Your Perfect Life

“What?” she says as she reaches over and hands Charlotte some crackers.

“I said, it’s my work, not yours. That Charlie is my coworker, my bad decision. My baggage to deal with, not yours.” My words come out sounding harsh and I instantly regret them. I know we’re both doing the best we can in this crazy situation. I look over at the server and make eye contact, praying he’ll come take our drink order. I need a glass of pinot grigio to continue this conversation.

“Oh, but giving me a hairless vajayjay and butthole is your decision to make for me?” she says and we both explode in a fit of laughter.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” I say, reaching across the table and putting my hand on hers. “It’s just the Charlie thing . . . it’s hard for me. Can we not bring it up again?” I plead.

“Fine, but you know you can talk to me about anything. I’m here for you if you need me,” she says.

“I know, but I just need you to let it go. And to stop being buddy-buddy with him at work, okay?”

“Yes, if that’s what you want,” she says as she points her perfectly manicured finger at me. “You know, you don’t have to be afraid of nice guys, Casey.”

“Not allowed to bring it up, remember? Plus, if we can’t figure out how to get back into our own bodies, it’s not going to matter.” I frown. “What are we going to do to get our lives back?”

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” Rachel says. “And I have an idea.”

“What? Tell me!”

She pulls her phone out of the latest Chanel handbag and types something. “I just texted you an address. Meet me there tomorrow at 10 a.m.”





CHAPTER 14



* * *





rachel

Casey pulls up in my dirty minivan and I give a short wave. She still doesn’t know why she’s here. I walk over to the car and run my hand over the ding on the bumper, remembering the accident I got into six months ago. Sleep deprived and jittery from too many cups of coffee, I rear-ended a Porsche at the corner of Robertson and Alden while craning my neck to catch a glimpse of Kim Kardashian at the valet stand in front of The Ivy. Thankfully, I was going less than ten miles an hour and the most damage done was to my ego as Kim and her entourage giggled as the owner of the Porsche berated me while I stood there apologizing while Charlotte screamed from the backseat, the impact jolting her from her nap.

Today, Casey jumps out of the van, glances at the offending ding, and laughs. After the accident I’d called her, sputtering and bawling, unable to take a breath to tell her what had happened until she said she was going to run out of the studio and come find me if I didn’t spit it out, thinking something terrible had happened to John or the kids. When I finally calmed down enough to tell her, she was silent.

“What?” I’d asked. “Is it so horrible that you’re speechless?” And that’s when I heard her laughing. A deep laugh, so hard that I imagined tears running down her face like mine. I started laughing too. The hilarity of it all; “me” smashing into a ninety-thousand-dollar car with my eight-year-old minivan on one of the most famous boulevards in the country as Kim Kardashian looked on. That was part of the glue that always kept our friendship strong—we always reminded each other to laugh at ourselves.

“Don’t,” I warn her before she brings it up.

“Didn’t say a word.” She breezes past me and looks up at the sign from the sidewalk. “Why are we at a wellness center? And who is Jordan?”

I hold up my hand. “Hear me out—”

Casey cuts me off. “Did you bring me to a psychic?”

“I did,” I say unapologetically. “We don’t have a lot of options here, Casey.”

I pull my sweater around me, trying to block the wind that seems to have kicked up in the last few minutes. “She comes highly recommended.”

She looks from me to the well-dressed woman waving us inside. The chime she has over her doorway sways in the wind and I can’t help but think it’s some sort of sign. “Please,” I plead.

“Fine,” she says as she shakes her head and begins walking toward the door.

? ? ?

“So, I need one of you to cut this deck. Doesn’t matter who.”

I look at the woman named Jordan, who informed us that she was in fact a spiritual counselor, not a psychic, or one of those bottom-feeding carnival fortune-tellers. There’s a huge difference, she’d said, and laughed. And I’d liked her instantly. Although, as I take in her designer shoes and form-fitting dress, I think that she doesn’t look at all like a psychic or spiritual counselor or whatever she says she is.

I also notice a huge rock on her left hand, which is wrapped around a deck of tarot cards. She’s staring at me so intently that I avert my eyes, feeling as if she’d just read my mind.

“I just got engaged,” she says.

“Wow, you are really good,” I say. “How did you know I was wondering about that?”

“I saw you looking at the ring,” she says simply.

Liz Fenton , Lisa Steinke's books