Page 25 of Lease to Love

Mine usually were.

No customers asking if I had something in a size I had clearly never carried. No receipt printer screaming for attention. No suppliers calling to tell me an order was delayed because Mercury was in retrograde or somebody’s cousin’s dog had gotten sick or whatever the hell excuse they were using this week.

Just me, my apartment, and the blessed silence of having nowhere to be.

I sat cross-legged on my bed, a mechanical pencil moving lazily between my fingers. One of my hundreds of journals was open across my lap, its pages already crowded with half-finished thoughts, dress silhouettes, fabric ideas, grocery lists, and random phrases I'd written down because my brain had decided they were important at two in the morning.

And Maya was on speakerphone, currently explaining how her date the night before had been a complete and utter disaster.

“Girl, I’m telling you, that man ordered his steak extra well done.”

I stopped drawing long enough to look down at the ridiculous little dress I'd been sketching.

“Extra well done?”

“Extra well done.”

I frowned at the page. “His ass is probably still chewing.”

Maya laughed on the other end.

Maya had been my best friend since the first day of first grade, when I'd watched her playing double-dutch during recess, decided she looked like somebody I needed to know, and jumped directly into the game without being invited.

I'd landed on one of the ropes, nearly taken out two children, and announced that Maya was my new best friend.

She'd stared at me like I was crazy… Then she'd moved over and made room.

Twenty-something years later, here we were.

“He said he didn’t like seeing blood in his food,” she continued.

I turned the page and started another sketch.

“Maybe he likes his steak with the texture of a tire.”

“Sunny, you know damn well that’s not the point.”

I snickered.

I pictured her in those fuzzy house slippers she refused to admit were ugly, probably cleaning something that didn't need cleaning while simultaneously rearranging furniture she would move back three days later.

“I’m just saying,” she continued, “there were warning signs.”

My pencil scratched lightly across the paper. “There are always warning signs with your men.”

I shaded the waist of the dress I was drawing, tongue poking slightly into my cheek as I concentrated.

“Not always.”

“Maya.”

“Okay. Usually.”

I laughed, the sound bouncing around my little apartment. “You left, right?”

“I left.”

I nodded to myself, even though she couldn't see me. “Good.”