Read Online Strangers at the Feast by Jennifer Vanderbes - Free Book Online Page A

their sandwiches, Denise had found that a little wake and bake out her bedroom window was a good way to start the day. She grew her own in the overrun steel mill yard, occasionally selling to the Homestead High cheerleading squad.
    In college, though, it slowed her down. And by then, Denise was starting to realize there were other ways to live, there were things like exercise, studying. If she worked hard, after graduation she might be able to move to New York City or Boston, get away from her family and Homestead. She switched to cigarettes and diet sodas. Sometimes during finals she took NoDoz. The rush from daytime cold medicine wasn’t bad either, and left her calm enough to go for a run. A complex regimen of caffeine and exercise got her through thirty job interviews her senior year, perky and well prepared; it landed her a job.
    Nowadays she still snuck cigarettes. After three children, it was hard to keep her figure, and smoking subdued her hunger. She kept a pack beneath the seat in her car, and on her way home from work she’d pull into the Minimart parking lot. Leaning against the hood, she’d suck down every last inch of tar and tobacco. She stashedmouthwash in the car. She did a gargle-spit-gargle-spit routine and scrubbed her hands with a baby wipe before heading home.
    Douglas would have been surprised. The children, appalled.
    But you got married and had kids and that was the end of privacy, the death of anything resembling a solo self, the one that used to, every once in a while, just for kicks, introduce herself as Denise Boeing, heiress. The one who once got so high she made out with Cindy Keegan, the cheerleading captain.
    God knew smoking in a parking lot was safer than boffing the history teacher. Which, she proudly reminded herself, she hadn’t done.
    “Any new men, Ginny?”
    “Only if you count my Realtor.”
    Ginny turned heads when she threw on a dress. But she was high-maintenance and a know-it-all. Every year she spontaneously quizzed the whole family on the states named for Indian tribes.
    Okay, guys. Connecticut was named after the Mohegan word Quinnehtukqut. Who remembers what that word means?
    Denise was no expert in Colonial family history or gender relations, but she knew one thing for sure: men liked to teach women trivia, not learn it. Trivia was like a car jack, or a charcoal grill—smart women only let men touch that stuff.
    Ginny didn’t complain about being single, but Denise had seen, over the years, as Ginny bounced from one dead-end relationship to the next, that it frustrated her.
    “Well, men are work,” said Denise. “Heavy lifting. Ask my husband.”
    “What?” Douglas entered, holding a present. “I am a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.”
    He put his arm around Ginny, who was haphazardly scraping carrots, peels flying everywhere.
    “This is an obscene amount of vegetables,” said Douglas. “I hope there’s some protein hiding somewhere around here. I had my heart set on a turducken. Suburban homeowner! Mother. I’m still in shock.”
    “This is how single people have a midlife crisis, Dougie. We abruptly settle down.”
    “Well, no home is complete without this,” he said, waving the box. Douglas loved giving presents. Two months behind on their mortgage and he still arrived home some nights, pale and exhausted, with ribbon-wrapped remote control cars for the boys, stuffed bears for Laura.
    “Doug,” Denise said, “we’re working.”
    “For months I’ve been deprived of uncling privileges. I will not be deterred!” He set the box in Priya’s lap and she excitedly tore open the wrapping.
    “Monopoly?” asked Ginny. “She’s seven, Dougie.”
    “I was playing this in diapers.”
    “You made me miserable forcing me to play that godforsaken game until all hours with you.”
    “And look at the deal you got on this house! Tell me you don’t have my early real-estate mentorship to thank.”
    Priya opened the box, and examined the pastel-colored