Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead Read Online Free Page A

first met Beth, she assumed the story went like this. Nice Jewish boy meets blond shiksa goddess, waits for his mother to remove her head from the oven, then marries the green-eyed beauty. Only to overhear Beth’s mother call her by her Hebrew name, Batyah.
    Turned out her cover-girl face had nothing to do with swimming in Christie Brinkley’s gene pool. It was an inheritance from her regal-looking German-Jewish parents. Sadly, Mindy’s Polish ancestry hadn’t been quite as charitable, though Beth claimed that was a lousy excuse.
    “No reason you can’t get a decent haircut, drop twenty pounds, and let those nails grow!”
    Sometimes Mindy would retaliate with away messages that friends would “get” were about Beth. But that kind of jousting took a lot of energy and she hated stooping to her level.
    “How could someone so beautiful be such a misery?” Mindy would ask Artie during pillow talk. “Every day I have to listen to her go on and on about whose daughters aren’t as bright and athletic as hers, and whose bar mitzvah was pitiful because the sushi was tough. And get this. When I asked her to sponsor me for the Walk for the Homeless, she said no. So I go, ‘But, Beth, these people don’t eat for days at a time.’ So she goes, ‘Really? I admire their willpower.’”
    “No E-ZPass for life,” Artie always said. “Sooner or later she’ll have to pay the toll.”
    Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead
    21
    But after eight years of observing Beth’s charmed, I’ll-take-one-of-these-and-two-of-those existence, still no signs of ill for-tune. No big weight gains or financial losses. No major crises or scandals. Not even an occasional run-in with a bad perm. To the contrary, Beth Diamond lived a sparkling five-carat life.
    Mindy was about to pick up the phone to call her when a shiny balloon floated past. Little Ricky had brought it home from a party, and as with all the other junk in the house, it seemed to move from room to room until Artie threw it out or posted it on eBay.
    She grabbed hold of the ribbon and glimpsed at her reflection. Was she really as unsightly as Beth claimed? She framed her roundabout face with her signature cocoa curls and sighed.
    In spite of a warm olive complexion and engrossing M&M eyes, she had yet to make peace with her portly, middle-aged train wreck of a body.
    How could she? In this era of jaws-of-life jeans, it was every mother’s dream to shop where her daughter shopped while prancing in front of the other moms who kept pulling their shirts over their asses. Oh to have the little salesgirl fetch you a size two that ran small.
    And what would happen if Mindy did lose those twenty pounds? Would Beth finally show her a little respect? Yes! As little respect as possible! Therefore, no reason to pass up the leftover Munchkins on the counter. Mouth awash in yummy sugar, she pushed “T.B.” (“the Bitch”) on the automatic dial.
    “What is it?” a breathlessly annoyed woman answered.
    Damn caller ID.
    I’m good, thanks. You? “Hi there,” she swallowed. “I need a small favor.”
    “With you it’s never small.”
    Did you really just make a crack about my weight? “Okay. Anyway, Artie just asked if I could go to this meeting at the bank with him this morning, so I was wondering if you—”
    22
    Saralee Rosenberg
    “Forget it. It’s your day to drive. Plus, we’re in the middle of a challenging art project.”
    Art projects on a school day? That would go over big at her house. “Come, children. It’s seven a.m. Let’s make popsicle forts.”
    Lord knows where those sticks would end up.
    “And why didn’t you clear this with me sooner?”
    “I swear he just mentioned it like two minutes ago, but it’s very important that I go.”
    “Damn you,” Beth whined. “If I drive, I’ll have to cut the project short, and the girls will want to resume tonight, which is impossible because I have the PTA fashion show and I never picked up the outfits I’m modeling. God I