Page 13 of Buried Treasure
Chapter 5
Sydney moved out of the way to let her friend in the door, closing it quietly behind her. Lucy was carrying a large box that she dropped on top of the coffee table with a thud.
"So was that the hot guy who made you cry over a stupid goldfish?"
"That's not totally fair," she said defensively. "I already had a really bad day by the time I found out Gretzky was dead."
"I still can't believe it was a dead fish that finally broke your spirit."
"You're not the only one."
Sydney prided herself on not crying in front of people. It was something she had to learn while growing up. Her parents always saw the negative, always picked at her for what she was doing that disappointed them. If she cried, they would call her out on that too. It was just better to have a stiff upper lip.
It had worked pretty well for most of her life. That is until her emotions were so beaten down that a blue-eyed man and a goldfish caused the water works to turn on at full blast. Luckily, when she got home after her little "incident" at Ryan's apartment, the sound of the running water in her bathtub cover up her sobbing.
Sydney padded into her modern kitchen in her bare feet heading directly for the cupboard filled with her glasses.
"Are we drinking water or wine?" she called out.
"Syd, it's three o'clock in the afternoon!" Lucy yelled back.
"Water or wine?"
Silence filled the space and without turning around, she could imagine Lucy's face looking puzzled as she over analyzed another decision like she always did. Then she heard Lucy audibly sigh.
"Wine."
Sydney pulled out two green wine glasses, the fancy ones she bought from a little shop last summer when the two of them spent a week up north at the cottage owned by Lucy's parents. With the glasses in one hand, Sydney opened the fridge with her other and grabbed a chilled bottle of white wine. She was always prepared with at least one bottle in there at all times. Sydney held out her hand with the glasses for Lucy to grab and set them on the coffee table next to the still unopened box.
"Explain to me again why we're drinking cold wine when it's 20 degrees outside."
"Because I don't like drinking things at room temperature." Sydney gave each glass a heavy pour and put the bottle down on the table. She raised her wine in the air towards her friend. "To crushing my spirit some more!"
The two of them drank in silence before Lucy put her glass down on the table again and looked over at her friend.
"Speaking of crushing spirits, how did the call with your parents go today?"
Sydney sighed and twisted the stem of her wine glass in her hand. "It was just as expected," she explained. "My mom kept telling me that this is what I get for leaving town and thinking I could do better than them."
Lucy rolled her eyes. "And how long did it take them to tell you to move back home?"
"Longer than I expected," she said. "I had to listen to 10 minutes of my mother berating me before I heard my dad yelling in the background, 'Tell her she can move back in with us now, but we're not driving down to get her!'"
"How kind of them," Lucy said sarcastically. "So when are you moving back?"
"I'm not," she replied. "My mom's response was, 'She moved south of the Mackinac Bridge. If she comes back, she has to get her own place!'"
Lucy looked stunned. "Wow," she said. "I've never met anyone who is that against their kids being successful."
"Didn't you hear my parents, Lucy? I moved south of the Mackinac Bridge. I was never going to be a success." Sydney grabbed her glass and took another drink. "Besides, you're never going to meet anyone like my parents anyway because they won't travel any farther south than Lansing."
"We have to cling to whatever little things we can to get us through," she said. "Now, if it's any consolation, I don't think this box is going to be as bad as your parents."
"That's not saying much," Sydney muttered.
Lucy drank another sip of her wine before setting it on the table. Then she pulled her keys out of her purse and held them up, hovering over the tape on the box.
"Are you ready for this?"
