Page 12 of Prelude To You

To my total dismay, I realized that I never asked her name.

4

ISABEL

Ialways felt better walking into my home. Meg and I shared an apartment on the second floor of an old house. The place wasn’t big, but it was inviting and warm.

Downstairs was Mrs. Robinson, who was really hard of hearing, but a sprightly old gal who refused any and all help of any kind. Although she was happy to accept the baked goods I dropped off every week. Without fail, she’d ask me when I was going to get my head out of my ass and make an effort to date and find a man to marry.

When I reached the top of the stairs, Meg flung open the front door, her face ablaze with some kind of wonder and expectation. She immediately pulled me into our living room. Meg pushed a cocktail into my hand, “Here, drink this!”

“What’s in it?” I asked.

“Vodka and some other stuff! Who cares? Drink up, it’ll relax you.”

“Have you heard anything about the bar exam?” I asked.

“No, you’d be the first to know. Sit, let’s chat.”

My black bag slid to the floor, and I carefully put the store bag with the book on the small dining room table. While Meg watched me expectantly.

She was an exotic beauty. Her wild black hair and olive skin complimented each other, and those brown eyes held no secrets. She had a voluptuous body, and wolf whistles followed her down any given street.

If nothing else, Meg was vibrant, with all the Italian passion you could imagine. Nothing was done half-assed. Megan was all-in, all the time. Exactly like she was now, interrogating me about the kiss.

I’d texted her on my way home, pouring my heart out. So she had a pretty good idea of how my night went. But knowing Meg, she’d want everything detailed down to the second.

“Okay, so start at the very beginning,” she commanded.

“I told you everything already,” I said. “There’s nothing new to add. It was all bad.”

Meg threw me a dismissive glance. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“What are you talking about? It’s like the devil set this day aside just to torture me.”

But Meg was like a dog with a bone. “Tell me again, but start at the bookshop. Because that needs to be analyzed in excruciating detail.”

Meg and I met in ballet class when we were six, and the friendship was forever, even when it turned out that she hated ballet with a purple passion. Meg was family, and her family considered me one of their own. She broke away from the family’s pizza business to become the first Belfiore to get a college degree, and now she was on the precipice of becoming a lawyer.

She was there when I decided to become a ballet dancer and when I had the accident and shattered my ankle, bringing my professional dancing career to an abrupt and devastating halt.

Meg was my rock when my mom got sick and, after three agonizing months, passed away. And Meg was there when I was a hopeless, inconsolable mess after that. If you looked up love and loyalty in the dictionary, you’d find Meg’s picture right there.

In the days before my mom died, she had a long private conversation with Meg. After which, Meg had taken it upon herself to look out for my welfare with every ounce of her being. And to this day there was no distracting her from that goal.

She tapped her fingers on her cocktail glass to emphasize her impatience with my reluctance to divulge more.

“Why does it need to be analyzed in detail?” I asked.

“Because of that look in your eyes. If that ain’t true love, I don’t know what is.”

“True love doesn’t happen in a few minutes,” I said. “Don’t be silly now.”

Meg shook her head, incredulous. “Wow, you ignorant child. Like you get to choose where and when true love shows up in your life.”

At that moment, Meg’s bedroom door opened and a stud of a man stumbled out, half-dressed and sleepy. I hadn’t expected anyone to burst through the bedroom door, so for the third time that night I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Hey, you comin’ back to bed, or what?” the stud asked Meg, and then gave me the once-over. “You’re welcome to join us, Sweetlips.”

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