“Your vagina is going to be all stretched out and useless now.”

First, I check to see if the bartender heard her, then I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Birthing, naturally. What? Do you think everything just snaps back into place?” She laughs a true hyena laugh. I watch her exposed throat as she throws her head back to finish her cackling. How many times have I wondered what it would feel like to slap my best friend? When she calms down, she sighs dramatically.

“God, I’m just kidding, Leah. You should have seen your face. It was like I told you your kid died.”

I toy with my drink napkin. What if she's right? My fingers begin itching to pull out my phone and Google. I do some Kegels for good measure.

Would Caleb notice a difference? I break out in a sweat just thinking about it. Our relationship had always been about sex. We were the sexy couple; the ones who kept things alive when all of our friends were retiring into a life of half-lucid missionary sex after the kids went to sleep. For months in the beginning of our relationship, he would get this relieved look on his face when he reached for me and I responded. I never pushed him away. I never wanted to. Now, I had to consider that he might push me away.

I order another drink.

This was going to cause all kinds of new anxiety. I would have to schedule an appointment with my therapist.

“Look,” says Katine. She leans toward me and her overly sweet vanilla perfume creeps into my nose. “Things change when you have a baby. Your body changes. The dynamic between you and the husband changes. You have to be inventive, and for the love of God, lose the baby weight … fast.”

She snaps her fingers at a server and puts in an order for a basket of fries and fried calamari.

Bitch.

Chapter Four

Past

I met Caleb at Katine’s twenty-fourth birthday party. It was held on a yacht, which was significantly better than my twenty-fourth birthday venue at one of South Beach’s swanky nightclubs. I invited two hundred people; she invited three. But, being that my best friend’s birthday is four months after mine, she has the advantage of outshining me every year. I call it even since I am prettier and my father placed twelve spots above hers in Forbes.

I was wearing a black silk Lanvin dress that I’d seen Katine eying the week before as we shopped in Barney’s. Her hips had been slightly too wide to accommodate the slim cut of the dress, so I scooped it up when she wasn’t looking and bought it. She would have done the same to me, of course.

After making rounds among our friends, I headed to the bar for a fresh martini. I spotted him sitting on one of the barstools. His back was toward me, but I could tell by the width of his shoulders and the cut of his hair that he was going to be beautiful. I slid into the available seat next to him and shot him a look out of the corner of my eye. I noticed the strong jaw first. You could crack walnuts on that jaw. His nose was kind of weird, but not in an unattractive way. The bridge was curved, a slight bend in the road. It was elegant, the way an old revolver would be. His lips were too sensual for a man. If it were not for his nose — that incredibly elegant nose — his face would have been too pretty. I waited a few customary minutes for him to look at me, normally I didn’t have to work very hard to garner male attention, but when he didn’t, I cleared my throat. His eyes, which had been focused on the television above the bar, turned slowly toward me like I was an imposition. They were the color of maple syrup if you held it up to the light. I waited for him to get that lucky look that all men got on their faces when they stumbled upon my attention. It didn’t come.

“I’m Leah,” I said finally, holding out my hand.

“Hello, Leah.” He sort of half smiled as he shook my hand and then dismissively turned back to the television. I knew his type. You had to play hard to get with boys that had crooked grins. They liked the chase.

“How do you know Katine?” I asked, suddenly feeling desperate.

“Who?”

“Katine … the girl whose birthday party you’re crashing?”

“Ah, Katine,” he said, taking a sip from his glass. “I don’t.”

I waited for him to explain that he came with a friend or his distant relation to someone at the party, but he offered no explanation. I decided to try a new route.

“Do you need bourbon and a beer to go with that Scotch?”

He looked at me for the first time, blinking as if he was clearing his vision.

“Is that your best pick up line? Lyrics from a country song?”

I saw a hint of laughter in his eyes, and I smiled, encouraged.

“Hey, we’ve all got a vice and mine is country music.”

He studied me for a minute, his eyes roving over my hair and stopping on my lips. He ran his fingers across the condensation on his glass, collecting the moisture on the tips of his fingers. I watched in fascination as he used his thumb to rub the moisture from his fingertips.

“Okay,” he said, turning toward me. “What other vices do you have?”

I could have answered you right then and there.

“Uh-uh,” I said, seductively shaking my head and leaning forward just enough to give him a bird’s eye view of my cleavage. “I already let one out of the bag. Your turn.”

He harrumphed and glanced at his sweaty glass. He spun it slowly as he looked back at me, like he was deciding whether or not it was worth it to continue the conversation. After a long pause, his eyes iced over and he said — “Poisonous women.”

I sat back, startled. This was perfect. I was about a ten on the poison scale. If he needed venom, I could inject it directly into his neck.

He took a long, hard sip of his Scotch. I evaluated the situation. It was clear that this man had just played emotional dodge ball with a professional. He was nursing a very strong and expensive drink at a yacht party he’d rather not be attending. Despite the fact that I was offering up my goods, wearing a dress that left little to the imagination, he barely looked at me. Normally, a man on the rebound would not scare me. They could provide passionate, casual sex in the wake of their heartbreak. They see only the best things about you; the things that remind them of the better days with their ex, showering you in compliments, and clinging to you gratefully for a fun-filled week or two. I relish rebound men. But, this one was different. This one wasn’t questioning his worth as a human because his relationship ended. He was questioning her sanity. Trying to figure out at exactly what point things had started to unravel.

He was immaculately dressed, without trying. He dressed that way by nature — which meant that he had money — and I loved money. I recognized the royal sign of the Rolex, the fine thread of Armani, the easy way he looked at the world. I also recognized the way he said “thank you” when the bartender refilled his drink, and how when the couple next to him swore repeatedly, he flinched. His type was hardly ever single. I wondered what stupid bitch let him go. Whoever she was, I would wipe her from his memory in no time at all. Why? Because I was the best of the best: the Godiva, the Maserati, the perfect colorless diamond. I could improve anyone’s life — especially this man's.

With my newfound confidence in our future relationship, I smiled at him and crossed my legs so that my skirt hiked up my thigh.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Today happens to be your lucky day.”

“Why is that?”

 He didn’t even look at my legs. I sighed.

“Well, I was going to say something smart ass about being poisonous too, but I think by the looks of you, you need a good dose of Jamba Juice or something.”

He cracked up.