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make-up. “It was so wrong . I can’t believe I almost did that. Oh God, I’m a terrible person.” I catch my lower lip between my teeth to keep it from trembling and avoid her intense appraisal. “I can’t believe I almost did such a thing.”
    “Almost did what? Making out with a guy is not wrong,” she says in her thou-shall-not-be-judged-by-me voice. This absolution comes from the most promiscuous girl I know. I bestow her with a withering look.
    “Okay. You marry Gregoire; you have a child with him.” I watch an unfamiliar blush steal over her face. “Almost a year later, he dies and ten days after that, you’re making out with Gregoire’s best friend. How do you feel about yourself, now?”
    “You lost me at the marrying Gregoire part,” Kimberley says with this silly grin.
    “Fuck you,” I say with a modicum of affection and frustration.
    “Funny,” Kimberley retorts and rolls her eyes. She grips my hands in hers. “Julia, you cannot get hung up on the Jacob Winston thing. I want you to forget about it. Really. You were in a weak moment. So you kissed the guy. You did something reckless for you; and, let’s face it, completely out of character. But, you don’t have to berate yourself over it. You loved Evan, we all know that, but I refuse to participate in a discussion where sexual foreplay is considered an immoral act. I’m not a priest. So stop this guilt tripping, right now.”
    “You’re not a priest,” I say in a mocking tone.
    “I’ve done a priest, but I’m not one.” She gives me the all-famous-Kimberley sly secret smile—the one she saves for getting out of tickets with policemen or with bartenders when she fails to bring her ID. I actually start to laugh at the triumphant look on her face she’s giving me. Then she comes over and hugs me. “Don’t take it the wrong way when I tell you I’m proud of you.”
    “God, Kimberley, why would you say that?” She pulls away and looks at me intently.
    “You’re living , Julia. You want to. Maybe, this is a new beginning.”
    “What? I get to take over the famous Kimberley promiscuity record setting? You’re retiring?”
    “I just might,” she says with airy wave of her hand in my general direction.
    I choose to ignore her get-out-of-jail-free speech. “So anyway, to finish my story, before the whole sexual exploration of the Catholic Church was revealed. I started feeling really weird and got sick. The white knight threw me into a cold shower and apparently called an ambulance. The end.”
    “If he hadn’t been there,” she says with reverence. “God, Julia, he saved your life,”
    I give her an exasperated look. “You just told me, five minutes ago, to forget about him.”
    “I told you to forget about the guilt of almost doing him.” She just laughs, when I blush. “Not the parade of flowers from him over the past three days.” I don’t miss her speculative look. I can almost see the wheels turning in Kimberley’s head.
    “I don’t intend to ever see him again.” I give her a little shrug for emphasis.
    “Sure.”
    “I don’t know why he’s sending the flowers. I guess he feels bad about what almost transpired and the things we said to each other.”
    “Like what?”
    “I think he thought I might have married Evan for his money.” I grimace. “But I’m pretty sure my literal breakdown changed his mind. I cried a lot. Too much . We talked about some weird stuff. Bobby. But I don’t remember why.” I turn away from her concentrated gaze. Kimberley has a way of knowing my innermost secrets, sometimes, even before I do.
    “You talked about Bobby?” Kimberley asks in surprise.
    I never talk about Bobby. It’s an unwritten rule among all of us. Never speak of Julia’s dead loved ones, especially Bobby. And now Evan.
    “A little,” I say defensive now. Kimberley stares at me. I become more uneasy. “Enough about Jacob Winston,” I say in a firm this-subject-is-now-closed voice.
    “Thank God, he was