Just Yesterday Read Free Page B

I know, somehow, that I might never see the startling green of her eyes again. It doesn’t matter that we haven’t spoken in four years. I’d always had the option to see her, to talk with her. But with death were no such options.
    I return to my hotel in an emotional stupor. Part of me wants to curl up on the bed and pretend that none of it has happened. Part of me begins to obsess about Connie, and I begin replaying in my mind many of the moments we have shared. I find myself trying to remember why we broke up, but cannot.
    My mind drifts to Joanna, and panic seizes me. What would I ever do if this happened to Joanna? She is my entire life.
    Suddenly I miss her. Badly. Not just the woman that I’d left back in Los Angeles. I miss the way we used to be. The closeness we used to share. Five years ago I would never have made this trip alone. Yesterday she’d barely blinked when I left for the airport.
    I resolve to do whatever it takes to find that closeness again. We have to find a way to make things work.
    Without another thought, I reach for the phone and dial our number.

Chapter 3
    Eight hours of sleep did nothing to lighten my mood. Joanna had been sympathetic but distant on the phone the night before. When I told her that I thought maybe we had made a mistake, that maybe we should give it another try, she sidestepped my concerns.
    “Honey, we’ve talked about this for two years. You’re just emotional because of Connie.”
    “I know I’m emotional. That’s the point. Maybe I’m just realizing what’s important in life.” I hated feeling rebuffed. I also hated that I felt so weak and vulnerable. Especially when I knew she was probably right.
    “Liz. I’m tired. We’ll talk when you get home. Okay?”
    “Sure,” I’d said, feeling helpless.
    The helpless feeling carried over to the next morning as I stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, trying to convince myself to get up and go to the hospital.
     
    The message light is flashing on the bedside phone, and I wonder why I hadn’t noticed it the night before. I pick up the receiver, punch in a few numbers and listen. It is Grace. She had left the message at five o’clock that morning, and I can’t help wondering what she was doing up and so alert at that hour.
    I listen groggily as she says that she got my message yesterday and wants to meet me for brunch at ten o’clock. She rattles off the name and address of her favorite diner, and I have to rewind the message and listen to it twice to make sure I get it right.
    With two hours to kill, I pull on my sneakers and decide to go for a jog. I don’t want to think about Grace. I am already emotionally drained. The added knowing that I am about to see her for the first time in five years makes my nerves feel raw and exposed.
    I am excited and sick to my stomach all at once. The last time we’d met hadn’t gone very well. But we’ve kept in touch since then, sporadically over the years, especially since the advent of e-mail. Perhaps all of the tension is behind us. Maybe the past is finally in the past. But our lives have intertwined in the oddest ways since we first met. It is difficult to believe even now that there isn’t somehow some significance in our meeting again.
    As my feet methodically hit the pavement, I count backward, trying to figure out how long it has been since we were together. The first time. Our versions of the same story were, I knew, dramatically different.
    In her mind, I simply dumped her. Crushed her. Devastated her.
    In my mind, it was never so easy. Nothing about Grace ever was. She was so young. All sweetness and innocence rolled up together. Those cow-brown eyes would look at me, and I would tremble in their pure honesty. I was never so deserving.
    First of all, by then I’d been around the block. More times than I could even count. I was older than she was. Granted, by only five years, but the difference between my twenty-four and her nineteen years could be measured in