Chapter 19

Elle

Hattie meets me at the Lucerne Mall on Saturday morning. She’s wearing skinny jeans with a high waist, knee-high boots, and a cropped sweater that tapers to a wide band just above her waistline. Her black hair falls in glossy loose ringlets to her shoulders, and her makeup is impeccable.

Normally, I feel frumpy next to Hattie, who since her divorce has devoted an enormous amount of time to her appearance—Barrecore class, Pilates, regular cardio, time spent at Sephora and the Macy’s makeup counter, hair, clothes, full-body waxing, you name it, she has pursued it in the interest of getting laid and moving on. I’m more the Ben-and-Jerry’s-to-drown-your-sorrows type.

But today I’m feeling pretty darn good. I got up early enough to wash my hair and blow it dry, and I spent a long time doing my makeup and choosing my clothes.

I was thinking, Who knows when I might need to send a selfie to a certain shameless next-door neighbor?

“Wow,” says Hattie. “You look fabulous.”

“Thanks.”

“Your dirty games with the neighbor obviously agree with you.”

I’d told her the whole story, complete with Sawyer’s rescuing me and my wounded pride from the Helen-and-Trevor-show, his kiss, the wedding-day proposition, and a very short expurgated version of the unexpected “foreplay” a few days ago. Hattie, being Hattie, had withheld judgment. She was delighted to hear I had a date to the wedding, that I was getting some, and that Trevor wouldn’t “win.”

“No dirty texts since the last day of school.”

Which is fine. I’ve been checking my phone compulsively, of course, and have started flirty texts to Sawyer a few times, but I always delete them before sending. After what happened with Trevor—

I guess I want to be pursued, you know? I don’t want to be the pathetic one ever again.

“Let’s go make you irresistible,” Hattie says.

Hattie is a great shopping assistant. We gather a pile of dresses in Nordstrom and she sends me into the dressing room.

The first two I don’t even bother showing her. They’re not good for my petite frame. Then come a few I need her advice about. She gives me a head shake, then another, then a lukewarm, “I don’t hate that one…” Which makes us both laugh.

I’ve probably tried on ten dresses when I slip into one that unexpectedly makes me stop and catch my breath. I wouldn’t have picked it off the rack, but Hattie has a good eye. Dusty pink isn’t a color that looks good on most people, but this dress totally works for me. It falls to mid-calf, which is a length I usually loathe, but the tunic hemline is actually incredibly flattering. The sleeves are long, the cut simple and form-fitting with a choker neck, a low back, and a deep keyhole cutout that reveals a ton of cleavage without being cheap.

“Holy shit,” Hattie says.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say dryly.

“I’d fuck you,” she says.

I laugh. “Sorry, get in line.” I look back over my shoulder at my reflection in the mirror. “Should I take a picture and send it to Sawyer?”

She shakes her head. “No. You need to see his face the first time he sees you in that dress. But you should text him.”

I hesitate a moment, but what the fuck.

Just bought a dress for the wedding.

I pocket my phone before I can get sucked into watching for those three little dots to form…

The shoe department is next, where with Hattie’s help, I find a pair of dusty-pink peep-toe kitten-heel sandals with three thin ankle straps. They make my legs look like I’ve been working out, and I can’t stop admiring my calves in the mirror. It’s been years since I wore heels.

“I don’t get out enough,” I tell Hattie.

“No, you don’t.”

“It’s a good thing Sawyer doesn’t want a relationship. I can practice on him and it won’t matter that I’m rusty and lame.”

“You’re not rusty and lame,” Hattie says.

“No, I know, I mean—but he can be my practice guy, and then I can date a lot and buy a lot of sexy clothes and shoes.”

“With Trevor’s money,” Hattie adds. “You should keep a separate account with Trevor’s alimony money and use it for all the things you know would piss him off, like strappy sandals and vibrators and dates with other guys. Use your writing money and the child support for food and Madden’s stuff and saving for college.”

I laugh. “Do you do that?”

“If I ever actually received an alimony check I would do that,” she says.

She doesn’t talk much about her ex-husband. He was a jerk when they were married—borderline emotionally abusive and completely uninvested in her life or the kids—and now he barely sees the kids and is a complete deadbeat financially. To be fair, Trevor’s rolling in money between his investment banking job and Helen’s modeling work, but it isn’t like Hattie’s ex is broke, just a loser.

“How is the writing going, by the way?” Hattie asks.

“It’s great,” I say. “I think the fact that I’m willing to write pretty much anything has helped me out. I mean, I have the areas of focus and that helps me market—medical, scientific, tech—but I’ve been taking other work, copywriting, social media and blog content, whatever, and even without Trevor’s money I think Madden and I would be fine.”

Which is a great feeling, obviously. It’s not PC to admit it, but I had a moment of sheer terror when Trevor said he was leaving. I had no idea whether I could make it on my own. He’d been supporting me for the last eight years, my writing jobs had dwindled to hobby level, and mixed in with all the hurt and anger was this thin, thready panic—I can’t be a single mom!

But it turns out I can, and I’m pretty damn good at it.

“Have you done anything with the divorce book yet?”

“No.”

“Come on, Elle, it’s good! You should try to get it published. Or get an agent. I have a friend who wrote a book about organizing your kitchen that wasn’t one-eighth as cute or funny as your book and she wrote a proposal and sent it to an agent, and blammo! She’s a bestseller.”

“I don’t think it usually works like that,” I say dryly.

“Well, you won’t know if you don’t try, will you?”

“Guess not,” I say, which I know is code for I’m not planning to try, but she can believe it means You’re right, Hattie! I should try! if it’ll let her sleep better at night.

I unstrap myself from the beautiful shoes. Midway, my phone buzzes, and I pull it from my pocket.

Picture or it didn’t happen.

Hattie says I need to see your face the first time you see me in the dress.

I’m dying over here, Elle.

Wait till you see the shoes.

Hattie’s face appears above my phone screen. “Quit sexting and let’s go find something that’ll really blow his mind.”

At Victoria’s Secret, Hattie and I take dressing rooms side by side.

“Oh, geez,” she mutters. “I don’t even know how to put this on.” There’s a rustle of clothing and then, “Yeah. No.” More rustling. “That’s more like it.” She whistles softly. “Maybe that’ll help. Elle. Can I confess something?”

“Sure.”

“I have had some really bad sex in the last few months.”

Laughter bursts out of me, and I think I hear someone laughing in the dressing room on the other side of me. It is so like Hattie to start this conversation in a semipublic place.

“I think men are watching too much porn,” she laments. “I’m not a bicycle pump.”

There’s definitely laughter coming from the other dressing room. I’m biting back my own. “Hold that thought, Hattie. We’ll discuss it at lunch.”

Meanwhile, I’ve donned a barely there dusty-pink G-string and teeny-tiny lace demi-bra. And I’m staring at myself in the mirror, pleased with the result.

I grab my phone. You’re really going to like what I have on now.

Tell me????

There is not very much of it. And it is pink. That is all I can say.

I hate you right now. Jonah is home and I can’t even go upstairs and *imagine* for myself.

Maybe tonight?

Are you volunteering to help with the imagining?

I decide to leave him hanging—or, um, its opposite—for a bit on that question.