Christmas sucks.
When Emily Shepherd's boss boyfriend cheats on her with her best friend, she loses everything in one night-love, friendships, job, and home. In a weird fit of desperation (or some deep-rooted need to punish herself even more) she m...
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The cable provider wouldn't be here until next week to set up the internet, but Emily didn't feel like going to the library this morning. So she made her phone a hot spot and sat on the floor with her laptop on her lap. She spent the morning sending out resumes for everything she was remotely qualified for. Then, she sent some out for jobs she was definitely overqualified for but didn't mind doing for a while.
Around noon, she made herself some peanut butter on toast and gobbled it down for lunch. Then, she decided to go out for a while since her back and legs were aching from sitting against the wall all morning.
Her dad had a saying he liked to tell her: when two people see something, it's not a mirage. So far everyone who had been in her house had looked around for some place to sit. That was definitely an issue. The internet told her there was a thrift store at the south edge of town. She might find some furniture there that would be only slightly more expensive than her budget would allow.
It wasn't that hard to get to and it was a fairly large building, so she was both surprised and hopeful of finding what she needed. She was definitely looking for a table with at least two chairs. A lamp would be nice, too.
It was actually kind of exciting, really, starting over. She would have liked to have a nice juicy furniture budget to furnish and decorate the house however she wanted. But this was nice, too. It was a challenge.
She was a little surprised at all the things she actually found. Sure, there were a lot of old, strange-looking things—the couch with the allover brown tapestry windmill print and the weird lamps made to look like hurricane lanterns—so many hurricane lamps, and always with some big flower painted on the chimney. But there were also some perfectly good items.
She picked out a small round table with four chairs and two large ginger jar lamps. She also found a framed piece of stained glass. It was unlike any she'd ever seen—a purple rose with deep green leaves on an ivory background. It was in perfect condition and was less than six dollars. A steal.
She also had to buy a crescent wrench for two dollars in order to take the legs off the table so it would fit in her SUV. Apparently, they didn't do that for you at a thrift store. She was trying to do it herself in the parking lot when someone called her name.
"Oh, my goodness! I thought that was you!" A woman came running up to her, toddler on her left hip. "You look exactly the same!"
Emily stared for a moment while her brain found the proper information for her mouth. How could she have forgotten this woman's name? They were friends, after all. Then it came to her.
"Maddy!" She smiled and put the wrench down in the back of the car. "Maddy Koehler!"
"Yeah!" Maddy wrapped Emily in a bonecrushing hug that included the little boy as well. "Well, it's Madison Hightower now."
"Well, yeah. Wow." Emily took the child's hand and shook it in the friendly way she'd seen other people interact with children. "Hey, what's your name?"
