And of course, there was always the Book.
That’s how we used to talk about it, the Book that we were going to write together, the searing exposé of girlhood and sex and academia that was going to make us both literary darlings. That plan had almost gotten off the ground. I think we got about ten thousand words in before Chess lost interest. There had been a new guy, someone she’d met at some random bar, and with him had come an entirely new set of friends to hang out with and impress. I had gotten used to it by then, how when Chess dated someone new, she seemed to become an entirely new person. I’d just assumed she’d get tired of him and his crowd like she always did, and then we’d get back to the book.
The guy had eventually—inevitably—gone away, but she never mentioned working on the book again.
I sigh, getting up from my desk. Outside, it’s already getting dark, and I realize I’ve wasted another day, working and yet somehow getting nowhere. Across the street, the Millers have already turned on their porch light, and I can hear the sound of kids laughing, bicycle tires bumping from street to sidewalk and back again.
Matt and I bought this house six years ago, firmly ensconced in Family Territory, because we thought we’d be one of them soon enough. We were planning on having kids soon, living that suburban dream, but then I’d gotten busy with the books, and just as that had slowed down, I’d gotten sick, and now here I was, the one single lady stuck in a two-story, four-bedroom house that didn’t feel like mine at all.
I take my phone into the kitchen, opening the fridge and seeing if I have anything that isn’t completely depressing to heat up for dinner. There’s a pot of soup from the other night, so I grab that, sitting it on the stove before studying the few bottles of wine left in my wine rack, the reds that Matt didn’t bother taking.
I think about all those orange bottles still in my medicine cabinet.
Antibiotics. Those were the first things the doctor prescribed when I started getting sick, just over two years ago. I was nauseous all the time, prickly sweat beading my upper lip and the small of my back.
Matt had been sure I was pregnant, but the tests were always negative, and when I’d finally gone in to see my gynecologist, she suggested I might actually have gotten a really bad case of food poisoning, something my body couldn’t fight off on its own. I left with a prescription for these big horse pills that made my arms and feet break out in an itchy rash, but didn’t do a thing to curtail the nausea. If anything, it seemed to get worse, accompanied by a fuzzy feeling in my head, an inability to focus on anything.
That had led to CT scans, to ENTs, to a different kind of antibiotic and then, finally, when no one could find anything wrong with me, a prescription for intense motion sickness pills.
Those had at least kept me from throwing up, but the brain fog only worsened. My thoughts felt scattered and slow, and by afternoon, my eyes were drooping with drowsiness.
And then, a few weeks after Matt moved out, I woke up one morning and realized that I felt more like myself again. It’s still hard for me to trust this run of good health—even though some of the pills have technically expired, I’ve been reluctant to throw them away, afraid that I’ll need them again. But it’s been months since I’ve been nauseous, my brain foggy, thoughts thick, months since I’ve spent the day curled in a ball in front of the toilet.
Months since I’ve trusted myself to have a glass of wine.
Maybe that one naturopathic doctor friend of Matt’s was right—it was just stress, my body trying to make me slow down, or at least give it more attention. Or maybe I was just allergic to Matt, and now that he’s gone, my body is slowly healing. The thought simultaneously makes me want to laugh and sob.
Regardless, I’m tired of tiptoeing through my life. “Fuck it,” I mutter, and I open a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Glass of wine in hand, I settle on the couch and rather than text Chess back, I call her.
“Okay, this is a direct violation of the Bestie Code,” she says when she picks up, and I smile.
“What, calling instead of texting back?”
“Yes. I’ll have you know I’ve broken up with men for less.”
“Well, since you can’t break up with me,” I tell her, settling deeper into the couch, “I decided to risk it. Besides, I know you. Whatever plan you’ve cooked up, it’ll sound better if you just say it rather than text it.”
“Right, because in a text, you’ll have time to poke holes in it and tell me just how crazy it is,” she counters, but I can hear the smile in her voice.
“Exactly,” I reply. “I’m saving you from yourself.”
She heaves a dramatic sigh. “God, I hate having someone who knows me this well. But I’m actually glad you called because you’re right. You need to hear it. Are you ready to hear it?”
“Ready and waiting.”
“What if,” she starts, drawing the words out, “you. Me. Italy.”
“Italy,” I repeat, and I can practically hear her roll her eyes.
“Don’t say it like it’s a death sentence, Em. Italy! Italy!”
“I’m familiar with the concept,” I tell her, taking another sip of wine. “I just don’t know exactly what you mean. You want us to go to Italy? When?”
“Next week.”
I almost laugh. How … completely, typically Chess.
And she must hear that in my silence, because she goes on. “I’ve already got a place. This amazing villa outside of Orvieto called Villa Aestas. You will absolutely die when you see it, Em. And I was planning on writing the whole time I was there, but you could write, too. I mean, you’re healthy again, and I haven’t seen you in forever, and when we had lunch the other day, I was like, ‘Why am I not moving heaven and earth to spend more time with one Miss Emily Sheridan?’”
She’s drunk, I think. Not too drunk, but definitely a few cocktails in. Chess always gets chatty and grandiose when she drinks.
“Admit that this is the most genius plan you’ve ever heard in your whole life,” she finishes, and now I do laugh.
“It’s pretty fucking genius, yes.”
But something is holding me back from saying yes.
For one, it’s a little embarrassing to freeload so openly off of Chess’s newfound wealth. Am I that friend, the one she’ll tell people about later?
Oh, poor Emily, you know, we’ve been friends forever, and she was going through a divorce, so I wanted to do something to cheer her up.
Thinking about that makes my stomach lurch, but then I think about Italy. Sitting in the sun, soaking up new surroundings, new people, a new language. Plus, pasta.
“It’s six weeks, Em,” Chess goes on. “Almost the whole summer. Or the good parts of summer, let’s be real. There’s a pool, there’s a gorgeous cathedral nearby.…”
It isn’t really the perks that suddenly make my heart speed up. It’s the time. Six weeks. Six entire weeks out of this house, out of this life. Six weeks to try to get my career back on track and reignite my sense of purpose.
And, let’s be honest: six weeks of glamorous photos to post on Instagram and Facebook, where Matt still follows me.
“Okay, I’m in,” I tell her, closing my eyes as I say it, and on the other end of the line, Chess cheers.