When Girlfriends Let Go

by Savannah Page

  I called Lara this morning, and she said she was planning on spending her lunch break at the café and that I should meet her down there. The fact that Sophie would be around, too, was kind of the cherry on top. I could talk to Claire and Robin later, and I could email Emily hoping she’d respond soon. But getting to talk to any of my friends about my news, especially getting the chance to apologize to Lara, couldn’t be put on the back burner a second longer.

  “Yeah, well…” I say somewhat timidly.

  Sophie pulls a seat open and helps me situate Bella’s carrier on the floor. I scoop her up and set her in my lap.

  “Can I get you something?” Sophie asks. “Evelyn and I just finished baking the most scrumptious strawberry-lime cupcakes, with a hint of coconut sprinkled on top.”

  “Delicious,” Lara says, slapping a hip. “These puppies won’t be thanking me, but it was worth it.”

  I decline the nice offer and tell Lara—Sophie too, in fact—that there’s something I’ve been needing to say, something I’ve been needing to say to all the girls, actually, but Lara specifically.

  “I’ve got some good news,” I say with bright eyes.

  Sophie’s eyes grow the size of the saucers resting on the table. “Andrew!” She claps a hand to her open mouth.

  “I wish.” I pull Bella tight for comfort. “No, I’ve been doing some thinking, been going to therapy.” I shrug in a small, cutesy way. “Had my,” making air quotes, “‘breakthrough,’ and, well… My life needs some major changes.”

  “Changes?” Lara looks confused. “Aren’t you going through enough change as it is?”

  “They’re all the wrong ones…for the wrong reasons.”

  Sophie makes an aha face and tells me to go on.

  So I do. I tell them everything Dr. Pierce and I talked about—about the need to be honest, the realization that I must do some growing up, about how I should examine why things ended with Andrew the way they did and what I can do to either fix things or at least be better prepared for relationships in my future. I’m not quite ready to even consider a relationship with anyone but Andrew. He’s still my husband, and there’s still that glimmer of hope that we’ll get back together…be able to work things out. But if I’m going to be able to do what I need to—to get my life in order—the right tools and mindset are a requirement. I can’t very well go back into the scary cave, fight the same fights, and expect different results.

  “Girls, I’m really sorry,” I say, looking them each in the eyes. “I’m sorry for being so self-absorbed and moping about my problems, acting like an insane bitch.”

  Sophie just laughs, flicking her wrist nonchalantly.

  “I’m serious,” I persist. “I mean, I’ve complained about being lonely, about being bored, and then I go and lock myself away in Em’s apartment, avoid life, whine about my state of affairs…”

  Lara gives an acceding nod of the head.

  “And then when I’m not locked away I’m not exactly treating my friends very nicely,” I say. “I’m really trying to work on things now. And not just with therapy. It’s kind of all baby steps, but it’s a start!”

  “Jackie,” Sophie says, folding her hands. “Yes, you’re a handful. Yes, you’re our complicated little friend. But we love you; we want to be there for you and help you.”

  “But I haven’t been the easiest person to get along with…the easiest person for you to help.”

  Sophie, too, gives an agreeable nod.

  “I can just get so angry and over-the-top and dramatic and—” I sigh. “I can’t say I’ll change overnight, and to some degree I am who I am, but there’s room for major improvement.” I pet Bella between the ears. “I’m trying to grow up…trying to figure crap out. Trying not to be so…angry.”

  “Anger’s perfectly normal,” Lara says sagely. “And in your position, I’m pretty sure any woman would be upset.” She leans one arm on the table. “It’s all right to be angry,” she fixes me with a hard gaze, “so long as you keep it in check and aren’t going around keying cars every time you get a little pissed off.”

  Sophie giggles like a schoolgirl, and Lara presses on. “You can be angry at the people who have hurt you in your past—that’s your cross to bear. But you can’t take your pain and frustration out on the people who do love you and care for you.”

  Pressing my lips together tightly, still petting Bella, my gaze falls to the center of the table. What Lara’s saying is spot-on, and I can’t help but feel a bit emotional about it.

  Picking up on my sensitivity, Lara reaches out for my hand and squeezes it. “We won’t give up on you, Jackie, but you can’t give up on us…on yourself. We’re a team.”

  “Yeah, a team,” Sophie tosses in cheerfully.

  “Thanks, girls,” I say. I dab at the faint tears in the corners of my eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Lara raps on the table. “Enough tears for a while, eh? Tell us about these changes!” She shoots me a sympathetic look.

  “Yes,” I say, pulling myself together. “Changes! Big ones, girls!”

  They both look on with bated breath.

  “Guess what I’ve got?” I say, singsong. But before I give them a chance to guess I splutter out, “A job! I got a job!”

  “You got a job?” Lara says, astounded.

  “Yup!” I ruffle Bella’s soft hair. “Jackie Kittredge got herself an honest to goodness job!”

  “Congratulations!” Sophie says in high spirits. “Where is it? High-fashion clothing store? A jeweler’s?”

  “A used bookstore,” I say. The looks of shock on their faces is priceless.

  “Whoa,” Sophie sounds.

  “Yeah. I saw the Help Wanted sign and went in and asked for an application yesterday. Then today I got the call that tomorrow’s my first day. Training day!”

  “Wow,” Lara says with a smile. “I’m so proud of you, Jackie. That’s not a baby step; that’s a huge step!”

  “Yeah, well.” I look at my nails, the growth at the bases are really screaming for a fill job. “I’m kind of falling apart. Need to get things back in shape.” I pull a taut face and wave my hand-in-need-of-a-mani at them.

  Lara turns her head to the side in a desultory way. “Jackie…”

  “More than that,” I insist. “I need to grow up and start paying my own bills. Well, the ones that I can reasonably afford, like food, gas, eventually my cell phone when Andrew pulls the plug on that.” I flutter my lashes.

  “Still no word from the divorce attorney?” Sophie asks.

  Lara: “Or Andrew?”

  “Nope.” I drum my nails on the table. “Peculiar, isn’t it?” I shrug it off. “I just figure he’s too busy to deal. I’m not going to borrow trouble dwelling on it.”

  “Good for you,” Lara says.

  “It’s either that or he’s too busy banging Nikki ’til kingdom come.”

  Lara rolls her eyes and tells me I’m ridiculous.

  “So, yeah!” I place Bella in her carrier. “I’ve got a job a couple days a week, going to be able to pay for some living expenses—”

  “I’m so proud,” Sophie praises.

  “And, yes, I desperately need money to get my nails filled.”

  Lara gives me a gentle shove in the shoulder. “Some things don’t change, do they, Jackie?” She stands and begins to gather her dishes. “Glad you’re riding the employment train.”

  “Me too!” I watch as Lara sets her dishes on the counter, then deposits some bills into the tip jar.

  “I also need some major cash to pay Emily back,” I add.

  “Oh the decorating dough!” Lara sings on her way back to the table.

  “The good thing is Em’s not coming home for months, possibly a whole year, so I can certainly pinch pennies and save and decorate while she’s gone.”

  “Wow!” Sophie looks impressed. She leans back in her seat and crosses her thin arms over her aproned chest. “Who is this woman? I don’t recognize her. Talkin
g budgeting? Saving?”

  “Pennies!” Lara blurts.

  “Hey, now.” I sheepishly pat down my hair. “You girls make it sound like I’m hell on wheels.”

  “No, no,” Lara says.

  “I know I’ve been way selfish,” I say. “It’s obvious it’s why it’s gotten me where I am. Even though,” I hold up a finger, “things aren’t that bad. I mean, I’ve had it way worse before.”

  Lara and Sophie nod in unison.

  “But things won’t get better or change if I don’t do something about it. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Same thing over and again and expecting different results?”

  “Not every day will be great, though,” Sophie says pragmatically. “Sometimes you can try and try your hardest, thinking you’re at your end working so much, trying so hard, and things still don’t seem to look up—trust me!”

  “That’s true,” Lara says, voice soft and understanding.

  “It took me a while to get my café off the ground and running; and my love life’s been a joke for years! You can give it gas, and sometimes it’s just not enough. But don’t give up.”

  “I know.” I take a long blink, inhaling slowly and exhaling twice as slow. “Things won’t always go my way, no matter how hard I try.”

  “Very true,” Lara repeats.

  “And not every day will be a party,” I say.

  “Nope,” Sophie says with a curt shake of the head.

  “But life’s only going to be what I make of it,” I say. “Like Emily said, life’s a brief gift. What we do with it is what matters. How it reacts, well…”

  “Not to change the subject,” Sophie says, “especially such a moving one, but have you heard from the girl?”

  I tell her no, and Sophie rolls her eyes, saying how it’s bad enough that Emily’s off exploring another country, but adding in Gatz, a partner in crime she’s head-over-heels for, only doubles the delay of a response.

  “Hey,” I say, looking on the bright side. “Em’s making something of life. Her choices may be kind of inconvenient to her friends, but…”

  “Got to give it to her,” Lara says. “She does know how to make the most out of anything.” She meets my eyes and pats my hand. “And it looks like you are, too, Jack. I’m really, really happy for you.” She picks up her black leather attaché case. “I hate to call the lunch break over, but the spreadsheets won’t manage themselves.”

  Before Lara can get into her smart Audi and drive back to work, I chase her down in the parking lot.

  “Lara, wait,” I say, approaching her car.

  “Yeah?”

  “I owe you an apology.”

  “Oh, Jackie,” she waves off. “You apologized in there. Don’t worry.”

  “No—”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. We both said things we’re sorry about.” She sets her attaché case inside the car.

  “I said some hurtful things I didn’t mean,” I carry on anyhow. “And I wanted to apologize about what I said about you and Worth. I was awful to you, and you’re right; I have no business telling you who you should and should not date.”

  “Actually…” She shuts her car door and ambles over to me. “You do.”

  “I do?” I crease my forehead.

  “Mmmhmm. If I was dating an asshole, or some man I shouldn’t be dating,” she winks, “then I’d hope as a friend—no, I’d expect as a best friend—that you’d give me a piece of your mind. Set me straight. Not that I’d listen, necessarily.”

  I laugh and tell her probably not.

  “But Worth’s not that kind of guy,” she says, gripping me gently by the shoulders. “He’s different. This could actually work. And I’m happy.”

  “As you should be, Lara.”

  She pulls me in for a hug. “I apologize for hurting you. We both said some stupid things.”

  “Can you forgive me?” I ask when she pulls back from the embrace.

  “I already have, silly. Can you forgive me?”

  “Of course!” I wag my head as if it’s a no-brainer. “And about all that embarrassing money I’ve been borrowing—”

  She holds up a hand and ducks inside her car. “Nope. Not a word about it.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  “You’ve got Em to pay back, which, by the way, I don’t think she’d really care, but it’s the thought that matters.”

  “It’s the principle,” I say. “What I’ve done is childish, and she never deserved it.” I put a hand on the top of her car door and bend down a tad. “Let me do the same for you.”

  “How’s this?” she says after hemming and hawing for a second. “After you’ve been working a while and are on your feet and have the time and cash, you host a girls’ night.”

  “Yeah?” I say with a sly turn of the head.

  She laughs and starts her car. “Yup. And, of course, if you need me to bring anything, just ask.”

  I shut the car door, and as she rolls down her window, I kid, “Like if I ask you to foot the bill on the food and drinks?”

  “Ha-ha,” she says with a wave goodbye.

  As she pulls out of the lot and turns onto the street, I look down at Bella, give her fluffy head a rub, and say, “Come on. Tomorrow’s mommy’s first day at work, and she needs to pick out her outfit!”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Training went better than I could have imagined! No one got hurt, books didn’t go missing, the cash register didn’t lock itself shut, no customers were scared off. In fact, I even made my first sale! All by myself! Well, just about by myself. Tom showed me how to calculate the sales tax and manually add it in the old school cash register, and he had to remind me to include a store bookmark with the purchase, but other than that I completed the entire sale by myself!

  The job doesn’t seem to be all that difficult, really. Aside from making sure I’ve got the calculations accurate and taking the time to make sure I’m thinking alphabetically most of the day, I can totally handle this job. I might have even been born for it!

  Okay, not so fast. The pay isn’t so great, but at least it’s better than what I was earning at The Cup and the Cake, and it doesn’t require antibacterial spray and sponges. I do have to deal with a bit of dust, and reorganizing books upon endless books can cause a bit of vertigo.

  But Tom is a sweetheart, and I feel really good that I’m getting to help someone out who’s in need. Usually Tom’ll be there for the first hour I come in, then he’ll head home for his nap, and a couple hours later he joins me for another half-hour or so before I take off my brown and forest green apron, imprinted with Hodge’s Bookstore in the center. Tom’s an affable old man, and we’ve had some fun conversations. Usually he likes to chat about his son, William, or his wife, Shirley, sometimes about his favorite books and how “timeless those ol’ classics are!” Sometimes I’ll share tidbits about life, my girlfriends, sometimes Andrew, about how salmon is the new black and how different lace patterns and certain colors should never be mixed, unless we’re talking couture here.

  I usually take lunch at the store and page through old books. I’ve even found a couple of Vogues from the eighties and a giant stack of some vintage ones. They’re a bit steep in price for me to cough up some paycheck money and race them on home, but Tom doesn’t mind me poring over them during lunch.

  One of the best parts of the job is that I’m only a few doors down from that really neat antique shop, Pioneer Square Antiques, where I bought Emily’s globe. I restrain myself from ducking in every day, because, let’s face it, I would so spend my entire paycheck, week-in and week-out, at that place. I’m kind of on a first-name basis with the shop owner now. Al’s even willing to give me a ten percent discount on anything I purchase at his shop—a “fellow shopkeeper” discount, he calls it. He offered it to me after he asked why I came in three, four times a week and mostly gawked, only picking up a little knickknack here and there.

  “You know,” he said, “we don’t get new shipments of g
oods in that often. What you poked around yesterday is just the same old stuff.”

  “I know,” I breathed out, caught up in the euphoria of how grand it was to be surrounded by so many lovely trinkets with so much potential—everything with an Old World charm.

  I told Al his collections were ideal for the way I picture decorating Em’s place, but that cash flow isn’t what it used to be, hence my window shopping.

  Then, with my new special discount, I bought a faux gold filigree lamp with stained glass that very afternoon, the second and absolutely stunning piece toward’s Em’s revitalization project. Slowly but surely that old apartment is going to look fabulous!

  “Jackie?” Tom asks during my last hour of work for the week.

  “Yup?” I peer over the stack of books I pulled from the shelf and set out on the large table in the center of the store.

  “I know you’re not scheduled to come in tomorrow.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was kind of hoping to call it a half-day, take Shirley over to Bremerton or maybe Bainbridge.” He shakily places a heavy hardback near my stack.

  “Friday’s are usually pretty quiet days round here,” he says. “And summer’s really winding down.”

  I pull myself up and dust off the backs of my skinny jeans.

  “If you’re comfortable closing the shop,” he says, “and if you wouldn’t mind working tomorrow, would you be interested? I’ll pay you time-and-a-half.”

  Tomorrow I had plans on catching a matinee with Robin. It feels like ages since I’ve seen her, and she said it’d been forever since she did anything outside of the house other than work at the office or attend baby Gymboree.

  I’d called up the rest of the girls, in fact, Robin included, after I’d apologized to Lara and Sophie at the café and filled them in on my attempt to piece my life back together. All the girls said they were proud of me and happy, Claire insisting I do something to celebrate. I told her all about the girls’ night that I’m planning on hosting…once I save up and get things in order. Robin said we should spring for a movie and lunch out, but now that Tom needs the extra help…and he’s offering extra pay.