A Girl Like You by vinnie Kinsella (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

frozen. It was the chicken piccata preparation, never to be cooked in this very strange night class.

“Well, it was more entertaining than watching you break things in jewelry class,” Eddie said as we walked to his car.

“Think it was dementia?”

Eddie shrugged. “Maybe she drank the leftover wine.”

“You think there were mice in those cabinets?”

“Honestly, I really don’t want to know.”

20

My cell rang as I was getting ready for bed. I was instantly awake, because the kids and I rarely used cell phones to make actual calls. We always texted. Even Penny raised her head from the bed pillow curiously.

“Hello?”

“Jess.”

It was Bryan. His voice sounded so clear he might have been in the next room. “Bry?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“What’s wrong?” I looked down at my slippered feet.

“Nothing. Just wanted to hear your voice.”

“OK. Good. Well, here I am.”

“What’s doin’ with you?” he asked.

“Well, I started that new job.”

“That’s right. How’s it going?”

“Like a three-ring circus. The work is complicated and I need to concentrate, which is hard because of the three old guys who’ve made the office their home. Yesterday they had a twenty-minute discussion about what breed of dog one of them has.”

“What is it?” Bry laughed.

“A mutt! And he brings the dog to the office every day.”

“Isn’t there some kind of dog rule to keep them outside?”

“There don’t seem to be any rules there,” I sighed.

“So are you gonna bring Penny to work?”

“Are you kidding? Their dog is so big, Pen could ride on its back. He could trample her!”

“Sounds like a doggone mess.”

We both laughed.

“Tell me about Ben.”

“He’s amazing, Jess. He’s fearless; he runs straight for the ocean, doesn’t even care if the waves could knock him over while we all chase him, which makes him run even faster. He dips his fries in grape jelly and hates all the same veggies as me.”

“Carrots? Peas? Everything but corn?” I knew Bry’s picky eating habits by heart.

“Yup. All of the above.”

We were silent for a moment, neither of us wanting to hang up or be the first to say goodbye.

“Well for now I’ll just say good night,” he said, as if he knew what I was thinking.

“Good night, Bry. Talk soon.”

I settled back down next to Penny, nuzzling her neck, and even though she was sleeping, she moved her warm back closer to me.

I pictured Bryan in his little apartment with a table and chairs and Blu-ray player watching DC Comics movies with Ben. I missed him. Maybe we’d been wrong to separate and divorce.

Then I thought about him in the last, long, terrible months of our marriage, spending most of his time on the couch, wrapped in a blanket because he was always cold. It had been the right thing, even though it hurt on so many levels. He was getting better, and I was—well, keeping busy.

21

One morning in May I realized my bedroom was exactly the same as it had been for the three years I was married to Bryan. I looked around the bedroom at the dark navy comforter, the nautical striped curtains, the dresser top where I still piled clothes. It was time for an overhaul.

I spent more than an hour and over $200 at Home Space, lugging shopping bags home and dropping them on my bed.

I cleaned until every surface of my bedroom shined. I vacuumed, then got down on my hands and knees to use carpet cleaner on tiny, barely visible spots on the rug. I folded all the clothes on my dresser to put in the chest of drawers that had been Bryan’s.

I hesitated in front of it, running my fingers over the wood. I remembered the shock I felt when I found all the drawers empty, the sick feeling when I opened his sock drawer and found nothing but a few runaway nickels and dimes. I’d helped Bryan pack; why would I be stunned by the emptiness?

Taking a deep breath, I opened the top drawer, where he’d kept his boxers. A black pen without a cap rolled toward me. In the back of the drawer was a rolled-up piece of paper. When I smoothed it out, I saw a grocery list in Bryan’s handwriting. I held it for a few moments, then put it back in the drawer.

I filled the dresser with my clothes, taking up an entire drawer for Halloween leggings, then took all the shoes tossed in the bottom of my closet and lined them up inside the third drawer, congratulating myself for my creative use of space.

But when I opened the bottom drawer, I drew in a sharp breath. There was a white T-shirt with a Day of the Dead skull on the front. It was so neatly folded that it looked as though Bryan had left it there for me. I broke down then, holding the shirt to my face, using it to wipe my tears.

After a while, I composed myself enough to unpack my shopping bags and put on the new comforter, seafoam green with violets scattered like they’d been blown by wind. It was oversized on the bed, but I liked it that way.

I fluffed the light-purple ruffled pillows and set them against the headboard. I’d bought candles in squat little jars that I put on my bed stand and both dressers, arranged the purple and yellow flowers in the green vase, put the jewelry tossed on my dresser top into a little china bowl.

The last thing I did was carefully refold Bryan’s T-shirt, and tuck it under the bed pillows.

“Come on,” I said to Penny, who had been watching with wonder, as if she’d never seen me clean before.

“We’re done for now,” I told her, and the room too.

22

One problem with the town job, even with the amusing geriatric atmosphere, was the amount of time I spent sitting on my ever-expanding ass. I got only half an hour lunch and could barely squeeze in a short walk through the downtown business district while still having enough time to eat something.

I’d become an