I let it slide. I drink four of those mini glasses of sake and then order wine.

Katine raises her glass to me. “To having you back!” she bellows, and we all take a drink.

I feel fantastic. I am officially back, though it has been a tough decade. In my sake-induced haze, I vow to make my thirties the best years of my life. By three o’clock, lunch is over and we are all sloshed, but not ready to head home.

“So,” Katine whispers to me as we eventually exit the restaurant. “Where’s the kid?”

“Daycare.” I giggle and cover my mouth with my hand.

Katine winks at me conspiratorially. It had been her idea after all.

“Does Caleb know?” she asks.

I look at her like the dumb blonde that she is. “Seriously, Katine? Would I be wearing this if Caleb knew that his little precious was in a stranger’s care?” I wiggle my wedding band at her.

She widens her eyes and puckers her lips like she doesn’t believe me. “Come on. Caleb would never leave you, I mean, he had his chance with that Olivia girl and — “ She slaps her hand over her mouth and looks at me like she’s said too much.

I stop dead in my tracks, ready to slap her. The bitch. How dare she bring her up!

I am breathless, full of sake and anger when I say: “Caleb never ever considered leaving me. She was nothing. Don’t you go telling people those lies, Katine.”

I know my face is red. I can feel it burning under the resentment. Katine’s eyebrows unhinge. They dip down, giving the impression that she’s genuinely sorry.

“I ... I’m sorry,” she stammers. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

I know this pretty, blonde devil too well to buy into her Emmy-worthy apologies. I give her a disdainful look, and she smiles at me with saccharine sweetness.

“I just meant that he loves you. Not even that hot little piece of ass could take him from you.”

Now I am seething. It is one thing to mention that trash’s name, but to give credence to her obvious good looks crosses the girlfriend/loyalty line.

“Leah, wait,” she calls after me as I storm off. I don’t wait to hear her excuse — her favorite one being that she is from Russia and doesn’t always understand the right way to communicate since English is her second language. I have heard them all before, and I know my slithering best friend. She likes to sugarcoat slurs, slander and underhanded insults. You are so courageous to wear that skirt, I’d be afraid my cellulite would show. Katine is bulimic and doesn’t have a stitch of cellulite. So, obviously she was referring to mine.

Katine Reinlaskz is as fun as a monkey at the zoo, but cross her and she’ll rip you to shreds. Our relationship, which has existed since middle school, has been a vicious tug of war to possess things greater than the other. My first car cost sixty thousand, hers cost eighty. My sweet sixteen had three hundred guests — hers had four. I won with Caleb, though. Katine has been divorced twice. The first was a Vegas wedding, which lasted approximately twenty-four hours before it was annulled, and the second was to a fifty-year-old oil tycoon that ended up being a complete miser after they were already married. She drips jealousy when it comes to Caleb — handsome, rich, gentlemanly, sexy Caleb. Every girl's dream and I got him. I use every opportunity to flaunt my major life triumph, but ever since that trouble with Olivia, Katine’s envy has been replaced with smugness. She even had the gall to tell me once that she admired Olivia’s gumption.

I take short, choppy steps to my car, being careful not to fall in my heels, and slide into the driver’s seat. The clock on the dash says it's six o’clock. I am in no position to drive, but I don’t even have my cell phone to call someone to pick me up. And who would I call, anyway? My friends are all similarly drunk and the ones who aren’t here would raise their eyebrows and gossip if they caught me like this.

Suddenly, I remember Estella.

“Shit,” I slam my hand against the steering wheel. I was supposed to pick her up at five, and I have no way of calling the daycare. I start the car and reverse out of the spot without looking. I hear a car horn and then the jarring crunch of metal. I don’t even need to look to know that it’s bad. I jump unsteadily out of the driver’s seat and make my way to the rear of the car. An old Ford is folded around the bumper of my Range Rover. It looks almost comical. I suppress the urge to laugh, and then I have to suppress the urge to cry because I see the flickering blue and red lights of a police car approaching us. The driver is an older man. His wife sits in the passenger side of the car, clutching her neck. I roll my eyes and cross my arms over my chest, waiting for the inevitable ambulance siren that signifies sue-happy opportunists.

I lean down so I can see the old hag. “Really?” I say through the window. “Your neck hurts?”

Sure enough, an ambulance follows the patrol car into the parking lot. The medics jump from the cab and race to the Ford. I don’t get to see what happens next because a mean looking officer is approaching me, and I know I have seconds to get it together and act sober.

“Ma’am,” he says over dark lenses. “Do you realize you backed into them without even looking? I watched the whole thing happen.”

Really? I was surprised he could see anything through his Blade wannabe sunglasses.

I smile innocently. “I know. I was in a panic. I have to pick my baby up from the babysitter,” I lie, “and I am running late...”

I bite my lip because it usually excites men when I do it.

He considers me for a minute, and I pray he won’t smell the liquor on my breath. I watch his eyes drift to my backseat where the base of Estella’s car seat sits.

“I’m going to need to see your license and registration,” he says finally.

This is standard procedure — so far, so good. We go through the accident process that I am all too familiar with. I see the old lady being loaded into the ambulance, and I watch as they drive away with the lights flashing. Her husband, callously enough, stays behind to take care of matters.

“Damn fakers,” I whisper under my breath.

The officer shoots me a half smile, but it is enough to tell that he is on my side. I sidle up to him and inquire when I will be able to leave to get my daughter.

“It was so hard to leave her,” I tell him. “I had a business dinner.” He nods like he understands.

“We’re issuing you a ticket — seeing that it was your fault,” he says. “After that you are free to leave.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. The tow truck comes and cranks apart the vehicles. The damage to my Range Rover is minimal compared to the Ford, which is practically folded in half. I am told that the Bernhard’s insurance will be contacting mine, and I am fairly certain that they will be hiring a lawyer in the next few days as well.

I pull out of my spot; relieved that the Rover is driving the same as it was when I pulled in. Aside from a dented bumper and some minor scratches, my pricey car came out unscathed. But, better yet, I came out unscathed. I could have been arrested and issued a DUI. Thanks to some great acting and a smitten cop, I am getting away with minor costs.

I feel almost sober as I drive carefully toward Sunny Side Up daycare. When I pull into the parking lot, it is empty. I glance at the clock on the dash nervously. It reads seven ten. Someone must have stayed late with her. They will probably be angry, but surely after I explain what happened with the phone and the accident, they will understand. I push the buzzer on the door before I notice that it is completely dark inside. Pressing my hands to the glass, I peer in. Empty. Locked up; shut down. I panic. It’s the type of panic I felt when I learned that I might go to prison for pharmaceutical fraud. The panic I felt as I stood in front of the judge expecting to hear the “Guilty” verdict that would give me twenty years in state prison. It is purely selfish panic. The — ohmyword Caleb is going to divorce me for losing his daughter — panic. I have been a mother for less than two weeks, and I have already lost my baby. That’s the shit that gets you on Nancy Grace. I hate that blonde bitch.