“Hmm…I remember,” Debbie replied, filling her mouth with ice cream. “Okay, what’s your idea?”
Zoe thought for a long moment. “Maybe we could build a boat to get down there. We could cut up all the cutting tables downstairs.”
“And use the fabrics for a sail since we can’t afford gasoline.” ‘
“There you go!” Zoe laughed, her toes tapping to the sounds of Sinatra as he belted out ‘New York, New York’.
“See? There’s a solution to every problem!” Debbie announced, re-filling both of their glasses.
The two of them finished off the ice cream, the second bottle of wine and most of the chocolates by midnight, laughing hysterically at some of the ideas they were coming up with. Zoe was still miserable, but after two bottles of wine, she wasn’t really acknowledging the pain any longer.
“Whose phone is that?” Zoe asked, squinting at her watch as she tried to figure out what time it was. “And why would anyone be calling at this time of the night?” She hiccupped as she worked at deciphering the time, “Or morning,” she said when she finally realized it was close to one in the morning.
“Ah, that must be my phone, indicating that my darling husband has finally come home and realized that his loving and ever sweet wife is not there pining away for him.”
Zoe groaned. “I can’t believe how many hours that man works.”
Debbie struggled to sit up and find her purse, which had been nudged under the sofa during one of their forays into the kitchen for another bottle of wine. “I get to see him some weekends,” she joked as she pulled the phone out from her purse, still lying on the floor as she answered sweetly, “Helloooo!”
Zoe thought about laughing, but was too afraid it would come out as a sob so she just took another sip of wine.
“Of course you are! Why would anything be different?” she said with a groan. “So what time are you going to pick me up at Zoe’s place?” she asked.
Zoe raised one eyebrow, frowning at the fact that her friend’s husband was obviously still at work.
“An hour?” Debbie glanced at the bottle of wine, seeing that it was still half full. “That should work,” she replied happily. “Don’t you dare be late!” And she hung up the phone.
“Okay, we have about two more hours to down this one, finish the next and come up with some sort of solution to this pickle.”
Zoe giggled at the idea of her business going bankrupt, her employees being furious and possibly losing their houses or not being able to feed their families as a “pickle”. This was so much more, but she couldn’t think about that right now. More wine would fix that, she told herself and filled up both their glasses one more time.
They continued to laugh and talk, coming up with even more outrageous ideas as they finished off the rest of the wine. When the doorbell rang, Debbie was the only one able to get up and make her way to the doorway. Zoe thought about it, but her legs just wouldn’t hold her up, so she sank to the floor by the sofa and tipped up her wineglass, frustrated when she came up empty.
“Ah, my loving husband, come to take me home,” Debbie said from the doorway. Zoe closed her eyes and chuckled.
“No making fun of him,” Zoe called out. “He’s not sitting on the floor after….” She squinted at the coffee table trying to count the empty bottles of wine, “several” she compromised, “bottles of wine.”
“Very true,” a deep voice said from her left. Zoe turned her head and squinted up.
“You!” She struggled to sit up so she didn’t look so foolish, but only fell more to the side, almost flat on the floor as her mind saw the man who had ruined her for so many other men over the years. Sighing, she closed her eyes. “You’re just a figment of my overactive imagination,” she said and pulled an orange pillow off her sofa to cushion her head from the wooden floor. “Go away, I don’t believe that it’s really you.” Then her eyes popped open as a terrible thought occurred to her. “You’re not Debbie’s husband, are you?” she gasped.
The tall, extremely rugged man bent down to look into her eyes. “You know exactly who I am, Zoe,” he replied, his amused expression surveying her red dress and bare legs. “Even drunk and flat on your back, you look just as beautiful now as you did all those years ago.”
Zoe waved him aside, ignoring his compliment. “Go away. You’re not needed here. You’ve caused enough havoc in my life and I won’t allow you to do anymore damage.”
“What havoc and damage have I caused you?” he asked, turning to Debbie’s husband and waving to let him know that he would take over from here. “Thanks for the tip Jeff. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow to discuss the details.”
Zoe shook her head, then reached up with both hands to stop her spinning head. “That wasn’t a good move,” she groaned. She peeked out of her squinted eyes and looked up. “Why are you still here? I told you to leave.”
“I’m here to help.”
Zoe laughed. “Help? Do you know what you did to me?”
Marco DiAngelo looked down at the gorgeous, sexy woman in red who was lying on the floor, her long, shapely legs demurely crossed at the angles despite the inebriated state he knew her to be in. “What happened here?” he asked, sitting down in the plum colored chair facing the multi-colored sofa. The colors shouldn’t go together, but somehow, the whole loft filled with crazy colors and odd shapes, items used in unusual ways like the tea pots re-cycled as pendant lights or the tea cups in the chandelier. It was beyond eclectic, but he liked it.
“Tell me what I did to you,” he encouraged, wanting to know what she was thinking. Zoe Anderson was more beautiful now than she’d been when she was eighteen years old. She’d fulfilled every promise of brains and beauty he’d thought back then and now, confronted with her like this, he would take every advantage he could to understand this woman.
“You know exactly what you did. And all the guys I’ve dated since then have suffered.”
“What, exactly, did I do?”
Zoe yawned widely, and snuggled down into the pillow more. “You know. And I hate you for it. But it doesn’t matter now. I’m ruined so you’ve had your ultimate revenge.”