Page 127 of Return Billionaire to Sender

But we love it all the same.

There are these amazing pink-and-rose-colored marble tiles lining the lower part of the walls; above it is cracked vintage plaster, soaring up to extravagant crown molding, and of course, the lovely chandelier.

But at the moment it’s the rose tiles that we’re focusing on, or more, the tiles that Vicky is focusing on. With a crowbar.

It’s sleeting out, fitting weather for our sad project. I’ve taken the day off—I won’t have too many more days with these women.

I wince as Vicky shoves the metal thing behind one of them, grunting, trying to pry it free.

Ancient plaster cracks.

The pink tile pops off the wall and lands on the floor, and Vicky lands on her ass right next to it. Smuckers barks wildly.

“Are you sure we can’t help you?” Lizzie asks. “We could all get crowbars!”

“I’d be happy to do it,” Antonio says. “I could do it with one hand.”

“No, I don’t want these tiles getting cracked. I got this.” She holds the tile up like a trophy. It’s small—maybe a foot by a foot. “Francine, tile number one.”

Vicky has an ambitious plan to turn the tiles into serving trays for each of us so that we have a beautiful piece of the building to keep with us always. We each got to choose two tiles—there are Post-it notes with our names all over the walls.

Two marble tiles will form the base of each tray, with silver metal edging all around. The trays could be used probably for a lot of things, but considering this group, they’ll be cheese-serving trays.

Francine goes over and grabs it and holds it to her chest. “Pink tile, you have seen a lot of me coming and going around here. Some of it quite triumphant, coming in after yet another amazing freaking dance rehearsal, though there have definitely been times of me stumbling in at three in the morning with a questionable bag of food or possibly an even more questionable dude. But most of all you’ve seen me coming in and out of here with my absolute best friends in the world, and the absolute best neighbors any girl could ever have.”

“Francine, god!” Mia says, holding a prosecco bottle by the neck. “Motherfucker! I don’t know if I can handle any more of these tearful goodbye things. I’m gonna cry for the next five hours!” She splashes some more of the bright, bubbly liquid into her cup.

“That’s more than enough day drinking for you!” Jada grabs the bottle from Mia and pours the rest of it into her own cup. “Also, I need more. I have a bad feeling that this is going to be an extremely tearful goodbye thing.” She narrows her eyes at Vicky.

“What?” Vicky protests. “So you can make a tearful goodbye movie, and I can’t do a tearful goodbye cheese tray project?” She starts crowbarring yet another tile off the wall. “Screw that.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t make tearful goodbye cheese trays,” Jada says. “Your tearful goodbye cheese trays are going to be amazing. It’s just that they’re tearful.”

Maisey writes Francine’s name on the underside of the tile. She hands it to Lizzy, who puts it in a cardboard box.

It’s afternoon, but the sky is dark as midnight. Horns bellow from the street. Sleet ticks at the door.

Vicky is still going at the second Francine tile—it’s a really pretty one where the lines in the marble look like a vajayjay.

“You girls are free to make all of the tearful goodbye things you please,” John says in his rumbly voice. “I think it’s very important to commemorate…” He waves a hand around in the air, indicating the building, indicating more than words can say, and then he looks over at Maisey, and my heart lurches.

John chose two of the most worn tiles next to the elevator frame. I think he likes the story they tell, the way they show that humans lived in this place together. Waited for elevators together. Now they’ll be cheese trays.

Vicky’s artisan friend, Latrisha, who once created an elaborate throne for Smuckers-–long story—designed the serving trays. They’re going to be so cool, but it would be way cooler if the tiles were staying put on the wall and we were staying put in our homes.

Eventually, all of our tiles are in boxes. The wall looks like a sad checkerboard. I go over to Vicky. “Do you really think you can make all of our cheese platters sometime this decade?”

“Maybe?” Vicky says dolefully.

“No more fucking crying,” Jada says from where she’s lying on the floor, crying.

I sit on the floor next to Francine, whose black ballerina bun is halfway down. I look around at my friends, this family that we’ve created. “What have I done?” I ask.

“No more of that,” she says.

“We could have kept our homes, but I chose him,” I say. “And he won’t even see it.”

“Well…”

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