Ace of Spades

1 - Six Month Anniversary

I would have liked to hope that six months after Charlie died, I would have been back on my feet,  smiling, ready to take on the world and any other cruelty it had to offer. Instead, I found myself on my couch, feet propped up on my coffee table, absentmindedly watching Love Actually for the eighth time this week.

I jabbed a spoon into my pint of chocolate peanut butter ice cream and heard a faint scraping sound as I scooped up the last bite. Glaring at the container, I scowled, just as Jamie began spouting his heartfelt proposal to Aurélia. "Just you two wait. It doesn't last long," I muttered to the TV and my empty living room. The memory of Charlie proposing to me on the Brooklyn Bridge, the sun setting behind him as he bent down on one knee, flashed before my eyes, and I tried to shake the now painful memory from my brain. This really was rock bottom.

As if on cue, my phone started ringing, Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" blaring, courtesy of my friend Roxanne who insisted it would cheer me up, which--surprise!-- it hadn't. Grumbling, I picked up the phone and managed to mumble a grouchy "Hello?" to whoever had the audacity to call me at 1pm on a Wednesday.

"Emma, sweetie, hi, how are you?" Roxanne's cheery voice rang through my speaker, and suddenly I lost the urge to be angry.

"The usual."

"Love Actually and chocolate peanut butter ice cream?"

"You know me so well it's scary," I replied, and she laughed.

"Not my fault you've developed a pattern hun. Anyways, this is your reminder call to go collect your unemployment funds for the month--"

"Today? What? I could have swore I just picked it up--"

"Emma, that was four weeks ago," she said softly, and I went silent. Could it really have been four weeks? I wasn't that out of it, right?

"I could go with you, you know, if you want company. I could call out of work early and meet you--"

"No! It's fine, I'm fine, I'll go. You already do so much for me," I mused, truly meaning it. Without Roxanne, I probably would have forgotten to feed myself and starved months ago. "How about if you came over tonight? I'll grab some wine, we can order takeout."

I could practically hear her beaming through the phone. "That would be great! Should I invite Antonio?"

"Of course, he'd be pissed if we left him out. See you then, and thanks for the reminder."

I hung up the phone, already exhausted. Leaving the safe haven of my apartment was the last thing I wanted to do, but without my unemployment funds I couldn't buy more ice cream, so I didn't have much of a choice. Sighing, I dragged myself off the couch and went in search of clothing other than pajamas, accepting my fate.

* * * * * *

If anything hadn't changed in the last six months, it was the subway. The dirty, clustered, fast-paced station was perhaps the only constant in my life, and I can't say I minded that. I was a New Yorker at heart, and people watching was one of the only pastimes I had kept after Charlie's death. I clambered onto the crowded car, headed for the stop closest to the NYC Employment Services Department. Unceremoniously dropping myself into a seat besides a snoring old man, my thoughts immediately wandered to why, exactly, I was 24 and had to drag myself to an unemployment office every month.

I wasn't a helpless housewife, if that's what you're wondering. Before Charlie died I was a freelance journalist, barely two years out of college, making a decent living by writing about everything from gang activity to the latest fashion trends. I tried to keep up with it after, really I did, I just couldn't get myself to focus, and soon enough the flow of opportunities slowed to a halt. I probably still would have been trying to make it work had not Roxanne found out I had been living on sour milk and stale bread for two weeks, at which point she physically dragged me to the somber hell hole that is the NYC Employment Services Department.