Page 16 of Ruthless Creatures

“I told you he was a widower. It’s the only logical explanation.”

Sloane and I are at lunch. We’ve already dropped the gown at the consignment shop. Now we’re hunched over our salads, replaying my encounter with Kage to try to get it to make sense.

“So you think he saw me in the dress and…”

“Flipped out,” she finishes, nodding. “It reminded him of his dead wife. Shit, this must be recent.” Munching on a mouthful of lettuce, she mulls it over for a moment. “That’s probably why he moved to town. Wherever he was living before reminded him too much of her. God, I wonder how she died?”

“Probably an accident. He’s young—what do you think? Early thirties?”

“To mid at the most. They might not have been married very long.” She makes a sound of sympathy. “Poor guy. It doesn’t seem like he’s taking it well.”

I feel a twinge of dismay at the way I treated him this morning. I was so embarrassed to be caught in my wedding dress, and sosurprised to see him instead of Sloane, I’m afraid I was a bit of a bitch.

“So what was in the box he brought over?”

“Painting supplies. Oils and brushes. The weird thing is that I don’t remember ordering them.”

Sloane looks at me with a combination of sympathy and hope. “Does this mean you’re working on a new piece?”

Avoiding her searching eyes, I pick at my salad. “I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it.”

More like I don’t want to make up a lie, but if I tell her that I’m still not painting but I somehow ordered myself art supplies without remembering I did, she’ll drive me straight from lunch to a therapist’s office.

Maybe Diane Myers was right: I’m living in a bubble. A big, fuzzy bubble of denial that’s disconnected me from the world. I’m slowly but surely losing touch with real life.

Sloane says, “Oh, babe, I’m so glad! This is great forward progress!”

When I glance up, she’s beaming at me. Now I feel like an asshole. I’ll have to slap some paint on an empty canvas when I get home just so I’m not consumed by guilt.

“And you did so well at the consignment shop, too. Not a tear in sight. I’m very proud.”

“Does this mean I can order another glass of wine?”

“You’re a big girl. You can do whatever you want.”

“Good, because it’s still The Day That Will Not Be Mentioned, and I’m hoping to be blacked out by four o’clock.”

The time I was supposed to be walking down the aisle on this date five years ago.

Thank god it’s a Saturday, or I’d have a lot of explaining to do when I toppled over reeking of booze in the middle of teaching class.

Sloane is distracted from whatever disapproving statement she was about to say by her cell phone chirping. A text has come through.

She digs her phone out of her bag, looks at it, and grins. “Oh, yeah, big boy.”

Then she looks up at me and her face falls. She shakes her head and starts to type. “I’ll tell him we need to reschedule.”

“Him who? Reschedule what?”

“It’s Stavros. We’re supposed to be going out tonight. I forgot.”

“Stavros?You’re dating a Greek shipping tycoon?”

She stops typing and rolls her eyes. “No, girl, he’s the hottie I’ve been telling you about.”

When I stare at her blankly, she insists, “The one who showed up at my yoga class in tight gray sweatpants with no underwear on so everyone could see a perfect outline of his dick?”

I arch an eyebrow, sure I would have remembered that.