Read Objects of My Affection for Free Online

it to me. “I hear today was your first day on a new job. I’m guessing you need this.”
    â€œStraight tequila might be more appropriate.”
    â€œThat bad?” Heather asks, scooting over to make room for me. Heather has been my best friend since we met in college, and I swear she hasn’t aged ten minutes since then. She still has that sleek, coltish, coed look—as if she spends her days playing tennis and lunching with the gals, instead of what she really does, which is take care of everybody and everything.
    â€œI’m joking,” I say. “It was all right.” I turn to Mary Beth, eager to change the subject to something other than me. “So has Nicholas decided on a college yet?”
    And off they go—I’m free to sit back and enjoy my drink while the three of them go back and forth about SAT scores and graduation and college choices and the higher-education prep I didn’t get to go through with Ash. I’d always thought I would. Ash is smart, as in “I don’t have to study but I still ace the test” smart. Although he’s a year older than DJ, they used to hang out in the same crowd—nice kids with great grades that managed to sidestep being tagged as nerds. Of course, once my son got into drugs, the lifelong friends went by the wayside, along with the grades. His new crowd looked as if he’d pulled them out from under a collapsed building.
    From where I’m seated, I can see DJ and the others as they bowl. Samantha—whom Ash briefly dated in his junior year—throws a gutterball. Then she skips to her seat, high-fiving as she goes. I take a bite of a tortilla chip from a basket on the table, wondering if it will ever stop hurting seeing normal kids having a normal time.
    I’m about to go for another handful of chips when Mary Beth clasps my reaching hand across the table. “Lucy. Dear Lucy. Tell me. How is Ash?”
    The question came out of nowhere—or maybe it didn’t. I wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation. She gets my stock answer. “He’s doing well.”
    â€œWhen I heard about, you know , I was so upset. I said to myself, not our Ash!”
    This is awkward, and I want my hand back. Plus, yech, her hand is moist.
    Janie says, “It’s fantastic that he’s doing what he’s doing. Good for him.”
    I try to ease my hand toward me, but Mary Beth has a death grip on it. “Thanks, Janie,” I say, and with that I make a pointing gesture at her that makes utterly no sense but provides the excuse for claiming my hand back.
    Heather smacks the table so hard it jostles the drinks. “What are we, a bunch of old ladies? Sitting here when there’s bowling to do? Shame on us! I’ve been practicing on the Wii all week—I’ve got some teenaged butt to kick on the lanes!”
    I tap her foot with mine under the table—nice save. No awards for subtlety, but nice.
    Mary Beth leans back. “Oh, let’s let those kids be kids for a while.” That even gets an eye roll from Janie—it’s common knowledge that no one is more involved in the minutiae of her children’s lives than Mary Beth Abernathy. “When’s the last time you talked to him?” Mary Beth asks, turning back to me.
    Ouch, straight shot to the kidneys. “I haven’t yet. That’s one of the rules. No outside contact for a while.”
    This is not entirely true, but that’s the cornerstone of good lying. Stay as close to the truth as possible. Ash wasn’t allowed calls hisfirst two weeks, but he was encouraged to write to me. He never did. Not one measly letter. Not so much as a sentence, even though I sent him a nice letter full of well wishes and support and completely free of any hint of bitterness. Now he and I are allowed a ten-minute phone call. So far he’s declined. I have been able to talk to his therapist, but those