Page 4 of Last Fall

2

Zoe

How to Get Away with Being aHotMess

(WithFabulousHair)

On FridaysI take myself out to lunch as a reward for being a badass all week. I quickly learned that life as a writer is very different from anything else I’d ever done. For two years I was a nanny. And being a nanny meant I was always moving...well, until I collapsed from exhaustion at the end of each day. But even then it was just a pause between frantically chasing two tiny girls and keeping themalive.

But now I was a full-time writer, and that was more like becoming the human version of a rock. Inside, my mind was working at a million miles an hour, living the lives of a dozen different people at once. Outside...not so much. Other than the movement of my fingers over the keyboard, my body didn’t really move. The other side effect? If I didn’t take the time to think about it, I forgot about goingoutside.

So on Fridays—whether anyone could come with me or not—I took myself to Samurai Blue for lunch. It was a standing date. My best friends knew they were welcome if they could make it but that I enjoyed simply being out of the house for an hour, eating good food. So if I was alone, that wasfinetoo.

It was on one of these quiet Friday afternoons, somewhere between my soup and my salad, that I started to wonder if maybe I’d gotten a little too comfortable being alone. I was reading an early copy of a friend’s book, humming between spoonfuls of soup, when the person sitting beside mespokeup.

“Did you know you’re wearing two differentshoes?”

At first I stared at the older woman. Other than saying hello when she sat down beside me at the sushi bar we hadn’t spoken. Now I could see that she was about the age of my mother, her makeup light and hersmilekind.

I tore my gaze away to look down atmyfeet.

Sonofa—

“No,” I sighed. “I did not.Thankyou.”

She smiled. It was a very sympathetic smile. Not at all patronizing or—even worse—freaked out. Yeah, I’d scared a few people with my five-day-writing-sprint-no-shower-zombie looks before. “Your shirt is on insideout,too.”

Son of a bitch!I didn’t enjoy swearing but this most certainly called for it. How many times had I asked the girls to wear their clothes correctly over the years? Dozens. If not hundreds. And here I was,in public, with less care than two littlegirls.

I was a terribleexample.

“Thank you.” I turned bright red. Needless to say, I did not do embarrassment well. “I’ll be right back.” I slid quietly into the tiny bathroom at the back of the restaurant. I’d secretly hoped when I looked in the mirror I’d find she was wrong. Unfortunately my super cute turquoise sleeveless blouse was, in fact,insideout.

Add in the tennis shoe on my left foot and the gold flat on my right, and I was ahotmess.

“Pull it together, Zoe,” I muttered under my breath. The fact of the matter was that I was stressed. I didn’t want to admit that success was turning me into a basket case of nerves because logically it should be the other way around. Success should mean less stress. It should mean comfortandease.

Instead I was full of insecurities and slowly unraveling under the weight of expectation. I needed to open my mouth and talk to my friends. Or my agent.Both.I needed to talk to all of them. Talking would help so much and I knew I should have picked up the phone and insisted either June or Carrie make it to lunchtoday.

But I didn’t want toimpose.

And look where that got me. Insecure in a bathroom fixing my inside out clothes. At least my hair lookedfabulous.

When I returned from the bathroom the lady was gone and my sushi had arrived. A little weight lifted. Other than the mismatched shoes, I was back to being a totally normal, if not slightly eccentric,woman.

Cue the twist in the story.At least that’s what I would have written on my bright pink Post-it note if I were plotting the story of my life. Just as I was lifting the first delicious bite to my mouth a new person sat downbesideme.

A much largerperson.

A masculine brute ofaman.

“Zoe?”

I choked onmyfood.

“Oh god, Zoe. Areyouokay?”

I waved at him with my napkin as I swallowed gulps of water. “Fine.” I coughed some more. “I’mtotallyfine.”