Chapter 2

Emma

Another bright, sunny but cold day in Camden, Maine, and I still couldn’t get the condescension out of my attitude. There was snow on the sidewalks creating a slushy mess, and our winter was definitely not over with. Still, I loved this town. I was just feeling a bit bitter with Valentine’s Day twelve hours away. Luckily, I had taken my lunch break with one of my closest friends, Caroline, who had come back from another one of her crazy trips. Caroline was not rooted in reality at all, but I loved her. She was a trust fund baby and spent her days traveling, satisfying her wanderlust personality. I smiled as she went on about her time in Sussex, her bohemian jewelry clinking together as her long, dirty blond hair fell around her shoulders.

“I’m really shocked you went to England,” I said, eating a chip. “I didn’t think it would be exotic enough for you.”

“It’s history, my love.” She smiled. “Besides, I had to give my thirty thousand Instagram followers something more than sand and surf. They were starting to think I was a snob.”

“You have thirty thousand Instagram followers?”

“Yeah.” She laughed. “Crazy, isn’t it? I picked up a sponsorship from that privately-owned bathing suit company, and I went from five k to thirty k overnight. It was insane.”

“It’s the belly chain,” I said. “Dudes dig the belly chain.”

“And chicks,” she pointed out.

“You need to start your own brand,” I said. “Let me make you something, like a logo and you can sell cut off T-shirts with it on the back.”

“I like that, but seriously, you need to come with me soon. I’m going to Hawaii in a few weeks. You should come, get some tan on those cheeks, and I don’t mean the ones on your face. I’ll teach you to surf.”

“I wish,” I sighed. “I’m the only graphic artist other than the owner, and we’re the only company in Camden that does it. We are swamped all of the time.”

“Maybe he’d let you work remotely,” she said. “I meet people all the time who work and travel. That’s what they do.”

“You know he’s too uptight for that.” I laughed at the image in my head of his reaction to such a request. “I can barely work off the other computer in the office without him getting paranoid.”

“Well, I’m not going to lose hope.” She smiled. “So how have you been doing with the break-up?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged and looked out the window.

I stopped everything, stopped talking, stopped chewing, everything. As if Alex, my ex, could hear our conversation, he popped up in front of the window, canoodling with his new girlfriend, the girl I’d caught him cheating on me with. Alex and I had been high school sweethearts, had gone to the same college, and we were shoo-ins for the first to be happily married. That was, until I’d found him balls deep in one of the local first-grade teachers. Apparently, they had been together for months behind my back, and everyone knew but me. It was humiliating and heartbreaking, and his little antic had completely turned me off to other men.

“Ew,” Caroline said, looking over her shoulder at them and yelling out as she tapped the window. “Get a room, asshole!”

I smirked and giggled as they looked wide-eyed at her and then gave her the finger. Alex glanced at me for a moment before his girlfriend pulled him down the sidewalk and out of view. It still hurt, almost as much as it did the first time I heard the news, and I still couldn’t get the picture of the two of them doing it out of my head. My mood immediately darkened.

“Come on,” Caroline said. “Don’t be pouty. He had a flat ass anyway. That should have been your first sign. Men with flat asses always end up being douchebags.”

“Is that a scientific fact, or are you making it up?” I laughed and gathered my things. “I’m fine. I have to go back to work. I love you forever.”

“I love you too.” She kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll call you later.”

I went back to work, sitting at my desk and staring at the logo on the screen. My mind was traveling through all the things that had happened recently. The breakup, my downward spiral, the winter blues, and my jealousy of Caroline’s perfect life all culminated into one huge shitstorm that clouded any happiness from coming over me. I struggled to concentrate for the rest of the day, pretending like I was working, but really, I was only moving lines back and forth. My boss didn’t really give me a hard time, knowing without me, the place would crumble, but still, I had work that was coming up to its due date.

With the rain cloud following over my head, there was no way I was going to get anything accomplished. I tried fielding some client calls, putting some finishing touches on other projects, but in the end, my mind was not into it. My boss, Greg, came out of his office and stood in front of my desk, staring at me. He was such a strange guy, never wanting to interrupt the train of thought I apparently looked like I had. I moved the mouse around on the pad and then glanced up at him and smiled.

“What’s up, boss?”

“It’s supposed to start snowing again in about an hour,” he said, nodding toward the window. “Why don’t you head on out so you don’t get stuck driving in it? I know you live on the other side of town.”

“Thanks.” I faked a bit of cheer. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Great,” he said. “And Emma?”

“Yeah?” I glanced up again.

“Don’t let Alex get to you. He didn’t deserve you anyway.”

“Oh,” I said. Wow. News traveled fast. “Thanks, Greg.”

I sighed as he walked away. That served to remind me I lived in a town where my ex sneezed, and everyone knew. I guess someone had told him about that afternoon, and though Greg was awkward and didn’t know how to talk to people, he’d felt obliged to try to comfort me in a robotic and forced kind of way. I shook my head and pulled my bag over my shoulder, nodding at Greg as I left the office. My life was starting to feel like something from the Twilight Zone. I jumped in my car and headed over to my house, happy to finally be home for the day. My neighbor, who was about a million years old, waved at me from her window, and I forced a huge grin and smiled back. I was not in the mood for my life that day.

I got inside and threw my stuff down, headed into the kitchen, grabbed a bag of chips and a beer, and plopped down in my living room with my feet up. I was not looking forward to going to work the next day, knowing the whole town would be decked out in hearts, ribbons, and everything to do with love. It was like this holiday was trying to make me the most miserable woman in the world. I leaned my head back, trying to relieve my stress headache. When had I gotten so bitter and angry? Then I remembered what Alex had done, and I shook my head, giving myself permission to continue. I flipped through the channels trying to avoid jewelry commercials, any sitcoms because they were all V-Day themed, or any channels playing the endless drone of chick flicks. I settled on cartoons and stared at the television, letting my brain go numb.

About two hours later, and five episodes of Ren and Stimpy reruns, I blinked. Had I really been sitting in the same spot, zoning out, and holding the same beer that I had only sipped twice? I was letting myself slip away into a self-pity coma. Just then my phone rang, and I grabbed it, thankful to be brought back to the real world.

“Hello?”

“Hey there, bestie,” my other best friend, Gillian said. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to numb my brain on useless television,” I said in a monotone voice.

“Well, give it a rest, and come to my house,” she said. “Caroline is here, and we have something we want to talk to you about.”

“But my plans were to sink into the couch until I started to form with the cushions, ultimately leading to my disappearance,” I said.

“Yeah, knock that shit off,” Gillian said.

“All right, give me ten minutes,” I groaned.

I pulled on a sweatshirt, grabbed my hat and shoes, and headed out to the car. I could walk, but it was way too fucking cold for that nonsense, so I drove the four blocks to Gillian’s house. I walked in the front door and followed the diatribe of giggles coming from the kitchen where I found the two of them whispering. They stopped and looked up at me, mischievous smiles on their faces. Uh-oh, those looks never turned out good for me.

“So, what is this all about?” I peeked into Gillian’s candy bowl. “And where are all the gummy worms?”

“I ate them,” Gillian said. “But that is not why we called you over.”

“I assumed not. And by the looks on your faces, you’ve decided to torture me with some master plan you two have. I want to say ahead of time, unless it has something to do with knives, guns, laser beams, or my code name, Double-oh-eight, I’m not interested.”

“Just sit down,” Caroline said, shaking her head.

“I heard about Alex and the whore today.” Gillian rubbed my knee sympathetically. “All I have to say is good riddance. Let that two-timing homewrecker deal with his disgusting ass.”

“I appreciate the female solidarity,” I said, pounding my fist on my chest. “But we all know Alex was not disgusting, even if he was an ass.”

“The biggest ass there ever was.” Caroline nodded astutely.

“Guys, focus. Why did you call me out of my cartoon coma?”

“Oh,” Gillian said excitedly, sitting up straight in her chair and glancing at Caroline. “We have decided, and made all the arrangements, to take you on a last-minute trip for Valentine’s Day to get you out of your funk.”

“Uh, hello? I have to work, and I have a date with this hot little number, Jack Daniels, who wants to spend a romantic evening at home tomorrow night,” I said. “We had big plans.”

“Did it include tears, eating your weight in potato chips, and waking up in a hungover grease trap?” Caroline looked at me with a knowing stare.

“Hey, he has been my greatest ally through all of this,” I said. “And that happened one time, and it was the day after I watched my future husband, the future father of my future children, banging a girl in my kitchen. I seriously cordoned off that section of my counter. It will never be used again.”

“Right. Do you see anything wrong with this picture?” Gillian said. “You have a boyfriend in a bottle and police tape in your kitchen.”

I sat there staring at them, thinking about spending Valentine’s Day alone for the first time since I was a kid. I imagined the mess of me covered in Cheeto powder, crying over my ex who’d be out romancing his new girlfriend. I sighed and looked back up at the girls.

“Fine. I’m in,” I said reluctantly.

“Good because we already cleared it with Greg.” Caroline smiled at my double-take.

“Where are we going, anyway?”

Caroline looked at me and smirked, holding up a piece of paper with the Statue of Liberty on it.

“New York City.”