“Luce, you won’t believe what happ—”
“P, shut up, shut up, shut up.” Lucille’s frantic voice stopped Perdie dead in her tracks. Muffled cries staticked on the other end. “You gotta get home, right now. Oh my god, it’s bad. It’s so bad. I don’t know what to do!”
Perdie’s heart raced like a wild horse, adrenaline coursing within her. She rushed into her car and turned on the engine. “I can’t understand anything you’re saying. Talk slow. What is it?”
Two, loud sobs came through the receiver. “It’s Bananas. I came home for lunch...and oh my god...he’s not okay. I don’t think he’s gonna... I don’t think he’s gonna make it.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The vet said he’d lived a good life.
She said that in the end, he suffered little. That they had done the right thing. That they had done right by him.
Lucille and Perdie sat on the floor next to the window overlooking the water, where Bananas used to snore under the warm sun on cold winter days. Between them sparkled a bright yellow-and-gold vase Lucille had filled with Bananas’s ashes.
“I don’t think I’ll ever find love again, P.”
Perdie wiped at the corner of her eye, raw and burning, before grasping Lucille’s hand.
“Maybe, someday...” She sniffed. “Maybe someday, you’ll find a distant second. Maybe we both will.”
Lucille’s head dropped. “How’re we gonna tell Pudding she’s a widow?”
Perdie hiccupped. “We’ll have to spread his ashes in the ocean, to commemorate their love.”
Lucille smiled a bit. “Yeah. I think he’d like that. I wanted to keep him forever, you know? I guess I was in denial. But in the end, everyone needs to be free.” She stared out the window. “Will you put on some music? I can’t stand how quiet the house is without him.”
“You want something so we can be more happy or something so we can be more sad?”
“Neither.”
Perdie tapped through her phone until she found the song: Bleachers’ “Stop Making This Hurt.”
As the upbeat poppy tune pulsated through their condo, they both fell back, hand in hand, their heads resting on Bananas’s old bed.
And together, they wept.
Perdie accepted the offer from the Meeting Street firm. It was something of a bum deal—not only was it a less prestigious firm, but she’d start at associate level, take less pay, work on lower-scale and local cases—but at least she didn’t have to care. And as the named partner had a personal vendetta against Charles Joy (Charles had slept with his wife), they didn’t give a good goddamn if Perdie had told Charles Joy to fuck off.
The only condition from Perdie was that she requested two weeks before her start date.
Because holy shit did she ever need a fucking break.
At first she and Lucille were wallowing hunks of dough, puffy and moist on the couch together. Either one might burst into tears at any given moment, depending on who was feeling what at the time.
“We’re really going Grey Gardens up in this bitch, aren’t we?” Lucille pulled an errant sock from Perdie’s makeshift bun. “How’d this even get in there?”
Noah complicated the situation further when he turned up on their doorstep, sending Lucille scampering out of the house. Perdie called him on her new phone, having mailed the firm its phone after a full swipe of her personal data. She had to explain to Noah that Charles and Frank had forced her to drop the case and her new firm had no interest in taking him on as a client either.
But when he arrived and leaned down to envelop Perdie in a bear hug, she sniffled.
“Don’t be freaked out.” She wiped her raw eyes with a tissue. “This has been happening all week. I’m very dehydrated. It’s not you, it’s me. I promise. Although I’m sorry to have let you down. You trusted me, and I failed you.”
Noah shook his head. “I value our friendship a great deal more than I ever could a settlement check.”
Noah’s kind words made Perdie burst into tears, prompting Noah to reach into his wallet and hand her a card.
“What’s this?”
He gave an understanding smile. “The number to a therapist. Might not hurt to have another person to talk to.”
“Therapy is for people who are capable of change. Not only am I not capable, I’m not interested.”
“Maybe you aren’t. But maybe a therapist is capable of listening. And we all deserve to be heard, just as we are.”
Hmm. His argument was concise, which Perdie respected. She’d never considered if she’d ever been heard before. What might that even feel like? “Fine. I’ll consider it.”
Noah nodded. “A wise idea.”
Naturally Noah wanted to know what was going on with Lucille, not having heard from her in several weeks, but Perdie didn’t have any good answers.
“She’s had a lot of events lately. Baby showers. Weddings. I’m sure she’ll call soon.”
The furrow of Noah’s brows told Perdie he knew she wouldn’t.
Lucille was busy with the flower shop anyway. And Perdie, well, she couldn’t lie to herself. Every night she dreamt about Carter showing up at her doorstep, asking her to come back. Saying they could work things out.
But in her dreams, it wasn’t Carter who was different, it was Perdie. She was optimistic. Determined to follow through. Ready to work things out, like the kind of person who had faith in their abilities to love another. Hopeful. Relieved.
