Their orders were brought to the table — juicy pork dumplings, spicy shrimp and pork wonton, chicken rice cakes, and an order of vegetable dumplings Sara had mostly to herself. Cindy cheerfully tried half of one so Sara wouldn’t feel left out of the family style lunch.
“Ken’s into trivia,” Cindy said to Jane, “so maybe we could do that sometime with you and Chris.”
“Yeah, totally.” Jane mixed vinegar, soy sauce, and wasabi as if conducting a delicate chemistry experiment. “But we don’t wanna become boring couples, ya know? I just love hangin’ with my gals.” She spooned the mixture onto a juicy pork dumpling and asked Sara, “Have you read ‘Bold’?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, it’s an awesome book, and everyone is reading it. ”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s a memoir, so it’s not like fiction or anything that can be aggressive with plot and themes. This reads real natural, like you’re just texting with the author. It starts out with her losing everything — she got canned at this business journal she edited. It’s tough for a few weeks, but she manages to get a consulting gig, and since she’s not tied down or anything with kids, she decides to work remotely from Italy for a year. That’s where the title comes from. It’s about her journey of self discovery.”
“What does she discover?” Sara asked with polite skepticism.
“First, that she really likes Italy. You’ve been, right?”
Sara said she had. Cindy confessed she hadn’t: “I’ve always wanted to. My brothers and sister all spent a semester in Florence.”
Jane took the last spicy shrimp wonton. “OK, so you’ve at least heard enough to get the gist. The whole Tuscan country side life. She stayed in a friend’s place there. But she was otherwise all on her own. Then she met this Italian guy in a farmer’s market and they wound up getting married and running a vineyard together. I’ve had their wine. It’s not Napa but it’s pretty good.” She glanced at her phone, which sat beside her on the table like a fourth guest. “Oh, sorry, chickadees, I have to bounce. You know my friend Jess? She’s director of sales and channels at Amazon. She invited me to her two year old’s birthday party — or is the kid two all ready and is turning three?” She shrugged as she stood. “Doesn’t matter. My gift still works. Anyway, I have to go. They see me as family, really. I got her into Greenlake. It took some doing. And she’s super grateful. She’s also the first of her friends to buy a real home. So you want to maintain the connections. But it’s a bear. There’s never any women to talk to at these things — just mothers.”
— from “The Wrong Questions”
serhasacomplaint 