Read Best to Laugh: A Novel for Free Online Page B

minutes before you thought I was some freaky bodybuilder.”
    “I didn’t think you were—”
    Maeve waved away my weak denial.
    “Listen, it’s Father—Mother’s first husband—I most take after, and proudly so. I followed his footsteps into academia.”
    “You did?” asked Ed.
    “Yes,” said Maeve coolly. “I have a master’s in physiology.”
    “Are you a physiologist?” I asked, not exactly sure what that was.
    “Right now I’m working as a medical transcriber. It’s not my life’s goal, but it pays well and I can set my own hours.”
    “I had no idea,” said Ed, balancing a wedge of cheese on a cracker.
    “Well, you haven’t exactly been eager to get to know me.”
    Maeve wrinkled her nose, as if Ed’s unreciprocated attention had an actual odor to it. Seeking cleaner air, she turned to me. “But it was that study that sparked my interest in bodybuilding. To be the master of my own physical destiny! To fine-tune and mold my musculature! To transform the gangly girl into a powerhouse of womanhood!”
    Stirred by her own words, Maeve Mullman stood up, posing with her glass held high. Her T-shirt and baggy warm-up pants couldn’t disguise her well-defined body; her muscles were convex and shapely, and I raised my own glass to salute her and her efforts.
    “To powerhouses of womanhood!” I said.
    “To mastering physical destiny!” added Ed.
    “Hey,” said Maeve, the celebratory moment fleeting. “Are you making fun of me?”
    Both Ed and I averred that we were not.
    “Because that’s what I can’t stand. People making fun of me. I don’t mind honest questions—‘Why do you lift weights?’ ‘Why do you like to bulk up like that?’—but I hate people making fun of me.”
    She banged her empty glass down on the coffee table and bolted toward the door, her long strides making tracks in the thick gray carpet.
    “I wasn’t making fun of you!” said Ed, and I echoed him, but Maeve exited, slamming the door against our assurances.
    “I think,” said Ed after a long moment, “a nerve may have been touched.”
    Shortly after Maeve’s departure, I made a less dramatic one.
    “Since it looks like she’s eaten all the cashews,” I said, pilfering through the crystal nut bowl, “I guess I should be going, too.”
    “Hey, we never got to our Scrabble game,” said Ed.
    “I would have creamed you.”
    “In your dreams. And don’t go just yet—I’ve got something for you.”
    After dashing into the kitchen Ed returned with a six-pack.
    “Isn’t that the chocolate milk stuff you were drinking down at the pool?” I asked.
    “YaZoo. It’s chocolate soda. It’s one of my game show ‘parting gifts,’ which I now realize means ‘hard to part with,’ since no one wants any.”
    “Well, gee . . . thanks.”
    Laughing as I reluctantly accepted the six-pack, Ed took out from his back pocket a folded piece of newspaper.
    “Here’s your real present.”
    “Want ads?”
    “For game show contestants. See here,” he said, pointing to red-inked circles, “this one’s for Word Wise, and here’s one for Use It or Lose It —although they only have prizes, not cash—and this one’s for The Money Tree. That’s the show I was just on. Call them up and see what happens.”
    E D OFFERED TO SEE ME HOME, and while I thanked him for his chivalry I reminded him I lived in the same complex and thought I could safely navigate the short distance between his four-plex and mine.
    I breathed in the jasmine and eucalyptus-tinged air. After the harsh smoggy daylight, there was something tender and wistful about this Hollywood night that smelled of sachets tucked inside the lace and satins of a widow’s lingerie drawer. It was almost dreamy, that soft-scented air, andI could have walked for miles in it, but instead I turned toward the back of the complex and the pool.
    Light shone from behind a shaded window in Billy Gray Green’s apartment, but I presumed he was out bartending and like most