Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 29192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 146(@200wpm)___ 117(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 146(@200wpm)___ 117(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
“Does that make the shows boring for you?” I ask.
“Not at all. It’s like double-checking my work.”
“Julie actually owns the Pilates studio.”
”It’s a franchise.” She waves her hand. “I’ve two studios. One downtown and one out west.”
“That’s very cool.” I tip my glass toward her. “When did you open your first one?”
“Two years ago. I started working for this electronics firm and hated it. The woman who owned the studio before me was retiring and suggested I buy her out. One hefty bank loan later and I was the proud owner of my own business.”
“Good for you. Life’s treating you well.”
Julie wrinkles her nose. “My business life but not my personal one. It seems like I can only have one good thing going on at any single time.”
“Do tell.” Frankie loves good gossip. It’s the whole reason we started our Wednesday afternoon rituals.
“Julie broke up with her boyfriend last week and has been moping around ever since. I forced her to go out and stop trying to call him to reconnect.” Luna thanks the waiter for bringing the drinks.
“What was wrong with him?”
“Ambition. Total lack of it, actually.” Julie sighs. “In every other aspect, he’s a 10. In fact, in the ambition category, he used to be a 10. He got top marks in college, went to an Ivy League law school, graduated with honors, clerked for a Supreme Court justice, opened his own law firm, handled some big cases, and then boom. Decided he hated law and has been downsizing ever since with the goal of completely quitting the practice.”
Frankie and I exchange glances. He sounds like he’s living every lawyer’s dream. “Is that so terrible? Everyone I know who practices law hates it,” I say.
“He’s a great lawyer and now sits at home most days. I don’t even know what he does there other than probably scratch his balls and watch reruns of old football games.” Julie tips her glass toward me. “It was false advertising. He sold himself as one type of person and then ended up being someone else. If I wanted a couch-surfing slacker, there are plenty hanging around.”
“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.” As Luna taps the edge of her glass against Julie’s, she kicks me under the table. I dutifully join the cheers at the center of the table, and so does Frankie because this is happy hour but also lady solidarity hour. If girls can’t bitch about bad boyfriends to other girls, what is even the point?
Chapter Three
DYLAN
“Oh hey, Julie.” Reluctantly, I open the door to my drunk and disheveled ex. It’s one in the morning, and I tried to ignore the incessant ringing of the doorbell, but when the dog next door started barking, I hauled myself out of bed.
“Why?” she cries, launching herself into my arms. The smell of booze and stale smoke fills my lungs. I half-carry, half-drag her into the living room and drop her onto the sofa.
“Julie, we’re broken up now, so you can’t be showing up at my house at all hours of the day and night. You shouldn’t be showing up at all. People that break up go to their own houses. That’s the whole point of breaking up.” I shove a hand through my hair. Julie decided she wanted to stop dating a few weeks ago, which I was fine with.
“We don’t have to be broken up. We can date again. I still love you. You just need to go back to law. It’s your calling.”
That’s one way to put it. Albatross would be another.
“You’re going to be thrilled to know that I’m wrapping up my last two cases this month and then closing the law office for good.”
“Noooooo,” she wails.
A weeping woman is a nightmare. A weeping drunk woman who is trying to shame me back into an active law practice is the precipice to hell. This is punishment for being a dick to women in the past. I leave the crying Julie to fetch a glass of water and aspirin. When I return, snoring has replaced the tears. I set down the water and pills and lay a blanket my mom knitted over Julie’s passed-out body.
I should kick her out, but I feel guilty over not caring that she broke up with me.
To be honest, I hadn’t realized we were dating in the first place. I was at a park, staring at the grass wondering what was so great about getting in touch with nature, when this woman started talking to me. She was a fitness fan—yoga and Pilates specifically. She talked about how flexible these exercises made her. I nodded along because my mom had just been diagnosed with cancer, and I could hear her telling me it cost nothing to be polite. She was wrong. It actually took a lot of effort to appear interested in things that aren’t interesting.