Newly polished toenails safely propped on the crowded coffee table, Darlene Barnes let out a long plume of cigarette smoke and waited for her friend to come back from the kitchen.
Waiting in silence, however, had never been her 'thing'. The thirty-something bottled-blonde looked around at the empty doorway to the kitchen. "You know it's hard for me to believe you're this messed-up. You've always been so self-confident. Now, it's like you don't know whether to fish or cut bait.”
Renee Blanchard, the sexy, petite, former high school cheerleader and notorious object of much local gossip and lust, came back from the tiny kitchen carrying a bottle of Tab. "It's not that bad, really. I've just gotten this feeling, call it a hunch, that something's not right and I don't know why or what to do about it."
Â
She reclaimed her spot at the other end of the sofa. "The thing is, Jerry and I went out twice last week. Once for a swim at the country club, then a real date last Saturday. Both times he seemed, well, sort of distracted. Like, it was nice to be with me, but no big deal, either."
“You think maybe he's jealous and pouting because you went out with Rowdy the weekend before while he was out of town?"
Â
Renee shrugged and reached for her own cigarettes. "Could be. That's what I counted on. We’ve done the casual dating bit long enough. It seemed time to start getting serious. I figured a little jealousy would do the trick.”
 She shook her head. “Maybe I read things wrong. I mean he never asked about what I did. At first, I figured somebody had told him about my dating Rowdy and, like you said, he was pouting. Now, I'm beginning to wonder if he just doesn’t care."
 “I doubt it." Darlene leaned forward and inspected the second coat of bright red polish she’d just applied to her toenails. "Maybe he's just trying to act cool."
 The women smoked in silence, pondering the situation, until Darlene started rummaging through the clutter on the coffee table. "Have you seen my nail file?" She paused and looked over at Renee. "You know, I just had a thought. You think it might be something that happened during your date?"
Renee picked the file off the floor and handed it over. "Well, I might have carried on more than usual, you know, showing how much I'd missed him and all, doing a lot of the talking, trying to act like I was interested in whatever it was he’d been doing. Other than that and a bit more action when parking, nothing.”
“Didn’t you say his old buddy, Abby Mitchell, and another couple went with him to that wedding? You and Abby aren’t exactly best friends. Think she might have put a move on him just to spite you?"
"Maybe. Who knows? Miss High Society would do anything, and I do mean, anything, to get at me.”