The Breakup Club Part 8

She beamed. "Thanks! Oh, I just realized that I'd better give you a different number than the one on my resume. That's my home address, which I share with my fiamy former fianceand I can't exactly go back there. I'm staying at a hotel until I find an apartment."

Miranda needed a roommate right away! "If you're looking for a place to live, my sister, Miranda, is looking for a roommate. In fact, she's desperate for a roommate. She's an editorial a.s.sistant here at Bold, so you could even question her about the place, get the dirt."

Her eyes sparkled. "Do you think I could meet her right now?"

I scribbled Miranda's phone number on a sticky. "Here's her number. Give her a call."

She beamed and thanked me three times before leaving. What a good influence Roxy would be on Miranda. Roxy had left a relationship that wasn't working. She was following her dream. She was striving. And she would be able to pay the rent come next week, when I called her and offered her a job.

An hour and a half later, the Cobb bio finally finished, four proposals to read over the weekend in my briefcase, I dropped a memo in Futterman's in-box so that he'd know I was at the office on a holiday weekend. Huh. There was a memo, dated today, from Wanda Belle, a report and proposal for an instant book about a bigamist in Kansas, an otherwise completely normal traveling salesman named Bob Smith, who'd managed to marry four women in neighboring towns. I looked under Wanda's memo for something from Christopher, but Boy Wonder either hadn't been in or wasn't smart enough to leave something to show he had been. Ha. Christopher was plenty smart. He hadn't been in.

When I finally left the office just after six, I wasn't surprised to see Roxy Marone's veil smushed into the little trash can by the reception desk.

Whenever Larry and I got into a whopper of a fight, I watched our wedding video. Not that last night could be counted as a "fight." There was no yelling. No slammed doors. Just the silent and deadly piece of paper in Larry's pocket.

I slid our wedding video into the VCR and pressed Play, then lay back on my bed and waited for its therapeutic effects. When Larry and I did get into one of those yelling/door slamming/go-to-bed-angry whoppers, I'd hit Play and in moments I'd be smiling at myself in my pretty cotton dress with its empire waist that hid my three-months-pregnant belly, my heart, soul and mind touched by the look in Larry's eyeslove, excitement, antic.i.p.ation. That look, which I'd seen in his eyes countless times over the years (though not lately), would get me up off the bed or couch to find Larry and offer a "We'll figure it out, hon."

And we always had figured it out, for twelve years. Not quite a year into dating, Larry's lack of patience had led to, "I have to have you right now, Luce." Which led to, "I'll pull out, I promise." Which led to, "Ahhh, Oooooh!" Which led to, "Um, Luce?"

The "Um, Luce?" was followed by a "Let's not worry till we have to worry." Which was followed by waiting. My period never did come. Not once did Larry say, We're only twenty-two, we have our whole lives ahead of us, I'm in med school. What he said was, "Will you marry me?"

We were so in love in those days! And so I married him in the park and got through morning sickness in the bathroom at Bold Books, where I was an editorial a.s.sistant. My old boss, a single woman named Charlotte, was sure I wouldn't come back to work after my maternity leave, but I had. I wanted to be an editor. I wanted to be a mother. And thanks to Grannie Ellie, a retired pediatric nurse turned loving nanny, I was able to be both.

As I watched the video, I stared at my mother, who stood smiling with my father and Miranda and Aunt Dinah and Uncle Saul to our right. (The cheerless Mastersons stood on our left.) Was that how you coped with whatever was wrong with your marriage, Mom? You simply went on impromptu vacations by yourself several times a year?

If that saved her marriage, perhaps it wasn't so terrible, even if it was at the expense of everyone else's feelings. But if the marriage was so bad that she needed to escape it in such an odd way, perhaps the marriage shouldn't have been anymore. Perhaps leaving for good was the answer.

But I didn't want Larry to leave. I didn't want Larry to go "on vacation" several times a year.

Why did Larry want out now, now that things were so...nice? Not that it was nice that we'd stopped kissing goodbye or good-night. Or that we rarely spent time together unless it involved Amelia. Or that we really didn't talk unless it was about Ameliaher report cards, a cute account of our first-bra shopping expedition at Macy's, the effect on Amelia of her friend Lizzie's parents' separation.

"That's life, unfortunately," Larry had said about Lizzie's parents, and I'd nodded, safe in the security of my own marriage, of Amelia's home life.

It wasn't nice that we hadn't had s.e.x in months.

It is for Larry because he's getting it somewhere else, a voice said. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know! I don't know anything!

I watched my twenty-two-year-old self wrap my arms around Larry's neck for our I-do kiss. I watched Larry scoop me up in his arms and spin me around until his mother started worrying out loud that it might hurt the baby. He laughed and slid me down his body, kissing me pa.s.sionately. You couldn't hear it or see it in the video, but just then he'd whispered, "I love you so much, Lucy Miller-Masterson."

I love you, too, Larry.

I was going to save our marriage. I would never buy paper plates again. I would color those gray hairs. I would not wear fisherman sweaters. Away with the clogs! I would go on South Beach myself and become the pretty young thing in the wedding video.

Except I wasn't twenty-two, dammit. I was thirty-four. I'd be thirty-five in a few months. Did how I looked define me? Please. How was I supposed to teach Amelia to respect herself if I didn't respect myself?

I turned off the video and turned on DVR to my favorite show, BBC's What Not to Wear. Except that this episode, style gurus Trinny and Susannah, whom I adored, were ripping apart a woman who could've been me: a hapless working mother in ill-fitting undergarments and shapeless, colorless clothes. "Do you honestly not see how truly, truly awful you look?" one of the gurus said to the woman.

I dragged myself over to the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door and examined myself. I'd changed from my work clothesa pair of jeans and a pinky-red sweater with little embroidered cats all over itto my comfy sweats.

Sweats. A week ago, Miranda called to ask if Amelia and I would meet her for an early dinner, and when I said I was already in my sweats, she said she was too, no need to change. When I arrived in my oversize gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, my white athletic socks and white sneakers, Miranda was wearing tight lavender velour yoga clothes with the word hey! written across her tush. Those were sweats?

Do you honestly not know how truly awful you look?

I thought about what I wore to work on Wednesday: a shapeless beige sweater with some pilling. A boxy black skirt that was slightly too long. Nude hose. My white Keds that I always meant to exchange for the black flats I kept under my desk. But the sneakers were so comfortable! And did my footwear matter more than my brain? My feet wouldn't get a book on the New York Times bestseller list. I'd never been much into fashion, and I'd stopped thinking about style altogether when I came home from the maternity ward.

What's your excuse for your hair? I asked myself, conceding that it was a blah brown color lightly streaked with gray and p.r.o.ne to frizziness that only a precious forty-five minutes with a blow-dryer and a tube of gel could tame. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd had a trim. Or worn makeup. I peered closely at my face. At the moment, my eyes were puffy from the crying I'd done last night and this morning. And from the lack of sleep.

Maybe I could use a little makeover myself. A big makeover. But when, exactly, was I supposed to transform myself? Larry's "personal time" was my Amelia time. I couldn't have quality time with Amelia and a semi-high-powered full-time job and keep a spotless home and look like glamorous Wanda Belle. I could barely do the important two.

Which reminded me: what the h.e.l.l was I doing? I was doing it again, that's what. I was blaming myself for Larry wanting to leave me. It wasn't my fault! If he wanted the twenty-two-year-old he married twelve years ago, he would have to wake up and smell the calendar. If he wanted the good china, he'd have to do the dishes himself.

I loved Larry and he was supposed to love me. If he wanted a perfect home, if he couldn't take me a few pounds heavier, with a few gray hairs, then screw "She looks like a frumpy old sow!" said one of the style gurus on What Not To Wear about their makeover candidate. "No wonder she can't get a second date! But that's about to change, if we have anything to say about it!"

Did someone say date? Good G.o.d. That was what single people did. That was what Miranda did.

My heart pounding, I grabbed the pad of paper off my bedside table and wrote New Year's Resolutions across the top. Then I listed them: 1) Save your marriage. (Somehow.) 2) Change. (Without compromising yourself. Again: somehow.)

Chapter six.

Miranda There was a loud ringing noise in my ears. I flipped over in bed and pulled the comforter over my head, trying to get back inside my dream. Gabriel was nuzzling my neck. Whispering sweet, s.e.xy somethings in my ear. No, not sweet. Not s.e.xy. He was angry. Hurt. "How could you do that to me, Miranda? How could you tell my new girlfriend that you and I are sleeping together when it's not true? If you really loved me, you couldn't possibly be so mean and spiteful and immature..."

Ahh! It had all just been a dream! I hadn't seen Gabriel and his girlfriend during my blind-date brunch yesterday. I hadn't told the girlfriend that Gabriel and I were sleeping together. Gabriel didn't hate my guts for trying to ruin his relationship with said girlfriend. I wasn't mean and immature.

But then Gabriel's gorgeous face morphed into Phineas's small face. After calculating the bill to the penny with what we each owed, Phineas had said, "And let's not bother with the I-had-a-lovely-time-I'll-call c.r.a.p, eh?"

None of it was a dream. And the loud ringing noise was the telephone.

I grabbed the cordless. "Gabriel?"

Why did I say that? What was wrong with me? I needed it to be Gabriel so that I could apologize for my very bad behavior. When I'd gotten home from my date yesterday, I'd vacillated between calling and not calling for an hour before I finally picked up the phone, punched in Gabriel's number and waited. No answer. No machine. No nothing. I'd spent the afternoon feeling like the world's biggest loser, and even Muriel's Wedding hadn't made me feel better. Then again, I'd fallen asleep in my clothes in the middle of it.

"Colin," said a male voice. An English accent. A very nice English accent.

"Colin?" Did I know a Colin? I didn't.

"Larry Masterson gave me your number a few weeks ago," he said. "We work together at Lenox Hill. I'm an intern."

Oh. Another blind date. Another Larry connection.

"I've been really busy at the hospital and meant to call sooner," he went on, "but I'm going to be in your neighborhood later today, and I was wondering if you'd like to join me for a cup of coffee."

Are you going to talk about Jules Verne? Are you going to make fun of my job? Are you going to not be Gabriel?

What was I supposed to do? Go on yet another blind date that would end the same way? A new guy wasn't going to cure me of my feelings for Gabriel; I knew that had to come from me. And according to Lucy, it would come from me if I got out there and stopped hanging around my apartmentor hersmoping.

"Miranda? You there?" Colin asked.

Oops. "Sorry. I'm here. I was just trying to grab my Pop-Tart out of the toaster and talk at the same time." It was amazing what you could come up with when you didn't care what someone thought of you. Yes, I eat c.r.a.p for breakfast! So?

"Chocolate frosted?" he asked. "That's my favorite."

Hmm. Maybe he wasn't a pompous Jules Vernereading p.o.o.p-head.

He was English. His name was Colin. There was a chancea chance in h.e.l.l, but a chance nonethelessthat he looked either like Colin Firth, whom I loved, or Colin Farrell, whom I wanted to undress. Meeting him would get me out of my apartment and doing something proactive. I could post Roommate Wanted notices on the bulletin board at the coffee lounge if the chick Lucy gave my number to didn't work out. Roxy Marone had called yesterdaytwo minutes after I got home from my Gabriel debacleto ask if she could come see the apartment, and I almost bit her head off. But she was coming over today at eleven. Which was in ten minutes, and the place was a wreck.

"Sure, Colin. I love spontaneity." That was a lie, actually. I didn't like spontaneity at all.

"Great," he said. "How about DT*UT, the coffee lounge on Second Avenue, at four."

"Perfect. How will I know you?"

"I'm tall, six-one, and I've got dark brown hair and brown eyes, and I'll be the idiot in scrubs because I left my apartment today without my backpack of clothes. Is that all right?"

It was. And his brown/brown combo put him in the running for both Colins.

I told him to look for the nervous pet.i.te blonde. Not that I'd really be nervous. That was the great thing about being in love with someone elseyou were never nervous about blind dates.

There was a knock at my front door. My front door, not the downstairs door, which meant it could only be The Traitor, my now officially former roommate, Seth. I bid goodbye to today's blind date and headed to the door, and there, indeed was Seth Gersh, handing me back my keys on a new, heart-shaped pink velvet key chainclearly his way of saying I'm sorry but I'm in love.

Seth had moved out of my apartment to move in with his girlfriend, who until a week ago had been his ex-girlfriend. She'd dumped him almost a year ago for an investment banker. Seth was a waiter/writer I'd met at the coffee lounge where I'd soon be meeting Colin. It was a great place to spend a few hours on one two-dollar cup of coffee while reading ma.n.u.scripts. Anyway, Seth and I had both needed roommates at the same time, so he'd moved into my place, taking the screened-in section of the living room as his bedroom. Instead of pining alone, we'd pined for our lost loves together. Lucy hadn't liked the scenario one bit. She didn't like Seth (she thought he was a whiny intellectual) and didn't see any opportunity for a potential relationship.

"I'll miss you," Seth said. "And don't lose hope over Gabriel. Just look at me for inspiration."

I hugged him as the buzzer sounded. "Ooh, that's someone coming to see the apartment. Want to meet my potential new roommate?"

He nodded. "I'll give you the thumbs-up or down when she's not looking."

I opened the door to one of the too-pretty twenty-somethings you see all over the city. If she weren't short, I'd swear she was a model wannabe. But I'm five-five, and she was a little shorter than me. She was too pretty and had too much presence. She had enormous dark brown eyes and shiny dark brown hair, straight and just above her shoulders, and a milky-white complexion, like Jennifer Connelly. Hadn't Lucy told me the girl she was sending over was blond? Maybe I'd heard her wrong.

"Miranda?" she asked. "I'm Roxy."

"Come on in," I said, closing the door behind her.

While she was looking around the tiny bathroom, which needed some Comet and a sponge, Seth shot me the thumbs-down, then yanked me into the tiny kitchen. "She's too gorgeous," he whispered. "You don't want a babe like that living with you, trust me. If you did get Gabriel back, he'd go after her. Tell her you'll get back to her and then lose her number."

I had two simultaneous thoughts: Jerk. And Oh G.o.d, he's right. My third thought was: I may be pathetic, but I'm not that pathetic.

"It's a great apartment," Roxy said without a trace of sarcasm.

"Gorgeous and dumb," Seth whispered. "A lethal combo. Get rid of her."

I rolled my eyes at him. He nodded at me and my potential new roommate, then finally left.

"It's so weird," I said to Roxy. "He was my old roommate and now he's gone, just like that, and you're here. Something seems fated in all that. So can I get you something to drink? I only have water."

She laughed. "Water's good."

A minute later we were both settled on the futon, sipping our water. "So all I know about you is that you went on an interview at Bold Books with my sister, and she told you I needed a roommate."

"Well, let's see. I'm twenty-five. I'm from Brooklyn. Bay Ridge. Until a half hour ago I worked at a local newspaper. I have so much vacation time coming to me that my boss didn't require notice. So now I'm really hoping your sister will hire me." She turned red. "Not because I'm joblessI have a good nest egg in the bank, so I can afford the rent for a while if I don't get the job. You don't have to worry about that. My fingers are so crossed that Lucy hires me. Working at Bold Books is my dream job."

"Well, don't feel too bad if you don't get it. I work there too and I hate every second of it."

Her face fell. "Really? Why?"

"Maybe because I have zero interest in being an editor."

She smiled. "That would do it. So why do you work there?"

I grabbed my What Color Is Your Parachute? and held it up. "I can't figure out the color and I was sick of temping and needed benefits, so Lucy got me an interview. I'm the a.s.sistant to the romance editor."

"I love romance novels."

Ugh. Why did she have to be nice and not a snotty pretty person? I hated nice gorgeous people.

She glanced around the room. "So behind this screen is my bedroom?"

I nodded. "The screen's not exactly a door, but it's something. And your share of the rent is cheap. Well, cheaper than mine. And my bedroom is pretty small."

I gave her the two-minute tour, which was all that was required to show the place. The apartment was eight hundred square feet, which meant one small bedroom, one semi-decent-sized living room, half of which was the makeshift second "bedroom," one small bathroom, one small kitchen, and one foot-long, foot-wide hallway connecting it all.

"Can I move in today?" she asked.

Today? "I guess. Although the landlord throws a fit if you move in furniture after a certain time."

She said she didn't have any furniture. Not even a bed. All she had was herself. Which meant there was a breakup involved.

"Well," I told her, "you're in luck, because Seth left his futon in the little bedroom. He moved back in with his girlfriend. All you need are new sheets. I definitely wouldn't sleep on his. What do you think he did for eight months while waiting for his girlfriend to take him back?"

She laughed and pulled a little notebook out of her purse and jotted down "new sheets" under a long list of things to buy.

A living, breathing, paying person was right here, right now. I wouldn't have to post ads and deal with the phone ringing off the hook at work for a week and than arranging showings and worrying about being murdered by opening the door to a total stranger. Plus, Lucy had Roxy's resume and all sorts of personal info on the application she must have filled out, so if she turned out to be a weirdo, we had her social security number.

"Welcome to your new home," I told her.

Tears welled up in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm just really emotional lately."

I handed her a box of tissues. She was still gorgeous even with a bright red nose.

"I guess your sister mentioned the whole wedding thing," she said.

I shook my head. "What wedding thing?"