Page 3 of For Now

“Emma!” I said. “I can’t either, but here I am. Your complete and total wreck of a friend, rebuilding her life from the ground up. Something tells me I need to be in close proximity to my best friend if I’m going to dothat.”

Emma gave me her heartfelt tilted head and rubbed myshoulder.

I welcomed her in and gave her a quick tour of the place before we sat down with wine and snacks on the floor of the sunroom. We caught up on trivial things. I hadn’t seen her in almost two years, but we talked at least once a week on the phone. She told me about her husband’s new job and her new shop. I told her my furniture would be here tomorrow and she volunteered to come by and help as soon as she was off work. She said she’d bring her husband to help with the heavy lifting. David was a nice guy and always treated Emma really well. She seemed happy and that was all that mattered to me. I was her Maid of Honor when she became Mrs. David King about six years ago. He was your average guy. Middle management and family values. He was genuine and fairly boring in my opinion but I would never say that outloud.

“So how’s your new book coming along?” she asked. Emma was kind enough to skip over recapping the entire past year. She was the person I called after he left and every other day after that for a while. She went over all the details with me. Except for the ones I intentionally kept from her. So, at the moment, I was perfectly happy skipping straight to a bit ofnormalcy.

“All right, I suppose. I’m pretty happy with the first draft. I sent it to my agent yesterday so I’m just waiting to hear back,” Isaid.

Emma owned signed copies of every single one of my novels. Granted, there were only three, but still. She’d called me on the phone to congratulate me for making it to the New York Times Bestseller list when each of them made it there. I always attempted to send her copies, but she insisted on buying them herself. She said it was her way of supporting me. She’d mailed each of them to me to sign after she bought them. Three books in the last fouryears.

I couldn’t manage to get one out last year. I couldn’t manage to do much of anything last year. So the new novel, set to release in a few months, was very anticipated by themasses.

“What’s it about?” Emmaasked.

“Well, it’s about a woman who finds out her husband is cheating on her and plots to kill both her husband and the woman, but ends up having a change of heart,” Isaid.

“Oh, wow!” I could tell Emma was genuinely excited but also a little apprehensive about what to asknext.

“Don’t worry,” I said, shooting her a grin, “it’s justfiction.”

We spent the rest of the evening reminiscing about the old days in a way we hadn’t had the chance to in quite a while. We laughed about old boyfriends, and I reminded her about her horrible perm in 11thgrade right before prom. It was nice to remember moments like that with her. It was nice to laugh in a way that felt real, in a way that felt less than forced. I decided I needed to do more ofit.

We said our goodbyes, and she said she’d be back tomorrow with David. I hugged her at the front door and locked it behind her. I made my way to the bedroom to change and lie down. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my emails.There itwas.

An email from Donna of Rabenowitz and Sons’s Law Offices. I held my breath for a moment.Do I want to open it?What do I want it tosay?

I clicked on the email, my hands shaky, my breath unsteady. It was fairlyshort.

Hello, Ms.Spencer,

Good news. Jeff has agreed to all the terms of the finalized divorce paperwork and has signed them. You’re officially divorced. Also, I don’t know if I should be telling you this, but he mentioned it to me on the telephone and I thought you should know. His girlfriend is pregnant. Call me if you have any questions and please send me your new mailingaddress.

Take care,Delilah.

-Donna

Great. I’m a divorced woman.And she’s pregnant.My hand crept over my stomach. I rolled over and pulled my knees to my chest. I pulled my sleeping bag up over my entire body and let the darkness swallow me. I was going to sleep for as long as my body would allow me. But it wouldn’t be longenough.

Chapter Three

Two days later,I sat at my kitchen table while everyone moved around me. And when I say everyone, I mean, Emma and her husband, David. I sipped coffee and they helped the movers put my furniture in place. Emma directed them where to put each piece. Everything was fuzzy. I wasn’t paying attention to what anyone was saying. I came back into focus when Emma put her hand on myshoulder.

“We’re almost done, babe,” she said. There was no enthusiasm in hervoice.

“Thank you,Emma.”

As promised, Emma had called me the day before, but I didn’t answer. I was in and out of sleep all day and forced myself to fall back asleep whenever I was startled awake by the ringing. I didn’t even have the energy to roll over and silence it. When the movers had knocked on the door, I made it to my feet long enough to agree to pay extra for them to return with it the next day. I had completely forgotten. Or maybe I just didn’t care. I retreated into my sleeping bag as soon as I closed the door. When Emma knocked a little while later, I’d answered the door, crying mostly, trying to get out the words. She’d left David on the porch and walked me back into my bedroom. All she did was hold me. I cried and managed between sobs to tell her about the horrid email. The email that both set me free and chained me down. I wasn’t sure I’d ever read anything morebittersweet.

She handled everything for me today. She fixed food and forced me to eat at least a little of it. David offered to hang everything for me. I only had two photographs left. There was a black and white picture of my mother from when she was younger that I always loved. The other was a print of the cover of my first book that Vera sent to me. He made easy work of it and I was grateful. Part of me just wanted them to leave and I felt terrible for that. Another part of me wanted them to stay forever. Most of me, however, didn’t give a fuck whathappened.

“I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow and I’ll make you some food.” Emma hugged me goodbye, followed byDavid.

“Thank you guys so much for all your help. I’d be lost without you,” I said. And it wastrue.

I checked the time. Only 5:30 p.m. They did a pretty good job considering how useless I was.All right, Delilah. You’ve got a choice to make.I had to decide if I was going to crawl back into bed or actually do something.My Bed!It was here! Not a sleeping bag on the floor, a bed. My bed. You never really realize how much you take for granted until you have to go a while without it. My excitement for my bed almost erased my sadness.Almost.

I walked down the short hallway to the door of my bedroom.Oh, God, I love her.Emma didn’t just see to it that my bed was assembled, but she found my bedding, clearly de-wrinkled it in the dryer, and made it up for me. It was pristine. Perfectly tucked and folded, pillows fluffed, and she even turned down my side. It looked so inviting.No,Delilah.

---