Page 86 of From Fling to Ring

I look at her. “Not helpful, Petal.”

She leans back on the sofa, arms crossed, studying me. “Okay. I’ll help you. Lucy told me not to give you her contact info. But I will because you are so… pathetic.”

Pity help. I’ll take it. I have no goddamn pride left.

Petal taps her phone. “I just forwarded you her contact info.”

I look at the unfamiliar number starting with thirty-three.

“Be sure to use the country code—” she starts to say.

“I’m not an idiot, Petal,” I say. “I can figure out WhatsApp.”

“Okay, crankypants.” She gets to her feet. “I’m hopping in the shower. We’re having dinner tonight with my mother. So we’ll see you later.”

Oh right. Getting kicked out now. Par for the course.

I hate my life right now.

44

LUCY

I kick off my sneakers and flop back on the shitty little twin mattress in the shitty little Airbnb I found that costs next to nothing.

An incredible find for Paris, but I’m paying for it with a five-floor walkup in what I’m pretty sure was at one time a dingy little maid’s room.

It’s no longer a maid’s room, but it is still dingy.

And yet I’m in Paris. Fucking Paris.

I should be thrilled. The most amazing city I’ve ever been to, not that I’ve been to that many. At least I got to practice my French today, asking for the bathroom at three different bars before someone let me pee for free.

I think about soaking my sore feet in the bathroom’s bidet, because what else is something like that good for when I know I’m not about to hang my butt in it? I fill the little basin with warm water, and, propping myself on the edge of the toilet seat, drop my feet in.

While I do this, I check the fitness app on my phone and damn if I didn’t walk twenty thousand steps today. I don’t know how many miles that is, but I earned these sore feet.

A number of those steps were the hike to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, as far as you’re allowed to walk up.

I’ve been keeping busy, trying to forget the shitshow I left at home.

First, things just completely imploded with Tyler. I might have almost fucked him over with my book, but he fucked me right back with his stupid bet with the guys. I can’t say which of us is worse, since we both are guilty of shitty things, but talk about a way to kill a relationship.

The second thing that imploded in my life was the SF Freekly. We were all at work one day, in fact, coincidentally the day my story on dirty bathrooms hit the newsstands, when some thugs from our parent company stormed in and ordered us to stop working and get the hell out.

Guess that’s one way to shut down a paper.

Michaela, as she packed her potted plants, looked sad but not surprised. I wonder if she knew this was coming all along and just didn’t tell us. I haven’t talked to her since. I couldn’t bring myself to.

Last but not least, I called my enthusiastic agent, Iris Diamond, and told her I wasn’t writing the book we’d discussed. I told her I’d love to work with her on something else in the future, but how could I continue something where my research told me I was so off-base.

What a creep I was, to put Tyler, and really any guy, into the category of men to avoid. Not that there aren’t men out there who we women need to stay away from, it’s just that I was going about it all the wrong way.

And now I have nothing. Well, I have Paris.

I guess.

Petal’s been WhatsApping me regularly. Actually, she’s driving me a little crazy. I don’t know if she thinks she’s being helpful or is purposely tormenting me, but she told me Tyler’s completely off his rocker and even got into two fights at the last Aftershocks game.

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