Page 67 of This Is How It Started
“I vote that it’s a hard pass.”
“Agree. I just needed to hear it from someone else.” Brooke lays the bacon on a thick cloud of paper towels to drain.
The writers are getting restless in the dining room. I can hear them shuffling around and check on the coffee. Almost done.
Brooke takes the German pancakes out of the oven and places them on a heat-proof tray. “It’s showtime.”
* * * *
Josie and I are in her bedroom, which is also her living room, dining room and office. She lives in a large studio over a tortilla factory in the Mission District. You can’t come here and not get hungry. The aroma of baked corn wafts up through the floorboards and fills the air.
She’s just a hop, skip and jump away from Valencia Street, where all the trendy restaurants, shops and galleries are. It used to be a working-class neighborhood but has become popular with hipsters and tech brats, thus pushing out everyone who makes an hourly wage. It sucks, but at least she got in before rents hit a tipping point.
The apartment is quintessentially Josie. Everything is pale pink and white with occasional splashes of black. Her furniture is ultra-glam with lots of high-pile fabrics, geometrical designs, and metallics. Every time I’m here, I think of cotton candy.
“Try this on.” Josie throws a halter mini dress on the bed next to a sleeping Poochini, her dog. The shih tzu looks like a small pile of rags.
The alleged purpose for my visit is to help her clean out her closet. But we both know the real reason is she desperately wants to dress me.
I peel off my jeans and sweater and slip into the dress. In front of the full-length mirror, I turn front and sideways, admiring my legs, which haven’t seen the light of day in a long time. “Where would I ever wear this?”
“I don’t know,” Josie says and pulls the dress tighter in the back so that it clings to my breasts and waist. “It’s a great date dress.”
I turn and glare at her. “Not happening.”
“So this is it, you’re going to grow old alone?”
I’m thirty-four, soon to be thirty-five. Not exactly senior-citizen territory. “It’s only been eight months, Jo. I’m not ready.” Nor may I ever be.
Josie lets out a long sigh. “Take it anyway. It’s fantastic on you, and I’d like to see you in something other than jeans and a frumpy top.”
“This isn’t frumpy.” I tug on my sweater, which I bought for a trip to Seattle with Josh two years ago. “In fact, you helped me pick it out.”
She eyes the sweater. “I did? God help me.”
Her phone rings. She checks her screen and declines the call.
“Who was that?”
“No one important.” She waves her hand in the air dismissively, which makes me think it was absolutely someone important, but she’s protecting the sanctity of our time together.
“Was it that guy you’re dating?”
“God no.” She pulls a face. “That’s over with a capitalO. I’m still looking for my Josh.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her there’s only one. And he was mine. Maybe. I force myself to banish any thoughts of Beth. From here on in, I decide to give her no meaning, none whatsoever.
“Why don’t you just date Adam already?” He’s had the hots for Josie since we were kids.
“Because he’s like a brother.”
We’ve had this conversation so many times that there’s no use belaboring it.
She tosses me another dress to try on. This one is a summery number with pink and white polka dots. Definitely Josie’s style but not mine.
“Pass,” I say. “What else have you got?”
Josie sorts through the pile, handing me a gorgeous faux-leather bomber jacket, which I don’t even have to try on to know it’s a keeper. There’s a peasant skirt, which conjures prairie life circa 1870. That’s an obvious no.
