Delaney James seems to have it all-a successful husband, a stylish Manhattan townhouse, and a thriving career in fashion journalism-until it all falls apart. Her husband leaves her, shattering the perfect life she once knew. Heartbroken and desperat...
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I haven't seen Jo since the Fourth of July. Her parents took her and Hannah to a resort that's also a family amusement park and they just got home last night. I haven't had a chance to fill her in on the events of the last couple days, so instead of going home for dinner, I ask my mom to drop me off at the diner.
"Hey, blondie!" Jo exclaims, a bright smile on her face as she comes out of the kitchen. "I didn't know you were coming in."
I drop my Louis Vuitton purse on the floor and sit down, my Chanel bangle bracelets clanging against the countertop as I rest my forearms on it. "That's because I didn't tell you."
The irony of this moment is not lost on me. I'm walking around in eight-hundred-dollar shoes, wearing a three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar dress, bedazzled in name-brand jewelry all while carrying a designer handbag, yet I have no health insurance, no job after today, and a dwindling savings.
If I get really desperate, maybe I can start selling pictures of my feet on the internet. I have cute toes.
"I missed you," I say. I've survived the last ten years without her, but having her back in my life, I suddenly can't go two days without talking to her. "How did Hannah like the water park? Were there enough attractions for kids her age?"
"She loved it, but Del, I swear she's going to give me a heart attack one of these days. I reached for her arm floaties at one point and when I turned around, she was running full speed toward the wave pool. Girl has no fear." She pulls her phone from her back pocket and brings up a picture of Hannah posing in a pink-and-white, gingham print bikini. "How cute is your niece, though?"
I stick my bottom lip out and press my hands against my chest. "The cutest. I wish I could have been there."
"Us too." She grabs a menu from under the counter and slides it toward me. "You hungry?"
"Starving, but do you have a dollar menu?" When she doesn't respond after a few seconds I glance up from my menu and see her face etched with confusion. "Will cut me off."
"Are you serious?"
"He texted me Saturday night to tell me he's removed me from his health insurance and cleared our joint checking account."
"He texted you?" she asks, placing her hands on her cheeks.
"Sure did."
She drags her hands down her face and steeples them under her chin. "Is that legal?"
"Technically, yes. He didn't close our account, he just took all the money out of it, essentially leaving me with nothing. Not even a 'Hey, I'm about to take all of our money and leave you broke' text. I called him, but he never answered."
"Oh my...what a jerk!" Jo told me a while ago that she has to watch her language now that Hannah is getting older, and I smile at her insistence to not curse even in front of just me. "Oh, I could kill him right now!"
