The Best of Enemies by Jen Lancaster Page B

have blocked it from my memory as, like, a protective mechanism. Forgot about how she used to grill me all the time. Do you know what it’s like to have someone question your every move? To comment on your every action? She was so weird—she acted like she’d never spoken to another girl before.
    For more than a decade, she’s been saying that I’m the problem and that I don’t like women, but what’s so funny is that I had zero issue living in a sorority house full of them. Not a single issue. Maybe I didn’t have an actual best friend until college, but that’s only because I was always so close with my sister. I play well with others. I do. So, clearly it wasn’t me because
I
was part of a sisterhood. An integral part.
She
didn’t even get a bid!
    Wanna know why she failed so spectacularly? She brought up Mah
laaaay
shaaaaa.
    So smug. So self-righteous. Like earlier, when I accidentally mentioned my jagged C-section scar again? (Sorry, Alicia.) She was all, “The women of Iraq would kill to have your first world problems. Let’s talk about the state of maternal fetal medicine in a war zone. Did you know that the average adult Iraqi mother is subject to—”
    I immediately tuned her out, and not just because of the smug. I kind of can’t bear to hear her terrible stories about what it’s like for moms in other countries. If I were to actually listen to her, I would literally run to the airport, hop on the next plane headed east, and go home to hug my sweet baby boys until the end of time.
    In fact, if I had to get to my kids, I would run all the way to Mah
laaaay
shaaaaa.
    I watch Betsy’s whole face glow as she listens to Lois Lane prattle on about her experience running with the bulls in Pamplona. Oh, please, Miss Ernest Hemingway, tell us more!
    “Sars, there I was, in my white shirt and red bandanna . . .”
    Argh! Stop calling her Sars! That’s not a name; that’s a coronavirus! Her name is Betsy, you asshole!
    Darn it! That’s another dollar in the swear jar.
    I can’t understand how Betsy can like us both. They have nothing in common anymore, save for a shared childhood. Pretty sure Bets hasn’t been on a dirt bike since the first Bush administration.
    I need to take the spotlight off of this blowhard.
    “P.S., FYI, I am familiar with Mah
laaaay
shaaaaa. Betsy.” I cut my eyes over to Jack to see if she corrects me. She doesn’t but I can tell she’s dying to. “Remember our night nurse? She was from there. You know, Mah
laaaay
shaaaaa,” I say, delighted for the chance to prove Jackass wrong. I raise my marg in victory.
    “Ekaterina?” Betsy says.
    “Yes.”
    “Ekaterina who worked for you? Back in 2000? With Kord?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh, Kit, no,” Betsy says gently. “She was from Macedonia.”
    “But they’re close to each other, right?” I ask, trying to shrug it off. “Common mistake.”
    Betsy pats my knee. “It’s actually an entirely different continent.”
    Jack’s snort is so abrupt and profound that I flinch, which causes me to accidentally lose control of the hand holding my margarita glass, thus setting off a chain of events I’d . . . rather not discuss.
    For the record?
    I didn’t start it.
    Mah
laaaay
shaaaaa did.
    I hope the shark is okay.

CHAPTER SIX

    Seven Miles over Ohio
    Last Saturday
    I dropped everything the minute I heard.
    I hate that Bobby had to give me the news. He’s not equipped. His insular, good-time, party-boy lifestyle is the defense mechanism he’s created specifically to avoid dealing with the grim reality of the real world. That’s why he was the one who cried, not me. All I could do was spring into action. Guess that’s how I’m wired.
    Maybe I’ve seen too much in the field, too much sadness, too much destruction, too much suffering. I’ve witnessed and documented the nadir of human behavior. I wonder if I’m not somehow inoculated against having more profound feelings when others leave this mortal coil? The