Love the one youre with

friends.'

'Just friends, huh?' Webb says. 'The olllllle 'just friends' routine.'

'Good Lord,' Margot says, standing to clear her plate and Andy's.

'The Good Lord isn't on your side any more than Ellen here,' Webb says. 'Neither of them approves of these sort of reindeer games.'

' 'Reindeer games'? Oh, grow up, Webb!… Ty is so grandfathered in it's not funny,' Margot says, returning from the kitchen. 'We made the transition to friends a zillion years ago. When we were still in high school. And he's been doing Mother and Daddy's yard for over a year now!'

'And that makes it better? That he's doing their yard, too?' Webb says, shaking his head. He looks at me and says, 'Watch out. They're all disloyal. The pack of them.'

'Hey! Don't lump me in with my folks and sister,' Andy says. 'I wouldn't use the guy. Even if I had a yard.'

'Sorry, man,' Webb says. 'They're all disloyal except you. Even James.'

'James doesn't have a yard either,' Andy says.

'Yeah. But he plays golf with the guy. Disloyal bastard,' Webb says.

'It's not a question of loyalty to anyone,' Margot says. 'And besides, it's not like he'll be over here doing the planting himself. He has employees for that… His company does great landscaping at the right price. That's all there is to it, Webster Buffington, and you know it.'

'Yep,' Webb says. 'Keep telling yourself that and maybe you'll start to believe it.'

'Oh, puh-lease, you act like I just put my prom portrait on the mantel!'

'I'm sure that'll be next,' Webb says. He then turns to me and says, 'Ellen, you still talk to your prom date?'

I shake my head decisively.

'Does he… uh, clean your apartment or prepare your taxes or anything like that?' Webb presses.

'Nope,' I say.

'You talk to any exes, period?'

The follow-up is clearly for me, but I say nothing, dazed by the coincidence, and hoping that someone will jump in and save me. No such luck. The room falls silent. I look at Andy, as if the question were directed his way.

'What?' Andy says. 'Don't look at me. You know I'm not friends with any girls, let alone exes.'

'Lucy sent you a Christmas card a few years ago,' I say, feeling the familiar stab of faint jealousy thinking about sweet, hot, little Lucy.

'With a photo of her kid on it,' Andy says. 'That's hardly a come-hither invitation… Besides, I never sent her a Christmas card.'

'Yes, but you never sent them at all until we got married,' I say, standing to help Margot clear the table.

Andy shrugs. As a lawyer, he certainly knows an irrelevant tangent when he sees one. 'The point is-I don't talk to her. Period.'

'And I don't talk to my exes, period,' Webb says.

Andy looks at me expectantly.

'And I don't talk to my exes,' I echo shamefully.

Anymore.

'Oh, get over yourselves,' Margot says, wiping crumbs from Webb's placemat into her open palm. She looks up and then around the table, adding, 'And, while you're at it, how about getting over your exes, too?'

That afternoon, Leo's message is far from my mind as Margot and I shop for gender-neutral newborn clothes at a boutique called Kangaroo Pouch, cooing over the exquisite, impossibly tiny items and finally selecting a white knit gown and matching receiving blanket for the baby's homecoming, along with a half-dozen fine-cotton onesies and an array of hand-embroidered booties, hats, and socks. I feel my nesting instinct kicking in, and for the first time, really wish I were pregnant, too. Of course I know that craving a baby while you shop for a layette for your best friend's firstborn is akin to wanting to get married while you watch her slip on a Vera Wang gown and twirl before a dressing-room mirror-and that there are plenty of not-so-fun-or-cute things that come with motherhood. Still, as we go on to cruise by a few houses for sale, 'just for fun,' I can't help thinking how nice it would be to relocate to Atlanta, live near Margot, and watch our children-cousins and best friends-grow up together in a happy, beautiful world filled with white camellias and sweet tea.

But by the time Margot and I are changing for dinner, thoughts of Leo have returned full-force, my cell phone burning a hole in my purse. So much so that I feel dangerously close to divulging everything to Margot. I remind myself that although she is my best friend, she is also Andy's sister. And, on top of that, she hated Leo. There is no way that that conversation would end well.

Instead I very casually resurrect the 'Can you be friends with an ex?' debate, trying to feel my way through my emerging moral dilemma.

'So,' I say as I fasten the side zipper of my charcoal pencil skirt. 'Webb doesn't really care about Ty, does he?'

Margot laughs and waves her hand in the air. 'Of course not. Webb is the most secure man I know… and he's certainly not threatened by a nothing, high school crush.'

'Right,' I say, wondering if Andy would feel threatened by Leo-and more significantly, whether he should.

She holds up two options from her closet, a black jersey dress and a lavender crocheted jacket with a mandarin collar, and says, 'Which one?'

I hesitate, then point to the jacket and say, 'But let's suppose for a second that you hired Brad to do your landscaping.'

'Brad Turner?' she says, as if I could be speaking of a Brad other than the handsome, bespectacled bond trader whom she dated for nearly two years before meeting Webb.

'Yeah,' I say. 'The one and only.'

She squints and says, 'Okay. I got a visual… Brad in his power suits out there with his lawn mower.'

'Would Webb be pissed?'

'Maybe,' she says. 'But I'd never hire Brad. We don't even talk anymore.'

'Why not?' I ask, because, after all, that's the real crux of the issue. Why does one keep in touch with certain exes, and not others? Why is it okay to segue into a friendship with some? Is there a multi-pronged test or is it really more simple than that?

'Oh, I don't know,' Margot says, looking concerned. For one second I worry that she's on to me, but as she slips on a pair of black pants and patent, peep-toe heels, her expression becomes placid again. Leo is the last person on her mind. I only wish I could say the same. 'Why? Do you miss Brad or something?'

I smile and shrug and say, 'I dunno… I was just wondering what the golden rule is when it comes to exes… I just think it's an interesting topic.'

Margot pauses to consider this, and then proclaims very definitively, 'Okay. If you're totally over the guy, and he's totally over you, and you were never that serious to begin with, I see absolutely nothing wrong with an occasional, friendly hello. Or some innocent yard work. Assuming, of course, your current beau-slash-husband is not a complete psycho freak. Then again, if your current guy is a psycho freak, you have much bigger issues than who you should hire to do your lawn.'

'Right,' I say, feeling pleased with her summation and even more pleased with the loophole she unwittingly created for me. 'Well said.'

With that, I breezily tell Margot that I'm going to brush my teeth and put on my makeup, and seconds later, I am sequestered in the guest bathroom, the door locked and the water in the sink running full blast. I carefully avoid my own reflection in the mirror as I open my purse and pull out my cell phone.

After all, I say, repeating Margot's sound, careful reasoning, there is absolutely nothing in the world wrong with an occasional, friendly exchange when you're totally over someone.