Read Online The Last Good Day by Peter Blauner - Free Book Online

like that other one who wasn’t from around here. But don’t tell me I’m being paranoid. You want to know about paranoid, talk to Sandi.”
    “Why?” Lynn blew on her latte, trying to settle herself down again. “What’s up with her?”
    “Oh, she’s gone hog-wild with the whole terrorism thing. I saw her over the weekend, and she was going on about trying to buy all these antibiotics in case there’s a biological attack. I told her, ‘Honey, what’s the good of that? Number one, they’re probably not coming here. And number two, you’ve been giving the kids that crap for every ear infection since they were babies. Haven’t you heard about building up resistance?’”
    “I don’t know what’s going on with her.” Lynn watched the foam in her cup recede. “She stood me up for dinner last night and never called to apologize. And she still hasn’t invited me in to the new house.”
    “Yeah, she’s getting to be a real flake.” Jeanine coughed into her napkin. “I was thinking of giving our friendship a rest for a while. I’ve got enough drama going on already.”
    “I wouldn’t go that far.” Lynn softened. “I’ve still got a lot of time for Sandi.”
    “Well, you’re a better woman than I am.”
    “Remember her mom? She was such a cool lady.”
    “God,” said Jeanine, “she must’ve been our age when she died. Breast cancer, right?”
    “Just like Sandi. Except people didn’t beat it that often then.”
    “Shit, Lynn”—Jeanine sagged—“now you’re really making me feel old.”
    Lynn stared off into the mid-distance. “You know, I remember playing in their backyard when I was six. Her mom helped me climb their big old oak tree. I used to feel so guilty about that for years ’cause she died like six weeks later. I always thought she should’ve been saving her strength for Sandi.”
    Jeanine speared a new potato and lifted it to her lightly rouged mouth. “Jesus, how do you remember these things? I can barely remember most of high school.”
    Lynn decided not to suggest that that might be because Jeanine had spent too many days and nights engulfed in mighty clouds of cannabis, huffing and puffing over her bong like a Juilliard bassoonist.
    “So, speaking of old friends,” said Lynn, finishing her latte, “you know who I ran into this morning?”
    “Who?”
    “Michael Fallon.”
    “Really?” A forkful of omelet stopped halfway to Jeanine’s mouth, dripping melted cheddar off the tines. “How’s he doing?”
    “He looked good. He was over at the train station while I was taking pictures across the street for my show. He was the one who told me somebody drowned.”
    “Well, maybe he was just trying not to panic you,” said Jeanine.
    “Hmm, wouldn’t that be ironic? Considering.”
    “I guess so.” Jeanine chewed on one side, regarding her carefully. “So how was it, seeing him again?”
    “It was a little odd, though mostly he couldn’t have been nicer. A couple of strained moments. It helped that Harold was around.”
    There was a pause, and she watched the locomotion of Jeanine’s jaw, the long bone rising and falling under the taut skin as she worked her way from one end of a thought to the other.
    “Well, for whatever it’s worth,” she said finally, “I think he’s finally got his act together.”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “I see him from time to time.” Jeanine crossed her legs, a thick tan ankle showing between the cuff of her jeans and white tennis shoes. “He was the kids’ soccer coach in the AYSO league a few years ago.”
    “Was he?”
    “And I have to tell you, he was wonderful. Patient. Considerate. Never raised his voice. The first three games, Zak wouldn’t leave the sidelines. He’d just lie there, sucking down juice boxes and staring up at the clouds. It was Mike who got him in the game, and now he’s a little tiger on the field. He just needed a male role model to show him how to be aggressive without losing his temper,