Chapter 3
I’m notsure what I’m going to walk into at the hotel room—it hasn’t been long, my friends could still be out at the bar—but when I open the door to one of the adjoining rooms we’ve booked, Sara is sitting on top of the covers of one bed and on her phone, a soft smile on her face. She glances up at me in surprise. “Hey, what are you doing back?”
I don’t know where Jade and Tessa are, but I throw my bag in the general direction of the table and flop face-first onto the bed next to her. “I couldn’t do it,” I say, voice muffled by the comforter, but thankfully, Sara is proficient in Emma-feelings enough to make an educated guess. Her hand lands softly on my shoulder.
“Couldn’t do what?”
I flop right-side-up and we both wiggle into a comfortable position on the bed, backs against the headboard.
“He wanted to go down on me. I mean, he went down on me. But it was…” I trail off, not sure how to finish the sentence.
“It wasn’t good?” Sara guesses.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Do you know how long it’s been since a man has gone down on me?” Then I wince because Sara’s husband passed many years ago when her daughter was a toddler. “Sorry. I should remember who I’m talking to.”
“It’s okay,” Sara says, grabbing my hand and pulling it into her lap, then patting it. “How long has it been?”
I have to think about when the last time my ex-husband did that—I try to think about it, but I’m tired, and it was not that memorable. Maybe our twentieth anniversary? “I honestly don’t remember the last time Bruce did that. Years. He never did like it, anyway.”
Sara chuckles. “It’s been a long time for me, too, so my memory might be a little hazy. But I don’t remember Kit being all that good at it. I mean, we were so young; everything was just rolled up with enthusiasm. And after Zoe was born, it was a lot of quickies as we could catch them.”
“What about some of the guys you’ve dated recently?”
“I think we either never got to that part or skipped the foreplay.”
“You should never skip the foreplay,” Jade interrupts as the door to the bathroom swings open. She’s wrapped her hair up in a towel and has a T-shirt and shorts on for sleeping. “Emma,” she says, eyebrow raising in surprise. “Is everything okay?”
By the time I’ve filled Jade in, the door to the hallway opens, and Tessa joins us. Before I can say anything, Jade waves a hand. “Yes, Emma’s back. She’s fine. He was fine, but the night was not a success.”
“Oh,” Tessa says, sitting at the foot of the bed and giving my bare foot a squeeze. “Are you going to see him again?”
I shake my head hard. “Definitely not. I basically just ran out of his apartment, and he probably thinks there’s something wrong with me.”
“Why did you run out?” Jade asks.
“Because it was embarrassing. I wasn’t expecting that!”
“What?” Jade asks, her brow wrinkling.
“I wasn’t expecting him to put his mouth down there! I just thought…I don’t know! I couldn’t stop thinking about how it had been a few hours since I’d showered and I had just peed at the bar and I haven’t done any upkeep down there because obviously I wasn’t planning to go home with a guy and…” Great, now I’m crying. “I guess I’m just not ready yet.”
“Hey,” Tessa coos. “That’s okay. It’s all taking steps and trying something new, right?”
“Emma, babe, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pressure you.” Jade sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, the skin under her teeth turning white as she worries it.
“You didn’t pressure me. Really. I was excited at the bar, but when he was actually…you know…I just couldn’t turn my brain off and enjoy it.”
“You definitely have to be in the right headspace for it,” Tessa says. “A bit of confidence goes a long way.”
I sit up, wiping my eyes, and give my friends my best attempt at a smile. “It gets better, right?”
“Of course it does!” Jade assures me.
Sara agrees, even though I think it’s more wishful thinking than anything else.
But Tessa, the only one of us actually in a relationship, smiles knowingly and goes a little dreamy. She must be thinking about her boyfriend, Luc. Sara, Jade, and I exchange glances and then Jade lunges for the other bed, grabbing a pillow. Sara and I take the ones from behind us and whack Tessa.
She laughs and squeals, fending off the blows as best she can.
We don’t pillow fight for long—seriously, a pillow fight at our age? Bruce, my ex, would have keeled over with a heart attack over me having a pillow fight with my “hot friends”—and end up all on the same bed, sprawled out and laughing.
Weapons down, Jade returns to the important topics. “It’s a great sign that he went down on you, though. Like, I hate to say how low my bar has gotten lately. I’m fine with any foreplay, but goddamn, so many men want to skip right to p-in-v, and I’m fucking tired of it.”
Tessa hums. “You know, the first time Luc went down on me, I asked if he wanted me to shower first. I get that we’re all human and have bodily functions and whatnot. It’s a legit concern, but some men just really like it. And then, once you get into it, you don’t really think about anything else.” She shrugs.
“Hard agree,” Jade adds.
That’s what I worry about. Sometimes, with Bruce, he gave up before I could come. It’s so hard to stay present.
Plus, I’m pretty sure Jade and Tessa keep their pubic hair relatively trim. Maybe I should ask for some tips.
Tessa departs for the bathroom, and Jade and I vacate to the other bedroom. I shower, washing off any lingering smells of wine and hot Italian men, and then get in bed. Jade, in the other bed, flips over on her side to face me before I turn out the light.
“I’m sorry your night didn’t work out,” she says softly.
“I know. But it was a step forward, and I wouldn’t have been brave enough for that without your support. Thanks for that.”
“Any time, babe. And now you’ll probably meet some cute fellow MBA student who’s a few years younger than you but has all the eagerness and stamina that comes with it, and he can rock your world.”
I chuckle at that. Luc is younger than Tessa, but I’m not sure that interests me. I like the maturity and self-assuredness Santo carried. Maybe there’s someone like that waiting for me, and maybe he’ll be in the crowd of new students.
It’sa teary goodbye with my best friends, but it’s tempered by the fact that I’ll see them again in a month. After waving to the car that whisks them off to the airport, I take my things and call my own Uber to go to my new apartment.
I have two large bags with me from my time in Madrid and a small bag for the weekend. My intention was to leave the big bags packed until I got to my new place, but I made a huge mess looking for things in them—half of which I ended up finding in the smaller bag after a harried search—and I didn’t pack them up as neatly anymore. Hence, I greet the landlord of the apartment complex with bulging bags I can barely carry, plus a handful of sweatshirts that mysteriously no longer fit in my suitcases.
The man is nice enough, showing me the small entrance with double doors, the (very European) cramped elevator where we stuff my bags in with us, and the small apartment that I’ll be living in.
It’s fully furnished, so by the time my bags are in and we’ve made a few trips down to the storage area to get the boxes I shipped over ahead of time, the space is feeling rather tiny. Plus, my apartment is one of the unrenovated ones in the building, which means it is cheaper. I think most of these are unfurnished and nicer. Since it’s just me, I don’t need a lot of space, but I wanted to be close to the school.
I’m not the only one moving in today—down the hallway there are boxes stacked outside of another door, and someone else is moving in on the first floor too.
“We house a lot of students and professors,” my landlord explains. “Not…how do you say in English? Dormitory?”
“Dorm.” I think back to the previous fall, moving my youngest child into their dorm room in LA. It’s very different from these quiet halls and humble apartments.
“Yes. Next to you, there’s a student at the fashion institute. The new one, down the hall”—he points in the general direction of the boxes—“is a professor. I think the same university as you?”
“That would be nice.” I picture a female professor who might be closer to my age, someone who could become a mentor or even a friend.
He leaves me to unpack, and as I’m trying to decide where to store my shell suitcase, there’s a knock at my new door.
There are voices in the hallway, but as I open my door, another one closes down the hall and there’s only one person outside. Well, one person and a barking dog.
A young woman, about the age of my kids, I estimate, stands in the hallway with the dog on a leash. The dog is stout, with one of those scrunched-up noses. A French bulldog, maybe? I’m not good with dog breeds.
“Oliver! Taci!” The woman glares down at the dog. When she looks back up, she brightens. “I am Eva. I live next door.” She gestures down the hall toward the boxes. Eva has a thick Italian accent, short dark hair, and a nose piercing. She smells faintly of cigarette smoke. Oliver is still harrumphing at me.
“Emma,” I offer her my hand, and we shake. “I hear you are a fashion student.”
“Yes, I am.” We chat for a few minutes until Oliver impatiently tugs at the leash to go back home. “Good luck with your studies,” Eva says as she walks away, which seems like a very final thing to say to someone who you’ll see every day, probably, but I chalk it up to a language barrier.
Back inside, I put a few more things away and check my phone. There are messages in the group text with my kids, who want to do a video call tonight and settled on nearly 10 p.m. my time. Also in the app are various “I’m home” messages from my friends, and I send them some pics of my apartment.
I fall asleep on the couch and wake up to darkness. Blinking in confusion, I sit up before looking out the window. Two golden, glowing eyes stare back at me.
I stifle a scream, my heart leaping in my throat, before I recognize that it’s a cat. They slowly blink at me.
My apartment doesn’t have a lot of windows, but there are two tall ones that face the building next door. They must have a ledge the cat is sitting on.
I stand, and the cat disappears before I can say or do anything else. I close the curtains anyway—no peeping toms, human or otherwise, are invited. Who lets their black cat roam freely at night?