Authors: Jennifer Bryan Yarbrough
"Calm down, Olivia. I think you know how I meant that.
No reason to get on the defensive. But honey, it's been a
year and a half! Do you honestly think they would want
you to just stay in bed all day and all night and only leave
the house on Sundays to appease me?" I could tell that she was really upset and I felt so guilty.
"Every Sunday, I look forward to spending time with you
and hope you don't act like I'm dragging you into hell and it
hasn't happened yet! This is your wakeup call! It's time to
take a big step and start living your life! I don't care if it
includes just getting dressed every day and watching TV on
the couch, but it’s time to get out of this bedroom!"
I knew that this was serious and it is one thing to not care
about what happens to me, but I can see that my depression is starting to affect her and that's the last thing I want to do.
I reached over and grabbed a tissue from the night stand
and blew my nose. Claudia patiently leaned against the
wall. I'm sure she was wondering what all was going
through my mind and if she had pushed me too hard.
"Well, what exactly do you want to do today?" I looked up at her and gave her a half smile, to let her know that I
would go ahead and give her what she wanted.
"Oh my God! You're going? You're not messing with me,
are you? You're really going to go?"
I nodded my head and then she jumped on top of me
and started kissing me all over the face, saying she
loved me, which got me to grinning my head off and had me
giggling like a little school girl.
"You don't worry about where we are going. We are going
to have fun today! We might make a day and a night out of
it! Oh my God, Olivia! I'm so excited! But FIRST." She crinkled her nose at me and sniffed the air. “You go get that
funky butt and greasy hair in the shower! We leave in an
hour!" She winked at me and walked out of the room,
closing the door as she left.
Ok. I can do this. I mean she said Mani’s and pedi’s, right?
I'm sure we will probably have some lunch. Sounds like
dinner too, but oh well. If it makes her happy, I guess I can do this and she's right. I don't think Derek and the kids would want me to spend today doing what I have been doing. I'm doing this for them and for Claudia. I mean come on, what's the worst that could happen?
********************
We are sitting at a nail salon and I hear Claudia naming off
different colors of nail polish out loud, like she's the only person in the building.
"Hey O, what do you think about gun metal grey?" All
heads in the room turn toward Claudia, probably wondering
who that loud mouth with the super model body was. I tried
to pretend I didn't know her.
"Olivia?" She turned around and looked right at me. "Did
you hear me? What do you think about the color gun
metal grey?" Nope. No pretending to not know her now. I lowered my head, wondering what I was going to do with
her.
"Well, do you want to go to a rave or something? Hook
up with some college boys?" I covered my hand over my
mouth. I can't believe I just said that!
"Haha funny!" She rolled her eyes at me. "I didn't like
college boys when I was IN college, nor do I want to be
around any now! No, I'm not going to a rave, just
thinking about putting a different color on besides boring
old clear or red or pink. Do you have a problem with that?"
I gulped. That's one of the colors I was having put on my
nails. Well, I guess clear isn't exactly a color, but it makes
your nails look all nice and shiny. She walked up next to
me and sat down in the chair next to me with the gun metal
grey nail polish, waiting for her turn to have her nails painted
and she looked at my hands and threw her hands up in the
air.
"Are you kidding me? Clear? Oh no, no, no, no, no." She
hands the polish to the lady that is painting my nails.
"Here. She wants this color put on." The lady looked at
Claudia like she was crazy, which I was beginning to think
she actually was and she looked at me wanting to know
what I wanted to do.
"I do not want that color, Claudia! I am NOT a teenager for goodness sakes!" I nodded to the lady to continue with the
clear coat.
"Come on, O! Live a little! Aren't we trying to just have
some fun today?" She batted her eyes at me and grinned
really big, which had me grinning. "I'll tell ya what. Put the
grey on, and I'll buy you some "clear" polish and some
remover that you can use to take it off and put on tonight if
you want."
She actually does the air quotes and is looking at me like it
was ridiculous that I wanted clear polish on my nails. I've
never worn anything but clear, except for the one time that I
wore red to try to surprise Derek, thinking he would like it
and he said it made me look trashy, so I took it off and
never tried a different color again. I think this is another
battle that I'm not going to win. Again! I looked at the lady and nodded reluctantly and told her to
go ahead and put it on. She actually grinned at me and
seemed kind of happy. I wasn't sure what was up with that. She asked Claudia what color she wanted.
"I want the gun metal grey, of course." She smiled at the lady like she had just won the Miss Congeniality contest
and the lady just chuckled.
Claudia's phone went off and she looked down at it and
groaned and rolled her eyes.
"Ugh. Well, it looks like I have a meeting today with a
client, after all!! It won't take long, though. He wants to meet
around 7 for drinks to discuss his case. It should only take
around 30 minutes or so."
I could tell that she didn't seem too excited about this
meeting. Claudia is a divorce attorney for the rather rich
and she's always having meetings whenever they feel like it,
with no consideration to the hour or day.
I will admit that I have been having fun. Before we went to
the nail salon, we went to eat breakfast and both of us
pigged out and Claudia kept going on and on about how
happy she was that I had an appetite, because I was
shriveling away to nothing but skin and bones. I have no
idea what she's talking about, because I've NEVER been skin and bones. I still needed to lose that last 30 pounds
from having Jenna!
"Well, it's 2 o'clock now." Claudia was looking at her watch, calculating how much more time we had. "And I
want to go check out this new boutique that opened up and
was planning on us going and eating lunch after, and then
going and getting our hair done."
She was in deep thought. I don't know what the big deal
was. I was grateful that she got me out of the house, but I
also didn't have a problem with our plans changing, so that I
could just go back home. I was really getting tired.
"What do you think about going to the boutique and getting
our hair done and going with me to meet my client? We are
meeting at the bar at The Plaza for drinks and you can just
sit with us. You don't even have to say anything and then
we can get dinner when I get through, instead of going and eating lunch.
Can you handle waiting to eat till dinner time?"
I think she was serious. Me go WITH her? Oh no no no. The Plaza? The oldest, fanciest, most expensive hotel in
probably the whole United States? There's no way I
would fit in there.
"I don't think so, Claud. I can just go home. We still have
time to go eat lunch, if you want. Or check out the boutique
and eat lunch, but I can just go home. I'm sure I would just
be in the way." By now, we are getting our stuff together
and paying our bills for the nails and I'm grabbing my
jacket to put on and Claudia sighs really loud. I looked at
her with a question on my face.
"What's it really going to hurt?"
"Well I'm sure your client doesn't want anyone around,
while you're on the clock listening in on the conversation
for one thing."
"Oh please! He's a P.O.S.! All he will see is two beautiful
women sitting at the bar with him, while he talks about
himself!" I could tell that she didn't care for her client but I
wasn't sure what she meant by POS.
"What's a P.O.S.? Is that short for something?" I clearly
was out of the loop. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out
what it meant. Is that what he did for a living? But what
would that stand for? Hmmm..
"It means he's a PIECE OF SHIT! And he is. I mean, I
swear he was born in a gutter somewhere, but somehow scraped his way out and is now a GA zillionaire and is
paying ME the big bucks to make sure that his wife and 2
kids hardly get anything!"
I could tell that she was truly disgusted by him. I guess I
could go with her, so she wouldn't have to be by herself
with the idiot.
"If you're so disgusted by him, then why do you represent
him? And has he ever made a pass at you? Because I mean, you are absolutely gorgeous and I can't imagine him not trying to take you out."
"Oh he has and I shot him down and told him that he wasn't
my type, which pissed him off at first, because he thinks he's
God's gift to women, but then I told him he was on the
wrong team." She winked at me with her devilish grin.
"But you're not-"
"Gay? Yeah, I know, but everyone at work thinks I am."
Then she started laughing her head off, when she saw the
look on my face. "Listen. I represent a lot of douche bags
and for some reason, everyone gives them to me and it’s just easier to make everyone think I am, because they
"know" that I won't be tempted to date one of the clients. Trust me, that happens a lot actually!"
I was amazed at her duplicity. With Claudia, what you see
is usually what you get and I'm seeing a totally different side of her. I was amazed and shocked and proud! She
really has this lawyer thing down.
"So what are you going to do IF you meet a nice guy and
settle down? I'm just curious. Are you going to say he was
transgendered or something?"
I couldn't believe we were having this conversation! Lying
will eventually get you caught and even though she was
doing it to protect herself, in a way, this could still blow up
in her face.
"Hahahaha. Transgendered. That's funny! That is an
idea, though. Thanks. BUT Number 1, there is NOT going to be a man in this world that is going to make me
want to be in a relationship with him and number 2, IF by
chance that actually does happen, and I'm saying a very BIG
IF!! Then I'll just deal with it."
"Oh, I don't know what I'm going to do with you!" By now,
we've reached her car and were getting in.
"Yeah. Me either! Haha. Ok, Let’s go SHOPPING!
It's still girl’s day!"
*****************
We arrived at the boutique, which was called Bella Eve's
and from the outside it actually looked like a house. It was
located in the downtown area and actually had a sign in
front of it that said it was included into the historical
society. It was a 2 story colonial style, with a brick walkway
leading up to the wrap around porch. I had always wanted
to live in an old two story house like this, but Derek always
wanted new. His exact words were, “why buy something
that we would have to keep fixing up, when we can just
build and never have any problems with it." Don't get me
wrong. I loved our house, but it’s just the thought of all of
the history of the older houses that mesmerized me.
We walked into the boutique and a sales lady came up to us
asking if it was our first time there at the boutique.
"Yes, it is and I heard you had a lot of cool stuff in here."
Claudia was looking around like she was in a candy shop. I
could tell how excited she was. She loves clothes and she
looks good in everything, whether its jeans and a T-shirt or a cocktail dress.