Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [50]
“Molly thinks the Bible's the only self-help book anyone ever needs. She and Jesus have some kind of hotline going on.” I kicked off my white Crocs. Why do comfort and style have to be incompatible? My toenails and cracking heels screamed for a pedicure.
“It's kinda heavy.” Theresa bench pressed it with one arm. “And you sure are stuck with it.”
“Hmmm?” I’d been distracted flipping through the blank pages of the journal, wondering what pen I’d use to write in it.
I used to tell my students that writing was all about the pen. Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Everyone had to find a pen that was “just right.” Not too slow that it couldn’t keep pace with their thoughts and not too fast that it hurried thoughts and ink along, barely interacting with the paper. I’d show them one of my favorites, a stocky, lapis-colored, extra-fine point, marbled pen I’d ordered years ago from one of my favorite catalogs. Molly would always laugh and say she didn’t have any friends except me who’d throw away the new Victoria Secrets catalog and immerse themselves in the latest from Levenger's. Finding a pen that fit my hand and writing style versus finding lace panties the size of dental floss that fit what I needed to sit on to write—no contest.
“I said you gotta keep the Bible.” Theresa leaned over, her blouse pleading for mercy in the attempt, and shoved the Bible in my hands. “Look, she had your name put on it. See?”
Theresa pointed to Leah Adair Thornton inscribed on the burgundy leather cover. I opened it and found written on the first page: “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8 NLT). Dearest Leah, this is God's journal. He’ll be reading yours. Now you’ll have some time to read His. I’m praying for you.—Molly
Really? God should’ve watched Alyssa instead of reading people's journals. After all, if He's God, didn’t He already know what I’d write on its blank pages?
Nobody knew about Alyssa, about nights I’d fall asleep on her bedroom floor clutching her soft baby powder-scented blankets, about how I’d slip my hand in my purse where I always carried her silver rattle so I could put my hands around something she had held.
Inside Edition's hostess filled the television screen. A man trapped underwater in a cylinder had thirty-three hours to escape before his oxygen ran out. “We’ll let you know if he lives.” She smiled. I’m struck by the fact that Alyssa had the same number of days with us as he had hours to live.
“Good luck,” I told the screen.
22
While I reboxed my new, unasked for, and likely never-to-be read Bible, I was deposed as Queen Suburbia in Rehab. The Princess of Designer Drugs, accompanied by our very own Jan, teetered out of the elevator in Jimmy Choo teal patent leather sling backs.
A Prada dress splashed with blooming flowers in shades no flower would be caught dead in defined almost every inch of her body. I’d bet a Botox treatment that the purse Jan hijacked was also Prada. I couldn’t wait to tell Carl's mother that her fashion training paid off and in the unlikeliest place.
The new client was a walking haute-couture advertisement, except for the blood-stained tissues she kept jamming into her surgically altered nose. Jan led her to the counter, steering her by the elbow as though she were an upright vacuum cleaner. Judging by the baseball-size roll of tissues she clutched, I’d say that nose of hers probably had sucked its share of white powder.
I looked around to make sure I wasn’t so insensitive as to say that aloud. Even with crumbs of dried blood on her face and wobbling on knees about as sturdy as Play-Doh, she looked stunning—one of those women who wake up with-
out morning mouth or helmet hair. Radiant. “Arm candy” my brother called them. This one would’ve sent most men into a diabetic coma.
Men like Carl.
And there it was—the putrid smell of insecurity.
She was everything I wasn’t. Not that I envied her