Page 97 of Happiness for Beginners

I nodded, likeOf course. “Marching bands and walrus mustaches.”

Jake stroked his beard.

It was good to remember that night now, in the face of the looming bar mitzvah: The memory of it was something I hadn’t realized I’d held on to so tenderly. It had been fun. We had been friends. I suspected not that many women could look back on their first time so fondly, and I decided right then that I’d always be grateful for that one night, if nothing else.

“His mom worked for Planned Parenthood and he still knocked your friend up?”

I looked over. “Yep.”

“He was an idiot.”

“It was probably just a birth control malfunction.”

“Not for knocking her up. For cheating on you in the first place.”

Hearing that felt surprisingly good. I turned to meet Jake’s eyes. “Thanks.”

“Anybody who takes that kind of luck for granted deserves what he gets.”

I rubbed my eyes. “He got what he wanted.”

But Jake shook his head. “Nope.”

I frowned. “Nope?”

Jake shrugged. “Because you’re that kind of girl.”

“What kind?”

“The kind you never get over.”

I looked away.

Jake didn’t. “And now he’s invited you to the bastard’s bar mitzvah.”

“I don’t think people say ‘bastard’ anymore.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I think the baby wasn’t even technically a bastard, either, because of the shotgun wedding.”

“And you agreed to go.”

I nodded. “But then, as soon as I did, I regretted it.”

“Why?”

“Because now I have togo.”

Jake took a long, assessing look at me. “You’re going to surprise yourself and have a great time,” he declared. “I dare you to steal the ice sculpture.”

“All I want to do,” I said, “is go back to GiGi’s and watch bad television and take like three showers a day and eat ice cream straight from the carton. I don’t want to put on heels, or Spanx, or an underwire bra.”

Jake yawned. “I hear you, sister.”

I yawned, too. We’d talked too long. My elk-induced adrenaline had dissipated without my noticing it, and by the time it hit me that I was tired, I was so far past tired, I was downright sleepy. I looked over, my eyes only half open. “Maybe that was too much information about my underthings.”

“No such thing,” he said, closing his eyes.

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