turning to drugs or freaking out, but Grace decided to handle it by living every moment as if it were her last. For her, there is no past or future, only the present. She has zero tolerance for anything that wastes time. So I launch right in.

“Eric and I were fooling around and I called him another guy’s name.”

Raucous laughter. I should have known she’d find that amusing. When the snorts and guffaws have finally died down, she says, “And I take it Mr. Law and Order took exception to your little faux pas?”

“It’s more than a little faux pas, Grace! It’s practically adultery!”

“It’s not adultery if you’re not married, Chloe.”

I glare at the ceiling. She should not be excusing me with semantics right now. “Fine. It’s practically cheating, then.”

“Don’t be silly,” she says breezily. “Every woman thinks of someone other than her partner from time to time when she’s having s*x. It’s completely normal. Your only mistake was opening your mouth.”

“Yes, well now my foot is permanently inserted in that mouth. Eric stormed out of here like he was headed toward a murder spree.”

Grace mutters, “Or to put a choke hold on some innocent person of color.”

“Grace!”

“I’m sorry sweetie, but he’s a white Republican police officer, who grew up in Alabama and still sees his fraternity brothers from college twice a year for hunting trips in the bayou. You know there’s a pointy white hood somewhere in a locked trunk in his garage.”

“I’m hanging up on you now.”

“Okay, I give! He’s a lovely person who rescues cats stuck in trees and helps old ladies cross the street when he’s not too busy teaching the disadvantaged youth of the inner city how to read. Satisfied?”

“Sometimes I think you’re a bigger snob than my mother, Grace.”

“Thank you!”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

She snorts. “That’s what you think.”

I grit my teeth. “If you were really my best friend, you’d be giving me a lecture on how rude and unforgiveable it is to call the man who cares so much for me another man’s name while he’s getting down to business.”

“Wait—getting down to business? You mean he wasn’t even inside you yet?”

“You know, the things you find important are really baffling to me. That’s not the point!”

“Was his d**k, or was his d**k not, inside you at the time of the incident in question?”

I don’t dignify that with an answer. She knows it already anyway.

“Well there you go!” she crows.

“There I go what?”

She exhales in exasperation. “You weren’t even having s*x, Chloe! It doesn’t count!”

“Really? Try telling that to my boyfriend, who broke my favorite vase on his way out the door to go burn down A.J.’s house.”

There’s a long, cavernous silence. Then Grace tentatively asks, “You’re telling me that you called Eric . . . A.J.?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“The same A.J. that you absolutely detest?”

I close my eyes. This is so embarrassing. “The very same.”

“The same A.J. that you wasted a perfectly good glass of champagne on when you threw it in his face, not two weeks ago, after calling him a certain smelly body part?”

“Grace.”

“The same A.J. who dates sluts named Heavenly?”

“Actually she’s a prostitute,” I correct. “He pays her. And all the rest of his girlfriends, near as I can tell.”

Grace begins to chuckle. It’s a low, throaty laugh that would make a phone s*x operator green with envy. When she’s through enjoying the depth of my humiliation, she says cryptically, “Chloe Anne Carmichael, there’s hope for you yet.”

I throw an arm over my face. “I don’t even want to know what that means.”

“It means it’s time for a meeting of the sisterhood of the traveling panties. Lula’s, half an hour. I’ll call Kat.”

She hangs up. I know, from past experience, if I call her back she won’t answer. And if I don’t show at the appointed time, they’ll come and get me.

I drag myself from the couch to go get dressed.