In Absentia

It’s Jasey’s turn to host book club. The sangria in the pitcher grows warm as the curated landscape of candles thickens the air with the scents of spearmint and watered roses. Her friends sit in the living room and chat around the coffee table. There are eight of them and it’s likely none of them read the book. Sandra chose it and she always picks books featuring infidelity to make herself feel better about being a divorcée.

Jasey hesitates to call them her friends, really. She had friends in college and even made some at her first job, at a now-defunct startup. They had bonded over Blur, flat beers, broken hearts, and bitter rants about power dynamics and ineffectual managers. These women in her living room, she’d met them through colleagues and fussy aunts and friends of friends. The only passion they share is a desire not to spend Friday nights alone.