Page 5 of When the Walls Come Down
Lifting the phone to my ear, I greeted, “Holy shit, are you actually up past nine?”
She snapped right back. “Holy shit, is your life so sad that you actually answered the phone on the first ring at nine on a Friday night?”
“Yes. But it’s only six here, so I get a little credit.”
“Damn, I keep forgetting about the time difference.”
I leaned down to retrieve my red Solo cup of wine. It was absurdly cheap and totally gross, but since it had been a welcome gift from my apartment complex and contained alcohol, I was willing to give it a shot. “Yeah, the time is killing me too. Heath tried to FaceTime me at five in the morning yesterday, and when I didn’t answer, he called my apartment manager’s emergency contact number and demanded she do a health and welfare check.”
She half gasped, half laughed. “He did not.”
“Oh, yes, he did. Luckily, no one in California seems to give a shit, so she didn’t bother following Heath’s orders. She did give me a rather intense side-eye when I went to pick up my key for the pool yesterday though.” I tipped the cup of wine to my lips, grimacing when the floral-noted acid hit my tongue. But hey, free was free. I took another sip.
Melanie laughed. “Well, at least you have a pool. It could be worse.”
“Ehhh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. There was a two-hundred-year-old man swimming laps in a speedo this morning.”
“But did he fill them out?”
“I don’t know, you perv. He was a mummy minus the wrap job. I wasn’t waiting around for him to do the backstroke.”
She laughed again and it made my stomach knot. It had only been a week, but I missed my old life. Mel and I had met for dinner once or twice a month. She would sit across the booth, sipping a beer, damn near ecstatic to have a night away from her husband and toddler. I’d sit across from her, stirring a vodka cranberry, romantically prattling on for hours about my big plans to get the hell out of Atlanta. She was one of the few people who’d believed I’d actually move, though she had predicted I’d hate living alone in a new city.
I’d never admit it to her how right she’d been.
How the hell did people meet other people anyway? I’d downloaded a friend finder app, received two dick pics in the first thirty seconds, deleted it, and then accepted my fate as a genie trapped in a bottle.
I just needed to wait it out. I’d meet some people when I started my new job on Monday. God, I had to be the worst self-proclaimed adventurer in existence. San Francisco was a booming, high-energy city, and I, Maggie Light, was home alone, drinking cheap wine from a plastic cup, and staring at a red brick wall. My passport should have been revoked right then and there.
The pale-red poison sloshed against the side of the cup as I swirled it. “Yeah, but besides the geriatrics in the pool, I’m loving it here.”
Either I was the worst liar in history or my siblings had been born with built-in bullshit detectors.
She sighed. “You gotta get out of your apartment. I know you want this so-called adventure, but the world isn’t going to magically come to you.”
“I’ve been out,” I defended. “Just yesterday, I found a two-piece patio set for my balcony.”
“Ten bucks says you had your headphones on and never spoke to another human being.”
She wasn’t totally wrong. I hadn’t been wearing my headphones, but as I’d nearly died hauling the fake wicker table and chair to my apartment, there hadn’t been a single second of human interaction. This included when someone else who lived in the building had let the door slam in my face after I’d called out multiple times for her to hold it. California was seriously lacking in the Southern hospitality department.
“I’m taking your silence as confirmation,” Melanie said. “So here’s what we are going to do. Get up, take off your pajamas—”
“Who said I’m wearing pajamas?” Baggy sweatpants and a T-shirt were also considered loungewear. Though I had slept in them the night before. So…
“Like I was saying, take a shower. Do your hair, and no, I don’t mean putting it up in a ponytail. Straighten those curls, Mags. Then utilize the four hundred pounds of makeup you own, lashes and all. Then—and listen up because this is the most important thing I will ever tell you. Are you listening?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m on pins and needles.”
“Four words. Short and low cut. You have great boobs that have never been gnawed on by a ravenous newborn. Use. Them. You also have Mom’s long legs, while I got Dad’s tree stumps. Show. Them. Off.”
I shifted in my chair, not making the first effort to follow through with her instructions. “Not happening.”
