“I just didn’t even see this coming,” I say to Seema, as she lights her cigar. “I mean, I knew he had a problem committing, but I just figured it would happen eventually. I figured if I could just stick it out long enough, he’d realize he couldn’t live without me.”
Seema gives me a sympathetic look. She doesn’t say anything. How could she? What can you say when your best friend gets cheated on?
I take another puff of my cigar and try to savor this treat that usually brings me such joy. “God, I’m such a fucking idiot,” I say angrily.
“You’re not an idiot,” Seema assures me, as she sucks on her cigar to get the whole thing lit. “You’re a woman in love. It happens to the best of us.”
“You’ve never been this stupid,” I point out to her.
Her cell phone beeps a text. She lifts up the phone so I can see Scott’s text. “Wanna bet?”
“What’s it say?” I ask, unable to focus through my watery eyes.
She reads the screen, “Just got home. Is she okay?”
“Nice someone cares,” I say.
“A lot of us care,” Seema says while texting something back.
“What are you writing back?” I ask.
“Just telling him we’re smoking cigars,” Seema says. She hits send, then tosses the phone onto the white wicker table between us. “So when do you want to move your stuff in?”
I love that it’s not even a question, it’s a statement. It’s not an offer, it’s a given. I’m family, I’m wounded. And I’m home now.
Nonetheless, Nic just moved out six months ago. I feel guilty for intruding on Seema’s new life without roommates. “I don’t want to cramp your style,” I tell her. “What happens when you finally begin your torrid affair with Scott? How’s it going to look that first night? I can just see it: the two of you are making out in a frenzied heat on your front porch. Clothes are unbuttoned, but still on. Tongues are flying everywhere. You unlock the door, bursting into the living room ready for a night of passion . . . and the two of you see me, in my pink fuzzy bathrobe, watching bad TV, a spoon of ice cream sticking out of my mouth and my face tearstained and red.”
Seema takes a moment to paint the picture in her mind. She shrugs. “I’ll just tell him Friday’s your self-pity night. I get Mondays, Wednesdays, and Valentine’s Day.”
I try to laugh. It comes out more as a loud smile.
Seema pats me on the back. “Come on. It’ll be fun. We could have your old room decorated in about a day.”
I casually look around my old neighborhood. “It would be nice to move back in here,” I admit. “It feels safe here.”
“Of course it does,” Seema agrees.
Her cell beeps again. She reads the text, then smiles sheepishly.
“What’s it say?” I ask.
“He says that watching a woman smoking a cigar is one of the sexiest sights on the planet, and that watching two should be illegal.”
I try to smile, but I think those muscles have atrophied. “He’s a good guy,” I tell her.
“You think?” Seema asks me, smiling from my approval.
“Yeah,” I say with absolute certainty. “Complete wimp in terms of what he’s going to do with you, but a really good guy otherwise.”
“If you listen to all those self-help books, they’d say he’s not interested,” Seema tells me as she frenetically flicks her fingers over her BlackBerry’s minikeyboard.
I shrug. “Not necessarily. You’re with someone, then he’s with someone. At some point, if it’s meant to be . . .”
“Oh, God, I hate that ‘meant to be’ crap,” Seema says as she tosses her BlackBerry onto the table again. “If it were meant to be, one of us would have done something about it by now.”
“Fair enough,” I say, not wanting to fight about it. Seema’s BlackBerry beeps again. She can’t help herself— she’s like a kitten staring at a flickering thread of yarn. She picks it up and reads as I take another puff of my cigar. “Although I must ask: if it’s not meant to be, what’s he’s doing texting you at three A.M. on a Saturday night?”
Seema looks over at me. Gives me a I have no fucking clue look with an accompanying shrug.
“Ah, men,” I say. “A mystery.”
“Wrapped in sharp spikes,” Seema continues.
“And covered in chocolate,” I finish.
Seema reads, “He says to tell you that he’s making filet au poivre at my house Tuesday night, and that you need to tell me you’re moving in or he’s not going to make you one.”
“He cooks?” I ask.
“He finds it soothing.”
“Look, if you don’t want him, can I have him?”
“Oh, honey, I love you,” Seema tells me warmly. “But if you touch him, I’ll break you like a twig.”
I try to laugh. It is funny. I take a big puff of cigar. “All right, you got me,” I say. “I’ll move in.”
“Good!” she says cheerfully. “With someone chipping in for rent, I might be able to afford those filets.”
Chapter Nine
Nicole
Chester ripped off Penelope’s bodice. Her nipples hardened. But was that from the cold air, or the promise of his
I drum my fingers on my desk. What’s a new word for penis?
the promise of his shaft of love
I actually saw that in a book once. Ick. I highlight shaft, and use my computer’s thesaurus. Rod of love, stick of love, pole of love, shank . . .
Good Lord, I’m scraping bottom here.
I highlight my passage and hit delete. So much for trying to make it as a romance novelist.
It’s three in the morning, I can’t sleep, and I’m not getting anything done either. I throw my legs up on the desk in my home office and stare at my computer screen.
Man, I hate writing. I mean, you know, I love being paid to be a writer. I love reading what I’ve written. I love telling people at parties that I’m a writer. I just don’t so much like the writing part.
As a matter of fact, lately I hate all of it. Seriously— why do people ever want to become writers?
It’s a weird thing when your job is everyone else’s hobby. Writing’s certainly not the only job like that. It’s just like any other job that, if done well, looks effortless. Jobs people are sure they would be great at (and get rich from) because they do it so well at home. There are the home chefs who make the perfect risotto who want to shuck it all and open a restaurant. The community theater actors in small towns around America who secretly want to shuck it all to try to become the next Cate Blanchett. The bakers who have perfected a red velvet cupcake in the privacy of their own kitchens and dream of opening a little shop. The bloggers who think they’re the next Bob Woodward. Or the people who are sure their lives would make a fascinating screenplay and who even buy a copy of Final Draft and begin typing:
INT. COFFEE SHOP— DAY
BLAKE CONNORS, good-looking but doesn’t know it (think John Krasinski), sits at a table drinking his coffee. A