Page 40 of Any Girl But You
Don’t do it. Don’t do it.“Did you ever end up reading those letters she sent you?” I hate myself the tiniest bit right now.
“I did,” she says softly. A moment passes. “They were…nice.”
Well, God dammit, what does that mean? I hate this. I hate, hate, hate all of this. I’m too hot in this tub. I’m sweating and going to overheat and pass out and I need air. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I think she was just going through some things and needed a familiar person. The letters started with how much she regretted breaking up, wanting to talk again, but the last several were more of just life messages,” Zoey says. “Honestly, I think she’s lonely. She moved to Minneapolis and doesn’t really know anyone, and I think she just needed a friend.”
I feel marginally better.Marginally.
“Hey, I gotta run,” Zoey says. “So, pizza and movies on Sunday?”
“Only if you try anchovies again.”
“You still owe me the Cusack moment from forever ago!” She laughs. “Call you later. I have to finish washing these pans.”
When she hangs up, I slide all the way in the tub, only leaving out my mouth and nose. Cool, so Zoey is meeting up with her ex. Is this the first time she’s seen her since they broke up? Whatif they get back together? What if the spark between them is dormant and they touch once and it flames alive and kills any chance that we might have?
Do I want a chance? Yes. I think so. Am I willing to put all this scary shit behind me to take a chance and risk our friendship? I don’t know.
The tub ceases to relax me, and a few minutes later, I’m so worked up that I hop out, throw on a robe, and traipse down to the kitchen.
Morgan is at the kitchen table with her laptop and multiple papers, focusing hard on her screen. When Frankie is back in New York for work, like she is now, Morgan spends all her hours working on her event-planning business, so she has more free time when Frankie is home. She’ll probably be in this same position until 2:00 a.m. She pauses mid-type and peeks up. “Hey, you hungry? I have leftovers from dinner if you want them.”
“No,” I grumble. I’m not hungry, I’m terrified. Zoey and Josie are going to get back together and there’s nothing I can do about it. I open a cabinet door, looking for something, I don’t even know what, and slam it shut. Open another, slam it. Another, slam.
A gentle hand touches my arm.
“How about if we give these doors a little bit of a break,” Morgan says and closes the cabinet. “They’re old and fragile and I really don’t want them to shatter before we do the kitchen remodel.”
I tug on the knot around my robe. “I just want some fucking chamomile tea.”
Morgan lifts her eyebrow, opens the cabinet I had just slammed shut, and reaches behind the coffee beans for a box of tea.
I exhale a puff through my nose and press a palm into my head. “Sorry.”
She points to the barstool. I dutifully sit as she puts water in the tea kettle and flicks the stove on. I lay my head down on the cool countertop. A few minutes later, I lift my head as she slides a mug my way.
“Two weeks until opening day,” she says, dunking the tea bag in her own mug. “It’s a lot of pressure.”
It’ssomuch pressure. Not only are my life savings, plus a hefty business loan, sunk into my farm, so are all of my hopes and dreams. If this fails, I don’t know what I will do. “It is,” I finally say.
Morgan pulls out the stool next to me and sits. “Being an entrepreneur is extremely difficult. Doing this alone as a single woman, without a business or life partner, is terrifying. I get it. I think people underestimate the difficulty in undertaking something like this.”
I squeeze a dollop of honey in my tea and stir. Maybe I haven’t given myself the credit I deserve. So many times, I thought, well, my aunt and uncle left great instructions, and well, I have my sister and Morgan, who guide me, and well, I have Zoey, who helped for a month.
But I did do it, and Ishouldbe proud of myself. But I’m not giving myself that luxury until I see if it’s successful. “What if no one shows up?”
“They will,” Morgan says, blowing into her mug and taking a short sip. “It’s like the Christmas field of dreams. Build it and they will come.”
She says this like I know what the hell she is talking about. “What?”
Morgan grins. “Really? The movieField of Dreams. The baseball movie. You know, the famous line:If you build it, they will come.”
And just like that, I bury my head in my hands and start crying.
A solid moment or two passes before Morgan tugs me in for a stiff hug. She is not a hugger at all, at least not with me, but she’s Frankie’s proxy while my sister is gone. So here I am, letting the tears flow, drip down my cheek onto her shoulder. I stay like this, a minute, maybe two, maybe three, but I’m letting it all out. The stress of this last decade, this last year, these last few months. My insecurity that I’m not enough, I’m not worthy, that I’ll get hurt. Broken.Destroyed.
“This is not about the farm, is it.”
