1

PAIGE

I’m officially divorced, broke, and homeless.

I suppose I could go sleep in my storage unit if I was willing to get rid of some of my stuff. The few possessions I decided to take with me are now stuffed in that overpriced black hole. I’m not even sure it was worth it to keep them, but the thought of leaving everything I own behind was unbearable.

I’ve lost too much already.

But sleeping in a storage unit is even more depressing than my current situation. So instead, I sit on this park bench, my butt and fingers going numb with cold, as night slowly falls around me. I’m staring at the pizzeria across the street. The Crimson Orchid, it’s called, according to the sign looming above the red awning. The smell of freshly baked mozzarella wafts over to me like a tease. My stomach growls in response.

But after the extortion at the storage facility, I’ve got sixty dollars left to my name, and I’m not about to spend a third of that money on a pizza. No matter how tantalizing it smells.

Honestly, it’s probably not even that good. I’ve learned a lot about things that are too good to be true in the last few days. When your marriage turns out to be a sham and your husband turns out to be a crook, you really stop taking things at face value.

I cringe as I feel myself spiraling again. It’s easy to get lost in the circuit of nasty thoughts that has held me captive since I came home to find out that Anthony was gone, along with all my money, my job, and my trust in men.

Thoughts like, This is your fault.

Thoughts like, You should have seen this coming.

Thoughts like, You deserve every single bit of what’s happening to you.

I also keep replaying the words of the mortgage officer who came to evict me from my house. My mama always told me that a woman oughta keep a ‘Break in Case of Emergency’ fund. It don’t matter how charming a man may seem—you gotta look out for you.

That lesson came a little too late to be useful, unfortunately. This is an emergency alright—a red alert, five-chili-pepper, all-hands-on-deck emergency. But there’s not much I can do to save myself. I’ve got no fund, and the only true friend I ever had is dead.

I touch the pendant I wear around my neck at all times. I wish you were here, Clara, I murmur. I wish it wasn’t my fault that you’re gone.

Shaking my head, I refocus my attention on the meager list of positives I’ve got going for me.

One, I found a new job today. Crazy enough, the salary is actually fairly decent for a personal assistant.

Two, I managed to find a new apartment not too far from the office building, though the lease doesn’t start for another three days.

Three is… well, no, there isn’t really a three. I’m still out a husband and a home and all my hope for the future.

A bubble of frantic, insane laughter escapes my chapped lips. It draws a few concerned stares from passersby. Great, I’m that chick now—the crazy lady sitting on a park bench, cackling to herself like a witch.

I sigh and fall silent. It’s easier to think about nothing than it is to think about what I’m gonna do next. The past is a no-go, the future is a disaster-in-waiting, and the present just straight up sucks. So meditating on the all-consuming blackness of the void is actually pretty nice in comparison.

But my stomach won’t be so easily distracted.

Once it gets dark, I find myself walking in a trance towards the restaurant. I tell myself along the way that buying a pizza isn’t the worst idea in the world. There’re eight slices to a pie, so if I eat two and two-thirds pieces every day for the next three days, I can live off that one pizza until I get my apartment.

Brilliant. Fiscally responsible, too.

Therefore, let there be pizza.

The restaurant is mostly empty when I walk inside. I can hear the hubbub of activity in the kitchen, but the only other person in the main dining area is a pale, reedy maître d’ with a thin mustache.

He regards me with a sneer that makes me feel like I’m two inches tall. “Can I help you, madam?”

I swear he’s doing a faint, arrogant French accent, although that might just be my hunger playing tricks on me. “I’d like a… a pizza, please. I mean, a table. So I can order a pizza.”

That’s what normal people do, right? They sit at tables to order food?

Jesus H., I’m a couple days into homelessness and already forgetting how the world operates.

He sweeps his watery eyes up and down me. I’m dressed normally—again, not to belabor the point, but it’s only been two days into this nightmare—and yet I feel like he can see the invisible grime plastered all over me. Broke. Homeless. Desperate.

I shake my head. I need to focus on the goal here: pizza.

“Very well. This way, ma’am,” he drawls. He tucks a menu under his arm and stalks away with a stiff neck and his chin thrust high into the air like a shark fin.

Every other table is empty, but he still seats me at the worst one, an unstable two-top right by the kitchen doors. He thrusts the menu into my hands. “I will be back to take your order shortly.” Then he turns and walks away.

He’s a douche, but I forget about him the moment I’m gone. I’m too busy drooling from the first line I read.

Herb-infused dough fired to perfection over open flame in our handmade brick oven. Strands of silky mozzarella draped over a ripe, decadently rich marinara sauce, still simmering with the charcoal smoke of the fires. Sundried tomatoes and fresh goat cheese form a smooth, tangy blend that accentuates the umami sizzle of our house-prepared pepperoni, and a mist of truffle oil adds layers of sumptuousness to delight the palate.

Great God Almighty, I’m hungry.

I flick my eyes up and see the maître d’ watching me salivate. I feel guilty, like he’s catching me looking at p**n in public, but I can’t help how literally turned-on I get at the thought of a pizza and a glass of cabernet.

Safe to say I’ve had better days.

I read the menu front to back twice, then close it with a sigh. My stomach is screaming at me and my hands are shaking.

The maître d’ marches back over. “Well?” he says haughtily.

“I’ll take a… pepperoni pizza,” I whisper. “Please.”

He nods crisply and disappears through the swinging kitchen doors. I stroke the spine of the menu like it’ll let me taste some of the dishes I can’t allow myself to order. Pollo e funghi and sorrentina and Prince Edward Island mussels and focaccia bread drizzled in rosemary olive oil…

I shake my head and sigh again. I’m doing that a lot lately, like some melodramatic damsel in distress.

I’m in distress, yes, but I’m no damsel. I can’t afford to be.

This world is way too cruel to women who wait for men to save them.

A few minutes later, the kitchen doors burst back open and my new best friend stalks through. Again, I’m pretty sure this is just a hallucination, a cruel trick of my calorie-starved brain, but I could swear the light of heaven is shining down on the pizza he’s bearing in his hand and a chorus of holy angels is oohing and ahhing at his every step.

He drops it in front of me with a not-particularly-subtle sneer, but I couldn’t care less—matter of fact, I could plop a juicy kiss right on his thin, peeling lips; that’s how grateful I am.

Before he’s made it two steps away, I’m already two bites deep. Marinara smears on my cheek where the third bite misses my mouth a bit, but the taste of hot mozzarella hitting my tongue is like an orgasm for my taste buds.

I moan—literally, not figuratively. It’s loud enough for the maître d’, who’s resumed his vantage point at the front of the restaurant, to turn and give me a nasty glare.

I just smile back with a mouthful of cheese.

The fourth bite is as good as the first three, and the fifth is even better than that. My whole body unclenches as I go to town like a starving racoon.

It’s only when I’m on the verge of picking up the plate to lick up the crumbs that I remember my whole “spread it out over three days” plan. As soon as I do, I’m hit with a wave of nauseous guilt that’s almost as bad as the hunger was.